How School Context Mediates the Enactment of Teacher Beliefs in Urban Schools

• In Event: 34.078 - Roundtable Session 13
  In Roundtable Session: 34.078-2 - Educational Change in Classrooms, Schools, and Communities

Abstract

Current accountability policies have shaped teachers’ instruction and work lives in ways that were unprecedented even a decade ago. Yet even with the press of accountability, many forces beyond educational policy influence teachers’ practice. In particular, teachers’ beliefs about effective instruction and student capacity shape the way that they think about and enact instruction. Yet, it is also vital that we consider the ways that school context shapes teachers’ practice. In this paper we explore the ways that teachers’ beliefs, as expressed in interviews and focus groups, were enacted in their practice and the extent to which particular contextual factors mediated their ability to enact these beliefs.

Authors

• Megin Charner-Laird, Salem State University

• James H. Nehring, University of Massachusetts - Lowell

• Stacy Agee Szczesiul, University of Massachusetts - Lowell