Student-Centered Learning in a Market-Centered World: Examining a Common Educational Reform Effort Across Class Contexts

• In Event: Comprehending Curriculum Implementation During the Common Core Era

Abstract

This paper examines how PBL gets implemented at schools serving students from communities across the socio-economic spectrum. Compelled by the promise of student-centered active learning and critiques of neoliberal educational reform, our study interrogates the tensions underlying contemporary debates about reform focused on student-centered active learning. Through interviews with instructional leaders, we found that the purpose for PBL implementation at each school site varies in ways that support our hypothesis that schools serving different populations (working class, middle class, and upper class) implement PBL in accordance with neoliberalist structures. While educational institutions approach PBL implementation intending to help students to achieve and access something different, this must still be filtered through the forces of neoliberalism that reify students’ place in society.

Authors

• Rachel Kuck, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

• Sarah Schneider Kavanagh, University of Pennsylvania

• Chenelle Boatswain, University of Pennsylvania