Reading Triage: A Comparative Ethnographic Study of Urban and Rural Educators in Times of Crisis

• In Event: Rurality and Education

Abstract

From above, politicians engender crisis in their discourses around reading and circulate a connection between literacy and economic security for the purpose of legitimating top-down prescribed reforms. This project draws attention to the reproductive harm of Michigan’s Read by Grade 3 (2016) reading reform reproduces from the ground. The researcher used ethnographic case study model and recruited educators from three categories of schools: rural, urban low- poverty, and urban high-poverty. Using methods of Critical Discourse Analysis, themes were analyzed and compared across sites. Findings indicated inequitable allocation of material resources, and emerging themes included preservation, blame, and powerlessness. In turn, teachers in high-poverty schools adopted an ideology of triage and sustained inequities.

Author

• Amanda O. Maher, Eastern Michigan University