“I Care a Ton About Racial Equity”: Framing Racial Equity Goals in District-Level Policy

• In Event: Using Organizational Theory to Examine the Pursuit of Equity and Improvement in Educational Systems

Abstract

The 2020 racial reckonings and the Covid-19 pandemic sparked a resurgence in public discourse about if and how US schooling should address racism, forcing educational organizations to navigate conflicting messages. In this multiple case study, I examine how organizations collaborating to enact district-level curriculum and instruction policy framed their work before and after the 2020 shifts, and the extent to which their framing reflected the substance of their work. Drawing on theories of framing, coupling, and racialized organizations, I find that organizations exhibited two forms of loose coupling: inflating their focus on racial equity and tempering their language. Furthermore, I offer evidence that organizational viability is a critical force in shaping educational organizations' responses to calls for greater racial equity.

Author

• Meghan Comstock, University of Maryland