Rethinking Accountability and Professionalism: Networked Collaboration as an Opportunity to Achieve Collective Agency

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Thursday 3:35 pm Four Seasons Ballroom 4
  In Roundtable Session: Unpacking Testing, Redefining Justice: Leadership, Equity, and Accountability in the 21st Century (Table 3)

Abstract

The educational Chilean context is characterized by the use of high-stakes testing to control teachers' and principals' work, which is an increasing trend in other countries, such as the United States. This article analyzed how educational leaders in Chile achieved collective professional agency using the Collaborative Inquiry Network methodology during the pandemic, balancing external and internal pressures to implement formative assessment. Based on the ecological model of agency, we performed a content analysis of the experience of three Collaborative Inquiry teams of 4 to 6 six schools each. We concluded that collaboration among schools guided by a methodology, the alignment of agency dimensions, and a lighter normative structure allowed leaders to achieve agency in an uncertain and threatening context.

Authors

• Nicole Bustos, University of Chile

• Mauricio Pino-Yancovic, Universidad de Chile