Teaching Under Compounding Constraint: School-Level Influences on Teaching Pressures

• In Event: AERA Research in Progress Roundtable Session Three
  In Invited Roundtable: Research-in-Progress RT034 (Friday)

Abstract

This paper examines top-down pressures that shape classroom practices in low-income elementary schools. Using data from a year-long ethnography of four fourth-grade classrooms across two schools, I investigate the processes through which school-level pressures directly impact teaching experiences. Using an inhabiting institutions framework and drawing on sensemaking theory, I find that the two school principals responded to district pressure to increase student performance differently. One adopted a “focus on students” approach, characterized by strong encouragement directed toward students to work harder. The other took a “focus on teachers” approach, characterized by heavy micromanagement. These different principal responses impacted teacher experiences in fundamentally different ways, creating additional streams of compounding pressure through constant progress assessments, specific learning interventions, and teacher micromanagement.

Author

• Suzanne E. Wood, University of Notre Dame