School Improvement Amid Adversity: Struggling to Develop Collective Agency

• In Event: School and District Reform: Examining What Works

Abstract

Much research about school improvement in schools serving high-poverty communities of color has overlooked the question of how schools come to develop collective agency. Many schools operate in contexts of persistent adversity that pose challenges for developing collective agency, but existing research has seldom investigated how work teams in schools facing adverse circumstances strive to enable their collective agency. In line with the 2022 AERA theme of cultivating equitable education systems, this paper draws on participant observation over one year in one school facing adversity to trace the group interaction processes entailed for three work teams to develop a foundation of collective agency necessary for the pursuit of improvement.

Author

• Elizabeth A. Zumpe, University of Massachusetts - Lowell