Strengthing Faculty Social Networks for Advocacy in Teacher Preparation

• In Event: Policy, Governance of Education Systems

Proposal

This applied research study focuses on the use of social network analysis (SNA) to quantify and visualize changes in the network of Moroccan higher education faculty and trainers responsible for preparing Morocco’s pre-service primary school teachers. Advocacy for major reforms, including gender equity and disability inclusion, requires coordinated efforts among those intended to implement these reforms. Under the Higher Education Partnership-Morocco (HEP-M), a United States Agency for International Development (USAID) funded partnership between the Moroccan Ministries’ of Education and US university, several collaborative activities were undertaken to bring together higher education faculty and trainers traditionally separated by institutional, geographic, or gender barriers. Morocco has a bifurcated system for preparing teachers in which preservice teachers receive most of their theoretical training from faculty members at universities. Additionally, they receive practical training from trainers at regional training centers, Centre Régional des Métiers de l'Education et de la Formation (CRMEF). Collaborative activities focused on revising primary education course syllabi taught across different higher education institution types and locations, as well as capacity-building workshops, served multiple purposes, including increased collaboration, coordination, and coherence among Moroccan’s primary education faculty members. A more robust network of faculty and trainers is intended to improve the implementation of the revised course syllabi and any newly acquired knowledge and advocacy around gender equity, universal design, disability inclusion, and educational technology. SNA allows researchers to capture an existing network and describe its changes over time, especially in light of any activities that could influence the extent to which network actors connect with each other. Specifically, this study describes the results from two annual SNAs completed in 2021 and 2022. A particular focus of the HEP-M partnership and its activities has been the inclusion of female faculty members and the strengthening of their integration and connection in a large network of predominantly male faculty network. In addition, the study provides practical insights into SNA survey construction, disambiguation efforts, survey improvements, and relevant network metrics. The results highlight how changes in overall network size can be unrelated to increased cohesiveness in terms of normalized indegree and outdegree. The results further underscore how efforts to increase the “visibility” of female professors and trainers were captured between the two SNA administrations. Limitations and recommendations for improved network connectivity and cohesion will be provided, including advice on SNA survey construction and administration, repeated measures, and the use of SNA surveys in international contexts.

Authors

• Alexander Kurz, Arizona State University

• Wendy Peia Oakes, Arizona State University

• Tanya Pinkerton, Arizona State University

• Nicole L Thompson, Arizona State University