18.028 - Operationalizing School-Community Collaboration: Reimagining the Role of Educational Research Through Community Roundtables

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

Achieving the American promise of equal educational opportunity continues to motivate much contemporary educational research and action. However, too often scholarly knowledge generated about local schools and communities highlight particular ways of knowing, like standardized test scores or teacher experiences. Drawing from a regional community roundtable project totaling 200+ participants, five symposium papers illuminate the importance of recognizing education’s social context by analyzing the conversations among various school and community members as related to educational goals, isolated teachers, student diversity, curricular needs, and group discussion dynamics. Together, the papers demonstrate how creating conversations among different school and community constituents can help reimagine how educational questions are posed, research is conducted, and educational programs or practices are chosen and implemented.

Sub Unit

• Division G - Social Context of Education / Division G - Section 5: Macro-analysis of the social contexts of teaching and learning

Chair

• Catherine J. Michener, Rowan University

Papers

• Revealing the Real: Discursive Dissonance in Community Discussions of Goals for "Real" Education - Kenzo K. Sung, Rowan University

• The Downside of Local Control: Isolation as a Barrier to Teacher Growth and School Improvement - Maryl A. Randel, Rowan University

• The Problems and Promise of Educating Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students in a Context of Shifting Demographics - Catherine J. Michener, Rowan University

• Advocating for the Public Education of Minority Students: What Is Needed for Literacy Learning? - Jane Bean-Folkes, Marist College

• Group Dynamics of Educational Stakeholders Engaged in Roundtable Dialogues: A Critical Incident Technique Inquiry - Kara Ieva, Rowan University; Elif Balin, San Francisco State University

Discussant

• Shelley Zion, Rowan University