Catalyzing Network Expertise

Bill Penuel, Judith Fusco, Amy Hafter, Aasha Joshi, Christine Korbak, Margaret Riel, Willow Sussex

Integrating accounts of individual and organizational change is a fundamental challenge in the social and behavioral sciences. Of particular importance is understanding whether cross-level linkages remain stable, co-adapt, or result in a chaotic system as exogenous pressures are exerted on an institution. Do successful initiatives build on existing, stable distributions of expertise and organizational forms? Do they transform, undermine, or run alongside those patterns?

Using data from a completed study (2003-05) and from the proposed study (2006-08), we will study relations between individual and organizational change as pressure drives the institutional environment of schooling from autonomy to accountability. In particular, we will study schools where sanctions from the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) will have impact. Very high expectations and resulting sanctions will effect schools that fail to meet targets. Our prior study identified patterns of access to expertise that helped teachers change practices and affected whether organizational change succeeded or failed. We now have an opportunity to observe the smooth, discontinuous, or chaotic evolution of social networks under pressure and relate it to existing patterns of change.

Our principal question is "How do social processes and structures formed during the implementation of previous initiatives enable and constrain teachers' responses to new institutional forces?" We will attend to organizational level factors that affect interactions, the formation of interactions in response institutional pressure and how those interactions affect teachers' behaviors.

Therefore, we ask:

1/2007 - 12/2009 (current)

Funders & Clients 

National Science Foundation

Partners 

Publications

Research Areas

Evaluation
Learning Environments

Keywords 

No Child Left Behind (NCLB)
organizational change
social network analysis
teacher expertise