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Micropolitical Negotiations within School Reform

Thesis advisor: Patrick McQuillan / This case study examines the micropolitical strategies that a coach and seven teachers utilized to negotiate ideological and epistemological beliefs during required common planning time meetings for the period of one semester in an urban middle school. Theories of micropolitics and critical discourse analysis guided the development of the research questions that emphasized the political nature of the transactions and interactions between individuals within a school and how these negotiations were affected by the cultural and political climate of the district and the ideologies of individuals within that school about how students learn. The findings revealed how coaching as a reform strategy is highly influenced by the context of the school. The observations of mandated common planning time meetings, interviews with the coach and teachers, and other artifacts suggest that the power relationships between the members of the school community and political tensions of time, autonomy, ideological conflict, and trust influenced the discourse and interaction of the coach and teachers and influenced the implementation of the school's reform initiative. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2010. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Curriculum and Instruction.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:BOSTON/oai:dlib.bc.edu:bc-ir_101388
Date January 2010
CreatorsSkelton, Jane
PublisherBoston College
Source SetsBoston College
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeText, thesis
Formatelectronic, application/pdf
RightsCopyright is held by the author, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise noted.

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