Spillane (1999)

External Reform Initiatives and Teachers' Efforts to Reconstruct Their Practice: The Mediating Role of Teachers' Zones of Enactment

• Author: James Spillane
• Journal: Journal of Curriculum Studies
• Year: 1999
• Source: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/002202799183205

Abstract

This paper considers the interplay of teachers' capacity and will to reconstruct their mathematics practice with teachers' incentives and opportunities to learn as these are mobilized by the school system and agencies beyond the formal system. Comparing those teachers in the study who had changed the core of their practice substantially with those teachers who had not, it is argued that teachers' zones of enactment play a crucial role in their implementation of instructional reform. The zones of enactment of those teachers who had changed the core of their practice are characterized and it is conjectured that the extent to which teachers revise their practice will depend on the characteristics of their zones of enactment.

Outline of Headings

• Study and research methodology
  • The mathematics reform and patterns of practice: getting to the core
• External reform initiatives and teachers' opportunities and incentives to learn
  • Teachers' attention to the mathematics reforms for instructional guidance
  • Teachers' familiarity with reform themes
• The interplay of external reform levers with teachers' capacity and will: the role of 'zones of enactment'
  • Teacher attention to reform: ideas and language
  • Active users, prior practice, prior knowledge and curricular materials
• Teachers' zones of enactment: the interplay of reform levers, social and individual capacity
  • The case of the Riverville trio
  • The case of Ms Yarrow
  • Contrasting cases
• Discussion and conclusion: constructing an explanatory model

Corollary

APA

Spillane, J. P. (1999). External reform initiatives and teachers' efforts to reconstruct their practice: The mediating role of teachers' zones of enactment. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 31(2), 143–175. doi:10.1080/002202799183205

BibTeX

@article{Spillane1999,
author = {Spillane, James P.},
doi = {10.1080/002202799183205},
journal = {Journal of Curriculum Studies},
number = {2},
pages = {143--175},
title = {{External reform initiatives and teachers' efforts to reconstruct their practice: The mediating role of teachers' zones of enactment}},
url = {http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/002202799183205},
volume = {31},
year = {1999}
}