System Building in Context: An Exploration of the Complex Environments of Elementary Science Reform and the Ways Districts Manage Relationships with Those Environments

Abstract

Many major reforms underway in American public school districts’ elementary science programs are the result of the release of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) in 2013. More than a decade later, many districts are continuing to put the vision of those standards into practice. A problem for districts pursuing these changes is the complexity of their environments; that is, the array of governmental, commercial, research, community, and other organizations and interests seeking to influence improvement in elementary science. The purpose of this three-paper dissertation is to support efforts to improve elementary science by conceptualizing the environments of elementary science reform; exploring the intersection between those environments and specific strategies for district-level improvement; and analyzing strategies for reconciling new approaches to improving elementary science with legacy approaches The first paper examines the ways district leaders engage those environments as they work to improve elementary science instruction in ways responsive the NGSS. Drawing on historic accounts of districts engaged in elementary science reform, this paper makes the claim that the organizational field supporting science education reform consists of specific categories of organizations that have maintained currency for decades and that subsets of these organizations appear to be more immediately salient to districts. The primary contribution of this paper is an organizational taxonomy that represents field-level organizations seeking to influence science education in elementary schools and that represents their relative salience for districts. The second paper explores how districts engage in system building to support NGSS aligned instruction in complex environments, the component parts of which are uncoordinated and variably aligned to these new standards. This paper draws on data collected as part of a comparative case study of system-building efforts in 13 districts including interviews, observations, and artifacts. Findings from this paper show that districts coordinate across a wide array of organizations in their environment, regardless of the specifics of their system building approaches. In doing so, organizations that are more proximal and/or more directly related to districts’ day-to-day functionality are more salient and may filter the more distal parts of their environment. This paper makes the claim that districts engage with a wide array of organizations, regardless of the approach they take to improving elementary science. The third paper examines how districts are working to put the vision of the NGSS into practice in elementary schools where existing structures, norms, and routines may complicate efforts to respond to these challenges. As in the previous paper, this study draws on interviews, observations, and artifacts collected as part of a comparative case study of system-building efforts in 13 districts. Findings from this paper illustrate that there are at least three distinct approaches—integrating, retooling, and skirting—that districts use to manage relationships between new efforts to improve science instruction and pre-existing structures, norms, and routines. Through three cases, this paper illustrates how these approaches help districts leverage internal strengths to mitigate enduring challenges of instructional improvement. This dissertation provides theoretical and empirical perspectives on the complex environments in which elementary science reforms are enacted and the ways districts manage relationships with those environments. In addition to providing frameworks for future scholarship, these papers highlight the need for science reformers, science educators, and districts leaders to be mindful of the contexts in which that work is enacted.