ComparativelyStudying Educational System (Re)BuildingCross-Nationally: Another Agenda for Cross-National Educational Research?

Institutional theory, an important research tradition in analysis of schooling, has examined the development of mass schooling in the United States and worldwide. But research in this tradition has given little attention to the internal working of mass school systems, to problems of inequality and the quality of instruction, or to relating those problems to the organization and management of mass school systems. Building on the first three articles, which document how education system building has become a key instrument in efforts to improve the quality and equality of educational opportunity for students, we argue for a program of comparative research on education system building cross-nationally. We outline a program of research that would extend our comparative approach to studying school systems’ efforts to build, use and manage educational infrastructure as they attempt to transition to education systems in the United States by including such efforts in several other nations.

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Educational System Building

Educational Policy ◽

10.1177/0895904819866913 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 33 (6) ◽

pp. 807-811

Author(s):

David K. Cohen ◽

James P. Spillane

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Educational System ◽

Comparative Research ◽

The United States ◽

School Systems ◽

Public And Private ◽

System Building ◽

Research Questions ◽

Improve Instruction ◽

The Relationship

Recognizing that there are many different sorts of school systems in the United States and noting the absence of comparative research on these systems, we sampled six such systems—two public, one not, and three at various places on the border between public and private—for a comparative study of educational system in the United States. In this introduction, we motivate the research and discuss our research questions in order to situated the four papers in this special issue. The first three papers capture how different systems inhabit their environments similarly and differently, exploring the relationship between environments on one hand and the system–instruction connection on the other. The fourth paper sketches a comparative research agenda that would include more school systems, in and outside the United States, as they try to improve instruction.

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Why the Post-Racial is Still Racial: Understanding the Relationship between Race and Education

Teachers College Record ◽

10.1177/016146811511701408 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 117 (14) ◽

pp. 1-4 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Adrienne D. Dixson ◽

Jamel K. Donnor ◽

Rema E. Reynolds

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Educational Opportunity ◽

The United States ◽

People Of Color ◽

Language Class ◽

The Social ◽

Race And Education ◽

Inequality In Education ◽

Education Academic

Scholars who study educational equity and inequality in education, academic achievement gaps, and educational opportunity offer a variety myriad of explanations as to how or whether race has any role or impact on educational experiences, access, or opportunity. Indeed, race has been an abiding question in the social sciences and education for several decades. Despite the debates within both fields regarding the meaning of race, the current popular sentiment among the lay public and many educational practitioners is that on November 4, 2008, America reached a post-racial moment with the election of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States. In other words, according to the post-racial discourse, race no longer matters, especially as it relates to people of color. The editors and contributors of this volume challenge this rhetoric and examine how and whether race operates in understanding how issues of access to productive opportunities and quality resources converge and impact experiences and outcomes in education. Hence, the purpose of this NSSE Yearbook is to explain how and why race is a “dynamic system of historically derived and institutionalized ideas and practices” shaped by myriad forces (e.g., power, gender, language, class, and privilege), which determine the quality of educational opportunities, experiences, and resources for people of color in the United States.

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