Transcript Technical assistance as mediating structure: A cultural

Technical Assistance as Cultural
Work:
Notes on Theory and Methods
Alfredo J. Artiles
Arizona State University
The University of Northern Colorado
April 9 – 13, 2007
Professional Practice
as Cultural Work
 Provide the theoretical rationale and
describe a set of artifacts created to mediate
the work of SEA personnel to address
disproportionality.
What is Disproportionate
Representation?
The over or under-identification of students in some
racial/ethnic and/or language groups for services in
special education
 “extent to which membership in a given group affects the
probability of being placed in a specific special education
disability category” [or special education program]
(adapted from Oswald et al., 1999, p. 198).
Why should we pay attention to
disproportionality?
The answer, as every parent of a child receiving special
education services knows, is that in order to be eligible for the
additional resources a child must be labeled as having a disability,
a label that signals substandard performance. And while that
label is intended to bring additional supports, it may also bring
lowered expectations on the part of teachers, other children, and
the identified student. When a child cannot learn without the
additional supports, and when the supports improve outcomes
for the child, that trade-off may well be worth making. But,
because there is a trade-off, both the need and the benefit should
be established before the label and the cost are imposed
(Donovan & Cross, 2002, 3).
NCCRESt’s Vision
Klingner, J., Artiles, A. J., Kozleski, E., Harry, B.,
Zion, S., Tate, W., Zamora-Durán, G., & Riley, D.
(2005). Addressing the disproportionate
representation of culturally and linguistically
diverse students in special education through
culturally responsive educational systems.
Education Policy Analysis Archives, 13 (38).
Available at http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v13n38/
Leadership
Principal Investigators
Alfredo J. Artiles, Arizona State University
Beth Harry, University of Miami
Janette Klingner, CU Boulder
Elizabeth Kozleski, CU Denver
William Tate, Washington University at St Louis
Project Coordinator
Shelley Zion, CU Denver
Continuous Improvement Data Analysts
David Gibson & Michael Knapp, VIMST
Project Officer
Grace Zamora Durán, OSEP, USDOE
What is NCCRESt doing?
An Overview
TA & D Center focused on equity, access, and participation
in GENERAL education
 Provides professional development and technical
assistance to
 close the achievement gap between students from
culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds and
their peers, and
 reduce inappropriate referrals to special education.
What is NCCRESt doing?
An Overview
Networking and
Dissemination
Professional
Development
Reduce
Disproportionality
Continuous Improvement
Research and
Development
The NCCRESt Response
An Overview
 Technical Assistance with SEAs
(a) Enhance access to accurate data
(b) support state-level planning for professional
development, technical assistance, and information
networks
(c) promote annual continuous improvement cycles of
reflection/planning/action/reflection
(d) support SEAs’ efforts to enhance planning and
implementation coherence.
TA Strategy
 Build State Capacity to Provide
TA and PD
 Build skill sets at SEA Level
 Work in teams that cut across
SEA, Advocacy & District
personnel
 Identify districts that are
improving and build strategies
to support their work
 Identify districts that are
developing and build capacity
People
Practices
Policies
TA Delivery Model
.
FEW
9 states
SOME
Partnerships w/
RRCs & TA Centers
Annual National
Forum on
Disproportionality
ALL
E-News, Website,
publications/products
NCCRESt State Partners
Wisconsin
Iowa
Ohio
Connecticut
New
Jersey
Virginia
North
Carolina
Louisiana
Tennessee
Purpose
 Provide the theoretical rationale and
describe a TA model and a set of artifacts
created to mediate the work of SEA
personnel to address disproportionality.
Critique:
Culture & Space in Disproportionality
1.) The focus of analysis is on physical dimensions of space
(placement in special education programs).
2.) Culture is largely absent in this work and when included, it is
either equated with student traits (i.e., ethnic or linguistic
background) or located in individuals’ psyches (e.g., beliefs,
learning styles) (Artiles, 2003). School cultures are ignored.
3.) The perspective of the analyst is invisible
-
Researchers’ assumptions about culture and space
Explanations of the problem that guide researchers’ meaning
making processes or analytical decisions.
Critique: The Object of SEA work
 SEA Perspective: Macro view of professional
practice-- “The view from above.”
 Legalistic view: Compliance and monitoring
 State placement patterns, school district data,
evidence from clusters of schools in cities or
regions.
Critique:
The object of SEA work
“The view from above”
 Traditional artifacts: Proportion tables (disability placement
by ethnicity)
 offer a limited understanding of the connections between technical,
historical, and cultural factors
 do not unveil the ideological and semiotic underpinnings of SEA
professionals’ work. Examples include
 interpretation of data and decision-making processes grounded in
individual-based assumptions about disability and culture
 use of information infrastructures without regard for the nature
and premises of databases (e.g., categorical, cross-sectional,
fossilized culture).
NCCREST Response
Technical assistance as mediating structure
 Create mediating contexts to support SEA
personnel learning about disproportionality.
 Based on cultural historical activity theory:
Activity system is the unit of analysis.
Technical Assistance Activity as Mediating Structure
Artifacts
• GIS Maps
• Databases
• Discourse
• Theoretical constructs on the cultural
nature of learning
Guiding
Principles
• Entire system
is the unit of
analysis
(Expansive
cycles)
• Historicity vs.
relativism
• Contradictions
& disruptions
lead to growth
Object
Subject
Disproportionality of
minority
students in
special
education
SEA Team
(Engeström,
1999)
Rules
1. Commitment to all learners in the
activity system.
2. Agreement to engage in technical,
practical, and critical reflection and
discourse about the role of culture in
learning.
3. Commitment to view
contradictions and disruptions as
opportunities for growth.
Community
SEA: General education, special
education, and professional
development groups.
LEA: Administrators, students
teachers/interns, families.
Division
of Labor
•Vertical
•Horizontal
•Dynamic/lateral
Outcomes
•
Culturally responsive
educational system
TA as Mediating Structure
Forging New Spaces
1. Physical space and its intersection with cultural
practices
 Artifact design: Material and psychological
(Blanton et al., 1998).
 Maps and databases; beliefs and
assumptions
 Culture: Historical, instrumental, situated
2. Social spaces and the production of conceived spaces
 Discursive and cognitive practices
Artifact Design for Systemic
Change:
Toward a cartography of disproportionality
Create new perceptual fields with visual
representations “where space is used to
represent a spatial dispersion that offers, when
combined with discourse analysis, a system of
possibility for new knowledge (Paulston, 1996,
p. 4, emphasis in original).
Artifact Design for Systemic Change
 Re-present placement evidence as embedded
in grids of cultural, temporal, and spatial
vectors.
 Re-mediate the state leadership’s ways of
analyzing and interpreting the problem with a
new kind of evidence in the context of TA
practices.
Artifact design for systemic change:
GIS Maps & Databases
1. Physical space and its intersection with cultural practices
 Multiple levels: Placement patterns at national, regional, state,
and city levels
 To witness the metamorphosis of disproportionality across
levels enable SEA personnel to shift their analytic gaze from
the view from above to local landscapes around a city
 Multiple representation systems: Interface with databases
 Colors, icons and areas; numbers, trends
 Multiple perspectives
 From a state overall status to the possibility to stand inside the
map of a school
Artifact design for systemic change:
GIS Maps & Databases
 Child
 Disability category by race (single, aggregated)
 Student Achievement Data
 School context and OTL
 Teacher certification
 School poverty level
 Per Pupil Operating Revenue
 Teachers Instructional Repertoires
 Teacher:Student Ratios
 Census Block Data
 LRE by disability & race
 Density of racial representation: State, city, school
 Spatial distribution of placement across city regions
 Measures: Multiple indices, types of denominator, cross-sectional, longitudinal
TA as Mediating Structure
Forging New Spaces
2. Social spaces and the production of conceived spaces
 Discursive and cognitive practices
 Examine assumptions about the intersection of race, class,
ability, & culture in classrooms
 Rubric Development for LEA Monitoring and Problem Solving
 Discussion of Practitioner Briefs
 Analysis of Leadership Academies
 From personal experience to theoretical sense-making
 Examination of personal and professional identities and how they
mediate practice
 Modeling Distributed Expertise
 Network Development among states
b) Deepen teams’
understanding of the
problem
c) Identify features
of good solutions
d) Self-evaluation and
setting the stage
e) Develop an
action plan
a) Define the
problem
Gauge impact of systems
change efforts
Assess Needs &
Create Action Plans
Cycles of Inquiry,
Reflection, &
Action
Implement Action Plans &
Establish Feedback Loops
Emerging Outcomes






Use of NCCRESt materials
Development of Local Leadership Teams
Changes in approaches to determining disproportionality
Examination of Local Practices
Identification of NCCRESt as TA provider in State APRs
Deepening discussions of culturally responsive practices
 Curriculum
 Classroom Practice
 Building Practice
 Community Building
Ascending to Practice from Theory
Methodological Considerations
 Collect data at multiple
levels of the system
USE
 Collect multiple kinds of
Changes
in
Referral
&
data
ACCESSIBILITY
Placement Patterns
 Qualitative & Quantitative
 Interdisciplinary Expertise
INCLUSIVITY
 Sampling Issues
 Comparative, within-group
SUSTAINABILITY
 Make perspective visible
 Federal, state, & local
 Focus on disruptions,
contradictions
Technical Assistance as Cultural
Work:
Notes on Theory and Methods
Alfredo J. Artiles
Arizona State University
The University of Northern Colorado
October 6, 2005