What is often remarked by studies exploring the effect of context is that organisations – such as schools – have the potential to influence action by delineating what is thought to be accepted and worthwhile, possible and necessary (Borg, 1998). Established traditions and norms, rules and regularities; often communicated to teachers through such means as school
visions, learning objectives, and school performance standards, are often found to give direction and order, and oftentimes, to constrain instructional improvement (Hargreaves, 1991). In his study focusing on how eight teachers experienced the implementation of a science curriculum project, Olson (1981) found that school features, such as attainment goals, can serve to constrain, define, and redefine, what teachers are pursuing inside their classrooms and how they respond to curriculum reforms. Olson (1981) elaborated on the dilemmas faced by the participating teachers when confronted with competing discourses about science teaching and learning. On the one hand, responding to the science curriculum was, for some teachers, a desirable course of action; as it was thought to stimulate their students’ thinking. On the other hand, engaging with the curriculum was found to contradict with other teaching goals the teachers were also pursuing, including preparing their students for external examinations. Olson (1981) found that the teachers resolved those dilemmas by translating the science curriculum into concepts that were in alignment with the goals of their school. Pardo (2006, p. 380) followed three teachers’ curriculum enactment in a study that was guided by the question: “What influences beginning teachers in an urban setting as they translate and implement a particular aspect of their writing curriculum into practice?” The researcher found that the teachers’ enactment of the writing curriculum was influenced by various contextual factors, such as “mandates that create curricular and assessment expectations” (Pardo, 2006, p. 390). Pardo (2006) offered the example of Bethany, a fourth grade teacher who, being largely consumed by the pressure placed upon her to prepare her students for state assessment, found herself in the midst of a balancing act between her school’s expectations to gain better results in writing, and her own beliefs about her students’ writing needs. Pardo (2006) concluded that Bethany was not able to finesse her two competing priorities. Instead she kept juggling between her own beliefs and the policy expectations. In a similar study, Johnson (1996) noticed that tensions arose between his participant’s visions and her school contextual reality in the context of TESOL. Using field notes, interviews, and classroom observations, Johnson (1996, p. 33) investigated Maja’s experiences with TESOL and paid emphasis on the teacher’s efforts to resolve the tensions between her visions of “starting with what her students already know”, and the practical realities of her context (e.g. pressure of time). Johnson (1996) found that Maja’s contextual realities inhibited the teacher from teaching in ways consistent with her visions. Maja, for instance said: “I don’t like it when I see myself teaching in this way” (Johnson, 1996, p. 37), whilst reflecting upon how time constraints propelled her towards a more teacher-centre approach to TESOL. Johnson (1996, p. 45) concluded that contextual realities created
tensions that comprised the teacher’s “understandings of how to create a classroom environment in which” her visions were satisfied.
In a more recent study, Morrison (2013) identified the importance of teachers’ school contexts for the development of their identity. In examining the process of identity formation, Morrison (2013, p. 92) devoted his attention to the “beliefs, experiences and responses to teaching” of 14 early career teachers working in different South Australian schools. Using a series of classroom observations and interviews, the researcher collected longitudinal data which were analysed in terms of the teachers’ “experiences, perceptions, interpretations and responses in relation to others” (Morrison, 2013, p. 92). Analysis of the data led to the identification of three types of identities: emergent, tenuous, and distressed. Attention to the contextual factors that led to the development of emergent and distress identity provides a useful elaboration on the findings of this study. In particular, Morrison (2013) offered the example of a teacher (Emily) who worked largely in isolation from her colleagues. Throughout the course of the study (one year), Morrison (2013) observed the teacher’s confidence in her teaching being challenged as a result of her limited collaboration with her colleagues. On the other hand, teachers (e.g. Adele) who worked in close collaboration with colleagues and school leaders were found to have expressed an emergent teacher identity; framed by trajectories that included “looking optimistically towards their teaching futures”, “confirming their sense of suitability and capacity”, and “experiencing success in their teaching practice” (Morrison, 2013, p. 97). Morrison (2013) linked the development of emergent identity to such school features, including “collaborations, relationships”, “shared understandings” (Morrison, 2013, p. 98), social structures that build on “feedback, guidance, direction, comfort, debriefing and care” (Morrison, 2013, p. 98), and to the ongoing support provided by the school leaders. Morrison (2013, p. 98) concluded that such school features can encourage teachers “to experience success and to be successful”, and lead to the development of identities that are “malleable [in] nature” (Morrison, 2013, p. 98).
Related scholarship work (e.g. Pashiardis, 2000) focuses on exploring the “spirit of collegiality and collaboration among the staff and between the staff and the principal” (Pashiardis, 2000, pp. 224-225) and its effect on teachers’ responses to curriculum reforms. Acker (1991), for instance, explained that teacher collegiality helps to share the new knowledge among teachers. Louden (1991) found that collegiality facilitates teachers’ pursuits of educational improvement. Kyriakides et al. (2010) asserted that collaboration among teachers stimulates a commitment to change. Within such literature, the role of school
leaders is often highlighted as one that can encourage change and innovation. Roehrig et al. (2007) conducted a comparative study to investigate the ways in which 27 teachers, working in twelve different schools in California, implemented a new chemistry curriculum. Using a mixed method approach, the researchers focused their data collection and analysis processes on investigating the teachers’ knowledge and beliefs and the degree of alignment between beliefs and the new curriculum. Information about each teacher’s school context (e.g. science administrators) was collected during interviews with teachers. After data analysis, the researchers classified their participants into traditional, mechanist, and inquiry teachers. Attention to inquiry and traditional teachers provides a useful elaboration on the findings of this study. In their majority, the teachers who worked in close collaboration with their science administrators appeared to hold reform-based beliefs (e.g. student-centred beliefs) and were seen to embrace the new curriculum (e.g. Leslie and Mike). On the other hand, the teachers who worked rarely with their science administrators appeared to hold traditional beliefs (e.g. teacher as the holder of knowledge) and eventually bypassed (e.g. Milly and Carl) or altered the curriculum in substantial ways (e.g. Jon, Joy, and Fred). The researchers concluded that the support their participants received from science administrators, “played a big role in the implementation of the curriculum” (Roehrig et al., 2007, p. 904). In a more recent study investigating the experiences of 22 secondary school teachers with implementing the 2006 science curriculum reform in England, Ryder and Banner (2013) noticed that risk-taking Heads of Science, who were found to have incorporated elements of the new science curriculum in their departments, stimulated the development of an ethos of collegiality among their teachers, which in turn, resulted in teachers’ personal development and encouraged the adoption of the new curriculum. In their study on how teachers responded to the prescriptive reading programmes being implemented in the schools of 32 teachers, Pease-Alvarez et al. (2010) also reaffirmed that the flexible and supportive leadership style adopted by school principals encouraged the teachers to take actions that were directed towards the implementation of the programmes.
What appears to emerge as a general consensus here is that, teachers’ responses to curriculum reforms can be mediated, shaped, and influenced, not only by their cognitions; as previously discussed (see section 4.2), but also by their school context and the social or structural affordances and limitations therein. The studies that are presented and discuss below further suggest that teachers’ experiences of curriculum reforms are constituted during a process of meaning making and negotiation. These studies underline the influence of both individual cognitions and context on how curriculum reforms are responded to.