Education Commons^™

A Convenient Rhetoric Or Substantial Change Of Teacher Racial Diversity? A Text Mining Analysis Of Federal, State, And District Documents, Sing Hui Lee, Briana Keith, Yasmine Bey, Yinying Wang, Xiulong Yang, Xiang Li, Jonathan Shihao Ji

Educational Policy Studies Faculty Publications

Teacher racial diversity has been widely considered important in education. However, it remains unclear to what extent and how teacher racial diversity has been addressed at the federal, state, and district levels. In this study, we employed text mining to collect and analyze over three million documents at the federal, state, and district levels. We found that while students of color had disproportionately less access to racially diverse teachers, the documents under our analysis insufficiently discussed the recruitment and retention of racially diverse teachers. Our findings also reveal that education agencies at the federal, state, and district levels paid scant …

Finding Evidence Of Community Cultural Wealth In Georgia: Testimonios Of Latina Immigrants On Navigating Cultural, Social, And Economic Barriers, Michelle S. Yrigollen-Robbins

Educational Policy Studies Faculty Publications

The Latinx immigrant population in Georgia has hopes of settling in a community that provides economic stability for their families, and academic opportunities for their children. This study explores the journeys of five Mexican women, from their decisions to leave their home country to their settling in the United States. The findings are based on a qualitative study that reveals the testimonios of the participants’ navigational challenges of crossing borders, settling in Georgia, and raising bicultural children in the New South. The participants’ testimonios show evidence of Yosso’s community cultural wealth, and the findings counter the deficit narrative about Georgia’s …

Legislating What Matters: How Policy Designs Shape Two New Immigrant Destinations Schools’ Responses To Immigrant Students, Kristina Brezicha

Educational Policy Studies Faculty Publications

This comparative case study examines the policies of two new immigrant destinations in the United States and Canada that in the past 20 years experienced a rapid influx of immigrants. Using an integrated framework of policy design theory and the context of reception, this paper analyzes the framing of immigrant students in the state, district, and school-level policies. Interviews with immigrant students in these communities show how these policies shaped their schooling experiences and communicated important messages to them about their role in their new communities, thus shaping their political identities. The findings highlight the important interplay of these different …

Artificial Intelligence In Educational Leadership: A Symbiotic Role Of Human-Artificial Intelligence Decision-Making, Yinying Wang

Educational Policy Studies Faculty Publications

Purpose. Artificial intelligence (AI) refers to a type of algorithms or computerized systems that resemble human mental processes of decision-making. This position paper looks beyond the sensational hyperbole of AI in teaching and learning. Instead, this paper aims to explore the role of AI in educational leadership.

Design/methodology/approach. To explore the role of AI in educational leadership, I synthesized the literature that intersects AI, decision-making, and educational leadership from multiple disciplines such as computer science, educational leadership, administrative science, judgment and decision-making and neuroscience. Grounded in the intellectual interrelationships between AI and educational leadership since the 1950s, this paper starts …

Examining The Actor Coalitions And Discourse Coalitions Of The Opt-Out Movement In New York: A Discourse Network Analysis, Yinying Wang

Educational Policy Studies Faculty Publications

Background/Context: Since 2013, opting out of state standardized tests has become a movement—the grassroots, organized efforts to refuse to take high-stakes state standardized tests. In particular, opt-out rates in the state of New York have been consistently fluctuating around 20%.

Purpose/Objective: This study aims to examine the actor coalitions and discourse coalitions that have propelled the opt-out movement in the state of New York—the movement’s epicenter with the highest opt-out rate in the United States.

Conceptual Framework: This study is conceptually grounded in the advocacy coalition framework (ACF), a prominent conceptual lens to investigate the formation of coalitions and their …

More Than A Blind Woman: Principal Teacher Miss Hannah Guillan And Her Contributions To The Georgia Academy For The Blind, 1852-1898, Cristy Sellers Smith, Chara Haeussler Bohan

Educational Policy Studies Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

What Is The Role Of Emotions In Educational Leaders’ Decision Making? Proposing An Organizing Framework, Yinying Wang

Educational Policy Studies Faculty Publications

Purpose: Emotions have a pervasive, predictable, sometimes deleterious but other times instrumental effect on decision making. Yet the influence of emotions on educational leaders’ decision making has been largely underexplored. To optimize educational leaders’ decision making, this article builds on the prevailing data-driven decision-making approach, and proposes an organizing framework of educational leaders’ emotions in decision making by drawing on converging empirical evidence from multiple disciplines (e.g., administrative science, psychology, behavioral economics, cognitive neuroscience, and neuroeconomics) intersecting emotions, decision making, and organizational behavior. Proposed Framework: The proposed organizing framework of educational leaders’ emotions in decision making includes four core propositions: …

A Reflective Study Of Online Faculty Teaching Experiences In Higher Education, Chara H. Bohan, Katherine A. Perrotta

Educational Policy Studies Faculty Publications

Despite the popularity of online course and degree offerings in higher education, a lack of data persists on the unique challenges and opportunities online faculty face. Gaining insights about these experiences is important to ensure the quality of online teaching as colleges and universities continue expanding e-learning programs. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the online teaching experiences of two faculty members through the implementation of reflective study methods. Major findings show that faculty access to professional development and mentoring, isolation and connectedness to the campus community, and academic freedom and curriculum control have significant implications for …

When Artificial Intelligence Meets Educational Leaders’ Data-Informed Decision-Making: A Cautionary Tale, Yinying Wang

Educational Policy Studies Faculty Publications

Artificial intelligence (AI) refers to a type of algorithms or computerized systems that resemble human mental processes of decision making. Drawing upon multidisciplinary literature that intersects AI, decision making, educational leadership, and policymaking, this position paper aims to examine promising applications and potential perils of AI in educational leaders’ data-informed decision making (DIDM). Endowed with ever-growing computational power and real-time data, highly scalable AI can increase efficiency and accuracy in leaders’ DIDM. However, misusing AI can have perilous effects on education stakeholders. Many lurking biases in current AI could be amplified. Of more concern, the moral values (e.g., fairness, equity, …

Using Research On Neuroeconomics Games In School Leaders’ Decision-Making Training, Yinying Wang

Educational Policy Studies Faculty Publications

This article demonstrates how to use three neuroeconomics games adapted from game theory— the Ultimatum Game, the Trust Game, and the Public Goods Game—in school leaders’ decisionmaking training. These three games have been commonly used in the emerging field of neuroeconomics—an interdisciplinary field intersecting behavioral economics, psychology, and cognitive neuroscience. For each game, I first outline how to play it in the training of school leaders’ decision making, followed by the constructs relevant to leaders’ decision making, including fairness, justice, inequity aversion, reciprocity, emotions, social identity, trust, distrust, and altruistic punishment. These games, with a lighthearted touch, serve as part …

All Cultures Matter: Rachel Davis Dubois, The Woodbury Project, And The Intercultural Educational Movement, Charles Hight, Chara H. Bohan

Educational Policy Studies Faculty Publications

In this research we detail the professional life of Rachel Davis DuBois, with particular attention to her creation of the Woodbury Project and her work with the Intercultural Education Movement. Employing historical and biographical research methods, DuBois' archival materials at the University of Minnesota aided our exploration of the educational movement that DuBois was instrumental in establishing in the 1930s and that continued into the 1950s in the United States. In particular, DuBois founded the Service Bureau of Intercultural Education, where she designed several workshops to educate teachers on the curriculum and discussion methods of Intercultural Education. The goal of …

The Mint Julep Consensus: An Analysis Of Late 19th Century Southern And Northern Textbooks And Their Impact On The History Curriculum, Chara H. Bohan, Lauren Yarnell Bradshaw, Wade Hampton Morris

Educational Policy Studies Faculty Publications

In the decades after the Civil War, Southerners wrote and published their own history textbooks for secondary schools. These “mint julep textbooks,” as the Southern all-white editions were called by the 1960s, reinforced a Lost Cause narrative of the war for Southern audiences while competing with Northern versions of events. In this study, we employ both historical narrative and content analysis of six textbooks’ portrayals of John Brown, John Wilkes Booth, and Nathan Bedford Forrest. The textbooks that are compared– three Southern and three Northern – were written from the 1870s through the 1910s. While subtle but important differences emerge …

Understanding Congressional Coalitions: A Discourse Network Analysis Of Congressional Hearings For The Every Student Succeeds Act, Yinying Wang

Educational Policy Studies Faculty Publications

The purpose of this study is to investigate policy coalitions of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) at U.S. congressional hearings. This study is grounded in the advocacy coalition framework, which argues that advocacy coalitions are forged by policy actors who have similar policy preferences. To identify the coalitions, according to the policy claims articulated by policy actors, discourse network analysis was performed to examine 30 testimonies in the congressional hearings on ESSA since its passage in 2015. The policy actors fall into eight categories: (1) federal administrative and executive offices, (2) state administrative and executive offices, (3) teachers unions, …

Is Data-Driven Decision Making At Odds With Moral Decision Making? A Critical Review Of School Leaders’ Decision Making In The Era Of School Accountability, Yinying Wang

Educational Policy Studies Faculty Publications

This article provides a critical review of school leaders’ data-driven decision making (DDDM), drawing attention to the potential tension between DDDM and moral decision making. With mounting accountability in education, DDDM has been espoused as one of the core values in school leadership. Making a data-driven decision means that school leaders use data to set goals, identify problems, seek and evaluate options, and choose a course of action; whereas moral decision making is about deciding what is right, just, virtuous, and ethical. The two decisionmaking approaches could be on a collision course if school leaders are situated in an organizational …

Pulling At Your Heartstrings: Examining Four Leadership Approaches From The Neuroscience Perspective, Yinying Wang

Educational Policy Studies Faculty Publications

Purpose: This review study aims to bridge neuroscience and educational leadership by exploring the neural mechanisms of the constructs relevant to educational leadership.

Research Methods: The reviewed literature includes 69 neuroscience studies and 4 books on neuroscience. The brain activities and neurotransmitters associated with the constructs pertinent to educational leadership were coded to bridge the knowledge base of neuroscience and educational leadership.

Findings: The neural mechanisms of the constructs related to educational leadership (e.g., vision, charisma, trust, and organizational justice) were organized by four different leadership approaches: charismatic, transformational, destructive, and culturally responsive school leadership. Emotions are the common thread …

The Double Consciousness Of African American Students Who Desegregated Atlanta Public Schools, Tanya Crawford, Chara H. Bohan

Educational Policy Studies Faculty Publications

Six years after Brown v. Board of Education, Atlanta reluctantly complied with the order to desegregate its school system rather than risk having schools closed due to noncompliance. Out of 132 students, nine black high school seniors desegregated four of Atlanta's all-white high schools. The purpose of this study is to explore and document the missing voices of Atlanta's 1961 school desegregation movement and provide an analysis of the students' experiences. W. E. B. Du Bois's double consciousness theory serves as a lens for understanding and explaining the experiences of the Atlanta students who were first to desegregate schools in …

The Panorama Of The Last Decade’S Theoretical Groundings Of Educational Leadership Research: A Concept Co-Occurrence Network Analysis, Yinying Wang

Educational Policy Studies Faculty Publications

Purpose: Given the essential role of theories in research, this study aims to identify the theories and concepts undergirding educational leadership research, illuminate the interconnections among them, and examine the evolution of the theoretical groundings of the field from 2005 to 2014.

Methods: This study constructed a concept co-occurrence network, in which the nodes represent all the framing concepts that theoretically framed the 1,328 articles published in four leading educational leadership research journals (Educational Administration Quarterly, Journal of Educational Administration, Educational Management Administration & Leadership, and Journal of School Leadership) over the past decade and the ties …

It All Starts With Forging Social Ties: Developing School Leadership From The Social Network Perspectives, Yinying Wang

Educational Policy Studies Faculty Publications

School leadership can be developed and strengthened from many approaches, including, but not limited to, transformational, instructional, distributed, and social justice leadership. This article presents an alternative perspective to develop school leadership from the social network perspectives. Drawing upon the growing body of research on social networks in school leadership, this article elucidates the evidence-based school leadership practices from four facets: social ties, network structure, social influence, and school culture. These four facets influence one another as the school leaders emerge, exercise leadership, and build a nurturing school culture through forging social ties, shaping network structure, and gaining social influence.

Education Policy Research In The Big Data Era: Methodological Frontiers, Misconceptions, And Challenges, Yinying Wang

Educational Policy Studies Faculty Publications

Despite abundant data and increasing data availability brought by technological advances, there has been very limited education policy studies that have capitalized on big data—characterized by large volume, wide variety, and high velocity. Drawing on the recent progress of using big data in public policy and computational social science research, this commentary discusses how to approach big data and how big data can be used in education policy research. First, I introduce big data that is potentially relevant to education policy research. I then present methodological frontiers by examining the assumptions, key concepts, merits, and caveats of three commonly used …

The Georgia Seal Of Biliteracy: Exploring The Nexus Of Politics And Language Education, Tim Jansa, Kristina Brezicha

Educational Policy Studies Faculty Publications

On May 3, 2016, House Bill (HB) 879—the Georgia Seal of Biliteracy—was signed into law by Governor Nathan Deal and went into effect on July 1, 2016. Outside of the language education sphere, many educators and policymakers may not fully understand the benefits of studying other languages. Yet, this policy hinges on the utility of simultaneously demonstrating proficiency in a foreign language and an advanced command of English, thus forming the foundation of biliteracy. This article provides an overview of the political landscape in Georgia as it pertains to language education and analyzes how lawmakers translated the issues at hand …

The Social Networks And Paradoxes Of The Opt-Out Movement Amid The Common Core State Standards Implementation, Yinying Wang

Educational Policy Studies Faculty Publications

Opting out of state standardized tests has recently become a movement—a series of grassroots, organized efforts to refuse to take high-stakes state standardized tests. In particular, the opt-out rates in the state of New York reached 20% in 2015 and 21% in 2016. This study aims to illustrate the social networks and examine the paradoxes that have propelled the opt-out movement in New York—the movement’s epicenter with the highest opt-out rate in the United States. Drawing on the conceptual frameworks of social movement theory, social network theory, and policy paradox, this study compiled the opt-out corpus by using the data …

Altering The Traditional American History Landscape: Incorporating Culturally Relevant Biographies In Social Studies, Aubrey Southall, Chara H. Bohan

Educational Policy Studies Faculty Publications

The purpose of this article is to provide guidance to teachers on how to incorporate Latinx culturally relevant biographies into their social studies classrooms with English learners (ELs). In the social studies curriculum, United States history often is regarded as one of the hardest courses for newly arrived immigrants to learn due to the unfamiliarity of American history content (Dunne & Martell, 2013). Using a culturally relevant approach to teaching social studies has the potential to connect EL students to content in powerful and meaningful ways. As the number of Spanish speaking EL students grows in the American public school …

Common Core State Standards On Twitter: Public Sentiment And Opinion Leaders, Yinying Wang, David J. Fikis

Educational Policy Studies Faculty Publications

The purpose of this study is to examine the public opinion on the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) on Twitter. Using Twitter API, we collected the tweets containing the hashtags #CommonCore and #CCSS for 12 months from 2014 to 2015. A Common Core corpus was created by compiling all the collected 660,051 tweets. The results of sentiment analysis suggest Twitter users expressed overwhelmingly negative sentiment towards the CCSS in all 50 states. Five topic clusters were detected by cluster analysis of the hashtag co-occurrence network. We also found that most of the opinion leaders were those who expressed negative sentiment …

Automated Text Data Mining Analysis Of Five Decades Of Educational Leadership Research Literature: Probabilistic Topic Modeling Of Eaq Articles From 1965 To 2014, Yinying Wang, Alex J. Bowers, David J. Fikis

Educational Policy Studies Faculty Publications

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to describe the underlying topics and the topic evolution in the 50-year history of educational leadership research literature.

Methods: We used automated text data mining with probabilistic latent topic models to examine the full text of the entire publication history of all 1,539 articles published in Educational Administration Quarterly from 1965 to 2014. Given the computationally intensive data analysis required by probabilistic topic models, relying on high performance computing, we used a 10-fold cross validation to estimate the model in which we categorized each article in each year into one of 19 …

U.S. State Education Agencies’ Use Of Twitter: Mission Accomplished?, Yinying Wang

Educational Policy Studies Faculty Publications

This study examined how Twitter was used by all U.S. state education agencies (SEAs) for public engagement in education. Drawing on the ecological model of communication, this study analyzed the latest 71,913 tweets from 40 SEAs that had official Twitter accounts. The results of correlation analysis indicate no significant relationship between the SEAs’ presence on Twitter and the SEAs’ targeted Twitter users, denoting that the SEAs’ well-intentioned efforts in communicating with stakeholders and the public by using Twitter might fall short of the public’s preferable medium for receiving information. In addition, the results of content analysis suggest that the SEAs …

Mapping The Field Of Educational Administration Research: A Journal Citation Network Analysis, Yinying Wang, Alex J. Bowers

Educational Policy Studies Faculty Publications

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to uncover how knowledge is exchanged and disseminated in the educational administration research literature through the journal citation network.

Research Methods: Drawing upon social network theory and citation network studies in other disciplines, we constructed an educational administration journal citation network by extracting all 157,372 citations from 5,359 journal articles in 30 educational administration journals from 2009 to 2013. We then performed social network analysis to visualize the network structure by journal clusters, and quantified journal prominence and interdisciplinarity by calculating Freeman indegree and betweenness, respectively. In addition to journal-to-journal citations, we examined …

A Social Network Approach To Examine K-12 Educational Leaders’ Influence On Information Diffusion On Twitter, Yinying Wang, Nicholas Sauers, Jayson W. Richardson

Educational Policy Studies Faculty Publications

This study investigated the relationship between the leader’s gender, leadership position, Twitter use, and influence on information diffusion in the communication network on Twitter. We collected the 30,200 latest tweets of 151 active Twitter users who held educational leadership positions. Results of social network analysis and multiple regression analyses suggest a gender inequality in the leader’s influence on information diffusion in the network. Findings also indicate no significant relationship between leadership position (district vs. building) and a leader's influence in the network. Moreover, Twitter following was positively associated with the leader’s influence in the network, whereas the number of followers, …

Getting Personal! Twitter Communication Between School Districts, Superintendents, And The Public, Yinying Wang

Educational Policy Studies Faculty Publications

The purpose of this study is to examine the Twitter communication between school districts, superintendents, and the public. Content analysis of the tweets posted by the 100 largest U.S. school districts and those district superintendents was performed to investigate how the districts and the superintendents communicated with the public on Twitter. Next, paired sample f-tests were performed to compare the differences between public sentiment toward the districts and the superintendents. The findings suggest that the districts and their superintendents primarily used Twitter for one-way information broadcasting, leaving Twitter’s two-way communication functionality largely untapped. Further, the public expressed significantly less negative …

My Country Tis’ Of Thee: Exploring The Relationship Between Immigrant Students’ Feelings Of Belonging And Their Political Socialization, Kristina Brezicha

Educational Policy Studies Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Focus And Delivery Of Doctoral Programs In Educational Leadership, Kathleen Topolka-Jorissen

Educational Policy Studies Faculty Publications

The purpose of this study was to present the current status of program focus and delivery of doctoral level educational leadership programs in the United States. Drawing on a 2011 national survey of educational leadership doctoral programs in 103 institutions, this study describes the differences and similarities of Ed.D. and Ph.D. programs in two domains—program focus (i.e., purposes, credit requirements, and curriculum emphases) and program delivery (i.e., use of cohort model, time, location, and online/face-to-face/hybrid). In light of mixed findings, implications for practice and recommendations for further research are presented.