Exercising a bounded autonomy: novice and experienced teachers’ adaptations to curriculum materials in an age of accountability

AbstractThis study explores teachers' first enactments of a set of theory-based curriculum materials designed to support academic language instruction. Specifically, this multiple case study looks at how six middle school English teachers in three US schools adapted the materials; each case includes a pair of teachers, one novice and one more experienced. All schools were located in the same district where a school performance measurement system was being used to publicly rank schools' academic performance and growth. Multiple measures were used to look for evidence of adaptations and why teachers made adaptations. We found that all teachers adapted the curriculum, most often in response to either perceived student needs or district reform pressures. In two cases, patterns of adaptation differed by teacher experience; experienced teachers appeared better able to adapt curriculum materials to meet instructional goals. This pattern did not hold up at the third school, where teachers faced greater reform pressures. Taken together, these findings suggest that researchers should pay more attention to the role of school and district policy on teachers' enactments of theory-based reforms. We conclude with guidance to researchers, instructional leaders and others interested in the potential of theory-based curricula as a lever for improving classroom instruction.Keywords: Curriculum adaptationaccountability policybeginning teacherslanguage artseducational environment AcknowledgementsThe authors would like to thank Carol Barry, Teresa Walter, Jennifer Cheatham, Andrea Anushko, Taralynn Kantor, Amy Griffiths and Phoebe Sloane for their instrumental roles in carrying out the overall study. The authors thank Heather Hill, Susan Moore Johnson and members of the Language Diversity and Literacy Development Research Group for their thoughtful comments on earlier drafts of this manuscript. We are also grateful to the participating students and teachers.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.FundingThis research was supported by a grant from the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education [grant number R305A080631] and a William T. Grant Foundation Scholars Award, both awarded to Nonie K. Lesaux.Notes1. Names are pseudonyms. Novice teachers' names begin with 'N'. Experienced teachers' names begin with 'E'.2. Schools were classified based on the criteria set by the National Center for Education Statistics (Aud et al., Citation2010), where high-poverty schools have 75–100% students receiving FRPL; moderate-poverty schools have 45–74% FRPL; and low-poverty school have less than 45% FRPL.