Shaping Teacher Sensemaking: School Leaders and the Enactment of Reading Policy

TLDR

Research has highlighted how teachers adapt and transform policy in classrooms, yet the role of school leaders in this process has received little attention. This article investigates how principals in two California elementary schools influenced teacher learning about and enactment of changing reading policy. The authors employ sociological sensemaking theories to analyze principals’ influence on teacher learning. Principals shape teachers’ enactment by providing policy ideas, engaging in interpretation and adaptation, and creating distinct learning conditions.

Abstract

A growing body of research has emphasized the social processes by which teachers adapt and transform policy as they enact it in their classrooms. Yet little attention has been paid to the role of school leaders in this process. Drawing on sociological theories of sensemaking, this article investigates how principals in two California elementary schools influenced teacher learning about and enactment of changing reading policy. It argues that principals influence teachers’ enactment by shaping access to policy ideas, participating in the social process of interpretation and adaptation, and creating substantively different conditions for teacher learning in schools. These actions, in turn, are influenced by principals’ understandings about reading instruction and teacher learning.