Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

National initiatives to expand the aggregate science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) workforce reflect America’s goals to increase global competitiveness. However, the aggregation of STEM stakeholders may elicit a diffusion of responsibility because individuals assume others are already acting. Here, we perform a longitudinal case study of U.S. public school chemistry teachers to illustrate a diffusion of responsibility within the STEM community regarding who is responsible for the teacher workforce. Utilizing the 1987–2007 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) data, we determine how chemistry teacher demographics compare to other disciplines. Our results suggest that the aggregate success of STEM education initiatives may mask the need for discipline-specific reform. We describe reforms in the context of boundary objects and discuss implications for policy decisions as boundary crossings.

Keywords

case studies demography educational policy high schools longitudinal studies minorities race science education secondary data analysis statistics survey research teacher characteristics

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Akkerman

S. F.

Bakker

(2011). Boundary crossing and boundary objects. Review of Educational Research, 81, 132–169. doi:10.3102/0034654311404435

Andersson

S. B.

(2008). Conditions for boundary crossing: Social practices of newly qualified Swedish teachers. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 52, 643–660.

Aritomi

Coopersmith

(2009). Characteristics of public school districts in the United States: Results from the 2007–08 Schools and Staffing Survey. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Institute of Education Sciences.

Balaban

A. T.

Klein

D. J.

(2006). Is chemistry “the central science”? How are different sciences related? Co-citations, reductionism, emergence, and posets. Scientometrics, 69, 615–637. doi:10.1007/s11192-006-0173-2

Banyard

V. L.

Plante

E. G.

Moynihan

M. M.

(2004). Bystander education: Bringing a broader community perspective to sexual violence prevention. Journal of Community Psychology, 32, 61–79. doi:10.1002/jcop.10078

Carnevale

A. P.

Smith

Melton

(2011). STEM: Science technology engineering mathematics. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce.

Clark

R. J.

(1990). Extending the boundaries of teacher education through corporate internships. Journal of Teacher Education, 41, 71–76.

Clotfelter

C. T.

Ladd

H. F.

Vigdor

J. L.

(2010). Teacher credentials and student achievement in high school. Journal of Human Resources, 45, 655–681.

Darley

J. M.

Latane

(1968). Bystander intervention in emergencies: Diffusion of responsibility. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 8, 377–383. doi:10.1037/h0025589

10.

Dippo

C. S.

Fay

R. E.

Morganstein

D. H.

(1984). Computing variances from complex samples with replicate weights. In American Statistical Association Proceedings of the Section on Survey Research Methods (pp. 489–494). Alexandria, VA: American Statistical Association.

11.

Duschl

R. A.

(2012). The second dimension: Crosscutting concepts. Understanding a framework for K–12 science education. Science Teacher, 2, 34–38.

12.

Engeström

Kärkkäinen

(1997). The emerging horizontal dimension of practical intelligence: Polycontextuality and boundary crossing in complex work activities. In Sternberg

R. J.

Grigorenko

E. L.

(Eds.), Intelligence, heredity, and environment. (pp. 440–462). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

13.

Gilbert

(2011). Models-based science teaching: Understanding and using mental models. Arlington, VA: NSTA Press.

14.

Goldhaber

Brewer

(1997). Evaluating the effect of teacher degree level on educational performance (Tech. Rep. NCES 97–535). In Fowler

(Ed.), Developments in school finance, 1996 (pp. 199–208). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Educational Statistics.

15.

Goldhaber

Brewer

(1999). Teacher licensing and student achievement. In Kanstoroom

Finn

C. E.

(Eds.), Better teachers, better schools (pp. 83–102). Washington, DC: Thomas B. Fordham Foundation.

16.

Goldhaber

Brewer

(2000). Does teacher certification matter? High school teacher certification status and student achievement. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 22, 129–145.

17.

Guerin

(2011). Diffusion of responsibility. In The encyclopedia of peace psychology (pp. 336–340). Chichester, UK: Blackwell.

18.

Henry

G. T.

Fortner

C. K.

Bastian

K. C.

(2012). The effects of experience and attrition for novice high-school science and mathematics teachers. Science, 335, 1118–1121.

19.

Hill

J. G.

(2011). Education and certification qualifications of departmentalized public high school-level teachers of core subjects: Evidence from the 2007–08 Schools and Staffing Survey (Tech. Rep. NCES 2011-317). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics.

20.

Hobbs

(2013). Teaching “out-of-field” as a boundary-crossing event: Factors shaping teacher identity. International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 11, 271–297. doi:10.1007/s10763-012-9333-4

21.

Ingersoll

R. M.

(2002). Out-of-field teaching, educational inequality, and the organization of schools: An exploratory analysis. Seattle: Center for the Study of Teaching and Policy, University of Washington.

22.

Ingersoll

R. M.

(2003). Out-of-field teaching and the limits of teacher policy. Seattle: Center for the Study of Teaching and Policy, University of Washington.

23.

Ingersoll

R. M.

Gruber

(1996). Out-of-field teaching and educational equality. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics.

24.

Ingersoll

R. M.

Merrill

(2010). Who’s teaching our children? Educational Leadership, 67(8), 14–20.

25.

Ingersoll

R. M.

Perda

(2010). Is the supply of mathematics and science teachers sufficient? American Educational Research Journal, 47, 563–594. doi:10.3102/0002831210370711

26.

Kaufman

Huang

(1993). 1990–91 Schools and Staffing Survey: Sample design and estimation (Tech. Rep. NCES 93-449). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement, National Center for Education Statistics.

27.

Lamont

Molnár

(2002). The study of boundaries in the social sciences. Annual Review of Sociology, 28, 167–195.

28.

Lander

E. S.

Gates

S. J.

Jr. (2010). Prepare and inspire. Science, 330, 151–151.

29.

Monk

D. H.

(1994). Subject area preparation of secondary mathematics and science teachers and student achievement. Economics of Education Review, 13, 125–145. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0272-7757(94)90003-5

30.

Morton

B. A.

Peltola

Hurwitz

M. D.

Orlofsky

G. F.

Strizek

G. A.

(2008). Education and certification qualifications of departmentalized public high school-level teachers of core subjects: Evidence from the 2003–04 Schools and Staffing Survey (NCES 2008-338). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics.

31.

Mullenix

L. S.

(2013). Aggregate litigation and the death of democratic dispute resolution. Northwestern University Law Review, 107, 511–564.

32.

National Research Council. (2005). Rising above the gathering storm: Energizing and employing America for a brighter economic future. Washington, DC: Author.

33.

National Research Council. (2010). Rising above the gathering storm, revisited: Rapidly approaching Category 5. Washington, DC: Author.

34.

National Research Council. (2013). Next Generation Science Standards: For states, by states (Vol. 1). Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

35.

National Research Council. (2014). STEM integration in K–12 education: Status, prospects, and an agenda for research. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

36.

National Science Board. (2012). Science and engineering indicators 2012. Arlington, VA: National Science Foundation.

37.

SASS questionnaires. (2013). Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/sass/question0708.asp

38.

Schools and Staffing Survey. (2013). Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/sass

39.

Star

S. L.

Griesemer

J. R.

(1989). Institutional ecology, “translations” and boundary objects: Amateurs and professionals in Berkeley’s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 1907–39. Social Studies of Science, 19, 387–420.

40.

U.S. Census. (2010). Race alone or in combination and Hispanic or Latino: 2010. Retrieved from http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=DEC_10_SF1_QTP6&prodType=table

41.

Williams

(2010). Constructing a new professional identity: Career change into teaching. Teaching and Teacher Education, 26, 639–647.

42.

Zhao

(2006). Are we fixing the wrong things? Educational Leadership, 63(8), 28–31.

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

1.27 MB

Stemming the Diffusion of Responsibility

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References

Supplementary Material