Sandra Mathison | University of British Columbia (original) (raw)

Books by Sandra Mathison

Defending Public Schools addresses the historical, current, and future context of public educatio... more Defending Public Schools addresses the historical, current, and future context of public education in the United States. While the essays provide an overview of education and schooling issues, the overarching concern is that public schools are under attack and deserve to be defended. Since 80% of America's student-aged population attend public schools, a fair and balanced look at a school system that has educated and continues to educate a population that is diverse in every way possible, is sorely needed. It can be said that a national school system has never had to educate so many young people through secondary school with mastery of so much information. While no one rejects the necessity of school reform to meet contemporary needs, the question of how to achieve the greatest good for the greatest numbers remains for thousand of schools across the nation. Defending Public Schools is a practical, necessary addition to the work of administrators, teachers, policy makers, and parents as they negotiate the difficult path of how to best teach and educate today's children and youth.

"This highly acclaimed volume in the Defending Public Schools series is now available in paperbac... more "This highly acclaimed volume in the Defending Public Schools series is now available in paperback from Teachers College Press.

Educational standards and assessment practices are the engine driving the historic changes public schools are experiencing today. This dynamic collection of essays presents an overview of the origins and development of standards-based educational reform (SBER) and assessment; a description of SBER’s essential elements; and a critical analysis of the means and ends of what is perhaps the most important reform effort U.S. schools have ever experienced.

Contents and Contributors
The Nature and Limits of Standards-Based Reform and Assessment, Sandra Mathison and E. Wayne Ross • Part I: History, Context, and the Future of Educational Standards and Assessment • A Short History of Educational Assessment and Standards-Based Educational Reform, Sandra Mathison • Standards-Based Education: Two Wrongs Don’t Make a Right, W. James Popham • The Costs of Overemphasizing Achievement, Alfie Kohn • International Comparisons: Worth the Cost?, Gerald W. Bracey • Assessment, Accountability, and the Impossible Dream, Linda Mabry • Authentic Accountability: An Alternative to High-Stakes Testing, Ken Jones • Evaluation of Schools and Education: Bad Practice, Limited Knowledge, Sandra Mathison and Marco A. Muñoz • Part II: Perspectives on Standards and Assessment • Teachers Working with Standards and State Testing, Sandra Mathison and Melissa Freeman • “Parental Involvement”: In Defense of What Kind of Vision for “Public” School? Melissa Freeman • Leaving No Child Left Behind: Accountability Reform and Students with Disabilities, Margaret J. McLaughlin and Katherine M. Nagle • The Accumulation of Disadvantage: The Consequences of Testing for Poor and Minority Children, Sandra Mathison • Educational Leaders and Assessment-Based Reform, William A. Firestone • The Mismeasure and Abuse of Our Children: Why School Officials Must Resist State and National Standardized Testing Reforms, William C. Cala
"

"[Winner of the 2010 “Critics Choice Award” from the American Educational Studies Association] ... more "[Winner of the 2010 “Critics Choice Award” from the American Educational Studies Association]

"No topic sparks an argument faster among the American public, even with relatively apolitical people, than how their children are taught. In schools across the country, school boards, parents, teachers, and students themselves debate issues ranging from charter schools, to the first amendment rights of students, to the efficacy of the No Child Left Behind Act. School districts in Georgia and Pennsylvania have seen battles over the teaching of evolution; places as diverse as Colorado, Washington, and Kentucky have had debates over how best to protect children while at school. Battleground: Schools provides an in-depth, balanced overview of these controversial topics and enables teachers, students, and their parents to better understand the foundations of these conflicts. Battleground: Schools cover the 100 most relevant conflicts involving education issues today. A sample of the debates analyzed:

* Charter schools
* Distance education
* Home schooling
* Students' Rights
* Military in Schools
* Religion and public schools
* Single-sex schooling"""

This issue of New Directions for Evaluation showcases the topics and issues on the minds of evalu... more This issue of New Directions for Evaluation showcases the topics and issues on the minds of evaluators just beginning their careers. Short and provocative, the chapters cover a wide range of topics. This issue celebrates the 25th anniversary of the American Evaluation Association, for which NDE is a house journal.

This book is meant to describe and show how researchers can do research with children and youth f... more This book is meant to describe and show how researchers can do research with children and youth from a social constructivist perspective. The book emphasizes the theory and practice of eliciting and understanding children's lived experiences, a reality of importance to children. This book is not a simple recipe for doing research, but provides a well-grounded rationale for research with children.

Winner of the 2010 “Critics Choice Award” from the American Educational Studies Association "N... more Winner of the 2010 “Critics Choice Award” from the American Educational Studies Association

"Defending Public Schools addresses the historical, current, and future context of public schools... more "Defending Public Schools addresses the historical, current, and future context of public schools in the United States. While the essays provide an overview of education and schooling issues, the overarching concern is that public schools are under attack and deserve to be defended.

Since 80 percent of America's student-aged population attend public schools, a fair and balanced look at a school system that has educated and continues to educate a population that is diverse in every way possible, is sorely needed. It can be said that a national school system has never had to educate so many young people through secondary school with mastery of so much information. While no one rejects the necessity of school reform to meet contemporary needs, the question of how to achieve the greatest good for the greatest numbers remains for thousand of schools across the nation. Defending Public Schools is a practical, necessary addition to the work of administrators, teachers, policy makers, and parents as they negotiate the difficult path of how to best teach and educate today's children and youth."

Book Chapters by Sandra Mathison

NOTE: This is a prepublication version of the following chapter: Mathison, S. (2007) What is the ... more NOTE: This is a prepublication version of the following chapter:
Mathison, S. (2007) What is the difference between evaluation and research? And why do we care? In N. L. Smith & P. Brandon (Eds.). Fundamental issues in evaluation. New York: Guilford Publishers.

La Revista Latinoamericana de Estudios Educativos

Social studies have a contentious history as a school subject and this article begins with an ove... more Social studies have a contentious history as a school subject and this article begins with an overview of the historically competing viewpoints on the nature and purposes of social studies education in the North American context. Next, we provide a critical examination of recent educational reforms in the USA (No Child Left Behind and Common Core State Standards), which use high-stakes testing as a tool for standardizing the social studies curriculum and teaching methods. The final section of the article examines both the significant levels of resistance to high-stakes testing and curriculum standardization by students, teachers, and the public and the question of whether social studies education will promote citizenship that is adaptive to the status quo or the reconstruction society in more equitable and socially just ways.

Los estudios sociales tienen una historia contenciosa como asignatura escolar y este artículo comienza con una visión general de los puntos de vista que históricamente compiten sobre la naturaleza y fines de la educación de estudios sociales en el contexto de América del Norte. A continuación, se ofrece un examen crítico de las reformas educativas recientes en los EE.UU. (Ningún Niño se Queda Atrás y los Estándares Estatales Comunes), que utilizan las pruebas de alta exigencia como una herramienta para estandarizar el currículo de estudios sociales y los métodos de enseñanza. La sección final del artículo examimna tanto los niveles significativos de resistencia de los estudiantes, profesores y el público a las pruebas de alta exigencia y a la estandarización del currículo y la pregunta de si la educación en estudios sociales promoverá ciudadanía adaptable al status quo o a la reconstrucción de la sociedad en formas mas equitativas y socialmente más justas.

a brief description of what evaluative inquiry is, including an example

Sage Encyclopedia of Action Research, 2014

a brief overview of participatory evaluation

Within the discipline and practice of evaluation there is confusion about how precisely research ... more Within the discipline and practice of evaluation there is confusion about how precisely research and evaluation are different. Add the adjective "feminist" to both and the confusion may be amplified. This chapter discusses the similarities and differences between research and evaluation generally, and concludes by introducing the core ideas of feminist research and evaluation.

Battleground Schools, 2008

Understanding Teacher Stress in an Age of Accountability

In a naturalistic study exploring the impact of outcome-based accountability on teaching and asse... more In a naturalistic study exploring the impact of outcome-based accountability on teaching and assessment practices in 3 school districts, teachers identify increased stress as a prime effect. The teachers’ experiences and their perspectives on stress are analyzed as being the result of transactions between themselves and the workplace environment. This chapter identifies and outlines some of the changes made to the workplace and to the nature of teachers’ work brought about as a result of a high stakes accountability environment.

* Charter schools
* Distance education
* Home schooling
* Students' Rights
* Military in Schools
* Religion and public schools
* Single-sex schooling"""

La Revista Latinoamericana de Estudios Educativos

a brief description of what evaluative inquiry is, including an example

Sage Encyclopedia of Action Research, 2014

a brief overview of participatory evaluation

Battleground Schools, 2008

Understanding Teacher Stress in an Age of Accountability

In this chapter, I argue that globalism, and neoliberalism particularly, is a primary influence ... more In this chapter, I argue that globalism, and
neoliberalism particularly, is a primary influence
on conceptualizations of schooling and education;
as a consequence, it influences what we consider
to be quality schooling and education,
including themeans we employ to discern quality
in education.

As for a picture, if it isn’t worth a thousand words, to hell with it. ... more As for a picture, if it isn’t worth a thousand words, to hell with it.
—Ad Rheinhardt, minimalist American painter

This encyclopedia entry gives a basic overview of evaluation principles and concepts.

The convergence of the casualization, fragmentation, intensification, segmentation, shifting and ... more The convergence of the casualization, fragmentation, intensification, segmentation, shifting and creep of academic work with the post-9/11 gentrificaton of criticism and dissent is a serious threat to academic freedom. Academic stress— manifested as burnout through amalgamation and creep of work, and as distress through bullying, mobbing and victimization— underwrites increases in leaves of absence. Non-tenure track faculty are hit particularly hard, indicating “contingency or the precariousness of their position” as relentless stressors. This is not exactly a SWOT analysis, where Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats are given due treatment. Rather, the focus is on this threat convergence as it resolves through historic displacements of the academic workplace and work. To what degree are the new policies for academic speech inscribed in academic work, regardless of where it’s done? As the academic workplace is increasingly displaced and distributed, are academic policies displaced and distributed as well? Observed at work, monitored at home and tracked in between—these are not so much choices as the cold reality of 21st century academic work.

The convergence of the casualization, fragmentation, intensification, segmentation, shifting and ... more The convergence of the casualization, fragmentation, intensification, segmentation, shifting and creep of academic work with the post-9/11 gentrificaton of criticism and dissent is arguably one of the greatest threats to academic freedom since the Nazi elimination of the Jewish professoriate and critique in 1933, Bantu Education Act’s reinforcement of apartheid in South Africa in 1952, and McCarthyism in Canada and the US in the 1950s and 1960s.1 In the history of education, this would be quite the claim yet the evidence seems to speak for itself. Academic work has been fragmented into piecemeal modes and intensified as academics absorbed, through amalgamation, traditional clerical staff and counseling work. The balance of the academic workforce has been reduced and casualized or segmented to an “at whim,” insecure, unsalaried part-time labor pool, the 8-hour workday and 40-hour academic workweek collapsed to 60-80 hours, and the primary locus of academic work shifted off-campus as the workplace crept into the home and its communal establishments. Academic stress— manifested as burnout through amalgamation and creep of work, and as distress through bullying, mobbing and victimization— underwrites increases in leaves of absence. Non-tenure track faculty are hit particularly...

Cultural Studies <=> Critical Methodologies, 2006

In four dialogic acts, we bring to life the questions, concerns, and understandings parents have ... more In four dialogic acts, we bring to life the questions, concerns, and understandings parents have of the impact state testing has on their children's educational experience. These acts represent areas of struggle for parents as they make sense of the new accountability discourse. They can be thought of as a performed critique of this discourse.

There are frequent reports of the challenges to teacher professionalism associated with high sta... more There are frequent reports of the challenges to teacher
professionalism associated with high stakes and mandated
testing (McNeil, 2000). So, we were not surprised in this
year-long study of two elementary schools in upstate New
York to hear teachers talk about the many ways the 4th
grade tests in English Language Arts, Mathematics and
Science undermine their ability to do their jobs with
integrity. We came to understand in more nuanced ways
the ongoing tension created by teachers' desires to be
professionals, to act with integrity, and at the same time to
give every child a chance to succeed. What we found in
these schools is that the high stakes tests continually
forced teachers to act in ways they did not think were
professional and often resulted in creating instructional
environments that teachers did not think were conducive to
student success.

Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor, 2002

New Directions for Evaluation, 1999

Internal and external evaluators experience the same ethical dilemmas, and both work toward resol... more Internal and external evaluators experience the same ethical dilemmas, and both work toward resolving them in principled, justified ways. The different communities they occupy, however, affect how they are likely to resolve their ethical dilemmas.

Mathison, S. & Freeman, M. (1997). The Logic of Interdisciplinary Studies, 1997

The purpose of this paper is to describe the arguments, including justifications and reasoning, m... more The purpose of this paper is to describe the arguments, including justifications and reasoning, made for using interdisciplinary approaches in school curriculum. Specifically, what are the historical antecedents that inform discussions of interdisciplinary studies? How are interdisciplinary studies organized? Are there differences across content areas? What general assumptions about teaching and learning are made? And how are interdisciplinary studies presumed to improve upon traditional approaches to school curriculum? This review does not examine the empirical evidence about whether or not interdisciplinary studies 'work.' There is precious little research of this sort, and the focus here is on frameworks, justifications, and reasons that may be built in part on empirical evidence but also on assumptions about teaching and learning that may not be easily, if at all, reduced to empirical facts.

Curriculum & Teaching, 1992

Educational Researcher, 1989

The authors examine inferences made by a beginning teacher and illustrate that traditional notion... more The authors examine inferences made by a beginning teacher and illustrate that traditional notions of validity as presented by Cron- bach and Cook and Campbell are inadequate forjudging their valid- ity. These traditional notions of ...

This article discusses triangulation as a strategy for increasing the validity of evaluation and ... more This article discusses triangulation as a strategy for increasing the validity of evaluation and research findings. Typically, through triangulating we expect various data sources and methods to lead to a singular proposition about the phenomenon being studied. That this is not the case is obvious to most researchers and evaluators. Given that this expectation is unrealistic, an alternative perspective of triangulation is presented. This alternative perspective takes into account that triangulation results in convergent, inconsistent, and contradictory evidence that must be rendered sensible by the researcher or evaluator.

This is a keynote address to the British Columbia Library Association meeting in Richmond BC, May... more This is a keynote address to the British Columbia Library Association meeting in Richmond BC, May 2018.

If evaluation is to make a positive contribution to the social, physical and environmental world ... more If evaluation is to make a positive contribution to the social, physical and environmental world we need to analyze our theory and practice from a sociological perspective. Dominant socio-political ideologies shape how evaluation is conceptualized, the methods and models used, how and by whom it is funded, and its efficacy in promoting positive social change. Most evaluation occurs in a micro context, a legacy of evaluation practice that serves other disciplines, decision-makers, policy-makers, funding agencies, and beneficiaries. Evaluation practice is local (even when the context is geographically vast) and mostly responsive to particular concerns about programmatic effectiveness.

Evaluators, while continuing to work within programmatic frames, should investigate the frames themselves. We must ask how these frames establish taken-for-granted forms of problem definition, solutions, and indicators of success. These frames are embedded within ideologies that structure human relations and social practices beyond, but including, evaluation.

I will trace the evolution of evaluation theory and practice as influenced by global ideologies from early progressivism (characterized by public funding for much program evaluation) to a possibly waning neo-liberalism (characterized by increased funding by philanthropists, NGOs and entrepreneurs) to a surging populism, and reflect on evaluation’s contribution to the public good through these changes.

While perhaps an uncomfortable consideration, we need to ask whether evaluation as framed by these dominant socio-political ideologies contributes to the public good, whether it contributes to positive change. By most accounts, evaluators’ work isn’t contributing enough to poverty-reduction, human rights, and access to food, water, education and health care. We need also to consider whether formal evaluation practice may be getting in the way of and hindering social change. I will conclude with some tentative thoughts about what we (evaluators, funders, and users of program evaluation) might do to make a positive contribution to the public good through evaluation.

This powerpoint outlines what open access is, provides links to sources to check how open access ... more This powerpoint outlines what open access is, provides links to sources to check how open access journals are, and what to look for to identify scams.

Invited Address BC Counsellors Association, 2012

The complex role of school counsellors and ways in which counsellors can participate in promoting... more The complex role of school counsellors and ways in which counsellors can participate in promoting democratic education are explored.

This is a transcript of the following panel session at the American Evaluation Association/Canadi... more This is a transcript of the following panel session at the American Evaluation Association/Canadian Evaluation Society annual meetings.

Thursday, October 27, 2005 9:25 AM to 10:55 AM
Chair: Melvin Hall
Panelists: Chris Calabrese, Paul Copeland, Sandra Mathison, Robin Miller
Discussant: Pauline Brooks

This unpacks the divorce/marriage metaphor often used in the current labor dispute between the pr... more This unpacks the divorce/marriage metaphor often used in the current labor dispute between the provincial government of British Columbia and the teacher union.

Some suggestions, hints, thoughts and info if you are interested in blogging.

Using Paul Feyerabend's notion of epistemological anarchism within evaluation theory and practice.

The Courier-Journal (Louisville, KY) / Z Magazine, Jan 2, 2002

Critical Education is an international, open access, peer-reviewed journal, which that publishes ... more Critical Education is an international, open access, peer-reviewed journal, which that publishes articles critically examining contemporary education contexts and practices. Critical Education is interested in theoretical and empirical research as well as articles that advance educational practices that challenge the existing state of affairs in society, schools, and informal education.

Public Resistance, May 1, 2005

The debate on the effects of state-mandated testing as a means to reduce the achievement gap has ... more The debate on the effects of state-mandated testing as a means to reduce the achievement gap has generally overlooked the experience of those most affected by accountability practices— students. This study examines the experiences of 4th grade urban and suburban students with high stakes tests in New York State. We found that students’ experiences with testing are shaped by a complex interplay of interpersonal and organizational conditions, some of which are different for urban and suburban students, some of which are the same. This paper considers the way state-mandated testing and the school’s organizational context, itself altered by testing, shape students’ perceptions of teaching and learning. We conclude that a focus on outcomes may reinforce rather than transform school practices that contribute to inequalities between students from suburban, wealthy, white and urban, poor, minority school districts.

"Critical Education is an international, open access, peer-reviewed journal, which that publishes... more "Critical Education is an international, open access, peer-reviewed journal, which that publishes articles critically examining contemporary education contexts and practices. Critical Education is interested in theoretical and empirical research as well as articles that advance educational practices that challenge the existing state of affairs in society, schools, and informal education.
http://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/criticaled

If public schools are to realize their democratizing potential, progressive activists must organi... more If public schools are to realize their democratizing potential, progressive activists must organize and act on an agenda that counters the neo-liberal view of education that currently dominates. We want to believe that public schools serve us, the public, “We, the people.” We want to believe that schools strengthen our democracy, our ability to meaningfully participate in the decision-making processes that impact our communities and our lives. Educational resources need to be directed towards increasing people’s awareness of the relevant facts about their lives, and to increase people’s abilities to act upon these facts in their own true interests. For the past twenty years significant efforts have been made to establish a statist view of schools that treats teachers as mere appendages to the machinery of the state and seeks to hold them accountable to serving the interests of state and corporate power. Linked as it is to the interests of private wealth, this view defines children’s value in life as human resources and future consumers. In order to combat this movement, progressive media outlets must begin doing more to alert the public to the disastrous consequences it holds for our schools, our children, and our democracy.

The Vancouver Sun, Apr 4, 2005

The Washington Post's recent mea culpa over its participation in the broader media's comp... more The Washington Post's recent mea culpa over its participation in the broader media's complicity in the Bush administration's reckless revival of naked imperialism in Iraq belies the fact that investigative journalism in the mainstream press died in the 1970s. The corporatization of the media that reduced reporting to regurgitating the official statements of politicians and their trained handlers, of course, began much earlier. While Robert Greenwald's Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism re-veals the extremes to which private and state power will go in colluding to control the public mind, many of us on the left have always been aware of the corporate media's propaganda role in advanc-ing the interests of the state and private power. That elements of the broader public have grown more sensitized to these issues should not surprise us, given just how brazenly and consistently the Bush administration has lied. Even after Bush de-clared mission accomplis...

Critical Education, Jan 1, 2012

Cultural Studies↔ Critical …, Jan 1, 2006

New Directions for Evaluation, 1999

Much of the evaluation of technology focuses on outcomes and favors data collec~ion strategies su... more Much of the evaluation of technology focuses on outcomes and favors data collec~ion strategies such as surveys, standardized student achievement measures, and attitude measures (see, for example, Baker, Gearhart, and Herman, 1994; Kulik, 1994; Mitra and Hullett, 1997). ...

Cultural Studies <=> Critical Methodologies, 2006

American Journal of Evaluation, 1998

EJ572787 - Advantages and Challenges of Using Inclusive Evaluation Approaches in Evaluation Pract... more EJ572787 - Advantages and Challenges of Using Inclusive Evaluation Approaches in Evaluation Practice.

Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor, 2014

What is the current crossroad for critical university studies? First, we need to act on the econo... more What is the current crossroad for critical university studies? First, we need to act on the economic imperative of faculty alliances with a radically charged student movement in response to a decimated job market, incapacitating debt burdens, and contraction of the professoriate. Second, we need to act on the ethical imperative of alliances with class and race based grassroots social movements including Occupy and Idle No More (INM). Third, we need to act on the legal imperative of alliances across the left and right in the throes of aggressive suppression of academic freedom downplayed by administrators exaggerating a civility crisis and exercising investigative powers through new respectful workplace policies. Fourth, we need to act on the political imperative of making critical university studies by remaking the critical and the university.