Collective sense-making about reading: How teachers mediate reading policy in their professional communities. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis

Recent research on the relationship benveen instructional policy and classroom practice suggests that teachers interpret, adapt, anlCd even transform policies as they put them itito place. This paper extends this line of research. using at in-depth case study of one California elementaty school to examine the processes by which teachers coonstruct and reconstruct multiple policy messages about reeading in-struction ini the context of their prqtessional commtnunities. Drawing primarily on institutional and sensemaking theory, this paper puts forth a mocdel of collective sensermaking that focuses on the ways teachers co-construct understandings of policy messages, make decisions aboiut which messages to pursue in their classrooms, and negotiate the technical anzd practical details of implementation in con-versations with their colleagues. It also argues that the nature and structutre offormal networks and informnal alliances amnong teachers shape the process, with implications ftr ways in which messages from the poliey environment influence classroom practice. Finally, the paper explores the role school leaders play in shaping the sensemaking process. Studies of school refonn have often asked how a given reform impacted schools, or how teachers have implemented a particular policy. Yet some researchers have suggested that rather than policy influencing teachers ' practice, it is more likely that teachers shape policy. That is, teachers inter-pret, adapt, and even transform reforms as they put them into place (Cohen & Ball, 1990; Tyack & Cuban, 1995; Weatherley & Lipsky, 1977). As important as this insight is, there has been little systematic research into the processes by which such interpretations and adaptations occur. How-ever, a promising strand of research points to teachers ' professional communities as important sites for this meaning making, highlighting the ways in which local teacher communities can form powerful microcultures (Little & McLaaughlin