Policy, not Politics: An Examination of California ELA Teachers’ Text Selection Practices, Motivations, and Barriers

<a href="https://embed.stanford.edu/iframe/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpurl.stanford.edu%2Frc051pm6477" class="su-underline">Show Content</a>

Abstract/Contents

Abstract: Despite the increasing diversity of students in the United States and the varied benefits of diverse literature, the high school literary canon still primarily reflects the voices, values, and beliefs of dominant whiteness. This thesis interviews seven and surveys thirteen public high school English language arts teachers at a school district in Southern California in order to explore this phenomenon, and to answer the following questions: what book-length texts are being taught in the 2017-2018 academic year in these particular high school ELA classrooms, and how do they compare to the racial, ethnic, and gender diversity of texts in previous studies and surveys done on teacher text selection? What range of reasons do ELA teachers give behind keeping certain book-length texts in their curriculum? What do these teachers see as their barriers in bringing new texts into the classroom, and, conversely, what encouragement or support do they receive in bringing new texts into the classroom? What are the policies surrounding literary text selection in California high school ELA classrooms, and how do they translate into practice? This thesis examines the responses of these teachers through a qualitative, thematic lens, identifying four main barriers (time, money, comfort, and controversy) teachers confront when navigating the text selection process and providing recommendations to take steps towards a more diverse and inclusive high school literary canon.

Type of resource	text
Date created	2018

Author	Sepsey, Loralee Nicole
Primary advisor	Bromley, Patricia

Subject	California schools
Subject	high school
Subject	Graduate School of Education
Subject	undergraduate honors
Subject	high school teachers
Subject	ELA teachers
Subject	text selection
Subject	text diversity
Subject	diverse books
Subject	English
Subject	curriculum
Subject	teachers
Genre	Thesis

Location	https://purl.stanford.edu/rc051pm6477

Use and reproduction: User agrees that, where applicable, content will not be used to identify or to otherwise infringe the privacy or confidentiality rights of individuals. Content distributed via the Stanford Digital Repository may be subject to additional license and use restrictions applied by the depositor.
License: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (CC BY).

Preferred Citation: Sepsey, Loralee. (2018). Policy, not Politics: An Examination of California ELA Teachers’ Text Selection Practices, Motivations, and Barriers. Unpublished Honors Thesis. Stanford University, Stanford CA.

Undergraduate Honors Theses, Graduate School of Education

Loading usage metrics...