Thinking Ecologically in Educational Policy and Research

This book places a focus on educational ecosystems – that is, understanding the complex nature of educational experiences and promoting a coordinated set of policy and practice solutions to address interrelated problems that manifest in school and student outcomes.

Educational policy and politics have been dominated by school improvement initiatives that locate educational problems and solutions in schools themselves, rather than in the systemic and structural roots of those problems: segregation, poverty, and histories of compounding inequality. Youth outcomes that we associate with schools (e.g., achievement, attendance, graduation) are the consequences of systemic structural and environmental factors that interact with the lived experiences of students in their communities and schools. This insightful volume provides examples of how to understand and analyse educational issues ecologically and evidence on the opportunities and challenges with forging cross-sector partnerships to address educational issues ecologically.

Thinking Ecologically in Educational Policy and Research will be a key resource for practitioners and researchers of education leadership and policy, educational administration, educational research, educational studies and sociology. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Peabody Journal of Education.

Sarah Winchell Lenhoff, Ph.D., is the Leonard Kaplan Endowed Professor and Associate Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at Wayne State University, USA. She is the director of the Detroit Partnership for Education Equity & Research.

Jeremy Singer, Ph.D., is a postdoctoral research associate with the Education Policy Innovation Collaborative at Michigan State University, USA, and a research affiliate of the Detroit Partnership for Education Equity & Research. He formerly taught in the Detroit Public Schools.

Michael Gottfried, Ph.D., is Professor in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania, USA. His research focuses on education policy and the economics of education.