{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/24470"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/24470","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"The complexity of reform efforts in science curriculum and instruction: a case study of the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy chemistry teacher","abstract":"This study explores how teacher-initiated site-based reform in a specialized STEM school is conceptualized and enacted, how and why curriculum reform ideas change in the process of enactment, what qualities of teacher agency are entailed, how these qualities are acquired, interplayed, become generative, and/or are influenced to effect different curriculum reform outcomes, and how different conditions support and further teacher agency to make a more defensible curriculum. In a critical case study of a highly experienced and qualified science teacher, I follow a teacher who initiated efforts to reform the advanced chemistry curriculum. This teacher wanted to make the curriculum more inquiry-based and less like the Advanced Placement—a College Board curriculum and examination. I conducted a critical narrative inquiry into aspects of his teacher agency in this highly contested sociocultural and sociopolitical context before, during, and after one year of curriculum change. I tracked the process using interviews with the teacher, colleagues, students, a student’s parent, and school administrators, lesson observations, and artifacts such as curriculum materials and school brochures. By uncovering conflicts and contradictions in various actors’ standpoints, I analyze tensions and coping strategies with aspects of teacher agency simultaneously enabled and circumscribed by multiple factors and forces of this specialized STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) schooling structure. The teacher’s initial curriculum change ideas became moderated, adjusted, and mediated. The findings of this study may be insightful to educators and legislators interested in specialized schooling and teacher empowerment.","abstract_html":"This study explores how teacher-initiated site-based reform in a specialized STEM school is conceptualized and enacted, how and why curriculum reform ideas change in the process of enactment, what qualities of teacher agency are entailed, how these qualities are acquired, interplayed, become generative, and/or are influenced to effect different curriculum reform outcomes, and how different conditions support and further teacher agency to make a more defensible curriculum. In a critical case study of a highly experienced and qualified science teacher, I follow a teacher who initiated efforts to reform the advanced chemistry curriculum. This teacher wanted to make the curriculum more inquiry-based and less like the Advanced Placement—a College Board curriculum and examination. I conducted a critical narrative inquiry into aspects of his teacher agency in this highly contested sociocultural and sociopolitical context before, during, and after one year of curriculum change. I tracked the process using interviews with the teacher, colleagues, students, a student’s parent, and school administrators, lesson observations, and artifacts such as curriculum materials and school brochures. By uncovering conflicts and contradictions in various actors’ standpoints, I analyze tensions and coping strategies with aspects of teacher agency simultaneously enabled and circumscribed by multiple factors and forces of this specialized STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) schooling structure. The teacher’s initial curriculum change ideas became moderated, adjusted, and mediated. The findings of this study may be insightful to educators and legislators interested in specialized schooling and teacher empowerment.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Teo, Tang Wee"],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"Ph.D.","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":"Secondary & Continuing Educ","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Osborne, Margery","Westbury, Ian","Stake, Robert E.","Pillow, Wanda S."],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2011,"date_issued":"2011-05-25T14:27:44Z","date_published":"2011-05-25T14:27:44Z","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:25:23Z","subjects":["science curriculum reform","Science Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) school","case study","critical narrative inquiry","teacher agency and structure"],"languages":["en"],"rights":["Copyright 2011 Tang Wee Teo"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/2142/24470","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Osborne, Margery","Westbury, Ian","Stake, Robert E.","Pillow, Wanda S."]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Teo, Tang Wee"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2011-05-25T14:27:44Z","2013-05-26T10:00:18Z","2011-05"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Secondary & Continuing Educ"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Dissertation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Ph.D."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["science curriculum reform","Science Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) school","case study","critical narrative inquiry","teacher agency and structure"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["en"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Copyright 2011 Tang Wee Teo"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/24470"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["This study explores how teacher-initiated site-based reform in a specialized STEM school is conceptualized and enacted, how and why curriculum reform ideas change in the process of enactment, what qualities of teacher agency are entailed, how these qualities are acquired, interplayed, become generative, and/or are influenced to effect different curriculum reform outcomes, and how different conditions support and further teacher agency to make a more defensible curriculum. In a critical case study of a highly experienced and qualified science teacher, I follow a teacher who initiated efforts to reform the advanced chemistry curriculum. This teacher wanted to make the curriculum more inquiry-based and less like the Advanced Placement—a College Board curriculum and examination. I conducted a critical narrative inquiry into aspects of his teacher agency in this highly contested sociocultural and sociopolitical context before, during, and after one year of curriculum change. I tracked the process using interviews with the teacher, colleagues, students, a student’s parent, and school administrators, lesson observations, and artifacts such as curriculum materials and school brochures. By uncovering conflicts and contradictions in various actors’ standpoints, I analyze tensions and coping strategies with aspects of teacher agency simultaneously enabled and circumscribed by multiple factors and forces of this specialized STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) schooling structure. The teacher’s initial curriculum change ideas became moderated, adjusted, and mediated. The findings of this study may be insightful to educators and legislators interested in specialized schooling and teacher empowerment.","Item withdrawn by Mark Zulauf (zulauf@illinois.edu) on 2011-02-04T14:39:45Z Item was in collections: University of Illinois Theses & Dissertations (ID: 1) No. of bitstreams: 1 Teo_Tang Wee.pdf: 977708 bytes, checksum: 2cb9971f2dbc9549b41b925c4f05c4ee (MD5)","Made available in DSpace on 2011-05-25T14:27:44Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Teo_TangWee.pdf: 1055345 bytes, checksum: 8dff0af920a485f9c0b1533766e22c2e (MD5) license.txt: 4055 bytes, checksum: dd088b6f49fa08c78913d91e6ccf0948 (MD5)","Item marked as restricted to the 'Administrator' Group (id=1) by William Ingram (wingram2@illinois.edu) on 2011-05-25T14:29:50Z Item is restricted until 2013-05-25T14:29:35Z","Item reinstated by Sarah Shreeves (sshreeve@illinois.edu) on 2013-05-26T10:00:18Z Item was in collections: University of Illinois Dissertations and Theses (ID: 204) College of Education Dissertations and Theses (ID: 434) College of Education Dissertations and Theses (ID: 434) No. of bitstreams: 3 Teo_TangWee.pdf.txt: 409483 bytes, checksum: 9948668af206478dba6f677aaece36b1 (MD5) Teo_TangWee.pdf: 1055345 bytes, checksum: 8dff0af920a485f9c0b1533766e22c2e (MD5) license.txt: 4055 bytes, checksum: dd088b6f49fa08c78913d91e6ccf0948 (MD5)","Item released from any restrictions by Sarah Shreeves (sshreeve@illinois.edu) on 2013-05-26T10:00:18Z"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["The complexity of reform efforts in science curriculum and instruction: a case study of the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy chemistry teacher"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Osborne, Margery","Westbury, Ian","Stake, Robert E.","Pillow, Wanda S."],"dc:creator":["Teo, Tang Wee"],"dc:date":["2011-05-25T14:27:44Z","2013-05-26T10:00:18Z","2011-05"],"dc:description":["This study explores how teacher-initiated site-based reform in a specialized STEM school is conceptualized and enacted, how and why curriculum reform ideas change in the process of enactment, what qualities of teacher agency are entailed, how these qualities are acquired, interplayed, become generative, and/or are influenced to effect different curriculum reform outcomes, and how different conditions support and further teacher agency to make a more defensible curriculum. In a critical case study of a highly experienced and qualified science teacher, I follow a teacher who initiated efforts to reform the advanced chemistry curriculum. This teacher wanted to make the curriculum more inquiry-based and less like the Advanced Placement—a College Board curriculum and examination. I conducted a critical narrative inquiry into aspects of his teacher agency in this highly contested sociocultural and sociopolitical context before, during, and after one year of curriculum change. I tracked the process using interviews with the teacher, colleagues, students, a student’s parent, and school administrators, lesson observations, and artifacts such as curriculum materials and school brochures. By uncovering conflicts and contradictions in various actors’ standpoints, I analyze tensions and coping strategies with aspects of teacher agency simultaneously enabled and circumscribed by multiple factors and forces of this specialized STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) schooling structure. The teacher’s initial curriculum change ideas became moderated, adjusted, and mediated. The findings of this study may be insightful to educators and legislators interested in specialized schooling and teacher empowerment.","Item withdrawn by Mark Zulauf (zulauf@illinois.edu) on 2011-02-04T14:39:45Z Item was in collections: University of Illinois Theses & Dissertations (ID: 1) No. of bitstreams: 1 Teo_Tang Wee.pdf: 977708 bytes, checksum: 2cb9971f2dbc9549b41b925c4f05c4ee (MD5)","Made available in DSpace on 2011-05-25T14:27:44Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Teo_TangWee.pdf: 1055345 bytes, checksum: 8dff0af920a485f9c0b1533766e22c2e (MD5) license.txt: 4055 bytes, checksum: dd088b6f49fa08c78913d91e6ccf0948 (MD5)","Item marked as restricted to the 'Administrator' Group (id=1) by William Ingram (wingram2@illinois.edu) on 2011-05-25T14:29:50Z Item is restricted until 2013-05-25T14:29:35Z","Item reinstated by Sarah Shreeves (sshreeve@illinois.edu) on 2013-05-26T10:00:18Z Item was in collections: University of Illinois Dissertations and Theses (ID: 204) College of Education Dissertations and Theses (ID: 434) College of Education Dissertations and Theses (ID: 434) No. of bitstreams: 3 Teo_TangWee.pdf.txt: 409483 bytes, checksum: 9948668af206478dba6f677aaece36b1 (MD5) Teo_TangWee.pdf: 1055345 bytes, checksum: 8dff0af920a485f9c0b1533766e22c2e (MD5) license.txt: 4055 bytes, checksum: dd088b6f49fa08c78913d91e6ccf0948 (MD5)","Item released from any restrictions by Sarah Shreeves (sshreeve@illinois.edu) on 2013-05-26T10:00:18Z"],"dc:identifier":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/24470"],"dc:language":["en"],"dc:rights":["Copyright 2011 Tang Wee Teo"],"dc:subject":["science curriculum reform","Science Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) school","case study","critical narrative inquiry","teacher agency and structure"],"dc:title":["The complexity of reform efforts in science curriculum and instruction: a case study of the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy chemistry teacher"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["Secondary & Continuing Educ"],"thesis:degree_level":["Dissertation"],"thesis:degree_name":["Ph.D."],"thesis:institution_name":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:25:23Z"}