school changes essay

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8 ways we can improve schools today for a better future tomorrow.

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Can we change the trajectory of school?

Right now, most school districts are trying to develop an effective plan for their returning students in the fall. Preparing for the unknown in school is no easy feat to undertake.

As a mom and teacher quietly watching from the sidelines, education has been an essential part of my life.

Education has an impact on everything we see, do, and believe in our world. From the basics of reading and writing to entrepreneurship and the economy, school is more than a home for academics.

Schools Today

In traditional schools (when we're not in a pandemic), students typically attend a regular school day according to age, grade-level, test score outcomes, and unique learning needs. Academically, a typical pattern of learning content, memorizing it, and taking standardized tests, for the most part, is still the way we run schools today.

Following this traditional way of teaching is no fault of educators. Many factors impact a child's education, from state and federal requirements to school boards and funding. Educators unfortunately, do not have a significant voice at this table.

We also have four generations of educators in the classroom today—those who grew up without a computer, and those who held the world in their pocket. The differences in each generation is so great, it can be difficult to get everyone on board with massive changes. Taking small steps in changing curriculum outcomes is always a good start.

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Best 5% interest savings accounts of 2024, making small changes can lead to large results.

In effective schools, especially at the high school level, students have the opportunity to build long lasting relationships among their peers and educators. They learn and grow together. They can discover their passions, and take classes that suit their interests. They have a chance to grow, boost their talents, focus on career choices, shadow industries, have access to career guides and mentors, problem-solve, learn to question, debate, and discuss critical topics. They also learn how to work together and independently—while developing essential social and emotional skills.

Finally, an effective school sees each student as a whole child, and emphasizes positive developmental growth without the worry of constant grades and testing.

All of these experiences listed above help young adults become engaged and active citizens, and contributes to the world in meaningful ways. 

Learning is a life-long journey that should never end.

The Economy

Education has a tremendous impact on the economy. According to  Investopedia , "A country's economy becomes more productive as the proportion of educated workers increases since educated   workers can more efficiently carry out tasks that require literacy and critical thinking. 

In this sense, education is an investment in human capital, similar to an investment in better equipment."

However, we must ask, “What type of education do our students need today for a strong economic future?”

Education In 2020

It is now the second half of 2020, and although we don't have to change everything about education, we have a unique opportunity to look outside of the traditional school walls, and bring in some new ideas that can change the future for the better.

Mental Health First

If we took this time right now, here are a few suggestions on how we could potentially make school a better fit for the times ahead.

Social and Emotional —Before anything, we must put Maslow's Theory in practice before Bloom's Taxonomy when students come back to school.

Institutions should provide social and emotional support immediately to ensure all teachers, staff, and school administrators are getting the help they need during such a stressful time—and this support should always continue regardless of the situation.

Before the pandemic, depression and suicide rates were already exploding. When students return, they are going to need more emotional and social support than ever. Nobody will know what our kids went through during this time of absence. Schools must acknowledge, understand, and support students to their best potential. 

Maslow's pyramid of needs.

Planning for the Future in Education: How We Can Improve Academic and Better Career Outcomes Now

Create Work and Business Relationships— Create high school and local business partnerships programs. Include input from high school juniors and seniors and have them assist in the design of a program. Listen to their voices and passions. Provide students with opportunities to shadow different industries, nonprofits, and entrepreneurs. Put students in the driver's seat and work with them as a listener, learner, and guide. Mentor students and show them how to become mentors to underclassmen. 

Exemplify Entrepreneurship —We are facing unusual days ahead, and the future is unknown. Teach kids how to think for themselves and show them it’s alright to ask questions. Innovate with them, and help them to change the world through their ideas. Most students don't believe in themselves because society has been telling them what to do, how to behave, and what’s right or wrong. Without the ability to think and question for themselves, students cannot live up to their full potential. Engage them in their creative side, and show them it’s okay to fail, get up, and build again. They may look at you oddly at first, but the future wins can be immeasurable.

Encourage Critical Thinking and Problem-Solving Skills— Teachers can create lessons that encourage critical thinking and problem-solving skills with almost any given content area or topic. Challenge students to rise above the bar because you know they can do it. 

Understand Students' Personalities— Introvert, ambivert, and extroverted personalities all have distinctive characteristics, and different areas of comfort when it comes to attending school.

When I went through all of my years of teacher training, I didn’t learn about students' personalities until my last class during my M.Ed. I didn’t realize how every educator had a significant impact on a student's learning experience when they didn’t understand the differences among personalities. Teachers must know their students' characteristics, unique learning needs, and plan accordingly to fit their learning styles best.

Focus on Careers —For older students, teach them how to focus on careers with their hearts and their heads. This type of teaching means helping students make smart decisions when it comes to college, careers, and future planning. Passion is critical, but we want our students to land a job in a field where we expect growth to occur.

The College Narrative— Our society has changed rapidly, but the college narrative has stayed the same for many years. It is important to let students know they have many choices. College is not the best fit for everyone and is not the only path—and that’s okay. Also, going to college today does not guarantee a great job right after graduation. Learning is a never-ending journey that doesn’t stop. College can be critical especially for certain trained skills and potential future earnings, but it is not the single journey to success today. 

The college story should match the world we live in today—one filled with options, different ways to learn, and work-study programs that can benefit students and leave them without debt. Our students need to start above the ground—they should not come out of college at such a young age with piles of debt, stress, and worry.

Learn with Students —When you learn with your students, you can connect with them. You are showing vulnerability, and that can help raise a child's self-esteem. Grow with your students, listen to their world—hear their stories.

What else would you add to this list?

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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Education Reform and School Change

Introduction, 1990–present, implementation, sustainability and institutionalization, restructuring and reculturing, systemic educational reform, school improvement and turnaround, organizational learning, inquiry, networking, and capacity building, change agents, international comparisons and globalization, parents and communities, curriculum, teaching and learning, standards and accountability, school organization and culture, race, class, and language, culturally responsive teaching, urban schools and underserved populations, disability and inclusion, stage development theories, personal, emotional, and psychodynamic, institutional theory, related articles expand or collapse the "related articles" section about, about related articles close popup.

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• Queering the English Language Arts (ELA) Writing Classroom
• Scale and Sustainability of Education Innovation and Improvement
• Scaling Up Research-based Educational Practices
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Education Reform and School Change by Andrew Hargreaves , Corrie Stone-Johnson , Kristin L. Kew LAST REVIEWED: 30 April 2021 LAST MODIFIED: 21 January 2016 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199756810-0014

Educational change is a central topic of inquiry in education, and also a recognized field of study, as exemplified in the International Handbook of Educational Change , the Journal of Educational Change , a special interest group of the American Educational Research Association devoted to educational change, and widely used texts by founding authors of the field on core concepts such as the meaning of educational change. In the past, eagerness about what to change overlooked the complex processes of how people changed or failed to change in practice. The field therefore addresses and analyzes deliberately designed as well as implicit and unintended processes of educational change, such as innovation, implementation, improvement and resistance; the forces that drive change externally in policy and society and internally within schools and classrooms; the orchestration by and impact of change on its various agents, such as teachers, students, parents, and leaders; the experience and articulation of change across various educational domains such as pedagogy, curriculum, and assessment; and the evolution of change processes and change strategies over time, as well as their geographical distribution and variation across different systems and countries. The movement of research and development activity beyond simply what to change toward how to change, and the causes and consequences of these change processes, started in the post-Sputnik era of the 1960s in the United States, which addressed the problem of diffusion of individual innovations. Difficulties in achieving successful diffusion then prompted an interest in planned educational change, though this approach was criticized in turn for neglecting the various meanings that people attached to the change process as they experienced it. This resulted in an increasing emphasis on creating more collaborative professional cultures and professional communities in schools to develop common purpose and shared meanings. The impact of these changes since 1970 has been waves of reform that have left many educators confused and burned out, many schools with a seemingly haphazard string of unconnected reforms, and still many students not achieving. By the turn of the 21st century, frustration with these successive waves of change efforts ushered in an era of large-scale, administratively and politically coordinated reform initiatives and their uneven effects, as played out in different systems and countries across the globe—especially those that perform the strongest on international tests of educational achievement and those that are increasingly left behind. This entry explores the key literature and research on these processes and patterns of educational change, and their variations across time and space.

Classic Texts

This section includes some of the most influential and classic texts in educational change and reform. Divided into three timeframes—1960–1974, 1975–1989, and 1990–present—these works comprise the first consciously constructed forms of change and demonstrate the growth of thinking in the field of educational reform from its earliest days. The most recent pieces detail modern educational change from multiple perspectives.

These early classic texts also deal with some of the first consciously constructed forms of change, especially innovation, as well as presenting the first ideas about the developmental stages through which change processes pass. To read about the concept of organizational learning, see Argyris and Schon 1974 . For a critique of the cultures of silence that surround the notion of banking education and the development of a new pedagogy arising from the concerns of oppressed communities, see Freire 1970 . For a discussion of planned educational change, see Gross, et al. 1971 and Havelock 1973 . For details on school innovation and planned change, see Hoyle 1969 . For a discussion of loss and change, see Marris 1974 . To better understand diffusion of innovations, see Rogers 1962 . To explore culture and change, see Sarason 1971 . To read about educational innovation in a classroom setting, see Griffin, et al. 2012 (cited under Innovation ) and Smith and Geoffrey 1968 .

Argyris, Chris, and Donald A. Schon. 1974. Theory in practice: Increasing professional effectiveness . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

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Argyris and Schon launch the concept of organizational learning into the field of organizational change. They distinguish between single-loop learning that leads to refinements in existing practice, and double-loop learning that affects value systems, beliefs, and forms of understanding.

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Freire, Paulo. 1970. Pedagogy of the oppressed . Translated by Myra Bergman-Ramos. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin.

This is probably the single most important book on educational change from the standpoint of critical theory. Based on work with literacy development among peasant communities in Latin America, it critiques the cultures of silence that surround authoritarian and oppressive forms of banking education, and proposes a consciousness-raising curriculum and pedagogy arising out of the cultural concerns of oppressed communities.

Gross, Neil C., Joseph B. Giacquinta, and Marilyn Bernstein. 1971. Implementing organizational innovations: A study of planned change in schools . New York: Basic Books.

Based on research conducted at the Center for Research and Development on Educational Differences, this book presents one of the first studies on the trajectories and outcomes of planned educational change.

Havelock, Ronald G. 1973. The change agent’s guide to innovation in education . Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology.

The function and method of change agents have been studied in various cultures and professions, and this book applies those findings to schools. The authors explain six stages of planned change: building a relationship between client and change agent, diagnosing the problem, acquiring relevant resources, choosing the solution, gaining acceptance, and stabilizing the innovation and generating self-renewal.

Hoyle, Eric. 1969. How does the curriculum change? Journal of Curriculum Studies 1.3: 230–239.

DOI: 10.1080/0022027690010304 Save Citation » Export Citation » Share Citation »

This early article focuses on school innovation and planned educational change. It argues that for any curriculum innovation to become an effective improvement on an existing practice, it must “take” with the school and become fully institutionalized. Genuine innovation does not occur unless teachers become personally committed to ensuring its success.

Marris, Peter. 1974. Loss and change . New York: Pantheon.

This book examines people’s experiences of change as ones of loss and bereavement, most obviously in the case of bereavement itself but also in the case of other changes such as innovation that create powerful feelings of loss too.

Rogers, Everett M. 1962. Diffusion of innovations . New York: Free Press of Glencoe.

Rogers explains how new ideas spread or are diffused via communication channels over time. Such innovations are initially perceived as uncertain and even risky. Most people seek out others like themselves who have already adopted the new idea. Thus the diffusion process consists of a few individuals who first adopt an innovation, then spread the word among their circle of acquaintances.

Sarason, Seymour B. 1971. The culture of the school and the problem of change . Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

In the field’s first extended discussion of culture and change, Sarason details how change can affect a school’s culturally diverse environment—either through the implementation of new programs or as a result of federally imposed regulations. In this book, Sarason challenges assumptions about institutions and presents evidence that the federal effort to change and improve schools has not succeeded.

Smith, Louis M., and William Geoffrey. 1968. The complexities of an urban classroom . New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

This is the first of a series of books spanning more than fifteen years on the nature and fate of educational innovation in a classroom setting. It is one of the first books to disclose how clarity about what to change is no substitute for a clear method or strategy of how to bring about desired changes

These classic pieces, written between 1975 and 1989, demonstrate the growth of thinking in the field of educational reform from its earliest days. For a view on the study of change implementation, see Berman and McLaughlin 1975 . To better understand change in teaching practices over a century, see Cuban 1984 . To learn about the Concerns-Based Adoption Model (CBAM), see Hall and Loucks 1979 . For a look at the first analysis of educational change from the technological, political, and cultural perspectives, see House 1979 . Huberman and Miles 1984 is one of the first analyses of process and outcomes of innovations, and Lortie 1975 is the foundational book on the culture of teaching.

Berman, Paul, and Milbrey Wallin McLaughlin. 1975. Federal programs supporting educational change . Vol. 1, A model of educational change . Santa Monica, CA: RAND.

This classic report, the first in a series of RAND studies on change agent programs, analyzed the then-current state of knowledge of planned change in education, which proposed a conceptual model of factors affecting change processes within school districts. The literature review revealed the need for a more systematic understanding of the processes of implementation.

Cuban, Larry. 1984. How teachers taught: Constancy and change in American classrooms . New York: Longman.

Cuban describes teaching practices in the United States from 1890 to 1980. The author offers explanations for continuity and change in public education, including school as a form of social control, long-held assumptions and beliefs about teaching and learning, and the implementation of reforms.

Hall, Gene E., and Susan Loucks. 1979. Implementing innovations in schools: A concerns-based approach . Austin, TX: Research and Development Center for Teacher Education.

Hall and Loucks created their Concerns-Based Adoption Model (CBAM) to describe change as it affects individuals and to prompt more successful change efforts. CBAM views the teacher as the focal point in school improvement efforts, yet also acknowledges social and organizational influences. This paper describes the application of the model to a curriculum implementation effort based on an understanding of teachers’ concerns.

House, Ernie 1979. Three perspectives on innovation: The technological, the political and the cultural . Washington, DC: Office for Educational Research and Improvement.

This foundational report was the first to analyze educational change from three perspectives, illustrating different aspects of change issues that are raised as each perspective—technological, political, and cultural—is used as a lens to analyze change efforts.

Huberman, Alan M., and Matthew B. Miles. 1984. Innovation up close . New York: Plenum.

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This volume represents a distillation and analysis of twelve site reports; it is one of the earliest empirical analyses of processes and outcomes of innovation and school improvement.

Lortie, Dan C. 1975. Schoolteacher: A sociological study . Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.

In this foundational book, Lortie draws on survey and interview data to understand and analyze the work and culture of teaching. The unifying theme of this book is a search for the orientations and sentiments unique to teachers, which he characterizes as presentism, conservatism, and individualism.

These important texts detail modern educational change from multiple perspectives. For a better understanding of the three-stage theory of educational change—initiation, implementation, and institutionalization—see Fullan 2007 . This book is the most widely cited in the field and is the most recently revised version. To better understand change in urban high schools, see Louis and Miles 1990 . For an analysis of learning organizations, see Senge 1990 .

Fullan, Michael. 2007. The new meaning of educational change . 4th ed. New York: Teachers College Press.

This book is the most widely cited in the field of educational change. A fundamentally revised edition of the original 1982 book, it sets out a three stage theory of educational change: initiation, implementation, and institutionalization. Fullan also describes the roles and responsibilities of each member in the change process, including the administrator, teacher, parent, student, consultant, district, and governments.

Louis, Karen Seashore, and Matthew B. Miles. 1990. Improving the urban high school: What works and why . New York: Teachers College Press.

This book of multiple case studies on change and non-change in urban high schools points to the need for greater school-level involvement in educational reform processes, especially in terms of leadership.

Senge, Peter M. 1990. The fifth discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization . New York: Doubleday.

Senge sets out the basic principles of what he calls the learning organization: turning a process of organizational learning into an institutional aspiration. Through basic disciplines that include personal mastery and systems thinking, Senge’s work challenges leaders to face the disabilities in their organizations and to practice the disciplines that will create improved performance through ongoing problem-solving capacity.

This section contains pivotal pieces that offer approaches and strategies to bring about and sustain educational change. Included are works on the most current thinking in innovation, policy and program implementation, the sustainability and institutionalism of educational reform, restructuring and reculturing of schools, and building professional learning communities.

Some approaches and strategies to bring about change are based on single innovations. The pieces in this section reflect the most current thinking in the area of innovation. For a view of innovation and diffusion theory in the 21st century, see Bentley 2010 . To better understand the impact of disruptive innovation in education, see Christensen, et al. 2008 .

Bentley, Tom. 2010. Innovation and diffusion as a theory of change. In The second international handbook of educational change . Edited by Andy Hargreaves, Ann Lieberman, Michael Fullan, and David Hopkins, 29–46. Springer International Handbooks of Education 23. Berlin: Springer.

Bentley brings innovation and diffusion theory into the 21st century by indicating that in fast-flowing knowledge-based societies, more change will and should take place through processes that are open, networked, and user-driven. In such an increasingly technologically enhanced environment, the task of educational and social reformers, he argues, is to create the open architectures in which innovative processes can flourish.

Christensen, Clayton M., Curtis W. Johnson, and Michael B. Horn. 2008. Disrupting class: How disruptive innovation will change the way the world learns . New York: McGraw-Hill.

Christensen takes this book beyond his study of the “Innovator’s Dilemma” in business, to combine with colleagues in order to understand the impact of disruptive (as opposed to incremental) innovation in education. Computer technology in education is bringing about profound transformations in education that public schools are finding hard to accommodate, with the consequence that they may be overtaken by other kinds of educational provision.

Griffin, Patrick, Esther Care, and Barry. McGaw. 2012. “ The changing role of education and schools .” In Assessment and teaching of 21st century skills . Edited by Patrick Griffin, Esther Care, and Barry McGaw, 1–15. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.

According to Griffin, Care, and McGaw, educational systems must change in response to the increasing demand for information-technology skilled workers. This chapter discusses the Assessment and Teaching of Twenty-First Century Skills Project (ATC21S), which investigated the methodological and technological barriers to the assessment of Learning Through Digital Networks and Collaborative Problem Solving. The project provides educators, researchers, and policy makers with recommendations to develop learning environments and assessments that support the development of 21st-century skills.

This section explores the complexities and challenges facing schools as they implement various educational reforms. In particular, it focuses on various aspects of implementation, including policy implementation and program implementation. For an overview of policy implementation see Honig 2006 and McLaughlin 1998 . To better understand evaluating program implementation, see Leithwood and Montgomery 1980 . For an exploration of the implementation of planned change, see McLaughlin 1990 . For a definition and in-depth exploration of implementation as it relates to curriculum research, see O’Donnell 2008 . For scaling up school reform, see Datnow, et al. 2002 .

Datnow, Amanda, Lea Hubbard, and Hugh Mehan. 2002. Extending educational reform: From one school to many . London: RoutledgeFalmer.

Authors examine data from several nationwide studies in an effort to provide a comprehensive understanding of “scaling up” school reform. This book explores the complex interactions between institutions and individuals and their influence on the implementation of reform. Readers are provided with guidelines for policy and practice.

Honig, Meredith I., ed. 2006. New directions in education policy implementation: Confronting complexity . Albany: State Univ. of New York Press.

This book describes how education policy implementation as a field of research and practice has amounted to a search for “implementable” policies on the one hand—those that in practice resemble policy designs—and “successful” policies on the other, which produce demonstrable improvements in students’ school performance.

Leithwood, Kenneth A., and D. J. Montgomery. 1980. Evaluating program implementation. Evaluation Review 4.2: 193–214.

DOI: 10.1177/0193841X8000400202 Save Citation » Export Citation » Share Citation »

A methodology for evaluating program implementation is described. Requirements for such a methodology are derived from an analysis of the functions to be performed by implementation evaluation, the nature of the program being implemented, and characteristics of the implementation process.

McLaughlin, Milbrey Wallin. 1990. The RAND change agent study revisited: Macro perspectives and micro realities. Educational Researcher 19.9: 11–16.

DOI: 10.3102/0013189X019009011 Save Citation » Export Citation » Share Citation »

This article revisits the classic RAND Change Agent study, undertaken 1973–1978, which indicated a significant shift in the ways people thought about implementing planned change in education. The article reasserts RAND’s finding that effective projects are characterized by mutual adaptation rather than uniform implementation, and underscores the essential contribution of teachers’ perspectives as informants and guides to policy.

McLaughlin, Milbrey Wallin. 1998. Listening and learning from the field: Tales of policy implementation and situated practice. In The international handbook of educational change . Part 1. Edited by Andy Hargreaves, Ann Lieberman, Michael Fullan, and David Hopkins. 70–84. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic.

The “implementation problem” was discovered in the early 1970s as policy analysts took a look at the school level consequences of the Great Society’s sweeping education reforms. Comprehensive intergovernmental initiatives meant that implementation no longer was just primarily a management problem, confined to a single institution, but instead stretched across levels of government and across agents.

O’Donnell, C. L. 2008. Defining, conceptualizing, and measuring fidelity of implementation and its relationship to outcomes in K–12 curriculum intervention research. Review of Educational Research 78.1: 33–84.

DOI: 10.3102/0034654307313793 Save Citation » Export Citation » Share Citation »

The results of this review indicate that there are too few studies to guide researchers on how fidelity of implementation to core curriculum interventions can be measured and related to outcomes. This review attempts to clarify the definition, conceptualization, and measurement of fidelity of implementation and to guide future researchers in understanding how fidelity of implementation can be used to adjust or interpret outcome measures.

In recent years, increasing attention has been paid to the sustainability of changes over time and across systems. Anderson 2010 examines the evolution of change over time. Hargreaves and Goodson 2006 details change over a thirty-year period in the United States and Canada and explores the sustainability of change in these contexts. Hargreaves 2002 explores how social geographies contribute to or undermine sustainable improvements. Meyer and Rowan 1977 and Meyer and Rowan 2012 looks at the ways in which organizational structures affect innovation or change in schools.

Anderson, Stephen. 2010. Moving change: Evolutionary perspectives of educational change. In The second handbook of educational change . Edited by Andy Hargreaves, Ann Lieberman, Michal Fullan, and David Hopkins, 65–84. Springer International Handbooks of Education 23. Berlin: Springer.

In this chapter, Anderson revisits some of the taken-for-granted concepts in the field of educational change. The author focuses on some significant areas of debate and suggests areas for further research to think about change as a process that evolves over time.

Hargreaves, Andy. 2002. Sustainability of educational change: The role of social geographies. Journal of Educational Change 3:189–214.

DOI: 10.1023/A:1021218711015 Save Citation » Export Citation » Share Citation »

The paper examines the conceptual and strategic role of social geographies in contributing to or undermining sustainable school improvement. It develops a definition of sustainability as involving improvement over time, within available or achievable resources, that does not negatively affect the surrounding environment and that promotes ecological diversity and capacity more widely. This analysis is then applied to a framework of seven strategic geographies of educational change.

Hargreaves, Andy, and Ivor Goodson. 2006. Educational change over time? The sustainability and non-sustainability of three decades of secondary school change and continuity. Educational Administration Quarterly 42.1: 3–41.

DOI: 10.1177/0013161X05277975 Save Citation » Export Citation » Share Citation »

This article presents the conceptual framework and key research findings from a study of long-term educational change over time. Educational change is shaped by the convergence of large-scale economic and demographic shifts that reaffirm the traditional identities and practices of conventional high schools and pull innovative ones back toward the traditional norm in an age of standardization.

Meyer, John W., and Brian Rowan. 1977. Institutional organizations: Formal structures as myth and ceremony. American Journal of Sociology 83:340–363.

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Many formal organizational structures arise as reflections of rationalized institutional rules. These rules function as myths which organizations incorporate, gaining legitimacy, resources, stability, and enhanced survival prospects in the face of efforts to bring about innovation or change.

Meyer, Heinz –Dieter, and Brian Rowan. 2012. The institutionalism in education . Albany: State Univ. of New York Press.

Explores the ways in which education as an institution must be redefined to include new forms of educational organizations. Contributing authors provide conceptual tools and empirical assessments to overcome the challenges this new institutionalism poses to reigning theories. Readers will gain insight into possibilities for institutional reform and innovation.

Change efforts sometimes try to transform organizations by restructuring them, whereas others concentrate more on alterations of relationships and interactions through “reculturing.” To learn about the role of micropolitics in educational reform, see Blasé and Bjork 2010 . To better understand how districts have been restructured, see Brouillette 1996 . For a view of the role of trust in school improvement, see Bryk and Schneider 2002 . To read more about the role of collaboration as a means of educational reform, see Darling-Hammond 1997 . To read about leadership in a culture of change, see Fullan 2001 . For a deeper look at school restructuring, see Lieberman 1995 and Newmann and Wehlage 1995 . For a better understanding of how prevailing cultural beliefs perpetuate inequality in an urban high school, see McQuillan 1998 . For a look at lack of change in teaching pedagogies over time related to educational reform and policy, see Cuban 2013 .

Blasé, Joseph, and Bjork, Lars. 2010. The micropolitics of educational change and reform: Cracking open the black box. In The second international handbook of educational change . Edited by Andy Hargreaves, Ann Lieberman, Michal Fullan, and David Hopkins, 237–258. Springer International Handbooks of Education 23. Berlin: Springer.

This article builds on and updates Blasé’s past work on the micropolitics of educational change; showing how change at the micro level is affected by the competing and complementary interests of different groups in the educational process as they converge and collide.

Brouillette, Liane. 1996. A geology of school reform: The successive restructuring of a school district . Albany: State Univ. of New York Press.

This book describes a study that focused on how successive waves of reform interacted within a single school district from its beginnings in the early 1950s through the early 1990s. The study examines the multiple misunderstandings that occurred among individuals whose formative experiences with public schools were shaped by widely differing historical circumstances and philosophical perspectives.

Bryk, Anthony S., and Barbara L. Schneider. 2002. Trust in schools: A core resource for improvement . New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

On the basis of a three-year study of reform in twelve different elementary school communities in Chicago, the authors establish the importance of relational trust as one of the key variables that affects student achievement. Developing relational trust among teachers, principals, students, and parents is therefore a key component of the culture of change leading to substantive and sustained school improvement.

Cuban, Larry. 2013. Inside the black box of classroom practice: Change without reform in American education . Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.

Cuban discusses the complex and often contradictory relationship between numerous attempts at educational reform by policy makers over the last two centuries and relatively stable teaching practices in the classroom. He examines the interconnectedness of policy and practice from various viewpoints, including changes in medical practice policy.

Darling-Hammond, Linda. 1997. The right to learn: A blueprint for creating schools that work . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Darling-Hammond emphasizes the process of learning rather than testing. She believes that what’s wrong with public schools can be attributed to excessive bureaucratization that leaves teachers with little time for teaching. The American educational system is predicated on a “factory model” that processes students instead of teaching them. She believes teachers must be prepared to collaborate more often and spend more time “teaching for understanding.”

Fullan, Michael. 2001. Leading in a culture of change . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Bringing together the literature of leadership and change in business and in education, Fullan critiques naïve changes based on transplantation of systemic reforms from one context to another without thought for the local cultures and contexts in which the transposed reforms have to be developed. He then demonstrates how relationships between large-scale transformation and local culture can be pursued through five core competencies.

Lieberman, Ann, ed. 1995. The work of restructuring schools: Building from the ground up . New York: Teachers College Press.

The contributors to this work tell a set of stories about schools, teachers, and administrators who face district and state mandates concerning restructuring. It describes the trials and tribulations that they encounter and offers insight into the lessons that can be learned from these individual experiences.

McQuillan, Patrick J. 1998. Educational opportunity in an urban American high school: A cultural analysis . Albany: State Univ. of New York Press.

This five-year ethnographic study examines issues of educational opportunity at a multiethnic high school. Focusing on the beliefs and values of students, teachers, and administrators, this study reveals how prevailing cultural beliefs, the collective nature of the student population, and the structure of the school system worked in concert to foster inequality. This study considers the implications for promoting educational opportunity more effectively.

Newmann, Fred M., and Gary L. Wehlage. 1995. Successful school restructuring . Madison, WI: Center on Organization and Restructuring of Schools.

Since the late 1980s, education reformers in the United States have sought ways to “restructure” schools to boost student performance through such strategies as site-based management, interdisciplinary team teaching, flexible scheduling, and assessment by portfolio. From 1990 to 1995, the Center on Organization and Restructuring of Schools examined these questions by analyzing data from more than 1,500 schools throughout the United States.

• Professional Learning Communities

One of the forms of reculturing schools is the development of professional learning communities. The following works describe the evolution of professional learning communities and discuss the challenges to implementation as well as the possibilities for improvement. For a differentiation of professional learning communities from performance-training sects, see Hargreaves 2002 . For a definition of professional learning communities and an exploration of what happens when schools develop them, see Hord 1997 . To look at the establishment of collaborative cultures, see Lieberman 1990 . To see how building professional learning communities can improve student achievement, see McLaughlin and Talbert 2006 . To read about creating communities of learning in a context of accountability and standardization, see Meier 2002 . To read about some of the challenges of professional learning communities, see Stoll and Louis 2007 . To learn about creating successful learning environments through leadership, see Robertson and Timperley 2011 .

Hargreaves, Andy. 2002. Professional learning communities and performance training sects: The emerging apartheid of school improvement. In Effective leadership for school improvement . Edited by Alma Harris, C. Day, M. Hadfield, D. Hopkins, A. Hargreaves, and C. Chapman. London: RoutledgeFalmer.

The original intention of professional learning communities was to develop teacher-based inquiry into student learning and classroom teaching. In this article, Hargreaves compares this original purpose against the political tendency of such so-called communities to become devices of compliance and groupthink where teacher teams are driven to analyze numerical data in order to make swift interventions within mandated programs of curriculum and instruction.

Hord, Shirley M. 1997. Professional learning communities: Communities of continuous inquiry and improvement . Austin, TX: Southwest Educational Development Laboratory.

Inventor of the concept “professional learning communities,” Hord defines what is meant by “professional learning community.” She describes what happens when a school staff studies, works, plans, and takes action collectively on behalf of increased learning for students, and she discusses what is known about creating such communities of professionals in schools. The literature, she notes, indicates that professional learning communities produce positive outcomes for both staff and students.

Lieberman, Ann, ed. 1990. Schools as collaborative cultures . Lewes, UK: Falmer.

The contributions in this volume articulate and exemplify the key role played by professional collaboration in school development. The authors show how schools need to establish collaborative cultures as a precondition for their own development.

McLaughlin, Milbrey Wallin, and Joan E. Talbert. 2006. Building school-based teacher learning communities: Professional strategies to improve student achievement . New York: Teachers College Press.

This book builds more programmatically from the authors’ earlier work on professional communities in high schools, to examine efforts to establish and develop professional learning communities in schools that enhance student achievement. Its most important contribution is in establishing the stages of development, from novice to mature, through which professional learning communities pass over time.

Meier, Deborah. 2002. In schools we trust: Creating communities of learning in an era of testing and standardization . Boston: Beacon.

In contrast to proponents of tests and standardization, this author examines how successful change occurs by building trust in the authority and judgment of those who know children best, so that schools are trustworthy.

Robertson, Jan, and Helen Timperley. 2011. Leadership and learning . Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

DOI: 10.4135/9781446288931 Save Citation » Export Citation » Share Citation »

Contributors to this book examine learning through three themes: empowering relationships, patterns of leadership distribution, and leadership for the improvement of teaching and learning. This book aims to provide a comprehensive view of the elements needed to promote successful learning environments in the educational community through leadership.

Stoll, Louise, and Karen Seashore Louis, eds. 2007. Professional learning communities: Divergence, depth and dilemmas . Maidenhead, UK: McGraw-Hill.

This collection of chapters edited by British and US experts Stoll and Louis delves deeper into the concept of professional learning communities, unearthing their challenges and complexities, as well as their many varying possibilities.

Recently, change strategy has concentrated on interrelated changes orchestrated centrally that may depend on pressures and demands or on capacity building and support, and that in turn can provoke organized responses that take the form of social movements. To read about social movements in the United States, see Anyon 2005 and Oakes, et al. 2000 . To see an analysis of the impact of poverty on systemic change, see Berliner 2006 . For perspectives on the travel of school reform approaches from one system to another, see Datnow, et al. 2002 and Stein, et al. 2010 . For a better understanding of large-scale reform efforts, see Elmore 1995 and Hargreaves 2010 . To read the insights of some of the leading educational change experts on systemic reform, see Hargreaves and Fullan 2008 . For a view of system leadership, see Hopkins 2007 . For some ideas on global educational change and reform from leading experts in the field, see Malone 2013 .

Anyon, Jean. 2005. Radical possibilities: Public policy, urban education, and a new social movement . New York: Routledge.

Jean Anyon counters the conventional approach to systemic reform as orchestrated local or national policy intervention by describing five social movements in US cities, which offer insights into securing economic and educational justice for America’s poor families and students.

Berliner, David. 2006. Our impoverished view of educational reform. Teachers College Record 108.6: 949–995

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This analysis is about the role of poverty in school reform. Data from a number of sources are used to demonstrate that poverty in the United States is greater and of longer duration than in other rich nations, and that poverty is associated with academic performance that is well below international means. It is argued that poverty places severe limits on what can be accomplished through school reform efforts alone.

Datnow, Amanda, Lea Hubbard, and Hugh Mehan. 2002. Extending educational reform from one school to many . London and New York: RoutledgeFalmer.

Reform programs that have proved to be a success in one school are often unsuccessful when adopted by other schools. This book looks at why change does not occur on a large-scale basis and how the identified problems can be surmounted.

Elmore, Richard F. 1995. Getting to scale with good educational practice. Harvard Educational Review 66.1: 1–26.

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Elmore analyzes the role of school organization and incentive structures in large-scale adoption of innovative practices. Two previous reform attempts are evaluated to demonstrate that large-scale reform efforts, under current conditions, will be ineffective and transient. The article concludes with recommendations for addressing the issue of scale.

Hargreaves, Andy. 2010. Change from without: Lessons from other countries, systems, and sectors. In The second international handbook of educational change . Edited by Andy Hargreaves, Ann Lieberman, Michael Fullan, and David Hopkins, 105–117. Springer International Handbooks of Education 23. Berlin: Springer.

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This article reviews the research, including the author’s own, on how educational systems can learn from other systems and sectors without directly transposing solutions from one to the other.

Hargreaves, Andy, and Michael Fullan, eds. 2008. Change wars . Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree.

Change Wars presents the insights and expertise of some of the leading educational thinkers and authors from around the world on system-wide change.

Hopkins, David. 2007. Every school a great school: Realizing the potential of system leadership . Maidenhead, UK: Open Univ. Press.

Drawing on his experience in educational research and senior-level policy leadership, David Hopkins argues that in order to achieve systemic, sustainable improvement, it is important not only to continue to raise standards, but also to build capacity within the system through personalized learning, professionalized teaching, networking and innovation, and intelligent accountability.

Malone, Helen Janc. 2013. Leading educational change: Global issues, challenges, and lessons on whole system reform . New York: Teachers College Press.

The collection of essays found in this book is organized into five themes: emerging issues in educational change, improving practice, equity and educational justice, accountability and assessment systems, and whole-system change. Contributors to this volume of work address contemporary issues in research, policy, and practice to promote discussions, analysis, and innovations within education reform.

Oakes, Jeannie, Karen Quartz, Steve Ryan, and Martin Lipton. 2000. Becoming good American schools: The struggle for civic virtue in educational reform . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

This book tells the stories of sixteen US schools that sought to alter their structures and practices and become places fostering innovative ideas, caring people, principles of social justice, and democratic processes. Based on longitudinal, comparative case-study research, these accounts attest to the difficulty of achieving these ends in the face of normative, political and technical barriers to educational equity in schools.

Stein, Mary Kay, Leah Hubbard, and Judith Toure. 2010. Travel of district-wide approaches to instructional improvement: How can districts learn from one another? In The second international handbook of educational change . Edited by Andy Hargreaves, Ann Lieberman, Michael Fullan, and David Hopkins, 781–805. Springer International Handbooks of Education 23. Berlin: Springer.

The chapter is the most recent of a sequence that examines how reform models and practices spread or failed to spread from New York City’s District #2 to San Diego and beyond. It analyzes the range of factors that are present in the common practice of trying to transpose models across systems.

This section encompasses historical perspectives on systemic educational reform. To read about how systemic changes have thus far proven unsuccessful, as well as suggestions for improvement, see Hargreaves and Shirley 2009 , Payne 2008 , Ravitch 2010 , Ravitch 2000 , and Sarason 1990 . To read about how certain reforms have come to be permanent features of school, see Tyack and Tobin 1994 .

Hargreaves, Andy, and Dennis Shirley. 2009. The fourth way: The inspiring future for educational change . Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

This book draws on research of thirty years of educational change to describe three ways of change in public policy that have proved unsuccessful: change through innovation and support, markets and standards, and data-driven improvement. It then interprets the authors’ research on successful practice in different countries and systems to describe a fourth way of inspiration and responsibility.

Payne, Charles M. 2008. So much reform, so little change: The persistence of failure in urban schools . Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.

This book draws on experiences of educational research and community organizing to argue that most education policy discussions are disconnected from the daily realities of urban schools, especially those in poor and beleaguered neighborhoods. Payne’s book highlights the often dysfunctional organizational environments of urban schools and school systems that undermine reform efforts.

Ravitch, Diane. 2000. Left back: A century of failed school reforms . New York: Simon & Schuster.

In this history of education in the 20th century, Diane Ravitch describes the ongoing battle of ideas over educational reform and explains why school reform has so often failed. See especially pp. 405–452.

Ravitch, Diane. 2010. The death and life of the great American school system: How testing and choice are undermining education . New York: Basic Books.

In this book, historian and former Washington education leader Diane Ravitch reviews and revises her opinions on education reform over the years to critique contemporary reform efforts for being overly influenced and distorted by corporate interests, excessively hostile to the teaching profession, and fatally supportive of educational testing accountability practices that lower standards and inhibit innovation.

Sarason, Seymour B. 1990. The predictable failure of educational reform: Can we change course before it’s too late? San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Sarason argues that schools have been intractable to change and the attainment of goals set by reformers. The reason is that reformers do not engage with the interconnectedness of what occurs in schools or with power relations in schooling. As a result, each new wave of reform learns nothing from earlier efforts and comes up with recommendations that have failed in the past.

Tyack, David, and William Tobin. 1994. The grammar of schooling: Why is it so hard to change? American Educational Research Journal 31.3: 453–479.

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Why have the established institutional reforms of schooling been so stable, and why did most challenges fade or become marginalized? The authors explain how some reforms, like the graded school and the Carnegie unit, lasted to become part of the grammar of schooling whereas some that attacked the grammar of schooling did not.

International Perspectives

This section provides international perspectives on systemic education reform, drawing largely from research in the United Kingdom and Canada since 1980. To further understand the challenges to education systems posed by increased globalization, see Arnove, et al. 2012 . To read about large-scale reform in the United Kingdom, see Barber 2009 ; Chapman and Gunter 2009 ; Earl, et al. 2003 ; and Gray 2010 . To read about Canadian systemic educational reform, see Fullan 2004 . For an inclusive educational perspective, see Sahlberg 2006 . For large-scale change efforts, see Hopkins 2011 .

Arnove, Robert F., Carlos Alberto Torres, and Stephen Franz. 2012. Comparative education: The dialectic of the global and the local . Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.

Authors discuss the challenges to education systems posed by increased globalization. Provides readers with a greater understanding of the complex interaction between global and local entities in education reform, particularly comparative education.

Barber, Michael. 2009. From system effectiveness to system improvement: Reform paradigms and relationships. In Change wars . Edited by Andy Hargreaves and Michael Fullan, 71–96. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree.

This article, from Tony Blair’s former education advisor, sets out the benefits and drawbacks of three paradigms for large-scale public service: command and control, quasi-markets, and devolution and transparency.

Chapman, Christopher, and Helen Gunter, eds. 2009. Radical reforms: Perspectives on an era of educational change . London and New York: Routledge.

This collection of papers by distinguished British researchers reviews and critiques systemic educational reform in England, and its different components, over the course of the Labour government in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Earl, Lorna M., Nancy Watson, Benjamin Levin, Kenneth Leithwood, and Michael Fullan. 2003. Watching and learning 3: The final report of the OISE/UT external evaluation of the National Literacy and Numeracy Strategies . London: Department for Education and Employment.

This is the officially commissioned evaluation of the United Kingdom’s influential National Literacy and Numeracy Strategy, which was implemented in system-wide scope and detail across all of England’s primary schools.

Fullan, Michael. 2004. Leadership and sustainability: System thinkers in action . Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Fullan’s book draws on his experiences of advising on large-scale systemic change in Ontario, as well as on reviewing the wider change literature to argue that effective systemic change grasps the interconnectedness of systems and takes moral responsibility for moving them in a positive direction.

Gray, John. 2010. Probing the limits of systemic reform: The English case. In The second international handbook of educational change . Edited by Andy Hargreaves, Ann Lieberman, Michael Fullan, and David Hopkins, 293–307. Springer International Handbooks of Education 23. Berlin: Springer.

Gray undertakes a sober research-based review of the impact of the much-lauded systemic reform strategies in England, especially under its Labour government.

Hopkins, David. 2011. Powerful learning: Taking education reform to scale . Melbourne, Australia: Department of Education and Early Childhood Development.

Hopkins explores school reform at scale through the implementation of a system improvement model in Melbourne, Australia. Through his analysis he comments on the necessity to include both “bottom-up” and “top-down” approaches.

Sahlberg, Pasi. 2006. Education reform for raising economic competitiveness. Journal of Education Change 7.4: 259–287.

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This article argues that what schools are expected to do in order to promote economic competitiveness often contradicts commonly accepted global education reform thinking. The key features of education reform policies that are compatible with competitiveness are those that encourage flexibility in education systems, creativity in schools, and risk-taking without fear on the part of individuals.

Struggling schools face difficult choices when making decisions about school improvement. This section identifies several school improvement options, including turnaround. To read about turnaround leadership, see Fullan 2006 . To read about improving schools in challenging circumstances, see Harris, et al. 2006 . To challenge current thinking on leadership, see Harris, et al. 2003 . For perspectives on school improvement, see Hopkins 2001 . To read about the link between knowledge utilization and school improvement, see Louis 1998 . For views on the link between school effectiveness and school improvement see Reynolds, et al. 2000 ; Stoll and Fink 1996 ; and Townsend 2007 . To read a critique of turnaround strategies, see Mintrop 2004 .

Fullan, Michael. 2006. Turnaround leadership . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Foundational change theorist Michael Fullan critiques conventional literature and strategy regarding school turnaround for putting short-term gains ahead of sustainable improvement. Instead, he advocates effective leadership at all levels to combine pressure and support in bringing about effective and lasting change.

Harris, Alma, Christopher Day, David Hopkins, Mark Hadfield, Andy Hargreaves, and Christopher Chapman. 2003. Effective school leadership for school improvement . New York: RoutledgeFalmer.

Presents leadership of the many as an alternative to conventional theories of leadership from a single individual. The authors consider contemporary theories and issues within four areas of concern: the changing context of leadership, contemporary views of leadership, building leadership capacity, and future directions and implications for leadership and school improvement. Readers are provided with ideas and perspectives on alternative forms of leadership in an effort to promote sustained school improvement.

Harris, Alma, Sue James, Judith Gunraj, Paul Clarke, and Belinda Harris. 2006. Improving schools in exceptionally challenging circumstances . London: Continuum.

This research-based investigation of schools working in exceptionally challenging circumstances sets out the issues facing such schools and the success that some can achieve despite significant odds.

Hopkins, David. 2001. School improvement for real . London: RoutledgeFalmer.

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Leading school improvement expert David Hopkins reviews the key issues in school improvement in this book, which makes a particularly original contribution to how to differentiate improvement strategies depending on the kind of school and context in which improvement or turnaround efforts are located

Louis, Karen Seashore. 1998. Reconnecting knowledge utilization and school improvement: Two steps forward, one step back. In The international handbook of educational change . Part 2. Edited by Andy Hargreaves, Ann Lieberman, Michael Fullan, and David Hopkins, 1074–1096. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic.

In this paper, Karen Seashore Louis “reconnects” knowledge utilization with school improvement and develops the relationship further. She reviews the current state of the art in knowledge utilization theory, and discusses how it is connected both to school effectiveness and improvement research.

Mintrop, Heinrich. 2004. Schools on probation . New York: Teachers College Press.

In a trenchant critique of school turnaround strategies, Mintrop notes that short-term gains are secured at the expense of long-term sustainability, with the result that teachers in schools on probation are faced with either raising test scores immediately by almost any means, or exiting the schools concerned.

Reynolds, David, Charles Teddlie, David Hopkins, and Sam Stringfield. 2000. Linking school effectiveness and school improvement. In The international handbook of school effectiveness research . Edited by David Reynolds and Charles Teddlie, 206–231. Lewes, UK: Falmer.

These four scholars in the fields of school effectiveness and improvement argue that research on school effectiveness and improvement has been separated owing to differences of methodology and perspective—in ways that have not benefited positive change efforts over time. The authors go on to propose an integration of these fields, with examples of where such integrations have been achieved.

Stoll, Louise, and Dean Fink. 1996. Changing our schools: Linking school effectiveness and school improvement . Buckingham, UK: Open Univ. Press.

This book advises people inside and outside schools on how to bring about positive change. The authors provide both a theoretical critique and practical advice to assist all those committed to changing and improving schools. The book makes an especially original contribution to distinguishing the different improvement and turnaround strategies that are needed in cruising, moving, struggling, and sinking schools.

Townsend, Tony, ed. 2007. International handbook of school effectiveness and improvement . Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.

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This fifty-one-chapter handbook provides a state-of-the-art collection by both advocates and critics of school effectiveness and school improvement, and also of their interrelationship, from many different parts of the world.

Organizations can learn and improve by reflecting on their own practices, sharing ideas with individuals both inside and outside the organization through inquiry and networking, and building capacity by learning from within. To read about networking for educational change, see Chapman and Hadfield 2010 , Daly 2010 , and Lieberman and Wood 2002 . For perspectives on inquiry, see Cochran-Smith and Lytle 1992 . For perspectives on capacity building, see Elmore 2004 and Hatch 2009 . To read about how organizations learn and improve, see Mulford 1998 and Supovitz 2010 .

Chapman, Christopher, and Mark Hadfield. 2010. School–based networking for educational change. In The second international handbook of educational change . Edited by Andy Hargreaves, Ann Lieberman, Michael Fullan, and David Hopkins, 765–780. Springer International Handbooks of Education 23. Berlin: Springer.

This article, by two of the leading theorists and researchers on school-to-school networks, analyzes how networks can enhance educational change, but also what distinguishes effective from less effective networks.

Cochran-Smith, Marilyn, and Susan L. Lytle. 1992. Inside/outside: Teacher research and Knowledge . New York: Teachers College Press.

Cochran-Smith and Lytle argue that teacher research can transform, not simply add to, the present knowledge base in the field, linking research with practice and inquiry with reform. Inquiry, in this sense, is presented as a form of intended change, and is exemplified in the voices of teacher researchers within the book.

Daly, Alan J. 2010. Social network theory and educational change . Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.

This book explores how social networks in schools can impede or facilitate the work of education reform. It comprises a series of studies examining networks among teachers and school leaders and shows that the success or failure of education reform is not solely the result of technical plans and blueprints, but of the relational ties that support or constrain the pace, depth, and direction of change.

Elmore, Richard F. 2004. School reform from the inside out: Policy, practice and performance . Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.

In this book, Elmore makes the case that external accountability schemes cannot succeed in the absence of internal accountability, defined as the capacity for individual and collective responsibility for improving practice

Hatch, Thomas. 2009. Managing to change: How schools can survive (and sometimes thrive) in turbulent times . New York: Teachers College Press.

In contrast to a world of external reform that often undermines positive change efforts within schools, this book argues that schools can and should build their own capacity for change. Hatch makes two original contributions to the capacity debate: that it takes capacity to build capacity, and that increased capacity means reducing excessive demand as well as increasing supply.

Lieberman, Ann, and Diane Wood. 2002. From network learning to classroom teaching. Journal of Educational Change 3.3–4: 315–337.

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This two-year study of the National Writing Project examined what teachers learned from their involvement in various local network activities. Network activities helped teachers gain a set of principles and ways of working that they took back to their classrooms and gave teachers opportunities to lead professional development, explore special interest groups, and become members of a powerful learning community.

Mulford, William. 1998. Organizational learning and educational change. In The international handbook of educational change . Part 1. Edited by Andy Hargreaves, Ann Lieberman, Michael Fullan, and David Hopkins, 616–641. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic.

This chapter reviews state-of-the-art thinking on organizational learning and its contribution to educational change, and assesses its strengths and limitations.

Supovitz, Jonathan. 2010. Knowledge-based organizational learning for instructional Improvement. In The second international handbook of educational change . Edited by Andy Hargreaves, Ann Lieberman, Michael Fullan, and David Hopkins, 707–723. Springer International Handbooks of Education 23. Berlin: Springer.

This article draws on business literature to argue that system leaders, and especially district leaders in education, can improve effectiveness by accessing the knowledge that is diffused throughout and inexplicit within their organizations, so it is made explicit, accessibly stored, and easily diffused and developed among practitioners and leaders.

The works in this section represent multiple perspectives on educational change agents—those who initiate, implement, experience, and respond to educational changes. Included are articles, chapters, and books related to such topics as defining change agents and the skills associated with change agency; the impact of governments, communities, and schools on educational change and the role that each of these bodies has in educational change; and the impact of change on teachers and teachers’ agency in the context of reform. From these pivotal pieces, it is clear that the change both originates and is also felt deeply at all levels, from the macro level of nations down to the micro level of individual schools. It is also clear that the perspective of change agents themselves as they navigate the turbulent waters of complex and often contradictory educational changes must be taken into consideration, both by the communities in which these agents act and at the policy level, where decisions about these agents are typically determined.

This section describes the effects of change on teachers, as well as the skills educators need to become change agents. For an elucidation of the professionalism hypothesis, see Darling-Hammond 2009 . To read about the effects of change on teachers’ morale, job satisfaction, and motivation, see Evans 2000 . To read about the human meaning of change for educators, see Evans 1996 . For a view of the impact of change on teachers’ work in the postmodern age, see Hargreaves 1994 . For an examination of the relationship between professionals inside school and agents outside it, see Hargreaves and Fullan 1998 . Finally, to better understand the skills educational change agents need, see Miles, et al. 1988 .

Darling-Hammond, Linda. 2009. Teaching and the change wars: The professionalism hypothesis. In Change wars . Edited by Andy Hargreaves and Michael Fullan, 45–69. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree.

Darling-Hammond argues against market-based and bureaucratically driven approaches to change in favor of a more democratic and professional approach that is essential for the types of goals that now confront education systems. She provides recommendations for pursuing a vision that empowers learners with deep knowledge, problem-solving skills, and the ability to guide their own learning.

Evans, Robert. 1996. The human side of school change: Reform, resistance, and the real-life problems of innovation . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Evans examines educational change from the perspective of its human meaning for educators who feel burdened and conflicted by the change process. He provides a new model of leadership and practical management strategies for building a framework of cooperation that includes educators more effectively in the change process.

Evans, Linda. 2000. The effects of educational change on morale, job satisfaction and motivation. Journal of Educational Change 1.2: 173–192.

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This article discusses job satisfaction, morale, and motivation among teachers in the compulsory schooling and higher education sectors in the United Kingdom. The author examines the ways in which individuals respond differently to the impact of change on their working lives depending on their prior experience of change in their work, against which current changes are compared as losses or otherwise.

Hargreaves, Andy. 1994. Changing teachers, changing times: Teachers’ work and culture in the postmodern age . New York: Teachers College Press.

Drawing on research with teachers at all levels, Hargreaves describes the impact of educational change on teachers’ work in the postmodern age in terms of their experiences of time, intensification, and guilt. He depicts key cultures of teaching, including individualism, balkanization, collaboration, and contrived collegiality, and he proposes how structures and cultures of teaching need to change.

Hargreaves, Andy, and Michael Fullan. 1998. What’s worth fighting for out there? New York: Teachers College Press.

This book examines the relationship between professionals within the school and other agents outside it in order to understand their coordinated impact on educational change efforts. The book argues that if educators are going to bring about significant improvements in teaching and learning within schools, they must forge strong, open, and interactive connections with communities beyond them.

Miles, Matthew, Ellen Rogers Saxl, and Ann Lieberman. 1988. What skills do educational “change agents” need? An empirical view. Curriculum Inquiry 18.2: 157–193.

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Though “change agents” are widely used to help with current school improvement programs, little was known empirically about the skills they need to function effectively, at the time this article was written. This classic article on change agentry reported findings from a study of seventeen change agents. A synthesis of findings resulted in a list of eighteen key skills, including six general and twelve specific skills.

National governments are among the most common agents, with great power not only to initiate but also to mediate change across the system. For an examination of what high-performing national school systems have in common, see Barber and Mourshed 2007 . For a look at Singapore’s school-based curriculum development, see Gopinathan and Deng 2006 . To better understand how school systems are improved around the world, see Mourshed, et al. 2010 . To understand Finland’s educational change experience, see Sahlberg 2010 . For international comparisons of student learning outcomes, see Schleicher 2010 . To view the state of curriculum research in a global context, see Pinar 2013 . To examine the problems of the American educational system in the context of the demands of the global knowledge economy, see Wagner 2008 . Finally, to see China as a case study of systemic educational reform, see Zhao and Qiu 2010 .

Barber, Michael, and Mona Mourshed. 2007. How the world’s best-performing school systems come out on top . London: McKinsey.

This study examined what high-performing school systems have in common. They suggest what matters most is (1) getting the right people to become teachers, (2) developing them into effective instructors, and (3) ensuring that the system is able to deliver the best possible instruction for every child.

Gopinathan, Saravanan, and Zongyi Deng. 2006. Fostering school-based curriculum development in the context of new educational initiatives in Singapore. Planning and Changing 37.1–2: 93–110.

The article explores the meanings, challenges, and implications of school-based curriculum development (SBCD) within the context of new educational initiatives in the high-performing nation of Singapore. Challenges in adopting SBCD include inadequate time, expertise, finance, and a threatening school climate.

Mourshed, Mona, Chinezi Chijioke, and Michael Barber. 2010. How the world’s most improved school systems keep getting better . London: McKinsey.

This influential report by McKinsey reviews and draws lessons from improving school systems at various stages of development around the world, drawing conclusions about the intervention strategies that are appropriate for countries and systems at different points of development.

Pinar, William F. 2013. International handbook of curriculum research . 2d ed. New York: Routledge.

Pinar presents the state of curriculum research in a global context in this collection of thirty-four essays from twenty-eight countries. This book provides a comprehensive report of the school curriculum initiatives and developments occurring worldwide. Countries previously absent from the original publication are included in this second edition.

Sahlberg, Pasi. 2010. Educational change in Finland. In The second international handbook of educational change . Edited by Andy Hargreaves, Ann Lieberman, Michael Fullan, and David Hopkins, 323–348. Springer International Handbooks of Education 23. Berlin: Springer.

Sahlberg argues that Finland’s success on PISA tests of educational achievement is explained by contextual factors—especially sociocultural aspects and other public-sector policies—as well as by professional factors such as engaging highly qualified teachers in collective responsibility for local decision making. These factors serve a common social mission that fosters interdependency among education, other social sectors, and national economic development.

Schleicher, Andreas. 2010. International comparisons of student learning outcomes. In The second international handbook of educational change . Edited by Andy Hargreaves, Ann Lieberman, Michael Fullan, and David Hopkins, 485–504. Springer International Handbooks of Education 23. Berlin: Springer.

Comparative international assessments can extend and enrich the national picture by providing a larger context within which to interpret national performance. International assessments can also provide countries with information that allows them to identify areas of relative strengths and weaknesses, monitor the pace of progress of their education system, and stimulate aspirations by showing what is possible.

Wagner, Tony. 2008. The global achievement gap: Why even our best schools don’t teach the new survival skills our children need—and what we can do about it . New York: Basic Books.

This book examines the problems of the American educational system in the context of the demands of the global knowledge economy. It assesses school performance in terms of the skills future workers will need and introduces a new model for schools that will help teach students how to solve problems and communicate effectively.

Zhao, Yong, and Wei Qiu. 2010. China as a case study of systemic educational reform. In The second international handbook of educational change . Edited by Andy Hargreaves, Ann Lieberman, Michael Fullan, and David Hopkins, 349–361. Springer International Handbooks of Education 23. Berlin: Springer.

In this chapter, the authors review the major systemic educational reforms that China has undertaken since 1980 and analyze the reasons behind their different degrees of success. They focus on two major themes, decentralization and marketization, and identify and assess the driving forces of the reforms.

Parents and communities can act as agents of educational reform, spearheading efforts that reflect areas in need of improvement in light of community needs. For an examination of social movement organizing and equity-focused educational change, see Renee, et al. 2010 . On the role of community organizing in educational change, see Shirley 1997 . To look at educational change through the lens of alternate teacher education programs, see Skinner, et al. 2011 .

Renee, Michelle, Kevin Welner, and Jeannie Oakes. 2010. Social movement organizing and equity-focused educational change: Shifting the zone of mediation. In The second handbook of educational change . Edited by Andy Hargreaves, Ann Lieberman, Michael Fullan, and David Hopkins, 153–168. Springer International Handbooks of Education 23. Berlin: Springer.

This chapter is a foundational article on the role of social movements in educational change. It explains the zone of mediation between schools and other domains, the types of forces that shape it, and the potential role of social movement organizations as one of those forces. The authors identify three elements key to the future success of social movement organizations in shifting the zone to make schools more equitable.

Shirley, Dennis. 1997. Community organizing for urban school reform . Austin: Univ. of Texas Press.

Most efforts at reform treat schools as isolated institutions, disconnected from their communities and the political realities that surround them. Using case studies, this book is one of the first accounts of the role of community organizing in educational change, where politically empowered low-income communities are at the heart of genuine school improvement and civic renewal.

Skinner, Elizabeth A., Maria Teresa Garreton, and Brain D. Schultz. 2011. Grow your own teachers: Grassroots change for teacher education . Teaching for Social Justice. New York: Teachers College Press.

This book uses the rich narratives of students, community leaders, and educators to offer a compelling look at alternative teacher education programs. Authors illustrate the successful collaboration of community-based organizations and local colleges of education in preparing a community’s members to teach local students.

Schools are not only places where educational change occurs. Rather, schools themselves can act as change agents by creating, supporting, challenging, or sustaining reform. To see how schools create conditions for change in schools, see Barth 1991 , Duke 1995 , and Reeves 2009 . For a view of the relationship between internally developed and externally imposed change, see Goodson 2002 . To see how schools work as professional learning communities to prepare students for a world of creativity and flexibility, see Hargreaves 2003 . For a look at how schools have amplified educational conservatism while altering its nature to fit the current culture and political economy of fast capitalism, see Hargreaves and Shirley 2009 . To see workplace conditions of school success, see Little 1982 . For an analysis of the organizational and political pressures facing non-traditional schools, such as magnet schools, see Metz 1986 .

Barth, Roland S. 1991. Improving schools from within . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Barth sets out principles and practices for change that are driven by teachers, principals, and schools themselves.

Duke, D. L. 1995. The school that refused to die . Albany: State Univ. of New York Press.

Duke describes the history of a high school and relates it to the larger picture of what is happening in urban education. A culture of academic excellence that had been painstakingly crafted during the school’s first thirty years was affected by court-ordered busing, student unrest, White flight, district-sponsored alternative schools, high school consolidation, budget crises, closure threats, magnet programs, and coexistence with a Governor’s School.

Goodson, Ivor F. 2002. Social histories of educational change. Journal of Educational Change 2.1: 45–63.

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Goodson examines the relationship between internally developed and externally imposed change, arguing that internal change is increasingly being preempted by external agendas and demands. The conclusion sets out a reintegration of internal and external change elements.

Hargreaves, Andy. 2003. Teaching in the knowledge society: Education in the age of insecurity . New York: Teachers College Press.

This book defines teaching in the new knowledge society as preparing students for a world of creativity and flexibility. Hargreaves provides examples of schools that operate as learning communities and sets out detailed evidence on how years of “soulless standardization” have driven nonaffluent schools in the opposite direction.

Hargreaves, Andy, and Dennis Shirley. 2009. The persistence of presentism. Teachers College Record 111.11: 2505–2534.

This study draws on Dan Lortie’s classic discussion of the role of presentism, individualism and conservatism in teaching and teacher change. The research identifies three kinds of presentism—endemic, adaptive, and addictive—that have amplified educational conservatism while altering its nature to fit the current culture and political economy of fast capitalism.

Little, Judith Warren. 1982. Norms of collegiality and experimentation: Workplace conditions of school success. American Educational Research Journal 19.3: 325–340.

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This article is one of the first discussions of the role of collegiality in school change. A focused ethnography of the school as a workplace, it examines organizational characteristics conducive to continued “learning on the job.” More successful schools, particularly those receptive to staff development, were differentiated from less successful (and less receptive) schools by patterned norms of interaction among staff.

Metz, Mary Haywood. 1986. Different by design: The context and character of three magnet schools . Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

This ethnographic study analyzes the organizational and political pressures that combined to make three magnet schools distinctive social environments—a rare glimpse of the critical processes with which teachers and students in both “regular” schools and schools of choice must struggle.

Reeves, Douglas B. 2009. Leading change in your school: How to conquer myths, build commitment, and get results . Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Drawing on his own experience and educational research, Reeves outlines with clear examples how leaders can achieve impressive results in their schools and their districts through a range of change strategies in four stages or processes: creating conditions, planning, implementing, and sustaining.

The impact of educational reform on teachers’ agency is varied. Reform can act as a powerful force on teachers, changing their practice in deep and meaningful ways. It can also have more negative effects, including isolation, attrition, marginalization, and de-professionalism. For an exploration of new teachers’ resistance to change, see Achinstein and Ogawa 2006 . To see the impact of mandated change on teachers, see Bailey 2000 . For an exploration of how teachers’ career stages, life factors, commitment, and professional working environments affect their efficacy, see Day, et al. 2007 . For teacher development viewed through innovative school efforts, see Fullan and Hargreaves 1992 . On the realities of change for reform-minded teachers, see Hargreaves, et al. 2001 . For an exploration of teachers’ emotional responses to change, see Hargreaves 2004 . For the impact of life, career, and generation on teachers’ emotional responses to educational change, see Hargreaves 2005 . For an exploration of the constraints and possibilities of educational practice in light of contemporary realities, see Lieberman and Miller 1999 . For an examination of conflict in teacher communities as a catalyst for school change, see Avila de Lima 2001 . To better understand autonomy and initiative in teachers’ professional relations, see Little 1990 . To further understand identity, diversity, and educational change, see Skerrett 2011 .

Achinstein, Betty, and Rodney T. Ogawa. 2006. (In)Fidelity: What the resistance of new teachers reveals about professional principles and prescriptive educational policies. Harvard Educational Review 76.1: 30–63.

DOI: 10.17763/haer.76.1.e14543458r811864 Save Citation » Export Citation » Share Citation »

In this article, Achinstein and Ogawa explain teachers’ resistance to change as informed by professional principles. The authors describe the negative effects of prescriptive and control-oriented educational reforms on teachers, including professional isolation and attrition.

Avila de Lima, Jorge. 2001. Forgetting about friendship: Using conflict in teacher communities as a catalyst for school change. Journal of Educational Change 2.2.

It is widely recognized that teacher communities figure among the most vital factors for promoting educational change within schools. Avila discusses the role of friendship and conflict in teacher communities and argues for a rethinking of the way the intermingling of professional and interpersonal ties in schools contributes to change.

Bailey, Beverley. 2000. The impact of mandated change on teachers. In The sharp edge of educational change: Teaching, leading and the realities of reform . Edited by Nina Bascia and Andy Hargreaves, 112–129. London: RoutledgeFalmer.

This chapter reports on teachers’ experiences of mandated change. Teachers reported feeling marginalized and deprofessionalized by the mandated change process. Bailey argues that such marginalization contributes to the failure of school restructuring initiatives, as they pay scant attention to the working lives of teachers.

Day, Christopher, Pam Sammons, Gordon Stobart, Alison Kington, and Qing Gu. 2007. Teachers matter: Connecting lives, work and effectiveness . Maidenhead, UK: McGraw-Hill.

In this intensive landmark study of three hundred teachers in one hundred schools, Day and his colleagues make a major contribution to documenting how, over time, teachers’ career stages, life factors, forms of commitment, and professional working environments affect their efficacy, their schools’ capacity to improve, and student achievement.

Fullan, Michael, and Andy Hargreaves. 1992. Teacher development and educational change . New York: RoutledgeFalmer.

This book explores teacher development through innovation-focused efforts and a total-teacher/total-school analysis. Authors maintain that educational transformation must include teacher development.

Hargreaves, Andy. 2004. Inclusive and exclusive educational change: Emotional responses of teachers and implications for leadership. School Leadership and Management 24.3: 287–309.

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This article analyzes teachers’ emotional responses to educational change. More important for the experience and management of change is not whether change is external or internal in its source, but whether it is inclusive or exclusive of teachers in its design and conduct. Implications are drawn for educational leadership.

Hargreaves, Andy. 2005. Educational change takes ages: Life, career and generational factors in teachers’ emotional responses to educational change. Teaching and Teacher Education 21:967–983.

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This paper examines evidence on the relationship of the emotions of teaching to teachers’ age and career stages, based on experiences of educational change. Hargreaves analyzes how teachers respond emotionally to educational change at different ages and stages of career, and also how they attribute age and career-based responses to their colleagues.

Hargreaves, Andy, Lorna Earl, Shawn Moore, and Susan Manning. 2001. Learning to change: Teaching beyond subjects and standards . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

The success of school reform measures greatly depends on the support and commitment of teachers. This book examines the realities of educational change from the frontline perspective of reform-minded teachers. It charts the perceptions and experiences of twenty-nine teachers in grades 7 and 8 from four school districts, showing how they grappled with such initiatives as integrated curriculum, common learning standards, and alternative assessments.

Lieberman, Ann, and Lynn Miller. 1999. Teachers: Transforming their world and their work . New York: Teachers College Press.

Lieberman and Miller address the contemporary realities of schools and teaching, focusing on both the constraints and the possibilities embedded in practice. The words and experiences of teachers and principals are used to show what growth and change look like from the inside—the teacher’s perspective.

Little, Judith Warren. 1990. The persistence of privacy: Autonomy and initiative in teachers’ professional relations. Teachers College Record 91.4: 509–536.

This widely cited paper discusses autonomy and initiative in teachers’ professional relations, and both articulates and investigates a continuum of collaborative relations in teachers’ practice.

Skerrett, Allison. 2011. On identity, diversity, and educational change. Journal of Educational Change 12.2: 211–220.

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Skerrett discusses those areas most influential to Hargreaves’s work on educational change: teacher identity and biography and educational change between 1960 and 1990. Skerrett explains how she integrates teacher identity in her courses and relates periods of optimism and innovation, complexity and contradiction, and marketization and standardization to policies and practice regarding student diversity.

The effects of change can be felt differently for teachers working at the primary and secondary levels. At the primary level, where teachers are not always subject-specific and where departmental cultures are not pervasive, primary teachers struggle with change in ways unique to their environment. For the challenges facing adolescents related to school reform, see Earl, et al. 1996 . For a description of how primary teachers see themselves and their work, see Nias 1989 . For an examination of primary teachers’ responses to change, see Woods, et al. 1997 .

Earl, Lorna, Andy Hargreaves, and Jim. Ryan. 1996. Schooling for change: Reinventing education for early adolescents . London: Routledge.

Drawing from years of conversations with educators, this book presents educational change and reform with practicality and relevance to teachers and administrators. Authors focus on the challenges facing adolescents in transition and how school reform can take into account their unique experiences.

Nias, Jennifer. 1989. Primary teachers talking . London: Routledge.

Drawing on a sample of British primary school teachers, Nias discusses how primary teachers see themselves and their work. She examines the subjective experience of “being a primary teacher,” the different kinds of commitment that these teachers hold, the main factors that contribute to job satisfaction and dissatisfaction, and teachers’ relationships with their colleagues.

Woods, Peter, Bob Jeffrey, Geoff Troman, and Mari Boyle. 1997. Restructuring schools, reconstructing teachers: Responding to change in the primary school . Bristol, UK: Open Univ. Press.

This study explores how UK policy changes affected primary school teachers and their work in the 1990s. The study’s major contribution is in documenting the different strategies of adaptation that teachers take toward external policy requirements and the reforms that follow from them. The authors argue that teachers’ own active involvement in policy change is required if their creative potential is to be realized.

Change is often difficult at the secondary level, where size, bureaucratic complexity, subject traditions, and identifications factor into relationships and decision making. For an understanding of change at the secondary level in the United States and Canada over a thirty-year period, see Goodson, et al. 2006 . To better understand the professional life cycle of teachers, see Huberman 1989 . To examine the career trajectories of secondary teachers who have experienced reform, see Little 1996 . For a look at teachers’ responses to change in a comprehensive school setting in the United Kingdom, see Riseborough 1981 .

Goodson, Ivor, Shawn Moore, and Andy Hargreaves. 2006. Teacher nostalgia and the sustainability of reform: The generation and degeneration of teachers’ missions, memory and meaning. Educational Administration Quarterly 42.1: 42–61.

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Drawing on the findings of a longitudinal study of educational change over time in eight US and Canadian secondary schools, the authors describe the change orientations of teachers in mid to late career depending on their generationally based sense of mission and their experiences of nostalgia for forms of teaching that sustained them in earlier careers.

Huberman, Michael. 1989. The professional life cycle of teachers. Teachers College Record 91.1: 31–57.

This article discusses trends in the literature related to phases or stages in the professional life of teachers and their impact on teachers’ orientations to development and change. It then presents the results of a study involving 160 secondary teachers in Switzerland. Findings suggest that four modal sequences are applicable to the professional life cycle of teachers.

Little, Judith Warren. 1996. The emotional contours and career trajectories of (disappointed) reform enthusiasts. Cambridge Journal of Education 26:345–359.

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Little examines the interplay of heightened emotionality and shifting career contours among secondary teachers engaged in reform movements; the nature and extent of reform-related conflict within work groups; the degree of equilibrium among multiple sources of pressure and support; and the capacity to manage the pace, scale and dynamics of reform.

Riseborough, George F. 1981. Teachers’ careers and comprehensive schooling: An empirical study. Sociology 15:325–381.

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This early ethnography of teachers’ careers and educational change in a reorganized comprehensive school explains the role of deviancy amplification among a group of mid-career teachers marginalized by a major organizational change, especially in relation to interactions with the school’s head teacher.

This section explores the different domains of activity and organization in which educational change occurs. Through the domains covered here, substantive evolutions of educational change over time are evident, in particular the impact of heightened accountability and standardization.

This section details curriculum and teaching, as well as learning, standards, and accountability, as important domains in which educational change occurs. To see the role of the system in supporting data-driven decision making, see Datnow and Park 2010 . For an exploration of the impact of state testing on inquiry-based science, refer to Falk and Drayton 2004 . To better understand the historical development and evolution of school subjects, see Goodson 1993 . To explore the concept of curriculum and the practice of curriculum theory, see Goodson 1997 . For perspectives on the impact of standardized testing, see McNeil 2000 . For an analysis of the current state of America’s school system, see Ravitch 2011 .

Datnow, Amanda, and Vicki Park. 2010. Large-scale reform in the era of accountability: The system role in supporting data-driven decision making. In The second international handbook of educational change . Edited by Andy Hargreaves, Ann Lieberman, Michael Fullan, and David Hopkins, 209–220. Springer International Handbooks of Education 23. Berlin: Springer.

This chapter opens the “black box” of large-scale educational change, specifically focusing on a reform movement that results from the current era of accountability: data-driven decision making. The focus is on the system or school district level, where large-scale efforts to engage educators in the use of data often are initiated.

Falk, Joni K., and Brian Drayton. 2004. State testing and inquiry-based science: Are they complementary or competing reforms? Journal of Educational Change 5.4: 345–387.

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The effect of district strategies for improving high-stakes test scores on science teachers’ practice is explored. Results suggest that districts chose markedly different strategies for raising test scores, and that the approaches taken by districts influenced the nature of pedagogical and curriculum changes.

Goodson, Ivor F. 1993. School subjects and curriculum change: Studies in curriculum history . 3d ed. London: Taylor & Francis.

Goodson investigates the historical development and evolution of school subjects, highlighting the ways in which subjects as we understand them are a result of competing forms of status and power in the development of “worthwhile” knowledge.

Goodson, Ivor F. 1997. The changing curriculum . New York: Peter Lang.

Goodson reviews the emergence of the concept of curriculum and the practice of curriculum theory. In doing so, he develops a contextual understanding of curriculum that is the product of change.

McNeil, Linda M. 2000. Contradictions of school reform: The educational costs of standardized testing . New York: RoutledgeFalmer.

This book examines the reality, for students as well as teachers, of standardized testing. It argues that the preparation of students for standardized tests engenders teaching methods that compromise the quality of education.

Ravitch, Diane. 2011. The death and life of the great American school system: How testing and choice are undermining education . New York: Basic Books.

This book is an analysis of the current state of America’s education system. Ravitch critiques popular contemporary reforms including standardized testing, punitive accountability, and privatization using examples from America’s major cities.

This section explores the different domains of activity and organization in which educational change occurs, focusing on the role and impact of school organization in educational change. In each domain, scholars have looked at school organization and culture to consider their role in promoting, supporting, resisting, achieving, and sustaining meaningful change. For an exploration of the micro-politics of school, see Ball 1987 . To better understand politics, markets, and the organization of schools, see Chubb and Moe 1988 . For a description of the evolution of innovation strategies and a look at which strategies will most effectively develop the 21st-century school, see Dalin 1998 . For a detailed description of whole-school reform focused on the collaboration of educators and politicians, see Fullan 2010 . For an exploration of the role of departmental cultures in reform, see McLaughlin and Talbert 2001 . To look at the impact of reforms on individuals, classrooms, and schools, and in particular the Coalition of Essential Schools, see McQuillan and Muncey 1996 . For an analysis of social, economic, and educational trends worldwide, see Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development 1991 . To look at the challenges facing the modern American high school, see Powell, et al. 1985 . For an analysis of the way contemporary schools run and the impact of these practices on student learning, see Sizer 1984 .

Ball, Stephen J. 1987. The micro-politics of the school: Towards a theory of school organization . London: Methuen.

In this book, Ball explores the interests and concerns of teachers and current problems through the concept of micropolitics in schools. He challenges educators to consider the existing forms of organizational control in schools and whether these forms are adequate or appropriate.

Chubb, John E., and Terry M. Moe. 1988. Politics, markets, and the organization of schools. American Political Science Review 82.4: 1065–1087.

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This analysis found that public and private schools differ in environment and organization, with private schools more likely to possess characteristics believed to produce effectiveness. The key differences lie in social control: public schools are subordinates in a hierarchic system, whereas private schools are autonomous actors “controlled” by the market.

Dalin, Per. 1998. Developing the twenty-first century school: A challenge to reformers. In The international handbook of educational change . Part 2. Edited by Andy Hargreaves, Michael Fullan, Ann Lieberman, and David Hopkins, 1059–1073. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic.

Dalin reviews three decades of research on and involvement in educational innovation. He traces the evolution of innovation strategies and describes the range of challenges currently facing educational reformers. Dalin outlines strategies that will assist educational reformers to more effectively develop the 21st-century school.

Fullan, Michael. 2010. All systems go: The change imperative for whole system reform . Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Fullan examines whole-system reform at the school, district, and state levels. With relevance to educators and change agents at all levels of schooling, he discusses the need for politicians and professionals in the field to collaborate and share decision making and create policy together.

McLaughlin, Milbrey Wallin, and Joan E. Talbert. 2001. Professional communities and the work of high school teaching . Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.

McLaughlin and Talbert argue that it is not the state or district but the most local contexts—schools, departments, and communities—that matter most to teachers’ performance and professional satisfaction. Their findings show that departmental cultures play a crucial role in classroom settings and expectations.

Muncey, Donna E., and Patrick J. McQuillan. 1996. Reform and resistance in schools and classrooms: An ethnographic view of the Coalition of Essential Schools . New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press.

This book charts the course of reform at eight charter-member schools of the Coalition of Essential Schools. Muncey and McQuillan’s study is the culmination of five years of ethnographic research on the impact of reforms on individuals, classrooms, and the schools themselves.

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. 1991. What schools for the future? Paris: OECD.

Drawing on an extensive body of statistical and research evidence, the book analyzes the social, economic, and educational trends of the 21st century. It presents six possible scenarios for school systems over the next ten to twenty years. The analysis is completed by contributions from eight international experts, looking at the challenges facing schools.

Powell, Arthur G., Eleanor Farrar, and David K. Cohen. 1985. The shopping mall high school: Winners and losers in the educational marketplace . Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

This book suggests the modern high school is like a shopping mall, offering immense variety but virtually no direction. Consequently, all too many students simply “hang out” in school. This situation continues because of teachers’ overwork and apathy, administrative concern with enrollment figures, and the societal attitude that high school is merely a rite of passage to adulthood.

Sizer, Theodore R. 1984. Horace’s compromise . Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

In this book, Sizer reveals the all too familiar workings of schools: the often ineffective teaching practices, the rushed procession of fifty-two-minute classes, and the mindless, brief tests that do little to enhance students’ understanding. Sizer insists that we do more than compromise for our children’s educational futures.

Demographics

One of the greatest factors influencing educational change is the demographics of the people who populate the region served. This section explores the role of these demographic factors in educational change. Included are the need to consider race, class, language, and gender in reform and how to create more equitable teaching and learning for urban schools and underserved populations through inclusive education practices.

This section considers the role of race, class, and language in educational change. For an insightful theory of change through the lens of race, see Connolly and Troyna 1998 . To further understand the culture of power and pedagogy in teaching Black and poor students, see Delpit 1988 and Fordham 1996 . For a look at how language and culture influence student learning, see Fecho 2003 and Philips 1983 . For suggestions on policy reform and teacher preparation in diverse international settings, see Skerret 2008 and Skerret and Hargreaves 2008 .

Connolly, Paul, and Barry Troyna. 1998. Researching racism in education: Politics, theory and practice . Bristol, UK: Open Univ. Press.

A key chapter in this book argues that literature on race has no theory of change and that literature on change has no theory of race or diversity, and Troyna sets out some ways to develop a theory of change that is based on more than guilt or persuasion.

Delpit, Lisa D. 1988. The silenced dialogue: Power and pedagogy in educating other people’s children. Harvard Education Review 58.3: 280–298.

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Delpit discusses the “culture of power” in society and education in the United States. She provides five complex rules of power that influence the teaching and learning of black and poor students. She suggests that educators must gain an understanding of these power relationships in order to provide more equitable schools.

Fecho, Bob. 2003. Is this English? Race, language, and culture in the classroom . New York: Teachers College Press.

This book describes how a white high school English teacher and his students of color used “critical inquiry” in the classroom. This method allowed the students and teacher to take intellectual and social risks by crossing cultural boundaries, and over time, it empowered the students and transformed literacy education in their school.

Fordham, Signithia. 1996. Blacked out: Dilemmas of race, identity, and success at Capitol High . Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.

Fordham describes the symbolic role of academic achievement within the black community in an inner-city high school. This ethnography details the struggles of students to construct their identities in the midst of cultural conflicts between a community that encourages egalitarianism and group cohesion and a school that encourages individualism and competition for academic success.

Philips, Susan U. 1983. The invisible culture: Communication in classroom and community on the Warm Springs Indian reservation . Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland.

Philips offers insights for educators on the role of language and culture in educational settings by sharing the experiences of Warm Springs Native American children and their teachers in an American school. She explains that the organization of communication in the classroom places these children in a subordinate position both socially and culturally.

Skerrett, Allison. 2008. “Going the race way”: Biographical influences on multicultural and antiracist English curriculum practices. Teaching and Teacher Education 24.7: 1813–1826.

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This article considers the importance of teacher agency in relation to teaching to student diversity during a time of increased curriculum standardization. Drawing from an international study conducted in the United States and Canada, Skerrett explains how teacher agency in two racially diverse schools was directly related to professional preparation, prior experiences with diversity, and generational status.

Skerrett, Allison, and Andy Hargreaves. 2008. Student diversity and secondary school change in a context of increasingly standardized reform. American Educational Research Journal 45.4: 913–945.

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This article analyzes three decades of educational reform strategies pertaining to ethnocultural diversity in the United States and Canada and how they affect the efforts of four secondary schools, two in each context, to respond to increasing student diversity. The authors describe the current effects of increasing standardization on racially diverse schools and offer recommendations for policy reform that embraces post-standardization.

Reforms embracing a multicultural perspective help to create more equitable teaching and learning for all students. For practical suggestions and tools to provide inclusive and multicultural teaching, see Banks 2004 . For advice on policy development and teaching for empowerment in diverse linguistic and cultural contexts, see Cummins 1996 , Nieto 2005 , and Nieto 2010 . For ideas on community involvement in schools with diverse student populations, see Valdés 1996 . To further understand the importance of culturally responsive and socioculturally conscious teaching, see Valenzuela 1999 and Villegas and Lucas 2002 . To explore student-centered, critical, and democratic pedagogy, see Shor 2012 .

Banks, James A. 2004. Multicultural education: Historical developments, dimensions, and practice. In Handbook of research on multicultural education . 2d ed. Edited by James A. Banks and Cherry A. McGee Banks, 3–29. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

This book provides educators with knowledge and tools to become effective practitioners in an increasingly diverse society. Authors discuss the concepts of school culture and the influence of race, class, gender, religion, and exceptionality and how these influence teaching, learning, and student behavior. Suggestions are advanced for educational reform that embraces a multicultural perspective.

Cummins, Jim. 1996. Negotiating identities: Education for empowerment in a diverse society . Ontario: California Association for Bilingual Education.

Cummins explains that the current methods of teaching English language learners from diverse cultures and countries are not working. He suggests the need for teachers to create a learning environment for students that encourages them to learn from the diversity of cultures in the classroom, as opposed to pressuring for assimilation.

Nieto, Sonia. 2005. Cultural difference and educational change in a sociopolitical context. In Extending educational change . Edited by Andy Hargreaves, 138–159. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.

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Nieto discusses the phenomenon of growing cultural diversity and the challenges it presents for educational change. She explains the benefits of student learning and achievement in reforms that take into account cultural and linguistic diversity and argues for pre-service teacher education that prepares teachers to work effectively in diverse contexts, as well as for policies that are sensitive to diversity issues.

Nieto, Sonia. 2010. The light in their eyes: Creating multicultural learning Communities . 2d ed. New York: Teachers College Press.

In this book, Sonia Nieto explains how student learning should be at the center of multicultural education. She describes multicultural education as a transformative process influenced by social context, culture, critical pedagogy, and educational equity.

Shor, Ira. 2012. Empowering education: Critical teaching for social change . Chicago, IL: Univ. of Chicago Press.

Shor explores empowering education as a function of student-centered, critical, and democratic pedagogy. The author argues that through interactive dialogue with teachers, students become proactive in their learning. This book provides strategies to assist students in developing critical thinking skills through an analysis of the obstacles in promoting empowering education.

Valdés, Guadalupe. 1996. Con respeto: Bridging the distances between culturally diverse families and schools . New York: Teachers College Press.

This book is an ethnographic portrait of ten Mexican immigrant families. It describes the challenges of survival and learning in a new country and uncovers common cultural misunderstandings in schools that may have long-term negative consequences on immigrant children. It provides information for educators on creating multicultural learning communities.

Valenzuela, Angela. 1999. Subtractive schooling: U.S.-Mexican youth and the politics of caring . Albany: State Univ. of New York Press.

Valenzuela examines how school is an uncaring place for many students. She describes two conceptions of school: one that embraces the different languages and cultures of students, and one that encourages mainstreaming into the dominant society without consideration of student differences.

Villegas, Ana María, and Tamara Lucas. 2002. Preparing culturally responsive teachers. Journal of Teacher Education 53.1: 20–32.

DOI: 10.1177/0022487102053001003 Save Citation » Export Citation » Share Citation »

In this article, Villegas and Lucas discuss the importance of culturally responsive teaching in teacher education programs. They demonstrate the need for programs to move beyond the current fragmented treatment of diversity and create a vision for socioculturally conscious teaching that affirms student differences and promotes equity.

There is a great need for equity-focused reforms and policies in many urban schools. This section highlights works that consider new paradigms for understanding social and educational injustice (see Anyon 2005 ) and suggestions for closing the achievement gap in urban schools (see Noguera 2003 ). For a history of class politics and public schooling in the United States, see Wrigley 1982 . For a grounded theory of critical literacy pedagogy, see Morrell 2008 . For suggestions on creating more equitable schools using social and political movements outside the field of education, see Oakes and Lipton 2002 . For a cultural ecological model of school change, see Ogbu 1974 . For a discussion on education reform and social change, see Walsh 1996 .

This book provides a new paradigm for understanding educational injustice and working toward equity in schools and communities. Anyon explains the many unintended consequences of policies and practices on poor communities. She describes five current social movements in the United States that are demonstrating success and offers suggestions for educators striving to obtain educational justice in struggling schools.

Morrell, Ernest. 2008. Critical literacy and urban youth: Pedagogies of access, dissent, and liberation . New York: Routledge.

In this book, Morrell presents a grounded theory of critical literacy pedagogy developed from his own work. The author offers implications for literary research, teacher education, classroom practices, and social and community change.

Noguera, Pedro A. 2003. City schools and the American dream: Reclaiming the promise of public education . New York: Teachers College Press.

In this book, Pedro Noguera considers how urban schools can reach the academic standards required by new state and national educational standards. He discusses the role of classroom teachers in helping to close the achievement gap and the need for substantial investment in communities to combat social forces such as poverty, violence, and social inequality.

Oakes, Jeannie, and Martin Lipton. 2002. Struggling for educational equity in diverse communities: School reforms as social movement. Journal of Educational Change 3:383–406.

DOI: 10.1023/A:1021225728762 Save Citation » Export Citation » Share Citation »

Oakes and Lipton present the need for equity-focused school reformers to learn from the logic and strategies of change efforts outside the field of education. The authors suggest using social and political movements as lenses for reform efforts because they may have more success challenging and disrupting the norms and prevailing power structures than do traditional organizational change models.

Ogbu, John. 1974. The next generation . New York: Academic Press.

Ogbu, in this foundational article, explains how his theories on minority education developed, including his cultural ecological model. Dialogue between Ogbu and the scholarly community frames the debate on academic achievement, school engagement, and oppositional culture.

Walsh, Catherine E. 1996. Education reform and social change: Multicultural voices, struggles, and visions . Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

This book uses case studies to emphasize multicultural, collaborative, grassroots approaches to education reform. Through firsthand documentation, Walsh gives voice to stakeholders, including students, and their efforts to implement equitable improvements to education. He encourages reflective thought regarding these issues and provides readers with guiding questions for thoughtful engagement.

Wrigley, Julia. 1982. Class politics and public schools: Chicago 1900–1950 . New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers Univ. Press.

In a classic in the field of sociology of education, Wrigley examines how social class struggles and long-term power structures defined educational development in the United States.

The works in this section consider the role of gender in educational change and reform. For a historical examination of women in educational administration, see Blackmore 1996 and Shakeshaft 1989 . For a discussion on the relationship of gender to micro-politics in secondary schools, see Datnow 2003 .

Blackmore, Jill. 1996. Doing “emotional labour” in the education market place: Stories from the field of women in management. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 17(3): 337–349.

DOI: 10.1080/0159630960170304 Save Citation » Export Citation » Share Citation »

Blackmore discusses how the construction of an educational labor market has shaped educational practice. The author considers the difficulties female principals face when dealing with educational quasi-markets and the contradiction of caring and sharing leadership during a time of state-imposed educational reforms based upon market liberalism.

Datnow, Amanda. 2003. The gender politics of educational change . Bristol, PA: Taylor & Francis.

Datnow contrasts the efforts of two gender-based groups in their efforts to implement school improvements. She details how these improvements quickly became a political match between female-dominated and male-dominated groups. This book gives researchers and practitioners a new perspective from which to view a school’s culture and leadership dynamics.

Shakeshaft, Charol. 1989. Women in educational administration . Newbury Park, CA: SAGE.

This book was one of the first to focus on women in educational administration. This updated edition summarizes and analyzes the history of women in educational leadership and the status of women in the field compared to men. Social barriers and strategies for overcoming these barriers are suggested.

This works in this section consider the need for sustainable change and fostering inclusive values and practices in schools. For a broader definition of inclusion, including issues of equity, participation, and the role of community in sustaining equitable reform, see Ainscow, et al. 2006 . For the role of organizational cultures and leadership in developing inclusive educational practices, see Ainscow and Sandill 2010 .

Ainscow, Mel, Tony Booth, Alan Dyson, et al. 2006. Improving schools, developing inclusion . London: Routledge.

Much of the literature on inclusive practices in schools has been narrowly concerned with the inclusion of pupils with special educational needs. This book takes the view that marginalization, exclusion, and underachievement take many forms and affect many different kinds of children. As such, a definition of inclusion should also touch upon issues of equity, participation, community, entitlement, compassion, respect for diversity, and sustainability.

Ainscow, Mel, and Abha Sandill. 2010. Developing inclusive education systems: The role of organisational cultures and leadership. International Journal of Inclusive Education 14.4: 401–416.

DOI: 10.1080/13603110802504903 Save Citation » Export Citation » Share Citation »

Drawing on research evidence and ideas from a range of international literature, this paper argues that leadership practice is a crucial element in gearing education systems toward inclusive values and bringing about sustainable change. The paper considers the organizational conditions that are needed in order to bring about such developments, focusing in particular on the role of leadership in fostering inclusive cultures.

Theories of Change

This section includes key books, articles, and book chapters that discuss theories of educational change. Included are topics on non-change, stage development and institutional theories, concepts of personal, emotional, and psychodynamic reactions to change, and orientations to and responses to change. Pivotal historical works on change theories are also included.

The works in this section consider educational change from the perspective of growth, learning, and stage development. For details on how to use social network theory to enact and sustain educational change, see Daly 2010 . For an understanding of the five dimensions of schooling in implementing reform, see Eisner 1992 . For a look at how partnerships among educators, communities, and governments can create learning societies and sustain reform, see Fullan 1993 and Senge 2010 . To further understand large-scale transformation and complex change, see Fullan 2001 . For a synthesis of existing theoretical perspectives on educational change, see Paulson 1977 .

Daly, Alan J., ed. 2010. Social network theory and educational change . Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education.

Uses case study to explore the networks developed by teachers and school leaders. Daly contrasts informal and formal organizational structures and observes the flow of influence, ideas, and information between both individuals and groups. He emphasizes that school reform must be viewed from the relationships between stakeholders.

Eisner, Elliot W. 1992. Educational reform and the ecology of schooling. Teachers College Record 93.4: 610–627.

Eisner discusses the need to consider five dimensions of schooling—the intentional, structural, pedagogical, and evaluative—in implementing meaningful and significant school reform. The author explains the factors that make educational change difficult, including teacher isolation, the persistence of school and teacher norms, and a lack of meaningful professional development for teachers.

Fullan, Michael. 1993. Change forces: Probing the depths of educational reform . London: Falmer.

In this first book in his Change Forces trilogy, Fullan draws on and articulates the principles of chaos theory to explain that transforming the educational system will require partnerships among educators, community agencies, and governments. The author identifies eight basic lessons of a new change paradigm aimed at creating learning societies and sustaining educational change.

Drawing on leadership and change theories and examples of large-scale transformation, Fullan addresses how school leaders can deal with complex change. He offers five core competencies for educators: attending to a broader moral purpose, keeping on top of the change process, cultivating relationships, sharing knowledge, and setting a vision and context for creating coherence in organizations.

Paulson, Rolland 1977. Social and educational change: Conceptual frameworks. Comparative Education Review 21.2–3: 370–395.

This review provides a synthesis of existing theoretical perspectives on social and educational change. Eight frameworks are examined, including evolutionary, neo-evolutionary, structural-functionist systems, Marxian, neo-Marxian, cultural revitalization, and anarchistic-utopian.

Senge, Peter M. 2010. Education for an interdependent world: Developing systems citizens. In The second international handbook of educational change . Edited by Andy Hargreaves, Ann Lieberman, Michael Fullan, and David Hopkins, 131–151. Springer International Handbooks of Education 23. Berlin: Springer.

In this article, Senge points to the need to create a regenerative society where community leaders from education, business, civil society, and local governments work together to support innovation in public schooling. He stresses the importance of systems thinking in approaching the task of building an education system that encourages and sustains community and global citizenship.

The success of educational reform depends on those implementing the reform: the teachers and administrators. The works in this section discuss these educators’ emotions and psychodynamic responses to change. For insight into reform behind the scenes and suggestions for those leading and managing change, see James 2010 . For details on teachers’ emotions in the context of reform and the implications of change for these individuals, see van Veen and Sleegers 2006 and Zembylas 2010 .

James, Chris 2010. The psychodynamics of educational change. In The second international handbook of educational change . Edited by Andy Hargreaves, Michael Fullan, Ann Lieberman, and David Hopkins, 47–64. Springer International Handbooks of Education 23. Berlin: Springer.

This chapter explores the reasons for the high level of affective intensity in educational institutions. It then sets out what may lie behind responses to educational change and, using concepts from systems psychodynamic theory, explores those responses in greater depth. This chapter also seeks to offer pointers for those leading and managing change in schools and colleges.

van Veen, Klaas, and Peter Sleegers. 2006. How does it feel? Teacher’s emotions in a context of change. Journal of Curriculum Studies 38:85–111.

DOI: 10.1080/00220270500109304 Save Citation » Export Citation » Share Citation »

This paper describes how six Dutch secondary school teachers perceive their work within the current educational reform environment. Using a cognitive social-psychological approach to emotions, Van Keen and Sleegers share how these educators appraised the relations between their perceived role as teachers and their situational demands.

Zembylas, Michalinos. 2010. Teacher emotions in the context of educational reforms. In The second international handbook of educational change . Edited by Andy Hargreaves, Michael Fullan, Ann Lieberman, and David Hopkins, 221–236. Springer International Handbooks of Education 23. Berlin: Springer.

In this paper, the author explains that although there is a clear need for teachers and administrators to be involved in the educational reform process, the emotions of change for these individuals and the implications of reform for their wellbeing are rarely addressed.

This section includes works that consider the social and organizational behavior of principals and schools as influenced by the wider social structure such as rules, norms, and routines. For consideration of the effects of control-oriented principals on teacher performance, see Blasé 1990 . To see how institutional theory may be applied to educational reform initiatives, see Burch 2007 . For a framework on how to lead, evaluate, and explain the success or failure of educational reform, see Duke 2004 .

Blasé, Joseph J. 1990. Some negative effects of principals’ control-oriented and protective political behavior. American Educational Research Journal 27.4: 727–753.

DOI: 10.3102/00028312027004727 Save Citation » Export Citation » Share Citation »

Blasé describes the use of control-manipulative political behaviors by some principals and the negative effects their actions had on involvement and performance of teachers and on school standards.

Burch, Patricia. 2007. Educational policy and practice from the perspective of institutional theory: Crafting a wider lens. Educational Researcher 36.2: 84–95.

DOI: 10.3102/0013189X07299792 Save Citation » Export Citation » Share Citation »

In this paper, Burch provides a framework that integrates recent institutional theory with current issues in public education in the United States. The author identifies the potential gains from increasing the utility of institutional perspectives in educational reform.

Duke, Daniel Linden. 2004. The challenges of educational change . Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Using a five-phase model of the change process practical examples as frameworks, Duke helps the reader understand how to lead reform, evaluate process and outcomes, and explain the success and/or failure of educational change initiatives.

There are many reasons for the lack of change in schools. This works in this section review some of these reasons, including the difficulty of challenging long-held power structures, and the attrition of innovative practices over time. Angus and Mirel 1999 explains some the reasons for the failure and loss of momentum of differentiated curriculum and makes suggestions for future reform efforts. Fink 2000 discusses the “attrition of change” using six conceptual structures.

Angus, David L., and Jeffrey Mirel. 1999. The failed promise of the American high school, 1890–1995 . New York: Teachers College Press.

This book traces the history of schooling in the United States from the professionalization of curriculum planning by elites in the 1890s to the era of standardization, 1975–1995. The authors summarize the failures of the differentiated curriculum at the high school level and make suggestions for promising educational reform.

Fink, Dean. 2000. Good schools, real schools: Why school reform doesn’t last . New York: Teachers College Press.

In this book, Fink explains some of the reasons for the failure and loss of momentum of innovative educational practices in many high schools. He uses six conceptual structures to describe this “attrition of change,” including context, meaning, leadership, structure, culture, and the lives and work of teachers.

This works in this section offer an examination of the history, role, and controversies of public schooling in American society. For a synopsis of US educational reform, see Miles 1998 and Ravitch 1983 . For insight into how economics, community, and power structures have influenced American schooling, see Nespor 1997 and Tyack and Cuban 1995 . For a look at the historical development of US curriculum, see Willis, et al. 1994 .

Miles, M. 1998. Finding keys to school change: A 40-year odyssey. In The international handbook of educational change . Part 1. Edited by Andy Hargreaves, Ann Lieberman, Michael Fullan, and David Hopkins, 37–69. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic.

Miles reflects upon his forty years of work and research on educational change. This book chapter offers a poignant synopsis of reform for researchers and practitioners alike from the perspective of an expert in educational change.

Nespor, Jan. 1997. Tangled up in school: Politics, space, bodies, and signs in the educational process . Sociocultural, Political, and Historical Studies in Education. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

This book offers a singular examination of the role of schools in American society. Nespor gives insight into how economics, community, power structures, and agendas and culture play out at the school level.

Ravitch, Diane. 1983. The troubled crusade: American education, 1945–1980 . New York: Basic Books.

Ravitch describes the history and controversies of American schools and universities since World War II.

Tyack, David B., and Larry Cuban. 1995. Tinkering toward utopia: A century of public school reform . Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.

Tyack and Cuban explore the nature of educational reform, including the cyclical nature of reform and the reasons for the difficulty of breaking traditional molds of schooling. The authors propose focusing on improving teacher instruction from the inside out and keeping the democratic purposes of education at the center of any future change efforts.

Willis, George, William Schubert, Robert Bullough, Craig Kridel, and John Holton, eds. 1994. The American curriculum: A documentary history . Westport, CT: Greenwood.

This book includes thirty-six primary source documents from the historical development of curriculum in the United States. Materials range in date from 1642 to 1983 and include a short summary of significance prior to each paper.

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The pandemic has had devastating impacts on learning. What will it take to help students catch up?

Subscribe to the brown center on education policy newsletter, megan kuhfeld , megan kuhfeld senior research scientist - nwea jim soland , jim soland assistant professor, school of education and human development - university of virginia, affiliated research fellow - nwea karyn lewis , and karyn lewis director, center for school and student progress - nwea emily morton emily morton research scientist - nwea.

March 3, 2022

As we reach the two-year mark of the initial wave of pandemic-induced school shutdowns, academic normalcy remains out of reach for many students, educators, and parents. In addition to surging COVID-19 cases at the end of 2021, schools have faced severe staff shortages , high rates of absenteeism and quarantines , and rolling school closures . Furthermore, students and educators continue to struggle with mental health challenges , higher rates of violence and misbehavior , and concerns about lost instructional time .

As we outline in our new research study released in January, the cumulative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on students’ academic achievement has been large. We tracked changes in math and reading test scores across the first two years of the pandemic using data from 5.4 million U.S. students in grades 3-8. We focused on test scores from immediately before the pandemic (fall 2019), following the initial onset (fall 2020), and more than one year into pandemic disruptions (fall 2021).

Average fall 2021 math test scores in grades 3-8 were 0.20-0.27 standard deviations (SDs) lower relative to same-grade peers in fall 2019, while reading test scores were 0.09-0.18 SDs lower. This is a sizable drop. For context, the math drops are significantly larger than estimated impacts from other large-scale school disruptions, such as after Hurricane Katrina—math scores dropped 0.17 SDs in one year for New Orleans evacuees .

Even more concerning, test-score gaps between students in low-poverty and high-poverty elementary schools grew by approximately 20% in math (corresponding to 0.20 SDs) and 15% in reading (0.13 SDs), primarily during the 2020-21 school year. Further, achievement tended to drop more between fall 2020 and 2021 than between fall 2019 and 2020 (both overall and differentially by school poverty), indicating that disruptions to learning have continued to negatively impact students well past the initial hits following the spring 2020 school closures.

These numbers are alarming and potentially demoralizing, especially given the heroic efforts of students to learn and educators to teach in incredibly trying times. From our perspective, these test-score drops in no way indicate that these students represent a “ lost generation ” or that we should give up hope. Most of us have never lived through a pandemic, and there is so much we don’t know about students’ capacity for resiliency in these circumstances and what a timeline for recovery will look like. Nor are we suggesting that teachers are somehow at fault given the achievement drops that occurred between 2020 and 2021; rather, educators had difficult jobs before the pandemic, and now are contending with huge new challenges, many outside their control.

Clearly, however, there’s work to do. School districts and states are currently making important decisions about which interventions and strategies to implement to mitigate the learning declines during the last two years. Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) investments from the American Rescue Plan provided nearly $200 billion to public schools to spend on COVID-19-related needs. Of that sum, $22 billion is dedicated specifically to addressing learning loss using “evidence-based interventions” focused on the “ disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on underrepresented student subgroups. ” Reviews of district and state spending plans (see Future Ed , EduRecoveryHub , and RAND’s American School District Panel for more details) indicate that districts are spending their ESSER dollars designated for academic recovery on a wide variety of strategies, with summer learning, tutoring, after-school programs, and extended school-day and school-year initiatives rising to the top.

Comparing the negative impacts from learning disruptions to the positive impacts from interventions

To help contextualize the magnitude of the impacts of COVID-19, we situate test-score drops during the pandemic relative to the test-score gains associated with common interventions being employed by districts as part of pandemic recovery efforts. If we assume that such interventions will continue to be as successful in a COVID-19 school environment, can we expect that these strategies will be effective enough to help students catch up? To answer this question, we draw from recent reviews of research on high-dosage tutoring , summer learning programs , reductions in class size , and extending the school day (specifically for literacy instruction) . We report effect sizes for each intervention specific to a grade span and subject wherever possible (e.g., tutoring has been found to have larger effects in elementary math than in reading).

Figure 1 shows the standardized drops in math test scores between students testing in fall 2019 and fall 2021 (separately by elementary and middle school grades) relative to the average effect size of various educational interventions. The average effect size for math tutoring matches or exceeds the average COVID-19 score drop in math. Research on tutoring indicates that it often works best in younger grades, and when provided by a teacher rather than, say, a parent. Further, some of the tutoring programs that produce the biggest effects can be quite intensive (and likely expensive), including having full-time tutors supporting all students (not just those needing remediation) in one-on-one settings during the school day. Meanwhile, the average effect of reducing class size is negative but not significant, with high variability in the impact across different studies. Summer programs in math have been found to be effective (average effect size of .10 SDs), though these programs in isolation likely would not eliminate the COVID-19 test-score drops.

Figure 1: Math COVID-19 test-score drops compared to the effect sizes of various educational interventions

Source: COVID-19 score drops are pulled from Kuhfeld et al. (2022) Table 5; reduction-in-class-size results are from pg. 10 of Figles et al. (2018) Table 2; summer program results are pulled from Lynch et al (2021) Table 2; and tutoring estimates are pulled from Nictow et al (2020) Table 3B. Ninety-five percent confidence intervals are shown with vertical lines on each bar.

Notes: Kuhfeld et al. and Nictow et al. reported effect sizes separately by grade span; Figles et al. and Lynch et al. report an overall effect size across elementary and middle grades. We were unable to find a rigorous study that reported effect sizes for extending the school day/year on math performance. Nictow et al. and Kraft & Falken (2021) also note large variations in tutoring effects depending on the type of tutor, with larger effects for teacher and paraprofessional tutoring programs than for nonprofessional and parent tutoring. Class-size reductions included in the Figles meta-analysis ranged from a minimum of one to minimum of eight students per class.

Figure 2 displays a similar comparison using effect sizes from reading interventions. The average effect of tutoring programs on reading achievement is larger than the effects found for the other interventions, though summer reading programs and class size reduction both produced average effect sizes in the ballpark of the COVID-19 reading score drops.

Figure 2: Reading COVID-19 test-score drops compared to the effect sizes of various educational interventions

Source: COVID-19 score drops are pulled from Kuhfeld et al. (2022) Table 5; extended-school-day results are from Figlio et al. (2018) Table 2; reduction-in-class-size results are from pg. 10 of Figles et al. (2018) ; summer program results are pulled from Kim & Quinn (2013) Table 3; and tutoring estimates are pulled from Nictow et al (2020) Table 3B. Ninety-five percent confidence intervals are shown with vertical lines on each bar.

Notes: While Kuhfeld et al. and Nictow et al. reported effect sizes separately by grade span, Figlio et al. and Kim & Quinn report an overall effect size across elementary and middle grades. Class-size reductions included in the Figles meta-analysis ranged from a minimum of one to minimum of eight students per class.

There are some limitations of drawing on research conducted prior to the pandemic to understand our ability to address the COVID-19 test-score drops. First, these studies were conducted under conditions that are very different from what schools currently face, and it is an open question whether the effectiveness of these interventions during the pandemic will be as consistent as they were before the pandemic. Second, we have little evidence and guidance about the efficacy of these interventions at the unprecedented scale that they are now being considered. For example, many school districts are expanding summer learning programs, but school districts have struggled to find staff interested in teaching summer school to meet the increased demand. Finally, given the widening test-score gaps between low- and high-poverty schools, it’s uncertain whether these interventions can actually combat the range of new challenges educators are facing in order to narrow these gaps. That is, students could catch up overall, yet the pandemic might still have lasting, negative effects on educational equality in this country.

Given that the current initiatives are unlikely to be implemented consistently across (and sometimes within) districts, timely feedback on the effects of initiatives and any needed adjustments will be crucial to districts’ success. The Road to COVID Recovery project and the National Student Support Accelerator are two such large-scale evaluation studies that aim to produce this type of evidence while providing resources for districts to track and evaluate their own programming. Additionally, a growing number of resources have been produced with recommendations on how to best implement recovery programs, including scaling up tutoring , summer learning programs , and expanded learning time .

Ultimately, there is much work to be done, and the challenges for students, educators, and parents are considerable. But this may be a moment when decades of educational reform, intervention, and research pay off. Relying on what we have learned could show the way forward.

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Please note you do not have access to teaching notes, high school change: a reflective essay on three decades of frustration, struggle and progress.

Journal of Educational Administration

ISSN : 0957-8234

Article publication date: 3 May 2022

Issue publication date: 10 May 2022

The purpose of this essay is to honor, position and reflect on key themes related to high school reform within the careerlong scholarship of Karen Seashore Louis. It is presented in relation to my own and others' key studies and book-length arguments regarding educational change, knowledge utilization, professional communities and innovation, over the past 30 years and up to the present time.

Design/methodology/approach

The article examines and interprets major works by Karen Seashore Louis and other educational change theorists that address repeated systemic failures, and episodic outlier efforts, at transformational change in high schools.

High school change has only failed if it is judged by the overarching criterion of system-wide transformation. Fair assessments of high school change must also examine accumulated incremental innovations. In light of the need for transformational aspirations in schools to mesh with transformational directions in society, the global pandemic and its aftermath may provide five key opportunities for long-awaited transformation.

Originality/value

There are different levels and degrees of innovation. Incremental innovation is as important as wholesale transformation. The growing number of networked outliers of innovation raises questions about the false equation of whole system change with bureaucratic state reform. Although the influential literature on whole system change is rooted in a small number of English-speaking countries, transformational change on a system-wide basis already exists in Northern Europe and parts of the Global South. Last, the pandemic and other major disruptions to the global social order have produced conditions that are highly favorable to transformational change in the future.

• Educational change
• School reform
• High schools
• Secondary education

Hargreaves, A. (2022), "High school change: a reflective essay on three decades of frustration, struggle and progress", Journal of Educational Administration , Vol. 60 No. 3, pp. 245-261. https://doi.org/10.1108/JEA-01-2022-0013

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College Essay: Adapting to Change

I am wrapped warmly in my thin, soft, rainbow blanket looking up at my mother and father in a blurry haze. For the next 15 years, that rainbow blanket would be an object of comfort, home and family. When I was young, I never wanted to grow up and become an adult because reality was endless and full of possibilities. I was too afraid to leave the warmth of my home and step into the real world with aspirations of my own. But, the year 2019-20 has shifted my entire view, and I had to adapt to the changes that occurred when growing up.  

The elders always ask me, “Thaum koj loj los koj yuav dhau los ua kws kho mob, puas yog?” This translates to, “When you are older you’re going to become a doctor, right?” 

“Yes,” I quickly reply without thinking, because it is such a common question. For 15 years, I’ve set strict rules to achieve my goals. I had my whole life planned out–until I went to high school.  

Transitioning to high school was a steep, icy hill. There were many obstacles I had to face that reflected my determination. For nine years, I had spent my entire life with the same adults, peers and school, but it was time to step out of my comfort zone.   

“YOU GOT INTO THE MATH AND SCIENCE ACADEMY!!” my mom screamed joyfully, as if she was the one  who had been accepted. However, I was nervous about attending the No. 1 public charter school in Minnesota.  

Regardless, I wanted to play for the volleyball team. I had practiced for weeks to improve my serve. It was toward the end of August and humid outside. My knees were shaking, and my stomach was quivering with fear. My head was dizzy and my throat was dry. As I walked into the building, I felt a rush of cool air overwhelm me. It smelled like new wood; everything was polished. I peeked into the gym and saw girls that were more than 5 feet tall. After half of the tryout, I made new friends. I was excited to play volleyball with them, and I soon got over the feeling of being an outsider. Since the student body population was small, I connected with teachers and students. I even joined clubs. I finally belonged.  

Then March 13, 2020, hit and altered my sense of belonging at school. I was finally happy and comfortable with the high standards of Math and Science Academy, but COVID-19 drastically impacted everyone; it was time to adapt.

I learn online curriculum, practice social distancing and participate in extracurricular activities online. As the oldest of six, I am responsible for myself and the care of the family.  I tend to my 1-year-old sister, Scarlett, and help watch my siblings. I give my rainbow blanket to Scarlett when she’s fussy. Now, my rainbow blanket is part of my family’s memories. I learn to appreciate and grow as a learner and daughter. I understand my parents, grandparents and siblings better than ever before. I know that my passion for helping people and seeing families united and joyful is my vocation. I want to become  a cardiothoracic surgeon to help families through hard times and give them the hope to continue on. We can only adapt to change.  

“Even if the desert becomes cracked, no matter who shakes this world, don’t let go of the hand you’re holding.” This quote is from someone who reminds me to continue making new memories while holding the past, much like my rainbow blanket. This blanket reminds me that when I pursue higher education and start a family, I will always have the strength of my memories that tie me back to who I am.

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Changes in Society and Schools Essay

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
• As a template for you assignment

Introduction

Change in every situation is inevitable as new issues usually crop up and necessitate adjustments. Change is however taken differently by those affected as some prefer to maintain their old ways of doing things while others are ready to absorb and appreciate changes especially when it is to their benefit. This piece of work gives an insight to the changes that are to take place in the United States’ schools and the society at large and the different ways in which the changes are received by different persons for instance the teachers, administrators and the parents. It also provides some recommendations or ways of dealing with the different reactions so as to come to a consensus.

With the economic conditions the way they are in the United States, many parents feel they both must work. What suggestions as a potential administrator would you make to parents regarding their school-age children?

Different aspects in the world are interdependent and they tend to affect each other either directly or indirectly for instance the economic, political, social and even cultural factors affect a situation either positively or negatively depending on the impacts experienced. The hard-economic conditions in the United States of America has greatly affected the way of life of the people as they feel they have to work a little bit harder so as to satisfy their increasing needs.

Increase in population size has particularly brought about increase in the level of poverty among the American people as competition for resources become stiff as each and every person try to make ends meet. Parents with school going children find themselves in situations that force them to be both working to deal with high economic conditions like high housing and food prices and also school fees. Parents should however under all circumstances make sure that their children’s needs are taken care of and also ensure that they have adequate time to discuss school related issues with their children.

As educators, we have no control over who is poor and who is not. In what ways do schools make poor children second-class citizens, and what can we do to prevent this from occurring?

Different people including children have different wealth levels; some are rich while others are poor. The differences are quite evident from the way people behave or respond to issues in life. Schools make poor children second-class citizens through the discrimination and poor treatment on them in comparison with the rich children. Even though we do not have control over who is poor or rich, we should always try to equalize the children by provision of equal opportunities and treatments and most importantly encouraging associations like group discussions and games among the children from rich and poor families.

Unmarried mothers are usually at the high school level, although not always. What educational options does your district offer for young unmarried mothers? How are these options conveyed to the pregnant teenager?

Single parenthood is not the best to school going children especially where the level of education of the mother is low for instance elementary or high school levels as the mothers have got limited knowledge and skills on parenting and the general life. Although it is difficult to take back the mothers to class special programs are offered to the young unmarried mothers where they are organized into associations and parenting issues are discussed during meetings. Pregnant teenagers are also encouraged to participate in the meetings to be well equipped with parenting skills.

Does your community have gangs? What evidence have you observed or read about their activities? What community or school programs have been created as a result of their existence?

Gangs are present in America and the rate at which they are formed and their increase in number and members is on the rise and therefore their activities cannot go unnoticed. They usually employ violence in their illegal activities and therefore are harmful to the general society. It is difficult to deal with the gangs due to the violence and power they possess.

However arresting and convicting them, providing educational programs that aim at informing the members of the effects of their illegal activities to the society and the importance of positive change, provision of counseling in regard to drugs where people are told of the effects of drugs and the importance of living positively and avoiding violence and rebellious acts and also provision of treatment which helps the victims recover from the effects of drugs is offered to counter their effects (Albaneese, 2003).

Answers to the Case study questions

During the planning for a possible switch to a year-round system, some school- community techniques were overlooked for instance there was poor communication where some information was leaked to the community by the staff at the wrong time when the idea was not fully synthesized. All the participants for instance the parents, staff and the community should be given the right information at the right time through the right means to avoid conflicts.

Some teachers, Mr. Brown and Ms. Silver could be the ones responsible for the breakdown of communication to the site-level administrator and superintendent. This was however due to poor planning since better planning could have ensured that the information reach the right people at the right time. The reactions of the parents could be anticipated by gauging the positive and negative attributes of the introduction of the new system and the effects it is expected to make.

Sampling would also help to gauge the public opinions by taking different ideas and opinions from different people. Knowing that at least two outspoken teachers were against the proposed plan, Mr. Johnson could have been more careful and know that the two particular teachers could be voicing the opinion of the majority of the staff and therefore take necessary steps. Some of the factors influencing the teachers and the parents in regard to the year-round school system are the changes the system is to bring along for instance elimination of holidays for the teachers, congestion of the teachers and students which will result to sharing of the limited resources. These issues could have been discussed in advance to anticipate the reactions.

To avoid alienating either the parents who want to hear the music performance and those who want to discuss the year-round school issue, Mr. Johnson should stick to his word that the meeting was meant for the music but promise another meeting for the year-round school issue soon. He should then take necessary actions with immediate effect and be ready to listen to different views of all those involved.

Mr. Brown and Ms. Silver attitude towards the issue should be dealt with appropriately to avoid influencing others and a balance should be reached between the different opinions so as to avoid conflicts between the staff members. There should also be effective communication to all participants including the community of any action taken in regard to the year-round school issue to ensure that everyone is at per with what is happening.

Reference List

Albaneese, J. (2003). Organized Crime: World Perspectives . Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

• The Scholarship Coordination Office: Conflict and Leadership
• Social Issues in Education: Applying Theory
• A Gang Culture Among the Latinos
• Gang Violence: Discussing the Problem of Gang Membership
• Girls in Gangs: Reasons that Make Girls Join the Gang
• Performance of School: Qualitative Research
• New College Minibus: Hire or Buy?
• Bias and Discrimination in Early Childhood Care Centers
• Tardiness and Slow Learning in Students
• Tuition Costs and Related Terms
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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How to Make Meaningful Change in Our Schools

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“We know what we need to do. So why are we not doing it?”

That phrase, or something akin to it, is a common theme in my conversations with fellow teachers from across the country. Regardless of the location and demographics of the teacher’s school or district—urban or rural, large or small, wealthy or Title I—I hear this same refrain: “Why can’t we break away from what we’ve always done and adopt the practices we know will make real, positive changes for our students?”

As someone who has devoted much of my professional career to learning about and helping to lead or affect organizational change, I have given a lot of thought to this problem. Whether I was helping a private-sector organization better meet customer demands or helping my current school move to a teacher-powered framework , I have seen stalled progress boil down to three primary issues:

1. Trying to implement changes that are not consistent with the organization’s underlying needs or values;

2. Failing to establish a clear, shared vision throughout the organization responsible for driving the change; and

3. Failing to clearly communicate anticipated outcomes of the change to stakeholders to avoid confusion and manage expectations.

Before we break each of these points down further, let’s return to the original premise that we know what works in education. If this is true, first we need to get better at identifying the initiatives that address our specific challenges. Then we need to be more intentional about managing the change, ensuring that we address these challenges in our work.

Regarding the first part of this equation, I would argue that we have a virtual firehose of programs, techniques, methods, technologies, and other changes at our disposal that have been shown to result in positive student outcomes. Whether we follow Edutopia , the What Works Clearinghouse , professional journals such as The Learning Professional , nonfiction books like John Hattie’s Visible Learning , or online publications like the one you are reading now, we are certainly not left wanting for good ideas to address our individual challenges.

And while some will legitimately argue that we need to get better at doing the research needed to identify initiatives that have a statistically significant impact on student outcomes , we have countless case-study examples of how “best practices” like project-based learning , personalized education , peer collaboration , competency-based learning , and adaptive technologies do have a real and lasting impact on student learning—assuming such initiatives have been effectively implemented. This is the hard part.

The three reasons I proposed to explain why initiatives tend to fail are interdependent. For example, unless a school or district tries to implement changes that are truly consistent with their specific needs and culture, the change is doomed from the start and the other two points are moot. We all can think of examples where we have lurched for the next shiny object without a lot of forethought, instead of being more strategic and intentional in deciding what changes to pursue. At my school, we have a policy that before we adopt new initiatives, our entire staff does a “litmus test” of the proposed change, measuring it against our school’s mission and vision. If it doesn’t align, we simply don’t do it, regardless of the potential benefits (excluding mandates beyond our control).

The next point is what I call the “going all in” criteria. Once a school community decides to make a significant change consistent with its needs and values, everyone has to fully commit. The principal can’t be the only one to see the clear benefit of the initiative. In order for an initiative to succeed, everyone in the school has to be invested, and they have to understand their distinct role in making it happen. How many school leaders have bought 3-D printers, for example, under the assumption that they would magically improve instruction in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics—and then watched their purchase sit underutilized?

In order for an investment like a 3-D printer to make an impact , a school must develop a strategic plan for how each teacher will integrate use of the new tool into routine instruction. As my first point suggests, if you can’t clearly articulate the value of the initiative to everyone involved, then perhaps it’s a misguided effort.

Finally, once all affected parties are fully on board and understand their distinct roles in driving the change, the school must adopt a systematic approach to manage its implementation, in terms of both measuring progress and communicating realistic expectations.

Most major changes involve a “J-Curve,” where moving from the comfortable to the new creates anxiety as people either realize the complexity of the work or see results (for example, test scores) temporarily go in the opposite direction, only to come back stronger in the long term. Schools that successfully manage change not only have measures in place to track real-time results and make quick adjustments; they have anticipated potential headwinds and have the credibility to transparently communicate to stakeholders how challenges will be overcome.

When my school moved from a traditional grading system to a competency-based learning approach, we not only invested the time to fully train all teachers and staff members, but also held early and routine informational meetings with parents and students so they would know what to expect as the shift occurred. This helped maintain consistent implementation across the school and strong support when unexpected problems would arise.

Few would argue that our current education system fully prepares students for an increasingly uncertain future. The fact that you are reading this article means that you have a genuine interest in figuring out how to make school improvements a reality. Perhaps you believe that part of your role as a leader in education is to find ideas and examples of what works for students and translate those ideas into actions for your own classroom, school, or district. But to affect positive changes, you have to know that what you propose will meet the needs of your situation—attract broad support—and, if managed properly, produce credible results.

When we can ensure that the solutions we propose will meet these criteria, we can say with confidence that we know what we need to do to improve our schools—and more importantly, we know how to do it!

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Supporting Students in the Transition from High School to College Writing

The transition from high school to college writing can be important and challenging for students and teachers. In my experiences teaching high school and college-level English classes, I have noticed both commonalities and differences in the expectations for writing at each level. While students are taught to analyze and synthesize ideas in both high school and college, college instructors often expect students to produce deeper, more sophisticated textual interpretations and to not only synthesize existing views but also contribute new perspectives on a topic. Below I offer suggestions to help high school teachers prepare students to more confidently transition from high school to college writing.

Teach Students to Adapt Their Writing to Various Purposes, Genres, and Audiences

In college, students are often asked to write in different genres for a variety of purposes and audiences. To prepare students for this work, high school teachers can encourage them to write for audiences beyond the teacher and peers, such as community organizations or local officials, and to adapt their writing to various situations. For example, while many high school English classes emphasize literary analysis, teachers might also integrate rhetorical analysis, or the interpretation of rhetorical appeals such as ethos. An essay focusing on ethos, for instance, might examine an author’s credibility and use of evidence in advancing the essay’s claims. In particular, rhetorical analysis, a genre that is valued in many college composition classrooms, not only invites students to adapt their writing to a different situation but also teaches students to become aware of how authors write for different purposes and audiences. In addition, while writing in high school may mainly occur in English and history classes, incorporating writing across the curriculum can prepare students to compose across academic disciplines in college.

Furthermore, high school teachers can expand students’ genre awareness. Students may, as a result of standardized curricula and testing, categorize a piece of writing as an argument or an analysis, as a personal narrative or a research paper, rather than as a combination of these genres. Teachers might help students think more flexibly about genre. For instance, while teaching a research-based argument essay in a first-year college writing class, I invite students to combine elements of personal narrative, primary-source data collected from surveys and interviews, and scholarly research to construct an argument about a topic of their choice related to the local or campus community. Even though I ask students to consider the personal motivations behind their research questions, students are often surprised to find that they are allowed and even encouraged to interweave personal and textual evidence and narrative and research elements into one essay. Asking students to integrate different kinds of writing in one paper can inspire them to expand their conceptions of genre. In this way, teachers can help students recognize that instead of the form dictating the content, an essay’s purpose and audience shape its evidence, structure, and style—and hence its genre.

Inspire Students to Enter and Respond to Larger Academic Conversations

The composition scholars Nancy Sommers and Laura Saltz describe the transition from high school to college writing as a “paradigm shift” in which students cross a “threshold” from learning and restating information toward questioning ideas and entering larger conversations (125, 139). Beyond summarizing secondary sources, students are expected to advance their own claims that may differ from or extend established views. One way high school teachers can introduce students to the notion of the academic conversation is to make the concept come to life in the classroom. While teaching first-year college writing, I ask my students to read Mark Gaipa’s essay “Breaking into the Conversation: How Students Can Acquire Authority for their Writing.” In the essay, Gaipa illustrates the academic conversation using the metaphor of a ballroom in which critics are discussing a topic. He offers strategies such as “piggybacking,” or applying critics’ ideas to a new aspect of the conversation, and “leapfrogging,” or identifying gaps in existing ideas, as ways for students to extend critics’ claims (428, 429). Using Gaipa’s essay, I incorporate a class activity in which students walk around the classroom, or “ballroom,” and consider their classmates’ and their own views on the question, What is the moral of “Superman and Me,” by Sherman Alexie? Students then consider how their own essays might contribute new ideas to the conversation on the topic they have chosen. High school teachers can incorporate similar activities as a way to help students develop original claims based on analysis or research. For example, as Alice Yang writes in her Style Center blog post, “Making the Transition from High School to College Essay Writing,” students are expected to engage critically with scholarly sources while writing literary analyses in college. To support students’ critical thinking, teachers can encourage students to determine how their interpretations of a text might expand existing arguments. More broadly, inspiring students to enter the conversation can stimulate their critical thinking and invite them to explore issues of interest.

Encourage Students to Reflect on Their Writing Choices, Processes, and Goals

Finally, it is important to offer students time to reflect on their writing progress. By reflecting on their writing at various stages of a draft or unit, students can become more aware of their writing choices and processes, and this awareness can then inform their future writing as they learn to monitor and evaluate their work and adapt it to various contexts. Teachers can incorporate purposeful reflection through journal entries or portfolios. For example, while teaching high school and college writing, I ask students to write in their journals at the beginning of each class as a way to reflect on their writing progress and goals. Encouraging reflection can enable students to develop their understandings of texts and to stimulate further progress in their own writing. In this way, writing and thinking can interact with each other in shaping students’ growth.

In offering these suggestions, I recognize that these strategies might be hard to implement, since high school teachers are often faced with demands, including preparing students for standardized testing. Moreover, schools may have their own particular goals, resources, and needs, making it difficult for teachers to change the curriculum. Nevertheless, I hope that these ideas offer teachers a step toward supporting students to navigate the differing expectations of secondary and postsecondary school writing. Ultimately, our grander aim is to support students’ continued development as writers throughout their academic, professional, and personal journeys across time and space.

Works Cited

Gaipa, Mark. “Breaking into the Conversation: How Students Can Acquire Authority for Their Writing.” Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition,  and Culture , vol. 4, no. 3, Fall 2004, pp. 419–37.

Sommers, Nancy, and Laura Saltz. “The Novice as Expert: Writing the Freshman Year.” College  Composition and Communication , vol. 56, no. 1, Sept. 2004, pp. 124–49.

Yang, Alice. “Making the Transition from High School to College Essay Writing.” The MLA Style  Center , 18 Sept. 2018, style.mla.org/high-school-versus-college-writing/.

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• How to structure an essay: Templates and tips

How to Structure an Essay | Tips & Templates

Published on September 18, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on July 23, 2023.

The basic structure of an essay always consists of an introduction , a body , and a conclusion . But for many students, the most difficult part of structuring an essay is deciding how to organize information within the body.

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Table of contents

The basics of essay structure, chronological structure, compare-and-contrast structure, problems-methods-solutions structure, signposting to clarify your structure, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about essay structure.

There are two main things to keep in mind when working on your essay structure: making sure to include the right information in each part, and deciding how you’ll organize the information within the body.

Parts of an essay

The three parts that make up all essays are described in the table below.

Order of information

You’ll also have to consider how to present information within the body. There are a few general principles that can guide you here.

The first is that your argument should move from the simplest claim to the most complex . The body of a good argumentative essay often begins with simple and widely accepted claims, and then moves towards more complex and contentious ones.

For example, you might begin by describing a generally accepted philosophical concept, and then apply it to a new topic. The grounding in the general concept will allow the reader to understand your unique application of it.

The second principle is that background information should appear towards the beginning of your essay . General background is presented in the introduction. If you have additional background to present, this information will usually come at the start of the body.

The third principle is that everything in your essay should be relevant to the thesis . Ask yourself whether each piece of information advances your argument or provides necessary background. And make sure that the text clearly expresses each piece of information’s relevance.

The sections below present several organizational templates for essays: the chronological approach, the compare-and-contrast approach, and the problems-methods-solutions approach.

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The chronological approach (sometimes called the cause-and-effect approach) is probably the simplest way to structure an essay. It just means discussing events in the order in which they occurred, discussing how they are related (i.e. the cause and effect involved) as you go.

A chronological approach can be useful when your essay is about a series of events. Don’t rule out other approaches, though—even when the chronological approach is the obvious one, you might be able to bring out more with a different structure.

Explore the tabs below to see a general template and a specific example outline from an essay on the invention of the printing press.

• Thesis statement
• Discussion of event/period
• Consequences
• Importance of topic
• Strong closing statement
• Claim that the printing press marks the end of the Middle Ages
• Background on the low levels of literacy before the printing press
• Thesis statement: The invention of the printing press increased circulation of information in Europe, paving the way for the Reformation
• High levels of illiteracy in medieval Europe
• Literacy and thus knowledge and education were mainly the domain of religious and political elites
• Consequence: this discouraged political and religious change
• Invention of the printing press in 1440 by Johannes Gutenberg
• Implications of the new technology for book production
• Consequence: Rapid spread of the technology and the printing of the Gutenberg Bible
• Trend for translating the Bible into vernacular languages during the years following the printing press’s invention
• Luther’s own translation of the Bible during the Reformation
• Consequence: The large-scale effects the Reformation would have on religion and politics
• Summarize the history described
• Stress the significance of the printing press to the events of this period

Essays with two or more main subjects are often structured around comparing and contrasting . For example, a literary analysis essay might compare two different texts, and an argumentative essay might compare the strengths of different arguments.

There are two main ways of structuring a compare-and-contrast essay: the alternating method, and the block method.

Alternating

In the alternating method, each paragraph compares your subjects in terms of a specific point of comparison. These points of comparison are therefore what defines each paragraph.

The tabs below show a general template for this structure, and a specific example for an essay comparing and contrasting distance learning with traditional classroom learning.

• Synthesis of arguments
• Topical relevance of distance learning in lockdown
• Increasing prevalence of distance learning over the last decade
• Thesis statement: While distance learning has certain advantages, it introduces multiple new accessibility issues that must be addressed for it to be as effective as classroom learning
• Classroom learning: Ease of identifying difficulties and privately discussing them
• Distance learning: Difficulty of noticing and unobtrusively helping
• Classroom learning: Difficulties accessing the classroom (disability, distance travelled from home)
• Distance learning: Difficulties with online work (lack of tech literacy, unreliable connection, distractions)
• Classroom learning: Tends to encourage personal engagement among students and with teacher, more relaxed social environment
• Distance learning: Greater ability to reach out to teacher privately
• Sum up, emphasize that distance learning introduces more difficulties than it solves
• Stress the importance of addressing issues with distance learning as it becomes increasingly common
• Distance learning may prove to be the future, but it still has a long way to go

In the block method, each subject is covered all in one go, potentially across multiple paragraphs. For example, you might write two paragraphs about your first subject and then two about your second subject, making comparisons back to the first.

The tabs again show a general template, followed by another essay on distance learning, this time with the body structured in blocks.

• Point 1 (compare)
• Point 2 (compare)
• Point 3 (compare)
• Point 4 (compare)
• Advantages: Flexibility, accessibility
• Disadvantages: Discomfort, challenges for those with poor internet or tech literacy
• Advantages: Potential for teacher to discuss issues with a student in a separate private call
• Disadvantages: Difficulty of identifying struggling students and aiding them unobtrusively, lack of personal interaction among students
• Advantages: More accessible to those with low tech literacy, equality of all sharing one learning environment
• Disadvantages: Students must live close enough to attend, commutes may vary, classrooms not always accessible for disabled students
• Advantages: Ease of picking up on signs a student is struggling, more personal interaction among students
• Disadvantages: May be harder for students to approach teacher privately in person to raise issues

An essay that concerns a specific problem (practical or theoretical) may be structured according to the problems-methods-solutions approach.

This is just what it sounds like: You define the problem, characterize a method or theory that may solve it, and finally analyze the problem, using this method or theory to arrive at a solution. If the problem is theoretical, the solution might be the analysis you present in the essay itself; otherwise, you might just present a proposed solution.

The tabs below show a template for this structure and an example outline for an essay about the problem of fake news.

• Introduce the problem
• Provide background
• Describe your approach to solving it
• Define the problem precisely
• Describe why it’s important
• Indicate previous approaches to the problem
• Present your new approach, and why it’s better
• Apply the new method or theory to the problem
• Indicate the solution you arrive at by doing so
• Assess (potential or actual) effectiveness of solution
• Describe the implications
• Problem: The growth of “fake news” online
• Prevalence of polarized/conspiracy-focused news sources online
• Thesis statement: Rather than attempting to stamp out online fake news through social media moderation, an effective approach to combating it must work with educational institutions to improve media literacy
• Definition: Deliberate disinformation designed to spread virally online
• Popularization of the term, growth of the phenomenon
• Previous approaches: Labeling and moderation on social media platforms
• Critique: This approach feeds conspiracies; the real solution is to improve media literacy so users can better identify fake news
• Greater emphasis should be placed on media literacy education in schools
• This allows people to assess news sources independently, rather than just being told which ones to trust
• This is a long-term solution but could be highly effective
• It would require significant organization and investment, but would equip people to judge news sources more effectively
• Rather than trying to contain the spread of fake news, we must teach the next generation not to fall for it

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Signposting means guiding the reader through your essay with language that describes or hints at the structure of what follows.  It can help you clarify your structure for yourself as well as helping your reader follow your ideas.

The essay overview

In longer essays whose body is split into multiple named sections, the introduction often ends with an overview of the rest of the essay. This gives a brief description of the main idea or argument of each section.

The overview allows the reader to immediately understand what will be covered in the essay and in what order. Though it describes what  comes later in the text, it is generally written in the present tense . The following example is from a literary analysis essay on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein .

Transitions

Transition words and phrases are used throughout all good essays to link together different ideas. They help guide the reader through your text, and an essay that uses them effectively will be much easier to follow.

Various different relationships can be expressed by transition words, as shown in this example.

Because Hitler failed to respond to the British ultimatum, France and the UK declared war on Germany. Although it was an outcome the Allies had hoped to avoid, they were prepared to back up their ultimatum in order to combat the existential threat posed by the Third Reich.

Transition sentences may be included to transition between different paragraphs or sections of an essay. A good transition sentence moves the reader on to the next topic while indicating how it relates to the previous one.

… Distance learning, then, seems to improve accessibility in some ways while representing a step backwards in others.

However , considering the issue of personal interaction among students presents a different picture.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

• Ad hominem fallacy
• Post hoc fallacy
• Appeal to authority fallacy
• False cause fallacy
• Sunk cost fallacy

College essays

• Choosing Essay Topic
• Write a College Essay
• Write a Diversity Essay
• College Essay Format & Structure
• Comparing and Contrasting in an Essay

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The structure of an essay is divided into an introduction that presents your topic and thesis statement , a body containing your in-depth analysis and arguments, and a conclusion wrapping up your ideas.

The structure of the body is flexible, but you should always spend some time thinking about how you can organize your essay to best serve your ideas.

An essay isn’t just a loose collection of facts and ideas. Instead, it should be centered on an overarching argument (summarized in your thesis statement ) that every part of the essay relates to.

The way you structure your essay is crucial to presenting your argument coherently. A well-structured essay helps your reader follow the logic of your ideas and understand your overall point.

Comparisons in essays are generally structured in one of two ways:

• The alternating method, where you compare your subjects side by side according to one specific aspect at a time.
• The block method, where you cover each subject separately in its entirety.

It’s also possible to combine both methods, for example by writing a full paragraph on each of your topics and then a final paragraph contrasting the two according to a specific metric.

You should try to follow your outline as you write your essay . However, if your ideas change or it becomes clear that your structure could be better, it’s okay to depart from your essay outline . Just make sure you know why you’re doing so.

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Home — Essay Samples — Education — College Life — How College Will Change Your Life

How College Will Change Your Life

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Published: Sep 5, 2023

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Personal growth and independence, academic and intellectual growth, career preparation, expanding social horizons, shaping values and worldview.

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16 Strong College Essay Examples from Top Schools

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• Common App Essays
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Most high school students don’t get a lot of experience with creative writing, so the college essay can be especially daunting. Reading examples of successful essays, however, can help you understand what admissions officers are looking for.

In this post, we’ll share 16 college essay examples of many different topics. Most of the essay prompts fall into 8 different archetypes, and you can approach each prompt under that archetype in a similar way. We’ve grouped these examples by archetype so you can better structure your approach to college essays.

If you’re looking for school-specific guides, check out our 2022-2023 essay breakdowns .

Looking at examples of real essays students have submitted to colleges can be very beneficial to get inspiration for your essays. You should never copy or plagiarize from these examples when writing your own essays. Colleges can tell when an essay isn’t genuine and will not view students favorably if they plagiarized. 

Note: the essays are titled in this post for navigation purposes, but they were not originally titled. We also include the original prompt where possible.

The Common App essay goes to all of the schools on your list, unless those schools use a separate application platform. Because of this, it’s the most important essay in your portfolio, and likely the longest essay you’ll need to write (you get up to 650 words). 

The goal of this essay is to share a glimpse into who you are, what matters to you, and what you hope to achieve. It’s a chance to share your story. 

Learn more about how to write the Common App essay in our complete guide.

The Multiple Meanings of Point

Prompt: Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story. (250-650 words)

Night had robbed the academy of its daytime colors, yet there was comfort in the dim lights that cast shadows of our advances against the bare studio walls. Silhouettes of roundhouse kicks, spin crescent kicks, uppercuts and the occasional butterfly kick danced while we sparred. She approached me, eyes narrowed with the trace of a smirk challenging me. “Ready spar!” Her arm began an upward trajectory targeting my shoulder, a common first move. I sidestepped — only to almost collide with another flying fist. Pivoting my right foot, I snapped my left leg, aiming my heel at her midsection. The center judge raised one finger. 

There was no time to celebrate, not in the traditional sense at least. Master Pollard gave a brief command greeted with a unanimous “Yes, sir” and the thud of 20 hands dropping-down-and-giving-him-30, while the “winners” celebrated their victory with laps as usual. 

Three years ago, seven-thirty in the evening meant I was a warrior. It meant standing up straighter, pushing a little harder, “Yes, sir” and “Yes, ma’am”, celebrating birthdays by breaking boards, never pointing your toes, and familiarity. Three years later, seven-thirty in the morning meant I was nervous. 

The room is uncomfortably large. The sprung floor soaks up the checkerboard of sunlight piercing through the colonial windows. The mirrored walls further illuminate the studio and I feel the light scrutinizing my sorry attempts at a pas de bourrée, while capturing the organic fluidity of the dancers around me. “Chassé en croix, grand battement, pique, pirouette.” I follow the graceful limbs of the woman in front of me, her legs floating ribbons, as she executes what seems to be a perfect ronds de jambes. Each movement remains a negotiation. With admirable patience, Ms. Tan casts me a sympathetic glance.   

There is no time to wallow in the misery that is my right foot. Taekwondo calls for dorsiflexion; pointed toes are synonymous with broken toes. My thoughts drag me into a flashback of the usual response to this painful mistake: “You might as well grab a tutu and head to the ballet studio next door.” Well, here I am Master Pollard, unfortunately still following your orders to never point my toes, but no longer feeling the satisfaction that comes with being a third degree black belt with 5 years of experience quite literally under her belt. It’s like being a white belt again — just in a leotard and ballet slippers. 

But the appetite for new beginnings that brought me here doesn’t falter. It is only reinforced by the classical rendition of “Dancing Queen” that floods the room and the ghost of familiarity that reassures me that this new beginning does not and will not erase the past. After years spent at the top, it’s hard to start over. But surrendering what you are only leads you to what you may become. In Taekwondo, we started each class reciting the tenets: honor, courtesy, integrity, perseverance, self-control, courage, humility, and knowledge, and I have never felt that I embodied those traits more so than when I started ballet. 

The thing about change is that it eventually stops making things so different. After nine different schools, four different countries, three different continents, fluency in Tamil, Norwegian, and English, there are more blurred lines than there are clear fragments. My life has not been a tactfully executed, gold medal-worthy Taekwondo form with each movement defined, nor has it been a series of frappés performed by a prima ballerina with each extension identical and precise, but thankfully it has been like the dynamics of a spinning back kick, fluid, and like my chances of landing a pirouette, unpredictable. 

The first obvious strength of this essay is the introduction—it is interesting and snappy and uses enough technical language that we want to figure out what the student is discussing. When writing introductions, students tend to walk the line between intriguing and confusing. It is important that your essay ends up on the intentionally intriguing side of that line—like this student does! We are a little confused at first, but by then introducing the idea of “sparring,” the student grounds their essay.

People often advise young writers to “show, not tell.” This student takes that advice a step further and makes the reader do a bit of work to figure out what they are telling us. Nowhere in this essay does it say “After years of Taekwondo, I made the difficult decision to switch over to ballet.” Rather, the student says “It’s like being a white belt again — just in a leotard and ballet slippers.” How powerful! 

After a lot of emotional language and imagery, this student finishes off their essay with very valuable (and necessary!) reflection. They show admissions officers that they are more than just a good writer—they are a mature and self-aware individual who would be beneficial to a college campus. Self-awareness comes through with statements like “surrendering what you are only leads you to what you may become” and maturity can be seen through the student’s discussion of values: “honor, courtesy, integrity, perseverance, self-control, courage, humility, and knowledge, and I have never felt that I embodied those traits more so than when I started ballet.”

Sparking Self-Awareness

Prompt: The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience? (250-650 words)

Was I no longer the beloved daughter of nature, whisperer of trees? Knee-high rubber boots, camouflage, bug spray—I wore the garb and perfume of a proud wild woman, yet there I was, hunched over the pathetic pile of stubborn sticks, utterly stumped, on the verge of tears. As a child, I had considered myself a kind of rustic princess, a cradler of spiders and centipedes, who was serenaded by mourning doves and chickadees, who could glide through tick-infested meadows and emerge Lyme-free. I knew the cracks of the earth like the scars on my own rough palms. Yet here I was, ten years later, incapable of performing the most fundamental outdoor task: I could not, for the life of me, start a fire. 

Furiously I rubbed the twigs together—rubbed and rubbed until shreds of skin flaked from my fingers. No smoke. The twigs were too young, too sticky-green; I tossed them away with a shower of curses, and began tearing through the underbrush in search of a more flammable collection. My efforts were fruitless. Livid, I bit a rejected twig, determined to prove that the forest had spurned me, offering only young, wet bones that would never burn. But the wood cracked like carrots between my teeth—old, brittle, and bitter. Roaring and nursing my aching palms, I retreated to the tent, where I sulked and awaited the jeers of my family. 

Rattling their empty worm cans and reeking of fat fish, my brother and cousins swaggered into the campsite. Immediately, they noticed the minor stick massacre by the fire pit and called to me, their deep voices already sharp with contempt. 

“Where’s the fire, Princess Clara?” they taunted. “Having some trouble?” They prodded me with the ends of the chewed branches and, with a few effortless scrapes of wood on rock, sparked a red and roaring flame. My face burned long after I left the fire pit. The camp stank of salmon and shame. 

In the tent, I pondered my failure. Was I so dainty? Was I that incapable? I thought of my hands, how calloused and capable they had been, how tender and smooth they had become. It had been years since I’d kneaded mud between my fingers; instead of scaling a white pine, I’d practiced scales on my piano, my hands softening into those of a musician—fleshy and sensitive. And I’d gotten glasses, having grown horrifically nearsighted; long nights of dim lighting and thick books had done this. I couldn’t remember the last time I had lain down on a hill, barefaced, and seen the stars without having to squint. Crawling along the edge of the tent, a spider confirmed my transformation—he disgusted me, and I felt an overwhelming urge to squash him. 

Yet, I realized I hadn’t really changed—I had only shifted perspective. I still eagerly explored new worlds, but through poems and prose rather than pastures and puddles. I’d grown to prefer the boom of a bass over that of a bullfrog, learned to coax a different kind of fire from wood, having developed a burn for writing rhymes and scrawling hypotheses. 

That night, I stayed up late with my journal and wrote about the spider I had decided not to kill. I had tolerated him just barely, only shrieking when he jumped—it helped to watch him decorate the corners of the tent with his delicate webs, knowing that he couldn’t start fires, either. When the night grew cold and the embers died, my words still smoked—my hands burned from all that scrawling—and even when I fell asleep, the ideas kept sparking—I was on fire, always on fire.

First things first, this Common App essay is well-written. This student is definitely showing the admissions officers her ability to articulate her points beautifully and creatively. It starts with vivid images like that of the “rustic princess, a cradler of spiders and centipedes, who was serenaded by mourning doves and chickadees, who could glide through tick-infested meadows and emerge Lyme-free.” And because the prose is flowery (and beautiful!), the writer can get away with metaphors like “I knew the cracks of the earth like the scars on my own rough palms” that might sound cheesy without the clear command of the English language that the writer quickly establishes.

In addition to being well-written, this essay is thematically cohesive. It begins with the simple introduction “Fire!” and ends with the following image: “When the night grew cold and the embers died, my words still smoked—my hands burned from all that scrawling—and even when I fell asleep, the ideas kept sparking—I was on fire, always on fire.” This full-circle approach leaves readers satisfied and impressed.

While dialogue often comes off as cliche or trite, this student effectively incorporates her family members saying “Where’s the fire, Princess Clara?” This is achieved through the apt use of the verb “taunted” to characterize the questioning and through the question’s thematic connection to the earlier image of the student as a rustic princess. Similarly, rhetorical questions can feel randomly placed in essays, but this student’s inclusion of the questions “Was I so dainty?” and “Was I that incapable?” feel perfectly justified after she establishes that she was pondering her failure.

Quite simply, this essay shows how quality writing can make a simple story outstandingly compelling. 

Why This College?

“Why This College?” is one of the most common essay prompts, likely because schools want to understand whether you’d be a good fit and how you’d use their resources.

This essay is one of the more straightforward ones you’ll write for college applications, but you still can and should allow your voice to shine through.

Learn more about how to write the “Why This College?” essay in our guide.

Prompt: How will you explore your intellectual and academic interests at the University of Pennsylvania? Please answer this question given the specific undergraduate school to which you are applying (650 words).

Sister Simone Roach, a theorist of nursing ethics, said, “caring is the human mode of being.” I have long been inspired by Sister Roach’s Five C’s of Caring: commitment, conscience, competence, compassion, and confidence. Penn both embraces and fosters these values through a rigorous, interdisciplinary curriculum and unmatched access to service and volunteer opportunities.

COMMITMENT. Reading through the activities that Penn Quakers devote their time to (in addition to academics!) felt like drinking from a firehose in the best possible way. As a prospective nursing student with interests outside of my major, I value this level of flexibility. I plan to leverage Penn’s liberal arts curriculum to gain an in-depth understanding of the challenges LGBT people face, especially regarding healthcare access. Through courses like “Interactional Processes with LGBT Individuals” and volunteering at the Mazzoni Center for outreach, I hope to learn how to better support the Penn LGBT community as well as my family and friends, including my cousin, who came out as trans last year.

CONSCIENCE. As one of the first people in my family to attend a four-year university, I wanted a school that promoted a sense of moral responsibility among its students. At Penn, professors challenge their students to question and recreate their own set of morals by sparking thought- provoking, open-minded discussions. I can imagine myself advocating for universal healthcare in courses such as “Health Care Reform & Future of American Health System” and debating its merits with my peers. Studying in an environment where students confidently voice their opinions – conservative or liberal – will push me to question and strengthen my value system.

COMPETENCE. Two aspects that drew my attention to Penn’s BSN program were its high-quality research opportunities and hands-on nursing projects. Through its Office of Nursing Research, Penn connects students to faculty members who share similar research interests. As I volunteered at a nursing home in high school, I hope to work with Dr. Carthon to improve the quality of care for senior citizens. Seniors, especially minorities, face serious barriers to healthcare that I want to resolve. Additionally, Penn’s unique use of simulations to bridge the gap between classroom learning and real-world application impressed me. Using computerized manikins that mimic human responses, classes in Penn’s nursing program allow students to apply their emergency medical skills in a mass casualty simulation and monitor their actions afterward through a video system. Participating in this activity will help me identify my strengths and areas for improvement regarding crisis management and medical care in a controlled yet realistic setting. Research opportunities and simulations will develop my skills even before I interact with patients.

COMPASSION. I value giving back through community service, and I have a particular interest in Penn’s Community Champions and Nursing Students For Sexual & Reproductive Health (NSRH). As a four-year volunteer health educator, I hope to continue this work as a Community Champions member. I am excited to collaborate with medical students to teach fourth and fifth graders in the city about cardiology or lead a chair dance class for the elders at the LIFE Center. Furthermore, as a feminist who firmly believes in women’s abortion rights, I’d like to join NSRH in order to advocate for women’s health on campus. At Penn, I can work with like-minded people to make a meaningful difference.

CONFIDENCE. All of the Quakers that I have met possess one defining trait: confidence. Each student summarized their experiences at Penn as challenging but fulfilling. Although I expect my coursework to push me, from my conversations with current Quakers I know it will help me to be far more effective in my career.

The Five C’s of Caring are important heuristics for nursing, but they also provide insight into how I want to approach my time in college. I am eager to engage with these principles both as a nurse and as a Penn Quaker, and I can’t wait to start.

This prompt from Penn asks students to tailor their answer to their specific field of study. One great thing that this student does is identify their undergraduate school early, by mentioning “Sister Simone Roach, a theorist of nursing ethics.” You don’t want readers confused or searching through other parts of your application to figure out your major.

With a longer essay like this, it is important to establish structure. Some students organize their essay in a narrative form, using an anecdote from their past or predicting their future at a school. This student uses Roach’s 5 C’s of Caring as a framing device that organizes their essay around values. This works well!

While this essay occasionally loses voice, there are distinct moments where the student’s personality shines through. We see this with phrases like “felt like drinking from a fire hose in the best possible way” and “All of the Quakers that I have met possess one defining trait: confidence.” It is important to show off your personality to make your essay stand out. 

Finally, this student does a great job of referencing specific resources about Penn. It’s clear that they have done their research (they’ve even talked to current Quakers). They have dreams and ambitions that can only exist at Penn.

Prompt: What is it about Yale that has led you to apply? (125 words or fewer)

Coin collector and swimmer. Hungarian and Romanian. Critical and creative thinker. I was drawn to Yale because they don’t limit one’s mind with “or” but rather embrace unison with “and.” 

Wandering through the Beinecke Library, I prepare for my multidisciplinary Energy Studies capstone about the correlation between hedonism and climate change, making it my goal to find implications in environmental sociology. Under the tutelage of Assistant Professor Arielle Baskin-Sommers, I explore the emotional deficits of depression, utilizing neuroimaging to scrutinize my favorite branch of psychology: human perception. At Walden Peer Counseling, I integrate my peer support and active listening skills to foster an empathetic environment for the Yale community. Combining my interests in psychological and environmental studies is why I’m proud to be a Bulldog. 

This answer to the “Why This College” question is great because 1) the student shows their excitement about attending Yale 2) we learn the ways in which attending Yale will help them achieve their goals and 3) we learn their interests and identities.

In this response, you can find a prime example of the “Image of the Future” approach, as the student flashes forward and envisions their life at Yale, using present tense (“I explore,” “I integrate,” “I’m proud”). This approach is valuable if you are trying to emphasize your dedication to a specific school. Readers get the feeling that this student is constantly imagining themselves on campus—it feels like Yale really matters to them.

Starting this image with the Beinecke Library is great because the Beinecke Library only exists at Yale. It is important to tailor “Why This College” responses to each specific school. This student references a program of study, a professor, and an extracurricular that only exist at Yale. Additionally, they connect these unique resources to their interests—psychological and environmental studies.

Finally, we learn about the student (independent of academics) through this response. By the end of their 125 words, we know their hobbies, ethnicities, and social desires, in addition to their academic interests. It can be hard to tackle a 125-word response, but this student shows that it’s possible.

Why This Major?

The goal of this prompt is to understand how you came to be interested in your major and what you plan to do with it. For competitive programs like engineering, this essay helps admissions officers distinguish students who have a genuine passion and are most likely to succeed in the program. This is another more straightforward essay, but you do have a bit more freedom to include relevant anecdotes.

Learn more about how to write the “Why This Major?” essay in our guide.

Why Duke Engineering

Prompt: If you are applying to the Pratt School of Engineering as a first year applicant, please discuss why you want to study engineering and why you would like to study at Duke (250 words).

One Christmas morning, when I was nine, I opened a snap circuit set from my grandmother. Although I had always loved math and science, I didn’t realize my passion for engineering until I spent the rest of winter break creating different circuits to power various lights, alarms, and sensors. Even after I outgrew the toy, I kept the set in my bedroom at home and knew I wanted to study engineering. Later, in a high school biology class, I learned that engineering didn’t only apply to circuits, but also to medical devices that could improve people’s quality of life. Biomedical engineering allows me to pursue my academic passions and help people at the same time.

Just as biology and engineering interact in biomedical engineering, I am fascinated by interdisciplinary research in my chosen career path. Duke offers unmatched resources, such as DUhatch and The Foundry, that will enrich my engineering education and help me practice creative problem-solving skills. The emphasis on entrepreneurship within these resources will also help me to make a helpful product. Duke’s Bass Connections program also interests me; I firmly believe that the most creative and necessary problem-solving comes by bringing people together from different backgrounds. Through this program, I can use my engineering education to solve complicated societal problems such as creating sustainable surgical tools for low-income countries. Along the way, I can learn alongside experts in the field. Duke’s openness and collaborative culture span across its academic disciplines, making Duke the best place for me to grow both as an engineer and as a social advocate.

This prompt calls for a complex answer. Students must explain both why they want to study engineering and why Duke is the best place for them to study engineering.

This student begins with a nice hook—a simple anecdote about a simple present with profound consequences. They do not fluff up their anecdote with flowery images or emotionally-loaded language; it is what it is, and it is compelling and sweet. As their response continues, they express a particular interest in problem-solving. They position problem-solving as a fundamental part of their interest in engineering (and a fundamental part of their fascination with their childhood toy). This helps readers to learn about the student!

Problem-solving is also the avenue by which they introduce Duke’s resources—DUhatch, The Foundry, and Duke’s Bass Connections program. It is important to notice that the student explains how these resources can help them achieve their future goals—it is not enough to simply identify the resources!

This response is interesting and focused. It clearly answers the prompt, and it feels honest and authentic.

Why Georgia Tech CompSci

Prompt: Why do you want to study your chosen major specifically at Georgia Tech? (300 words max)

I held my breath and hit RUN. Yes! A plump white cat jumped out and began to catch the falling pizzas. Although my Fat Cat project seems simple now, it was the beginning of an enthusiastic passion for computer science. Four years and thousands of hours of programming later, that passion has grown into an intense desire to explore how computer science can serve society. Every day, surrounded by technology that can recognize my face and recommend scarily-specific ads, I’m reminded of Uncle Ben’s advice to a young Spiderman: “with great power comes great responsibility”. Likewise, the need to ensure digital equality has skyrocketed with AI’s far-reaching presence in society; and I believe that digital fairness starts with equality in education.

The unique use of threads at the College of Computing perfectly matches my interests in AI and its potential use in education; the path of combined threads on Intelligence and People gives me the rare opportunity to delve deep into both areas. I’m particularly intrigued by the rich sets of both knowledge-based and data-driven intelligence courses, as I believe AI should not only show correlation of events, but also provide insight for why they occur.

In my four years as an enthusiastic online English tutor, I’ve worked hard to help students overcome both financial and technological obstacles in hopes of bringing quality education to people from diverse backgrounds. For this reason, I’m extremely excited by the many courses in the People thread that focus on education and human-centered technology. I’d love to explore how to integrate AI technology into the teaching process to make education more available, affordable, and effective for people everywhere. And with the innumerable opportunities that Georgia Tech has to offer, I know that I will be able to go further here than anywhere else.

With a “Why This Major” essay, you want to avoid using all of your words to tell a story. That being said, stories are a great way to show your personality and make your essay stand out. This student’s story takes up only their first 21 words, but it positions the student as fun and funny and provides an endearing image of cats and pizzas—who doesn’t love cats and pizzas? There are other moments when the student’s personality shines through also, like the Spiderman reference.

While this pop culture reference adds color, it also is important for what the student is getting at: their passion. They want to go into computer science to address the issues of security and equity that are on the industry’s mind, and they acknowledge these concerns with their comments about “scarily-specific ads” and their statement that “the need to ensure digital equality has skyrocketed.” This student is self-aware and aware of the state of the industry. This aptitude will be appealing for admissions officers.

The conversation around “threads” is essential for this student’s response because the prompt asks specifically about the major at Georgia Tech and it is the only thing they reference that is specific to Georgia Tech. Threads are great, but this student would have benefitted from expanding on other opportunities specific to Georgia Tech later in the essay, instead of simply inserting “innumerable opportunities.”

Overall, this student shows personality, passion, and aptitude—precisely what admissions officers want to see!

Extracurricular Essay

You’re asked to describe your activities on the Common App, but chances are, you have at least one extracurricular that’s impacted you in a way you can’t explain in 150 characters.

This essay archetype allows you to share how your most important activity shaped you and how you might use those lessons learned in the future. You are definitely welcome to share anecdotes and use a narrative approach, but remember to include some reflection. A common mistake students make is to only describe the activity without sharing how it impacted them.

Learn more about how to write the Extracurricular Essay in our guide.

A Dedicated Musician

My fingers raced across the keys, rapidly striking one after another. My body swayed with the music as my hands raced across the piano. Crashing onto the final chord, it was over as quickly as it had begun. My shoulders relaxed and I couldn’t help but break into a satisfied grin. I had just played the Moonlight Sonata’s third movement, a longtime dream of mine. 

Four short months ago, though, I had considered it impossible. The piece’s tempo was impossibly fast, its notes stretching between each end of the piano, forcing me to reach farther than I had ever dared. It was 17 pages of the most fragile and intricate melodies I had ever encountered. 

But that summer, I found myself ready to take on the challenge. With the end of the school year, I was released from my commitment to practicing for band and solo performances. I was now free to determine my own musical path: either succeed in learning the piece, or let it defeat me for the third summer in a row. 

Over those few months, I spent countless hours practicing the same notes until they burned a permanent place in my memory, creating a soundtrack for even my dreams. Some would say I’ve mastered the piece, but as a musician I know better. Now that I can play it, I am eager to take the next step and add in layers of musicality and expression to make the once-impossible piece even more beautiful.

In this response, the student uses their extracurricular, piano, as a way to emphasize their positive qualities. At the beginning, readers are invited on a journey with the student where we feel their struggle, their intensity, and ultimately their satisfaction. With this descriptive image, we form a valuable connection with the student.

Then, we get to learn about what makes this student special: their dedication and work ethic. The fact that this student describes their desire to be productive during the summer shows an intensity that is appealing to admissions officers. Additionally, the growth mindset that this student emphasizes in their conclusion is appealing to admissions officers.

The Extracurricular Essay can be seen as an opportunity to characterize yourself. This student clearly identified their positive qualities, then used the Extracurricular Essay as a way to articulate them.

A Complicated Relationship with the School Newspaper

My school’s newspaper and I have a typical love-hate relationship; some days I want nothing more than to pass two hours writing and formatting articles, while on others the mere thought of student journalism makes me shiver. Still, as we’re entering our fourth year together, you could consider us relatively stable. We’ve learned to accept each other’s differences; at this point I’ve become comfortable spending an entire Friday night preparing for an upcoming issue, and I hardly even notice the snail-like speed of our computers. I’ve even benefitted from the polygamous nature of our relationship—with twelve other editors, there’s a lot of cooperation involved. Perverse as it may be, from that teamwork I’ve both gained some of my closest friends and improved my organizational and time-management skills. And though leaving it in the hands of new editors next year will be difficult, I know our time together has only better prepared me for future relationships.

This response is great. It’s cute and endearing and, importantly, tells readers a lot about the student who wrote it. Framing this essay in the context of a “love-hate relationship,” then supplementing with comments like “We’ve learned to accept each other’s differences” allows this student to advertise their maturity in a unique and engaging way. 

While Extracurricular Essays can be a place to show how you’ve grown within an activity, they can also be a place to show how you’ve grown through an activity. At the end of this essay, readers think that this student is mature and enjoyable, and we think that their experience with the school newspaper helped make them that way.

Participating in Democracy

Prompt: Research shows that an ability to learn from experiences outside the classroom correlates with success in college. What was your greatest learning experience over the past 4 years that took place outside of the traditional classroom? (250 words) 

The cool, white halls of the Rayburn House office building contrasted with the bustling energy of interns entertaining tourists, staffers rushing to cover committee meetings, and my fellow conference attendees separating to meet with our respective congresspeople. Through civics and US history classes, I had learned about our government, but simply hearing the legislative process outlined didn’t prepare me to navigate it. It was my first political conference, and, after learning about congressional mechanics during breakout sessions, I was lobbying my representative about an upcoming vote crucial to the US-Middle East relationship. As the daughter of Iranian immigrants, my whole life had led me to the moment when I could speak on behalf of the family members who had not emigrated with my parents.

As I sat down with my congresswoman’s chief of staff, I truly felt like a participant in democracy; I was exercising my right to be heard as a young American. Through this educational conference, I developed a plan of action to raise my voice. When I returned home, I signed up to volunteer with the state chapter of the Democratic Party. I sponsored letter-writing campaigns, canvassed for local elections, and even pursued an internship with a state senate campaign. I know that I don’t need to be old enough to vote to effect change. Most importantly, I also know that I want to study government—I want to make a difference for my communities in the United States and the Middle East throughout my career. 

While this prompt is about extracurricular activities, it specifically references the idea that the extracurricular should support the curricular. It is focused on experiential learning for future career success. This student wants to study government, so they chose to describe an experience of hands-on learning within their field—an apt choice!

As this student discusses their extracurricular experience, they also clue readers into their future goals—they want to help Middle Eastern communities. Admissions officers love when students mention concrete plans with a solid foundation. Here, the foundation comes from this student’s ethnicity. With lines like “my whole life had led me to the moment when I could speak on behalf of the family members who had not emigrated with my parents,” the student assures admissions officers of their emotional connection to their future field.

The strength of this essay comes from its connections. It connects the student’s extracurricular activity to their studies and connects theirs studies to their personal history.

Overcoming Challenges

You’re going to face a lot of setbacks in college, so admissions officers want to make you’re you have the resilience and resolve to overcome them. This essay is your chance to be vulnerable and connect to admissions officers on an emotional level.

Learn more about how to write the Overcoming Challenges Essay in our guide.

The Student Becomes the Master

”Advanced females ages 13 to 14 please proceed to staging with your coaches at this time.” Skittering around the room, eyes wide and pleading, I frantically explained my situation to nearby coaches. The seconds ticked away in my head; every polite refusal increased my desperation.

Despair weighed me down. I sank to my knees as a stream of competitors, coaches, and officials flowed around me. My dojang had no coach, and the tournament rules prohibited me from competing without one.

Although I wanted to remain strong, doubts began to cloud my mind. I could not help wondering: what was the point of perfecting my skills if I would never even compete? The other members of my team, who had found coaches minutes earlier, attempted to comfort me, but I barely heard their words. They couldn’t understand my despair at being left on the outside, and I never wanted them to understand.

Since my first lesson 12 years ago, the members of my dojang have become family. I have watched them grow up, finding my own happiness in theirs. Together, we have honed our kicks, blocks, and strikes. We have pushed one another to aim higher and become better martial artists. Although my dojang had searched for a reliable coach for years, we had not found one. When we attended competitions in the past, my teammates and I had always gotten lucky and found a sympathetic coach. Now, I knew this practice was unsustainable. It would devastate me to see the other members of my dojang in my situation, unable to compete and losing hope as a result. My dojang needed a coach, and I decided it was up to me to find one. 

I first approached the adults in the dojang – both instructors and members’ parents. However, these attempts only reacquainted me with polite refusals. Everyone I asked told me they couldn’t devote multiple weekends per year to competitions. I soon realized that I would have become the coach myself.

At first, the inner workings of tournaments were a mystery to me. To prepare myself for success as a coach, I spent the next year as an official and took coaching classes on the side. I learned everything from motivational strategies to technical, behind-the-scenes components of Taekwondo competitions. Though I emerged with new knowledge and confidence in my capabilities, others did not share this faith.

Parents threw me disbelieving looks when they learned that their children’s coach was only a child herself. My self-confidence was my armor, deflecting their surly glances. Every armor is penetrable, however, and as the relentless barrage of doubts pounded my resilience, it began to wear down. I grew unsure of my own abilities.

Despite the attack, I refused to give up. When I saw the shining eyes of the youngest students preparing for their first competition, I knew I couldn’t let them down. To quit would be to set them up to be barred from competing like I was. The knowledge that I could solve my dojang’s longtime problem motivated me to overcome my apprehension.

Now that my dojang flourishes at competitions, the attacks on me have weakened, but not ended. I may never win the approval of every parent; at times, I am still tormented by doubts, but I find solace in the fact that members of my dojang now only worry about competing to the best of their abilities.

Now, as I arrive at a tournament with my students, I close my eyes and remember the past. I visualize the frantic search for a coach and the chaos amongst my teammates as we competed with one another to find coaches before the staging calls for our respective divisions. I open my eyes to the exact opposite scene. Lacking a coach hurt my ability to compete, but I am proud to know that no member of my dojang will have to face that problem again.

This essay is great because it has a strong introduction and conclusion. The introduction is notably suspenseful and draws readers into the story. Because we know it is a college essay, we can assume that the student is one of the competitors, but at the same time, this introduction feels intentionally ambiguous as if the writer could be a competitor, a coach, a sibling of a competitor, or anyone else in the situation.

As we continue reading the essay, we learn that the writer is, in fact, the competitor. Readers also learn a lot about the student’s values as we hear their thoughts: “I knew I couldn’t let them down. To quit would be to set them up to be barred from competing like I was.” Ultimately, the conflict and inner and outer turmoil is resolved through the “Same, but Different” ending technique as the student places themself in the same environment that we saw in the intro, but experiencing it differently due to their actions throughout the narrative. This is a very compelling strategy!

Growing Sensitivity to Struggles

Prompt: The lessons we take from failure can be fundamental to later success. Recount an incident or time when you experienced failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience? (650 words)

“You ruined my life!” After months of quiet anger, my brother finally confronted me. To my shame, I had been appallingly ignorant of his pain.

Despite being twins, Max and I are profoundly different. Having intellectual interests from a young age that, well, interested very few of my peers, I often felt out of step in comparison with my highly-social brother. Everything appeared to come effortlessly for Max and, while we share an extremely tight bond, his frequent time away with friends left me feeling more and more alone as we grew older.

When my parents learned about The Green Academy, we hoped it would be an opportunity for me to find not only an academically challenging environment, but also – perhaps more importantly – a community. This meant transferring the family from Drumfield to Kingston. And while there was concern about Max, we all believed that given his sociable nature, moving would be far less impactful on him than staying put might be on me.

As it turned out, Green Academy was everything I’d hoped for. I was ecstatic to discover a group of students with whom I shared interests and could truly engage. Preoccupied with new friends and a rigorous course load, I failed to notice that the tables had turned. Max, lost in the fray and grappling with how to make connections in his enormous new high school, had become withdrawn and lonely. It took me until Christmas time – and a massive argument – to recognize how difficult the transition had been for my brother, let alone that he blamed me for it.

Through my own journey of searching for academic peers, in addition to coming out as gay when I was 12, I had developed deep empathy for those who had trouble fitting in. It was a pain I knew well and could easily relate to. Yet after Max’s outburst, my first response was to protest that our parents – not I – had chosen to move us here. In my heart, though, I knew that regardless of who had made the decision, we ended up in Kingston for my benefit. I was ashamed that, while I saw myself as genuinely compassionate, I had been oblivious to the heartache of the person closest to me. I could no longer ignore it – and I didn’t want to.

We stayed up half the night talking, and the conversation took an unexpected turn. Max opened up and shared that it wasn’t just about the move. He told me how challenging school had always been for him, due to his dyslexia, and that the ever-present comparison to me had only deepened his pain.

We had been in parallel battles the whole time and, yet, I only saw that Max was in distress once he experienced problems with which I directly identified. I’d long thought Max had it so easy – all because he had friends. The truth was, he didn’t need to experience my personal brand of sorrow in order for me to relate – he had felt plenty of his own.

My failure to recognize Max’s suffering brought home for me the profound universality and diversity of personal struggle; everyone has insecurities, everyone has woes, and everyone – most certainly – has pain. I am acutely grateful for the conversations he and I shared around all of this, because I believe our relationship has been fundamentally strengthened by a deeper understanding of one another. Further, this experience has reinforced the value of constantly striving for deeper sensitivity to the hidden struggles of those around me. I won’t make the mistake again of assuming that the surface of someone’s life reflects their underlying story.

Here you can find a prime example that you don’t have to have fabulous imagery or flowery prose to write a successful essay. You just have to be clear and say something that matters. This essay is simple and beautiful. It almost feels like having a conversation with a friend and learning that they are an even better person than you already thought they were.

Through this narrative, readers learn a lot about the writer—where they’re from, what their family life is like, what their challenges were as a kid, and even their sexuality. We also learn a lot about their values—notably, the value they place on awareness, improvement, and consideration of others. Though they never explicitly state it (which is great because it is still crystal clear!), this student’s ending of “I won’t make the mistake again of assuming that the surface of someone’s life reflects their underlying story” shows that they are constantly striving for improvement and finding lessons anywhere they can get them in life.

Community Service/Impact on the Community

Colleges want students who will positively impact the campus community and go on to make change in the world after they graduate. This essay is similar to the Extracurricular Essay, but you need to focus on a situation where you impacted others. 

Learn more about how to write the Community Service Essay in our guide.

Academic Signing Day

Prompt: What have you done to make your school or your community a better place?

The scent of eucalyptus caressed my nose in a gentle breeze. Spring had arrived. Senior class activities were here. As a sophomore, I noticed a difference between athletic and academic seniors at my high school; one received recognition while the other received silence. I wanted to create an event celebrating students academically-committed to four-years, community colleges, trades schools, and military programs. This event was Academic Signing Day.

The leadership label, “Events Coordinator,” felt heavy on my introverted mind. I usually was setting up for rallies and spirit weeks, being overlooked around the exuberant nature of my peers. 

I knew a change of mind was needed; I designed flyers, painted posters, presented powerpoints, created student-led committees, and practiced countless hours for my introductory speech. Each committee would play a vital role on event day: one dedicated to refreshments, another to technology, and one for decorations. The fourth-month planning was a laborious joy, but I was still fearful of being in the spotlight. Being acknowledged by hundreds of people was new to me.     

The day was here. Parents filled the stands of the multi-purpose room. The atmosphere was tense; I could feel the angst building in my throat, worried about the impression I would leave. Applause followed each of the 400 students as they walked to their college table, indicating my time to speak. 

I walked up to the stand, hands clammy, expression tranquil, my words echoing to the audience. I thought my speech would be met by the sounds of crickets; instead, smiles lit up the stands, realizing my voice shone through my actions. I was finally coming out of my shell. The floor was met by confetti as I was met by the sincerity of staff, students, and parents, solidifying the event for years to come. 

Academic students were no longer overshadowed. Their accomplishments were equally recognized to their athletic counterparts. The school culture of athletics over academics was no longer imbalanced. Now, every time I smell eucalyptus, it is a friendly reminder that on Academic Signing Day, not only were academic students in the spotlight but so was my voice.

This essay answers the prompt nicely because the student describes a contribution with a lasting legacy. Academic Signing Day will affect this high school in the future and it affected this student’s self-development—an idea summed up nicely with their last phrase “not only were academic students in the spotlight but so was my voice.”

With Community Service essays, students sometimes take small contributions and stretch them. And, oftentimes, the stretch is very obvious. Here, the student shows us that Academic Signing Day actually mattered by mentioning four months of planning and hundreds of students and parents. They also make their involvement in Academic Signing Day clear—it was their idea and they were in charge, and that’s why they gave the introductory speech.

Use this response as an example of the type of focused contribution that makes for a convincing Community Service Essay.

Climate Change Rally

Prompt: What would you say is your greatest talent or skill? How have you developed and demonstrated that talent over time? (technically not community service, but the response works)

Let’s fast-forward time. Strides were made toward racial equality. Healthcare is accessible to all; however, one issue remains. Our aquatic ecosystems are parched with dead coral from ocean acidification. Climate change has prevailed.

Rewind to the present day.

My activism skills are how I express my concerns for the environment. Whether I play on sandy beaches or rest under forest treetops, nature offers me an escape from the haste of the world. When my body is met by trash in the ocean or my nose is met by harmful pollutants, Earth’s pain becomes my own. 

Substituting coffee grinds as fertilizer, using bamboo straws, starting my sustainable garden, my individual actions needed to reach a larger scale. I often found performative activism to be ineffective when communicating climate concerns. My days of reposting awareness graphics on social media never filled the ambition I had left to put my activism skills to greater use. I decided to share my ecocentric worldview with a coalition of environmentalists and host a climate change rally outside my high school.

Meetings were scheduled where I informed students about the unseen impact they have on the oceans and local habitual communities. My fingers were cramped from all the constant typing and investigating of micro causes of the Pacific Waste Patch, creating reusable flyers, displaying steps people could take from home in reducing their carbon footprint. I aided my fellow environmentalists in translating these flyers into other languages, repeating this process hourly, for five days, up until rally day.  

It was 7:00 AM. The faces of 100 students were shouting, “The climate is changing, why can’t we?” I proudly walked on the dewy grass, grabbing the microphone, repeating those same words. The rally not only taught me efficient methods of communication but it echoed my environmental activism to the masses. The City of Corona would be the first of many cities to see my activism, as more rallies were planned for various parts of SoCal. My once unfulfilled ambition was fueled by my tangible activism, understanding that it takes more than one person to make an environmental impact.

Like with the last example, this student describes a focused event with a lasting legacy. That’s a perfect place to start! By the end of this essay, we have an image of the cause of this student’s passion and the effect of this student’s passion. There are no unanswered questions.

This student supplements their focused topic with engaging and exciting writing to make for an easy-to-read and enjoyable essay. One of the largest strengths of this response is its pace. From the very beginning, we are invited to “fast-forward” and “rewind” with the writer. Then, after we center ourselves in real-time, this writer keeps their quick pace with sentences like “Substituting coffee grounds as fertilizer, using bamboo straws, starting my sustainable garden, my individual actions needed to reach a larger scale.” Community Service essays run the risk of turning boring, but this unique pacing keeps things interesting.

Having a diverse class provides a richness of different perspectives and encourages open-mindedness among the student body. The Diversity Essay is also somewhat similar to the Extracurricular and Community Service Essays, but it focuses more on what you might bring to the campus community because of your unique experiences or identities.

Learn more about how to write the Diversity Essay in our guide.

A Story of a Young Skater

​​“Everyone follow me!” I smiled at five wide-eyed skaters before pushing off into a spiral. I glanced behind me hopefully, only to see my students standing frozen like statues, the fear in their eyes as clear as the ice they swayed on. “Come on!” I said encouragingly, but the only response I elicited was the slow shake of their heads. My first day as a Learn-to-Skate coach was not going as planned. 

But amid my frustration, I was struck by how much my students reminded me of myself as a young skater. At seven, I had been fascinated by Olympic performers who executed thrilling high jumps and dizzying spins with apparent ease, and I dreamed to one day do the same. My first few months on skates, however, sent these hopes crashing down: my attempts at slaloms and toe-loops were shadowed by a stubborn fear of falling, which even the helmet, elbow pads, and two pairs of mittens I had armed myself with couldn’t mitigate. Nonetheless, my coach remained unfailingly optimistic, motivating me through my worst spills and teaching me to find opportunities in failures. With his encouragement, I learned to push aside my fears and attack each jump with calm and confidence; it’s the hope that I can help others do the same that now inspires me to coach.

I remember the day a frustrated staff member directed Oliver, a particularly hesitant young skater, toward me, hoping that my patience and steady encouragement might help him improve. Having stood in Oliver’s skates not much earlier myself, I completely empathized with his worries but also saw within him the potential to overcome his fears and succeed. 

To alleviate his anxiety, I held Oliver’s hand as we inched around the rink, cheering him on at every turn. I soon found though, that this only increased his fear of gliding on his own, so I changed my approach, making lessons as exciting as possible in hopes that he would catch the skating bug and take off. In the weeks that followed, we held relay races, played “freeze-skate” and “ice-potato”, and raced through obstacle courses; gradually, with each slip and subsequent success, his fear began to abate. I watched Oliver’s eyes widen in excitement with every skill he learned, and not long after, he earned his first skating badge. Together we celebrated this milestone, his ecstasy fueling my excitement and his pride mirroring my own. At that moment, I was both teacher and student, his progress instilling in me the importance of patience and a positive attitude. 

It’s been more than ten years since I bundled up and stepped onto the ice for the first time. Since then, my tolerance for the cold has remained stubbornly low, but the rest of me has certainly changed. In sharing my passion for skating, I have found a wonderful community of eager athletes, loving parents, and dedicated coaches from whom I have learned invaluable lessons and wisdom. My fellow staffers have been with me, both as friends and colleagues, and the relationships I’ve formed have given me far more poise, confidence, and appreciation for others. Likewise, my relationships with parents have given me an even greater gratitude for the role they play: no one goes to the rink without a parent behind the wheel! 

Since that first lesson, I have mentored dozens of children, and over the years, witnessed tentative steps transform into powerful glides and tears give way to delighted grins. What I have shared with my students has been among the greatest joys of my life, something I will cherish forever. It’s funny: when I began skating, what pushed me through the early morning practices was the prospect of winning an Olympic medal. Now, what excites me is the chance to work with my students, to help them grow, and to give back to the sport that has brought me so much happiness. 

This response is a great example of how Diversity doesn’t have to mean race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, age, or ability. Diversity can mean whatever you want it to mean—whatever unique experience(s) you have to bring to the table!

A major strength of this essay comes in its narrative organization. When reading this first paragraph, we feel for the young skaters and understand their fear—skating sounds scary! Then, because the writer sets us up to feel this empathy, the transition to the second paragraph where the student describes their empathy for the young skaters is particularly powerful. It’s like we are all in it together! The student’s empathy for the young skaters also serves as an outstanding, seamless transition to the applicant discussing their personal journey with skating: “I was struck by how much my students reminded me of myself as a young skater.”

This essay positions the applicant as a grounded and caring individual. They are caring towards the young skaters—changing their teaching style to try to help the young skaters and feeling the young skaters’ emotions with them—but they are also appreciative to those who helped them as they reference their fellow staffers and parents. This shows great maturity—a favorable quality in the eyes of an admissions officer.

At the end of the essay, we know a lot about this student and are convinced that they would be a good addition to a college campus!

Finding Community in the Rainforest

Prompt: Duke University seeks a talented, engaged student body that embodies the wide range of human experience; we believe that the diversity of our students makes our community stronger. If you’d like to share a perspective you bring or experiences you’ve had to help us understand you better—perhaps related to a community you belong to, your sexual orientation or gender identity, or your family or cultural background—we encourage you to do so. Real people are reading your application, and we want to do our best to understand and appreciate the real people applying to Duke (250 words).

I never understood the power of community until I left home to join seven strangers in the Ecuadorian rainforest. Although we flew in from distant corners of the U.S., we shared a common purpose: immersing ourselves in our passion for protecting the natural world.

Back home in my predominantly conservative suburb, my neighbors had brushed off environmental concerns. My classmates debated the feasibility of Trump’s wall, not the deteriorating state of our planet. Contrastingly, these seven strangers delighted in bird-watching, brightened at the mention of medicinal tree sap, and understood why I once ran across a four-lane highway to retrieve discarded beer cans. Their histories barely resembled mine, yet our values aligned intimately. We did not hesitate to joke about bullet ants, gush about the versatility of tree bark, or discuss the destructive consequences of materialism. Together, we let our inner tree huggers run free.

In the short life of our little community, we did what we thought was impossible. By feeding on each other’s infectious tenacity, we cultivated an atmosphere that deepened our commitment to our values and empowered us to speak out on behalf of the environment. After a week of stimulating conversations and introspective revelations about engaging people from our hometowns in environmental advocacy, we developed a shared determination to devote our lives to this cause.

As we shared a goodbye hug, my new friend whispered, “The world needs saving. Someone’s gotta do it.” For the first time, I believed that someone could be me.

This response is so wholesome and relatable. We all have things that we just need to geek out over and this student expresses the joy that came when they found a community where they could geek out about the environment. Passion is fundamental to university life and should find its way into successful applications.

Like the last response, this essay finds strength in the fact that readers feel for the student. We get a little bit of backstory about where they come from and how they felt silenced—“Back home in my predominantly conservative suburb, my neighbors had brushed off environmental concerns”—, so it’s easy to feel joy for them when they get set free.

This student displays clear values: community, ecoconsciousness, dedication, and compassion. An admissions officer who reads Diversity essays is looking for students with strong values and a desire to contribute to a university community—sounds like this student!  

Political/Global Issues

Colleges want to build engaged citizens, and the Political/Global Issues Essay allows them to better understand what you care about and whether your values align with theirs. In this essay, you’re most commonly asked to describe an issue, why you care about it, and what you’ve done or hope to do to address it. 

Learn more about how to write the Political/Global Issues Essay in our guide.

Note: this prompt is not a typical political/global issues essay, but the essay itself would be a strong response to a political/global issues prompt.

Fighting Violence Against Women

Prompt: Using a favorite quotation from an essay or book you have read in the last three years as a starting point, tell us about an event or experience that helped you define one of your values or changed how you approach the world. Please write the quotation, title and author at the beginning of your essay. (250-650 words)

“One of the great challenges of our time is that the disparities we face today have more complex causes and point less straightforwardly to solutions.” 

– Omar Wasow, assistant professor of politics, Princeton University. This quote is taken from Professor Wasow’s January 2014 speech at the Martin Luther King Day celebration at Princeton University. 

The air is crisp and cool, nipping at my ears as I walk under a curtain of darkness that drapes over the sky, starless. It is a Friday night in downtown Corpus Christi, a rare moment of peace in my home city filled with the laughter of strangers and colorful lights of street vendors. But I cannot focus. 

My feet stride quickly down the sidewalk, my hand grasps on to the pepper spray my parents gifted me for my sixteenth birthday. My eyes ignore the surrounding city life, focusing instead on a pair of tall figures walking in my direction. I mentally ask myself if they turned with me on the last street corner. I do not remember, so I pick up the pace again. All the while, my mind runs over stories of young women being assaulted, kidnapped, and raped on the street. I remember my mother’s voice reminding me to keep my chin up, back straight, eyes and ears alert. 

At a young age, I learned that harassment is a part of daily life for women. I fell victim to period-shaming when I was thirteen, received my first catcall when I was fourteen, and was nonconsensually grabbed by a man soliciting on the street when I was fifteen. For women, assault does not just happen to us— its gory details leave an imprint in our lives, infecting the way we perceive the world. And while movements such as the Women’s March and #MeToo have given victims of sexual violence a voice, harassment still manifests itself in the lives of millions of women across the nation. Symbolic gestures are important in spreading awareness but, upon learning that a surprising number of men are oblivious to the frequent harassment that women experience, I now realize that addressing this complex issue requires a deeper level of activism within our local communities. 

Frustrated with incessant cases of harassment against women, I understood at sixteen years old that change necessitates action. During my junior year, I became an intern with a judge whose campaign for office focused on a need for domestic violence reform. This experience enabled me to engage in constructive dialogue with middle and high school students on how to prevent domestic violence. As I listened to young men uneasily admit their ignorance and young women bravely share their experiences in an effort to spread awareness, I learned that breaking down systems of inequity requires changing an entire culture. I once believed that the problem of harassment would dissipate after politicians and celebrities denounce inappropriate behavior to their global audience. But today, I see that effecting large-scale change comes from the “small” lessons we teach at home and in schools. Concerning women’s empowerment, the effects of Hollywood activism do not trickle down enough. Activism must also trickle up and it depends on our willingness to fight complacency. 

Finding the solution to the long-lasting problem of violence against women is a work-in-progress, but it is a process that is persistently moving. In my life, for every uncomfortable conversation that I bridge, I make the world a bit more sensitive to the unspoken struggle that it is to be a woman. I am no longer passively waiting for others to let me live in a world where I can stand alone under the expanse of darkness on a city street, utterly alone and at peace. I, too, deserve the night sky.

As this student addresses an important social issue, she makes the reasons for her passion clear—personal experiences. Because she begins with an extended anecdote, readers are able to feel connected to the student and become invested in what she has to say.

Additionally, through her powerful ending—“I, too, deserve the night sky”—which connects back to her beginning— “as I walk under a curtain of darkness that drapes over the sky”—this student illustrates a mastery of language. Her engagement with other writing techniques that further her argument, like the emphasis on time—“gifted to me for my sixteenth birthday,” “when I was thirteen,” “when I was fourteen,” etc.—also illustrates her mastery of language.

While this student proves herself a good writer, she also positions herself as motivated and ambitious. She turns her passions into action and fights for them. That is just what admissions officers want to see in a Political/Global issues essay!

Where to Get Feedback on Your College Essays

Once you’ve written your college essays, you’ll want to get feedback on them. Since these essays are important to your chances of acceptance, you should prepare to go through several rounds of edits. 

Not sure who to ask for feedback? That’s why we created our free Peer Essay Review resource. You can get comments from another student going through the process and also edit other students’ essays to improve your own writing. 

If you want a college admissions expert to review your essay, advisors on CollegeVine have helped students refine their writing and submit successful applications to top schools.  Find the right advisor for you  to improve your chances of getting into your dream school!

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I’ve always been critical of my body. Then I saw what it was capable of

When I chose to freeze my eggs — something that took me two years to mull over and decide — I sought out the consult of women my age who had already done the same. A frequent warning I got was about a common physical side effect of the process: “Covering the bloat” was something I was repeatedly told I’d have to deal with. So naturally, when my timeline was set in stone, I put together a wardrobe for work and play that I hoped would do the trick. 

But then, once I was in the thick of the process, something surprising happened. I realized that I didn’t care how I looked. At all . 

Let me back up to one of my earliest memories — it’s relevant, I promise. It was August 1994, my third birthday party, and my parents graciously gifted me the presence of my favorite movie stars: Aladdin and Jasmine. I used to watch “Aladdin” every day, sometimes multiple times a day, so I’ve been told. I loved the fairy-tale aspect, and I idolized Jasmine — maybe because I hadn’t seen Middle Eastern beauty represented anywhere else.

When actors dressed as Aladdin and Jasmine showed up at our house, I froze. I remember thinking, “I can’t believe these people are in my home, and they’re here for me!” I could barely smile or speak — I just kept staring at them in awe, starstruck. After singing a couple of songs in front of my friends and me, it was time for cake (probably my favorite part). My mom set out the cake along with crudité and other bites for the parents, and while I was thinking, “I can’t wait to eat that cake,” I heard Jasmine behind me squeal in excitement. She must have been as eager for cake as I was! We have something in common , I thought excitedly. Then she said, “Ooh, cucumbers!” 

That moment has been ingrained in my psyche since I heard those two words. I remember thinking that if I want to look and be like Jasmine, well then I, too, need to prioritize the cucumbers over the cake.

And yes, I was only 3 years old, but we all have a first memory we can’t forget. 

My brain was wired around food and body image from a young age, hitting its peak distress in my late teens and early 20s. My insecurities around my body took up so much room in my brain. 

As an adult, I’ve done a lot of work to feel more comfortable in my body, and to stop being so hard on myself — but that seed of negativity never fully went away. I’m the type of person who asks to avoid seeing the number on the scale when I get weighed at doctor’s appointments, and if I accidentally see the number, mental havoc rules my week. I’m also the type of person to have an intense HIIT workout routine for both physical upkeep and mental release. So, I’ll be honest — when the time was approaching for my egg freezing cycle to begin, I was anxious about not what my body would feel, but how I would feel about how it looked.

What I never expected though was to completely embrace my body — mentally, physically and emotionally — throughout egg freezing, despite the fact that, yes, I was bloated and also had to limit physical activity. For two weeks I injected myself with hormones 2-3 times a day, combining the solutions on my own, feeling quick bouts of injection pain and periods of fatigue, and traveling to doctor’s appointments constantly. After each shot, ultrasound or blood draw, I’d await my body’s reaction. Would I feel run down? Stressed? Anxious about any expansion around my stomach? I waited, but that’s not what happened. I mostly felt … strong. I was surprised and delighted by what my body was capable of. The strength I felt made me feel immensely grateful for my body and what it could endure. I felt empowered. The experience also, frankly, made me angry at myself for all the times I criticized my body’s appearance in the past, and all the time and energy I wasted on that way of thinking.

I mostly felt … strong. I was surprised and delighted by what my body was capable of. The strength I felt made me feel immensely grateful for my body and what it could endure. I felt empowered.

Body image is a construct. It is an idea of what society deems to be subjectively appealing and has been supported by the media over decades and generations. I’m so glad society is evolving and becoming more welcoming of all shapes and sizes, but you can’t rely on internet culture and the news cycle for acceptance, especially since what is acceptable is constantly changing. It needs to come authentically and wholeheartedly from within.

I wanted to freeze my eggs in my 32nd year, and I did just that: My egg retrieval was on my last day of being 32. For my 33rd birthday — exactly three decades after that birthday party I remember as a girl — I started the year with a clean slate, freeing up that space in the back of my mind that used to be hyper-focused on what I looked like, for something new.

I vow to be less critical of how my body appears, and more in touch with how it feels. I vow to be mindful of the cucumbers and enjoy the cake, and maybe I can help other women be less critical of their bodies, too. Our bodies endure and are capable of so much. They hold so much power and strength. We should own the power of our bodies. We should be grateful for them. After this experience, I know I will be.

Donna Farizan is a contributor for TODAY's fourth hour with Hoda and Jenna.

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Collection Meeting of Frontiers

Collections from siberia and the russian far east, aleksandrovsk municipal history and literature museum "a.p. chekhov and sakhalin" (55 items).

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Ivan Nikolaevich Krasnov's Views of Sakhalin Island (55 items)

Sakhalin Island was used by imperial Russia as a penal colony and place of exile for criminals and political prisoners. Between 1869 and 1906, more than 30,000 inmates and exiles endured the difficult conditions of the forced-labor colony on the island. This collection, consisting of an album and individual photographs, is preserved in the Aleksandrovsk Municipal History and Literature Museum "A.P. Chekhov and Sakhalin" in Alekandrovsk-Sakhalinskiy, Sakhalin Island (off Russia’s southeast coast). The photographs were taken on the island during the late 19th and early 20th centuries and provide rare glimpses of its settlements, prisons, and inhabitants. Most of the photographs in the collection were taken by Sakhalin artist Ivan Nikolaevich Krasnov, although some are unattributed. The collection depicts public life and institutions in the town of Aleksandrovsk Post, convicts working under harsh conditions or in chains, and political prisoners. The photographs also show the daily life both of the Nivkh people, indigenous to the northern part of the island, and the Russian settler population. The predecessor of the Aleksandrovsk Municipal History and Literature Museum "A.P. Chekhov and Sakhalin" appears in some of the photographs. The name of the museum refers to a trip taken to Sakhalin Island by the Russian writer and medical doctor Anton Chekhov in 1890, during which Chekhov researched the plight of island’s prisoners and native populations. The publication of his Sakhalin Island in 1895 highlighted the depravity of the situation in this remote corner of Russia and led to public protests that helped bring about the closure of the penal colony.

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Altai State Regional Studies Museum (221 items)

Photographs by the topographer g. i. ivanov, gornaia shoria, 1913 (109 items).

This collection consists of 109 photographs taken by G. I. Ivanov (1876-192?) during a 1913 topographic expedition to the Gornaia Shoria in the Altai region. That same year, Ivanov participated in another topographic expedition--to the Mrasskii region, Kuznetskii District (central part of the Gornaia Shoria). The photographs reflect both expedition activities and the life of the people in this region. The negatives were transferred to the Altai State Museum of Regional History and Folklife in the 1920s; prints were made and sets from both expeditions were added to the museum’s collections.

Sergei Ivanovich Borisov's Color Photo-Cards of the Altai Mountains (52 items)

A collection of color postcards made from negatives taken by photographer Sergei Ivanovich Borisov (1859–1935) in the Altay, or Altai, Mountains region of southern Siberia early in the 20th century. Borisov was born into a family of serfs in Simbirsk (present-day Ulyanovsk) and was forced to work from an early age. In the late 1880s he moved to the city of Barnaul in Altayskiy Kray, where in 1894 he opened a photography studio. This studio later became the largest and most popular in the city. In 1907, Borisov began his expedition in the Altay Mountains, which lasted until 1911. He took around 1,500 photographs during this expedition, which, upon his return to Barnaul, he presented to the public through the use of a magic lantern. The photographs depict views of nature in remote corners of the Altay Mountains and the Altay and Kazakh peoples indigenous to this region. Borisov offered the photographs to various European publishers for the production of postcards. The collection includes two series of color postcards. The first series was issued by the Swedish printing company Granberg Society in Stockholm, but it is not known where the second series was published.

V.V. Sapozhnikov. Photo Materials from Expeditions in the Southern Altai Region, 1895-1899 (60 items)

A collection of 60 photos by V.V. Sapozhnikov (1861‒1924), a geographer, botanist, ethnographer, and professor at Tomsk State University (the first institution of higher education established in Siberia), who made significant contributions to the study of the South Siberian region. The photographs were taken by Sapozhnikov during his expeditions to the Altai Mountains in 1895‒99 and later reproduced from his negatives for the Altai State Regional Studies Museum in Barnaul. The explorer gave his photograph collection and related materials from his expeditions to the museum in 1904. Each photograph is accompanied by an annotation with a geographic reference written by Sapozhnikov. The collection is unique for its complex and spectacular views, covering a variety of geographic features of the South Siberian region. In many of the photos, Sapozhnikov or other members of the expeditions are shown, struggling with difficult terrain and swollen rivers. Sapozhnikov's scientific activity was closely connected with the Russian Geographical Society, to which he was elected in 1898.

Amur Oblast Museum of Regional History and Folklife (101 items)

Investigations of the zeya river in 1907-1909 (101 items).

Izyskaniia reki Zei v 1907-1909 gg. (Investigations of the Zeya River in 1907-1909) is a unique integrated collection of documentary photographs that presents a vivid picture of the state of the Amur region up to 1909. The album was prepared in 1909‒10 by the mechanical engineer Vladimir I. Fedorov (1876‒1956) on the instructions of the waterways administration of the Amur basin. Its 100 photographs show natural scenes, indigenous peoples, settlers, river transport, and Russian surveyors at work. The photographs are captioned. The Zeya River is one of the most important tributaries of the Amur River. It rises in the Stanovoy range in the Russian Far East and runs southward and slightly to the west for 1,242 kilometers before joining the Amur near Blagoveshchensk.

Berdsk Historical Art Museum (153 items)

Berdsk in siberia during the 19th and 20th centuries (153 items).

A collection of 153 photographs and documents held in the Berdsk Historical Art Museum, drawn from the personal archives of people who lived in the town of Berdsk in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The collection offers glimpses into everyday life, the atmosphere, and the activities in Berdsk, a major center of grain processing at that time. The photographs show groups of students and teachers, local mills, people at work in agriculture and industry, soldiers, and children and youth.  Most appear to date from the early Soviet era. The documents include tickets, ration cards, membership cards, and other items relating to farming, trade, crafts, mining, and so forth. Berdsk is located in Novosibirsk Oblast in central Russia, along the Novosibirsk Reservoir just south of Novosibirsk city. Founded at the beginning of the 18th century as a fortress, it became a city in 1944.

Center for Documentation of Tomsk Oblast Recent History (101 items)

Tomsk regional committee documents regarding deported baltic peoples (101 items).

A collection of 101 documents from the archives of the Tomsk Regional Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union relating to the mass deportation to Siberia of Baltic peoples from Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. The documents, which date from the period 1941–60, are nearly all stamped "Secret." They shed light on such aspects of the deportations as the numbers of people involved, how the reception of deported peoples was organized, the resettlement and placement of deportees, material support, methods of ideological control and the assessment of the communist authorities of the ideological and political influences on the deportees, and the eventual lifting of legal restrictions on these population groups. The Soviet Union invaded the Baltic countries in the summer of 1940 and the deportations of Baltic peoples were carried out the following year, just before the Germany invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. Estimates of the numbers of deported citizens of the Baltic countries vary, but probably about 50,000 were sent to camps in Siberia in this period. The deportations were aimed out eliminating resistance to communist rule and targeted the political and intellectual elites in the Baltic countries. Deportations were halted following the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, but a second mass deportation of Baltic peoples to Siberia occurred after World War II, in March 1949, as the authorities sought to stamp out continued resistance to Soviet rule.

Igarka Museum of Permafrost (82 items)

Dead road: construction project 503 (82 items).

A collection of materials related to the Salekhard‒Igarka Railway, an unfinished Soviet railroad sometimes called the “Dead Road.” This railroad was intended to unite European Russia with the northern regions of Siberia and to facilitate the export of minerals from the industrial city of Noril’sk. Construction began in 1949 but was abandoned in 1953 after Stalin’s death. Stalin had ordered the construction of the railroad without heeding the advice of specialists, who knew that a railroad built on permafrost would be difficult to maintain. Stalin considered the railroad strategically necessary to facilitate the defense of Russia’s northern coast; however, actual demand for the railway was low. Construction was divided into two projects, number 501 and number 503, and was carried out by prisoners of the infamous gulag system. According to eyewitness accounts, conditions in the camps of these projects and in Yermakovo, the central settlement of construction project 503, were better than in most parts of the gulag system. This collection consists of photographs, documents, maps, letters, and memoirs housed in the Igarka Museum of Permafrost. Photographs depict daily life in Yermakovo, a settlement near Igarka, abandoned buildings and railroad equipment, and musicians and actors of the projects’ cultural and educational divisions. Many of the photographs were taken by Walter Ruge (1915–2011) and depict his wife Irina Andreevna Alferova. Ruge completed a ten-year sentence as a political prisoner in 1951 before he was released to live as an exile in Yermakovo, where he met Alferova, a fellow exile. The collection’s documents and maps provide information about the planning and construction of the railroad and the administration of the camps, while the memoirs and letters describe the experiences of prisoners, exiles, and civilian residents of Yermakovo and the camps.

Institute for the Study of Buddhism, Mongol, and Tibetan Culture of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (95 items)

Albazinskii prison. materials of archaeological research (95 items).

A collection of 95 drawings, color photographs, and slides documenting the results of the archaeological excavations at the fortress of Albazin, the first Russian settlement on the Amur River (at the present-day village of Albazino in the Amurskaya Oblast). The Russians established the fort at Albazin in 1651, and it soon became the largest fortified settlement of Russian pioneers in the Amur region. In 1686, after a long siege by Manchu troops, Russian Cossack troops surrendered the fortress. Under the terms of the Treaty of Nerchinsk, concluded in 1689 to establish peace between Russia and China, the fortress was demolished and the territory around it transferred to China. The photographs, slides, and drawings in the collection show views of the remains of the towers, walls, residential buildings, and household items discovered during the excavations. They offer insight into the economic activities, construction methods, and armament of the Russian soldiers and settlers of the 16th century.

Institute of History of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (405 items)

Photographs from archeographic expeditions to the schismatic monasteries on the upper malyi enisei river (tuva, 1966-75) (43 items).

The schismatic monasteries along the headwaters of the Little Yenisey River came into being in February 1917, when one of the splinter groups of the well-known monastery of Father Nifont moved to the Tuva (or Tyva) area, near the Mongolian-Russian border, from the Ural region. The Tuva copy of the Genealogy of the Schismatic Sect, composed by Father Nifont between 1887 and 1890, contains an appendix by Father Palladii, the head of monasteries in Tuva, laying out this succession of 20th-century monastic fathers-superior in Tuva: Nifont, Sergii, Ignatii and Palladii. Father Ignatii died in prison before World War II; shortly thereafter, Father Palladii’s brother committed suicide while under arrest by jumping into the frigid rapids of the Little Yenisey. Father Palladii was arrested three times, but he was able to escape (from exile in Krasnoyarsk and then from the camp near Vladivostok where the poet Osip Mandel’shtam is known to have perished). Toward the end of his life, Father Palladii was director of the Tuva monasteries, having gained the consent of the authorities to assume this position by promising that he no longer would object to military service for Old Believers. Father Palladii was a skilled transcriber and binder of manuscripts and early printed books who owned a large library of these materials. In 1966 he acquainted Novosibirsk archeographers with previously unknown and unstudied literary works composed in the Urals and Siberia from the 17th to the 20th centuries by Old Believer schismatic writers. The residents of these monasteries refuse to be photographed. They explain this refusal in the following way: upon christening, a person acquires an invisible aura around the head and, after death, this aura serves as a pass into heaven; the aura is diminished each time the person sins, and it is further weakened by photography. Outside monasteries, however, this prohibition is not enforced nearly as strictly, even in the families of spiritual teachers.

Photographs from Archeological Expeditions to Old Believer Monasteries (Rudnyi Altai, Headwaters of the Uba River, 1970-71) (42 items)

The monasteries of the Pomorskie Sect of Old Believers, visited by archeographers from Novosibirsk, were the successors to the Pokrovskii women’s monastery built there at the very beginning of the twentieth century with the financial support of Savva Morozov, a well-known textile mill owner who belonged to the Pomorskie Sect. (During this same period he was also financing underground Bolshevik-Leninist organizations.) Old photographs of the nuns at this monastery have been preserved.This monastery traditionally maintained close religious and economic ties with the local peasantry and the wealthy farming families of Old Believers in the Altai. The prosperous Altai peasantry offered stiff resistance (including armed resistance) to Soviet rule and the policy of “war communism” and collectivization. The harsh repression of this resistance took a toll on the Altai Old Believer communities and their book collections. For example, on the northern slopes of the Altai, in Uimon Valley, and on the Koksa River, where the richest Old Believer farms were devastated, a large collection of manuscripts and early printed books also was destroyed. A few miraculously spared sixteenth-century volumes were among the most valuable discoveries of the expeditions by the specialists from the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. When Siberian archeographers began travelling to the Altai Old Believer communities in the late 1960s and early 1970s, they found that the former prosperity was long gone, and the other valleys that had flourished before 1917 had become nearly depopulated. This was an ideal location for the secretive settlements of hermits, many of whom had once been nuns of the Pokrovskii monastery, while others had come from all parts of the country, e.g., Kuban’, which had maintained intensive correspondence with the Pomorskie Sect.In their way of life, the adherents of the Pomorskie Sect in Altai were less closed than, for example, the Tuva schismatics. Many of the monastery residents were quite willing to be photographed. The photograph taken of the superior of the main monastery, Mother Afanasiia, was placed alongside the icons in the chapel after her death.

Photographs from the Trial of the Dubches Hermits (6 items)

A collection documenting the trial in the early 1950s of the Dubches hermits. The hermits were associated with Old Believer monasteries persecuted by the communist authorities in what was then the Soviet Union. In 1937‒40 these monasteries were secretly relocated from the Ural Mountains to the left bank of the Lower Yenisey River and the Dubches River and its tributaries. Playing a large role in this effort was the men’s monastery of Father Simeon, whose writings traced the history of the monastery beginning in the 18th century, when it was led by the famed Hegumen (father superior) Maksim, the author of numerous polemic works. Along with the monastery of Father Simeon, nuns from the Permskii convent (on the Sylva River) and Sungul’skii convent (near the city of Kasli, Southern Urals) also relocated to the Dubches region. This secret move took several years. At the new site, the taiga (coniferous evergreen forests) was cleared for buildings and vegetable gardens. Several families of peasant adherents who migrated with the monasteries helped to erect a chapel, along with a building to house a rich collection of old books (more than 500 volumes, including a parchment manuscript and some 16th-century printed books). In 1951 the monasteries were spotted from the air by the Soviet authorities and subsequently demolished by a punitive detachment. The hermits associated with the monasteries and the peasants who had supported them were arrested, and all the buildings, icons, and books were burned. The Krasnoyarsk Office of the Ministry of State Security conducted an investigation and put 33 persons on trial. All those indicted were convicted under Articles 58-10 part 2 and 58-11 of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic criminal code and sentenced to prison terms ranging from 10 to 25 years. Alexandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn wrote about these events in his classic Gulag Archipelago. Two of those arrested perished in Soviet concentration camps: Father Simeon and Mother Margarita. After the death in 1953 of the dictator Joseph Stalin, the others were granted amnesty on November 12, 1954.

Special Settlers in West Siberia in the 1930s (311 items)

The commemorative album “Soviet Narym: Opening of the West-Siberian North by Labor Settlers, 1930-36” contains statistical, narrative, cartographic, and illustrated materials relating to the people who were forcibly settled in the Narym region by the Soviet authorities in the 1930s. The album, compiled in 1936 by the secret police of West Siberia as the result of a government investigation, sought to document for Moscow the opening of the Narym region by labor settlers. Housed for a time in police archives, the album later fell into private hands during a “purge” of these archives, but since 2002 has been in the custody of the Sector on the History of Sociocultural Development, Institute of History, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences.

Irkutsk Municipal History Museum (572 items)

Materials from the ethnographic expedition of p.p. khoroshikh in 1927 (257 items).

Presented here is an album of 167 photographs and 89 drawings made during the 1927 expedition in the Balagansk District of the Irkutsk region by the famous Siberian ethnographer and archaeologist Pavel Khoroshikh and local history specialist Petr Trebukhovskii. The materials in the album detail the different aspects of the economic activities of the Russian and Buriat population, types of houses and farm buildings, tools and daily activities, and various aspects of children's upbringing. Together, these illustrations are the richest source of material for studying the life of the peasant population of the region before the kholkhoz (collective farm) period of the Soviet era; forced collectivization began in 1928. The Balagansk District is located in the south-central part of Irkutsk Oblast, on the left bank of the Angara River. It was settled by Russians from 1655 onward, and has long been inhabited by the Bulagat, a Buriat tribe whose name derives from the Buriat word for sable hunter.

Photography in Irkutsk (136 items)

This collection contains 136 photographs of Irkutsk from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The photographs show views of both the city of Irkutsk and countryside of Irkutsk Province; methods of transportation; and the citizenry--including their way of life, social activities, and forms of entertainment.

Russians in Harbin, 1920s-1940s (from the Archive of V. P. Ablamskii) (110 items)

Vladimir Pavlovich Ablamskii (1911-1994), a figure-skating champion from northern China, was also a famous Harbin photographer and photojournalist. This collection contains Ablamskii’s photographs depicting the life of the Russian immigrant community in Harbin.

The Baikal Region at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century in the Photographs of I. A. and V. I. Podgorbunskiih (69 items)

This collection presents a series of photographs taken by the Podgorbunskiis. The father, I. A. Podgorbunskii, was a priest, teacher, scientist, and local historian. The son, V. I. Podgorbunskii, was an archaeologist. Their photographs of the Baikal region depict the scenery as well as the way of life and culture of local residents.

Irkutsk State University (364 items)

Peoples of siberia: the buryats and yakuts (152 items).

This collection consists of two photograph albums from the early twentieth century, with pictures presumably taken by I. Popov. The album “Views of the Yakutsk Region” contains 151 photographs. Subjects include the Lena River shore; various forms of river transport--including boats, rafts, trade barges, and steamships; post offices along the Lena highway, and transport by horse and reindeer. The album “Peoples of Siberia” contains twenty-seven photographs depicting Yakuts and Buryats, everyday life, festivals, meetings, housing, utensils, and hunting accessories. Several of the photographs are signed with the initials “I. P.”

Views of Hunting Grounds in Irkutsk Oblast (72 items)

Vidy okhotugodii Irkutskoi oblasti (Views of hunting grounds in Irkutsk Oblast) is an unpublished album of photographs depicting hunting grounds along the Lena River in southeastern Siberia. Subjects shown include hunters, river scenes, hunting scenes, dogs, horses, and winter dwellings in the Kazachinsko-Lensky, Zhigalovsky, and Kachugsky Districts of the oblast, along with family photographs of the local Tungusic people. Each photograph is accompanied by a handwritten caption. Taken by the art critic V.N. Troitskii in 1930, the photographs offer insights into the nature, economic activities, and life of the indigenous and Russian populations of Siberia at the turn of the 1920s–1930s.

Views of the Akatuy Hard Labor Camp (48 items)

Presented here is an album of 47 views of convicts and structures at the Akatuy Prison, one of the main centers where political prisoners were held in the Russian Empire during the late-tsarist period. The album belonged to Isaiah Aronovich Shinkman, a physician and member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, who was incarcerated at Akatuy from 1906 to 1911. The prison was located at the Akatuy silver mine in Nerchinsk okrug (district) in the Transbaikal Territory of Siberia. Thousands of political prisoners were exiled to Siberia from European Russia and from Poland, Finland, Latvia, and Estonia (all then part of the Russian Empire) following the repression of the Russian Revolution of 1905. Criminal labor convicts and political prisoners had long been sent to Nerchinsk to work in extracting lead-silver ores in the region’s mines. The American explorer and journalist George Kennan (1845–1924) visited Akatuy in 1885, and wrote about his experience in his book Siberia and the Exile System (1891), a scathing critique of the system of prisons and prison camps in Russia. The album is held by the Irkutsk State University in Irkutsk and was digitized for the Meeting of Frontiers digital library project in the early 2000s. The photographs it contains offer glimpses into the day-to-day existence and activities of the political prisoners in Siberia in the years before World War I and the outbreak of the Russian Revolution of 1917.

Views of the Trans-Baikal and Irkutsk, a Photo Album by N. A. Charushin (54 items)

This album consists of fifty-three photographs by the Siberian photographer N. A. Charushin. Most of the photographs were taken on the Udunginsk and Circumbaikal Roads and represent images of bridges, rail stations, quays, ferries, and other construction.

Jewish Autonomous Region Museum of Regional History and Folklife (35 items)

Materials of the collection of professor b.l. bruk (35 items).

A collection of documents, photographs, maps, and printed works relating to the life and work of Professor Boris L’vovich Bruk, a well-known Russian agronomist who did much to study and develop agriculture in the Russian Far East and the central regions of Russia. In 1927, Bruk headed the expedition of the Committee on the Land Management of Working Jews (KOMZET) to the thinly populated Birobidzhan region to study the possible resettlement there of Jews from European Russia. The collection also includes the report issued by KOZMET after the conclusion of the expedition. The materials in the collection reflect the life and career of Bruk, his scientific activities, and the propaganda activities of the Soviet state relating to the introduction of modern agricultural technologies into the peasant economy. They also provide information on the nature, climate, and economy of the Birobidzhan region. Located in the Russian Far East near the border with China, the Birobidzhan region was established in 1928 by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin as the Jewish Autonomous Region of the Soviet Union.

Kamchatka Regional Unified Museum (469 items)

Kamchatka in the early twentieth century (297 items).

This album contains 296 works by such photographers as René Malaise, S. I. Beinarovich, I. E. Larin, and other, unknown artists. Larin lived on Kamchatka from 1917 to 1934 and was a prominent communist and the first chairman of the regional soviet. Malaise was a member of a Swedish expedition to Kamchatka in 1922-23. The album itself belonged to Mikhail Petrovich Vol'skii, chairman of the Kamchatka regional soviet in the 1920s and 1930s. This album offers a glimpse of life in the Russian Far Northeast in the first third of the twentieth century. It includes nature scenes of Kamchatka, views of Petropavlovsk and other population centers, and images of the indigenous peoples of Kamchatka and neighboring territories--their occupations and their material culture.

Photographs from the Eastern Reaches of the Russian Empire (44 items)

This collection consists of forty-four photographs of Sakhalin Island and the city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskii in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The photographs depict streets, individual buildings, panoramas of populated areas, and local people, including convicts and prisoners. The collection offers insights into the economy, society, and way of life in this remote corner of the Russian Empire around the turn of the twentieth century. The identity of the photographer is unknown.

The Kamchatka Photo Album of B. I. Dybovskii (128 items)

This photo album belonged to Benedikt Ivanovich Dybovskii (Benedykt Dybowski), 1833-1930, a well-known Polish zoologist.  Dybovskii was exiled to Siberia, for taking part in the Polish uprising of 1863-64; he remained there until 1877.  He returned to Siberia in 1879 and served as the Kamchatka district physician until 1883.  Dybovskii studied the environment and fauna of Baikal, Priamur'e, and Kamchatka.  The album presents views of the port of Petropavlovsk and other settlements in Kamchatka as well as photographs of the people of Kamchatka--merchants, craftsmen, peasants, Cossacks, and Kamchadals.  The album holds 127 unique photographs, which provide a clear image of the city of Petropavlovsk, the historical events associated with it, and its people in the second half of the nineteenth century.

Kemerovo Oblast Museum of Regional History and Folklife (302 items)

Civil war in the kuzbass (103 items).

This collection contains documents and photographs from more than thirty participants of the Russian Civil War in the Kuzbass, including commanders and commissars of the Red partisan movement. Among the unique items in the collection are materials relating to the circulation of money in Siberia (that is, the new currency introduced by the Kolchak government) and the photograph album, “Development of the Anzher Coal-Mine District in 1918-23.”

Documents and Photographs from the Kuzbass Autonomous Industrial Society (199 items)

The “Kuzbass” autonomous industrial colony was created in 1921. It was organized by American workers, who took on the obligation of inviting from the United States and Western Europe some eight thousand skilled workers and specialists to industrialize the Kuzbass. The Soviet government turned over to the colonists a number of Kemerovo mine shafts and an unfinished coking plant. To recruit volunteers to work in Siberia, a “Kuzbass Bureau” was opened in the middle of New York City, and an information bulletin began to be published in the United States. Between January 1922 and December 1923, however, only 566 persons arrived for work in the Kuzbass. The colonists included emigrants from America, Canada, the Netherlands, France, Australia, Jamaica, Indonesia, and other countries as well.

Krasnoiarsk Krai Museum of Regional History and Folklife (501 items)

Everyday life of yenisei province, late nineteenth-early twentieth centuries.

This collection includes more than four hundred photographs of daily life in Yenisei Province in the late tsarist period. Photographs include peasants, Cossacks, and high-ranking officials.

Letters from the Decembrist Revolt

Presented here is a collection of 78 letters written between 1838 and 1850 by Decembrists and their wives. The letters were written from places of hard labor and settlements in Siberia and are addressed to Iakov Dmitrievich Kazimirskii, a manager at the Petrovskii Factory. The writers include I.I. Pushchin, V.L. Davydov, A.I. Iakubovich, A.Z. Muraviev, N.A. Bestuzhev, V.V. Vadkovskii, A.P and M.K Iushnevskii, I.S. Povalo-Shveikovskii, E.I. Trubetskaia, S.G. Volkonskii, I.I. Gorbachevskii, M.F. Mit’kov, and E.P. Obolensky. The Decembrists were a group of Russian revolutionaries who led an unsuccessful uprising against tsarist authority in December 1825. They were primarily members of the upper classes with military backgrounds. After the suppression of the uprising, 289 Decembrists were put on trial. Five–the leaders –were executed; 31 were imprisoned; and the rest exiled to Siberia. Many wives of the Decembrists accompanied their husbands into banishment in Siberia. The collection is held in the Krasnoyarskskiy Krai Museum of Regional History and Folklife. The letters came to the museum in the 1930s from the Krasnoyarsk Regional Library as part of a collection of documents assembled by the famous bibliophile-merchant Gennadii Vasil’evich Iudin. Most of the letters were published in the book Sibirskie pis’ma dekabristov: 1838-1850 (Siberian letters of the Decembrists: 1838-1850), compiled by T.S.  Komarova and published by the Krasnoyarsk Book Publishing House in 1987.

M. N. Khangalov Museum on the History of Buryatia (66 items)

Christianity in buryatia.

This collection consists of sixty-six photographs and documents that depict the history and activities of the Russian Orthodox Church in Buryatia in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It includes the papers of Nikolai, Bishop of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands; views of Orthodox churches and cathedrals; church records; confessional lists; birth registers; music manuscripts, and other documents.

Memory of Kolyma Museum (42 items)

Materials on the history of sevvostlag (42 items).

A collection of photographs, drawings, newspapers, and documents gathered in the Kolyma region of Russia. Kolyma is a northeastern region that takes its name from the Kolyma River and includes parts of the present-day Chukotka Autonomous Okrug and present-day Magadan Oblast. This region contained deposits of gold and platinum and was home to Sevvostlag (Northeastern Corrective Labor Camps), one of the Soviet Union’s most infamous labor camp systems, which was administered by a government agency known as Dalstroy (Far North Construction Trust). These materials were collected by the Yagodnoye District public historical and educational organization “Search for the Unlawfully Repressed.” This organization was founded in 1990 with the goal of locating former prisoners of the Kolyma camps. It corresponds with more than 500 former prisoners and their relatives, publishes prisoners’ memoirs, conducts local history research, and carries out expeditions to the remains of camps. The materials collected by Search for the Unlawfully Repressed became the basis for the collections of the Memory of Kolyma Museum, where this collection is housed. The collection’s photographs depict ruins of camp buildings, daily life in Kolyma, and journalists traveling in the region. Other materials of the collection include a map of Kolyma’s camps, newspapers from the region, certificates, letters, records of criminal cases, and personal files.

Museum of the History of the Norilsk Industrial Region (212 items)

The last archipelago: investigation of severnaya zemlya in 1930-1932 (212 items).

A collection of materials, including manuscripts, photographs, and a photograph album, from the N.N. Urantsev Foundation devoted to the last major geographical discovery on earth: the exploration of Severnaya Zemlya in the expedition of 1930‒32 expedition under the leadership of G.A. Ushakov (1901‒63) and N.N. Urvantsev (1893‒1985). The manuscripts and photographs offer new and previously unknown information about the harsh conditions and limited plant and animal life of Severnaya Zemlya and document the history of the expedition. As characterized by N.N. Urvantsev, this was the last polar expedition of the Nansen-Amundsen era, in which success was achieved through human endurance and perseverance in pursuing a goal using a minimum of technical and material resources. Severnaya Zemlya (meaning “northern land” in Russian) is an archipelago of four large and many smaller islands located in the Arctic Ocean, immediately north of Cape Chelyuskin, the most northerly point in Siberia. Much of the territory is covered by ice and snow. The archipelago was first discovered only in 1913 and was not explored until the two-year Ushakov-Urvantsev expedition mapped and surveyed the territory.

National Research Tomsk State University (101 items)

Drawings and paintings by pavel mikhailovich kosharov (143 items).

The Research Library of Tomsk State University and the Tomsk Oblast Museum of Regional History and Folk Life hold a collection of about 150 works by the famous Siberian artist, teacher, and public educator Pavel Mikhailovich Kosharov (1824–1902). Siberia in all its diversity is the basic theme of this collection of paintings, lithographs, sketches, studies, and drawings, which capture various remote corners of the Siberian wilderness, spectacular vistas of the Altai, scenes of numerous Siberian cities and villages, and the faces and way of life of the indigenous peoples of Siberia.

Nikolaevsk-on-Amur Museum of Municipal History and Folklife (103 items)

Nikolaevsk-on-amur in postcards during the early 20th century (103 items).

Presented here is a collection of 103 postcards of the city of Nikolayevsk-on-Amur in the early 20th century. The collection provides a unique photographic record of the development of the city and of the lower Amur region in this period. The cards offer views of the architectural appearance of the old city (especially valuable, because during the Russian Civil War Nikolayevsk-on-Amur was destroyed and burnt), as well as of the culture, daily life, and occupations of residents, and of the different ethnic groups that made up the population of the region. The postcards all have printed labels on their front sides, in Russian or in both Russian and German. A few of the postcards contain written messages on the back, and have been digitized on both sides. The collection is housed in the Nikolayevsk-on-Amur Municipal Local History Museum. Formation of the collection began in the 1960s. Postcards came from former residents of the city of Nikolayevsk-on-Amur and from the exchange of collections with other museums and local history specialists.

Novosibirsk State Museum of Regional History and Folklife (526 items)

Boris smirnov print collection (99 items).

Boris Vasilievich Smirnov (1881–1954) was a Russian artist who in 1904 traveled by prisoner transport from western Russia across Siberia. Along the way he created a series of drawings and watercolors of the people and places he encountered. Best known as a portraitist, Smirnov focused on the faces of the men and women he met, who included exiles, prisoners, settlers from Ukraine and western Russia, local military and civilian officials, peasants and merchants. His works from this period also include a handful of drawings of houses and landscapes. The sketches were made in the Ural Mountains, Irkutsk, Omsk, Krasnoyarsk, and in villages along the route. The details of Smirnov’s journey are sketchy. Some accounts say that he traveled along the Great Siberian Road as a volunteer on the way to the front in the Russo-Japanese War. Other accounts say that he was an exile, possibly sent to Siberia for refusing to be conscripted into the army. The Great Siberian Road, depicted in several of Smirnov’s drawings, was the route from Moscow to China via Siberia. Smirnov’s collection of 99 graphic items is preserved in the Novosibirsk State Museum of Regional History and Folklife. The collection was acquired by the museum from the artist in 1950.

Ethnographic Artists' Sketches from the 1920s and 1930s (96 items)

The graphics collection of the Novosibirsk State Museum of Regional History and Folklife includes the works of such famous Siberian painters as Dmitrii Inokent’evich Karatanov, Natal’ia Nikolaevna Nagorskaia, Aleksei Vasil’evich Voshchakin, and Grigorii Gustavovich Likman. These lesser-known drawings and watercolors were done in the field in the 1920s and 1930s. They include both ethnographic sketches and first-hand depictions of the young, fast-growing Siberian megalopolis.

Native Peoples of Siberia (212 items)

This collection includes more than two hundred photographs taken during scientific expeditions into the most remote wilderness regions of Siberia at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries. This selection illustrates the life of seven indigenous groups from East Siberia: Kets, Dolgans, Buryats, Yakuts, Even, Evenks, and Toffalars.

Photographs from the Ethnographic Expeditions of Natal'ia Nagorskaia (20 items)

The well-known Novosibirsk ethnographer and graphic artist Natal’ia Nikolaevna Nagorskaia (1895-1983), while on the staff of the Novosibirsk State Museum of Regional History and Folklife (NGKM), made a number of ethnographic expeditions to Khakasiia, Gornaia Shoriia, Turukhan krai, and the Altai. The NGKM collections preserve the materials from her expeditions, including field sketches, expedition journals, photographs, and artifacts of the material culture of the native peoples of Southern Siberia.

The Road Building Department of the Tomsk District. Railroad Construction in 1909 (49 items)

The road building department of the tomsk district. road construction in 1906-1908 (50 items).

Presented here are two albums preserved in the Novosibirsk State Museum of Regional History and Folklife containing photographs documenting various stages in the construction of dirt roads in the Tomsk region by workers and engineers of the road-building department of the Russian Resettlement Administration. The albums date from 1906–8 and 1909. The Russian state paid for the construction of roads, such as those depicted in the albums in order to connect settlers with a railroad line, a navigable river, or commercial-industrial centers. The overall purpose of the road-building program was to promote the colonization of the taiga (moist coniferous forest regions) of Siberia. The albums show the construction of roads in the region between the main line of the Trans-Siberian Railroad and the Chet’ and Kandat Rivers in Tomsk gubernia (governorate), a distance of 170 versts (about 182 kilometers).

Omsk State Museum of Regional History and Folklife (371 items)

The first western siberian agricultural, forestry, and commerical-industrial exhibition in omsk, 1911 (157 items).

A collection of photographs documenting the First West Siberian Agricultural, Forestry, and Industrial Trade Exhibition, which took place in Omsk in 1911. The exhibition was held from June 15 to August 1 of that year, and was a significant event in the life of the Siberian region. Nothing on this scale or this level of ambition had ever been staged in Siberia. The collection includes photographs of the exhibition organizers, general views, and images of pavilions, exhibits, prize-winning livestock, crowds at a musical event, and even an aviator and his airplane. Also included are drawings made by the engineers and architects for several of the pavilions. The photographs provide insights into the economic and social development of Siberia in the early 20th century and show a dynamic and self-confident region.

Types of Buildings in the Cossack Settlements (48 items)

Types of cossacks: siberian cossacks on duty and at home (74 items), views of the cossack territories (92 items).

Presented here are three albums depicting the territories, culture, and way of life of the Cossacks living in the steppe regions of western Siberia and present-day Kazakhstan. These albums were created for and exhibited at the First West Siberian Agricultural, Forestry, and Commercial-Industrial Exhibition in Omsk in 1911. The albums were part of a collection of photographs assembled between 1891 and 1918 by the museum of the West Siberian Branch of the Imperial Russian Geographic Society in Omsk. The photographs in the albums were taken in 1909 by N.G. Katanaev (son of Colonel G.E. Katanaev) during a journey to Cossack settlements in Stepnoi krai (later the oblasts of Ural’sk, Turgai, Akmola, and Semipalatinsk). The Cossacks began serving in garrisons in fortified Siberian towns from the late 16th century onward. In 1808 the Cossacks in these outposts were organized as the Siberian Cossack Host, a military force of mainly cavalry regiments that subsequently took part in the Russian conquest of Central Asia as well as in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904‒5 and in World War I. Omsk was the administrative center for the host, which was headed by an ataman appointed by the tsarist authorities. The host was abolished by the Soviet authorities in 1920.

Phototext Foundation (196 items)

Materials of the ethno-photo expedition: people on the frontier (196 items).

This collection contains photographs from the international photographic expedition, “People on the Frontier,” to the Saian-Altai region from June 12 to July 4, 2002. The photographs tell stories about such topics as the peoples of the region, their religions, steppe roads, and everyday life. Photographers who participated in the expedition included Heidi Bradner (Panos Pictures, London), Vladimir Dubrovskii (Novosibirsk), Sergei Il’nitskii (Moscow), Andrei Kobylko (Novokuznetsk), Aleksandr Kuznetsov (Krasnoiarsk), and Aleksandr Sorin (Moscow). The expedition, which began and ended in Novosibirsk, covered 7,000 kilometers and included stops in Biisk, Gorno-Altaisk, Ust-Koksa, Ust-Kan, Ongudai, Ulagan, Kosh-Agach, Tahsanta, Aktahs, Buiisk--Kemerovo, Abakan, Kazanovka, Askiz, Kyzyl and Maiskii, Talon, Tulesh, Kilinsk, and Belovo.

Private Archive of Sergei Nikolaevich Chashchin (85 items)

Firefighting in irkutsk province (85 items).

This collection of photographs and documents from the private archive of Sergei Mikhailovich Chashchin relates to the establishment of a firefighting service in eastern Siberia in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It includes materials about early firefighting equipment, the organization of a Siberian firefighting team, and the leaders of Siberia’s first firefighting service.

Siberian Museum Agency (247 items)

The russian far east in modern photography (165 items).

A collection entitled “The Russian Far East in Modern Photography,” which documents several regions of the Russian Far East at the beginning of the 21st century. The Russian Far East encompasses a large geographical area that borders the Pacific Ocean and stretches from the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug in the northeast to Primorsky Krai in the southeast, along the borders with China and North Korea. The collection includes several photographs by the famed researcher and photographer Vitalii Aleksandrovich Nikolaenko (1938–2003), who spent more than 30 years observing and studying the brown bears of the Kamchatka Peninsula and was eventually killed by a bear while carrying out his work. Also included are photographs of Sakhalin Island by Moscow-based photographer Aleksandr Vladimirovich Sorin, of Kamchatka and the Kuril Islands by Aleksandr Mikhailovich Bermant, of Primorsky Krai by Vladimir Mikhailovich Kobzar’, and of Kamchatka by Irina Vladimirovna Stakhanova. The photographs depict the varied natural landscapes of the Russian Far East, including the geysers and volcanoes of Kamchatka and the coastlines of Russia’s Pacific islands. The collection also captures the work of the region’s fishermen, daily life and recreation in its settlements, and its wildlife, including Kamchatka bears and Amur tigers. The collection was gathered for the Meeting of Frontiers digital library project in the early 2000s.

Timeless Chukotka (82 items)

This collection entitled “Timeless Chukotka,” which was created by Moscow photographer Aleksandr Vladimirovich Sorin (born 1965) and Novosibirsk journalist Artem Gotlib. In June and July of 2003, Sorin and Gotlib undertook an expedition to the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, the most northeasterly region of the Russian Federation. Chukotka is characterized by a low population density, an untouched and mostly mountainous natural landscape, and a harsh Arctic climate. About half of the region’s territory lies north of the Arctic Circle. Transportation by airplane is more efficient and more widespread than travel on the region’s few roads. Sorin and Gotlib initially planned to travel by barge along the Anadyr’ River, but the complications of transportation in Chukotka led them to alter their plans. Their eventual route took them from Anadyr’, the administrative center of the region, to the tundra settlement of Ust’-Belaya, and on to the settlements of Bukhta Provideniya, Sireniki, and Novoye Chaplino on the shores of the Bering Sea. Sorin and Gotlib concluded that conventional concepts of time and punctuality have little meaning in Chukotka, which explains the word “timeless” that they used in naming their collection. The photographs depict the daily lives of the people of Chukotka, as well as its settlements, coastlines, and natural landscapes. The collection was gathered for the Meeting of Frontiers digital library project in the early 2000s.

State Archives of Novosibirsk Oblast (130 items)

Construction and views of the circumbaikal railroad. 1900-1904 (58 items).

In the second half of the 19th century, Russia underwent a period of extensive rail development that culminated in the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railroad. Akin to the great railroads to the Pacific in both the United States and Canada, Russia's transcontinental line was intended to supply and populate Siberia as well as deliver raw materials to the rapidly developing industries west of the Urals. Working against an ambitious timetable and under severe conditions of climate and terrain, the Russians effectively united the European and Asian parts of the empire by completing this herculean project. The engineering plans provided for the sequential construction of six basic segments. The fourth of these was the Circum-Baikal Railroad from Irkutsk to the eastern side of Lake Baikal. This album of 56 photographs in the Collection of Documentary Materials on the History of the West-Siberian Railroad (1890s–1978) in the Novosibirsk Oblast State Archive documents the construction of this part of the line. The photographs focus on engineers and workmen building tunnels and trestles along the route.

Construction of the Middle-Siberian Railroad. 1893-1898 (20 items)

This photographic collage is from an 18-page album in the Collection of Documentary Materials on the History of the West-Siberian Railroad (1890s–1978) in the Novosibirsk Oblast State Archive that documents the construction of the Mid-Siberian Railroad from Novo-Nikolaevsk (present-day Novosibirsk) to Innokentievskaia near Irkutsk, with a spur line to Tomsk. The collage features portraits of the men responsible for the construction of the line, overlaid on photographs showing the construction process.

Views of the West-Siberian and Ekateringburg-Cheliabinsk Railroad (52 items)

This album of 50 photographs from the Collection of Documentary Materials on the History of the West-Siberian Railroad (1890s–1978) in the Novosibirsk Oblast State Archive documents the construction of the West Siberian railroad and the railroad between the cities of Ekaterinburg and Chelyabinsk. The images, by the artist and printer Artur Ivanovich Vil’borg (born 1856), include views of railroad bridges over the Ushaika, Tom’, and Lebiazh’ia Rivers, the passenger depots at the Tomsk, Ob', and Oiash stations, and portraits of engineers and other personnel involved in the railroad construction.

The State Public Scientific and Technical Library of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (113 items)

Tsarist patents, 1899-1917: urals, siberia, and the russian far east (113 items).

This collection consists of a selection of tsarist patents awarded to residents of the Urals, Siberia, and the Russian Far East in the final years of the empire. These documents are a valuable source of information about the opening of the Siberian and Far Eastern regions in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and technological progress in Russia--the state of industrial development, the organization of industry, and the extent of mining and mineral excavation.

Tobolsk Museum of History, Architecture, and Preservation (239 items)

Drawings and illustrations by mikhail stepanovich znamenskii, 1858-1891 (239 items).

A collection of 239 drawings and illustrations made by the 19th century Siberian artist Mikhail Stepanovich Znamenskii(1833–92) between 1858 and 1891. From the West Siberian city of Tobolsk, Znamenskii was a well-known local historian, archaeologist, ethnographer, artist, and master of satirical prints and drawings. The collection reflects almost all aspects of his work. It includes drawings of artifacts from archaeological finds in the territory of West Siberia, sketches of nature, people, and cities, a few maps, and several satirical albums with caricatures and humorous sketches of everyday life of the people. Together, the illustrations in the collection give a portrait of the people of and physical conditions in West Siberia in the second half of the 19th century.

Tomsk Oblast Museum of Regional History and Folklife (422 items)

Photographs by i. s. fateev: the tym river selkups in 1938 and 1940 (177 items).

This is a collection of prints from glass negatives shot by Ivan Stepanovich Fateev. The photos were taken in the Tym River region on two expeditions organized by the museum director, Petr Ivanovich Kutaf’evyi. Fateev captured the way of life of a group of Narym (southern) Selkups living in close proximity with their Evenki neighbors during the period of aggressive Sovietization of West Siberian native peoples.

The Civil War in West Siberia (45 items)

This collection contains unique documentary photographs relating to the Russian Civil War in Siberia. The photographs highlight the anti-Bolshevik (“White”) movements, underground and partisan activities in Tomsk Province, and the establishment of Soviet rule in Tomsk. The collection also includes material about the punitive expeditions of Admiral Aleksandr Kolchak. Most of the photographs were acquired by the Tomsk Oblast Museum of Regional History and Folklife in the 1920s and 1930s from the Research Commission on the History of the October Revolution and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

The Grigorii Nikolaevich Potanin and Nikolai Mikhailovich Iadrintsev Collection (110 items)

This collection consists of diverse materials belonging to Grigorii Nikolaevich Potanin (1835–1920) and Nikolai Mikhailovich Iadrintsev (1842–94), two prominent Siberian scholars, social and political activists, and leaders of the regional-studies movement. The materials include their correspondence with friends and social activists (eighty-five items), photographs from N. G. Potanin’s expedition to Mongolia in 1899 (seventeen items), and photographs from the journal of Nina Aleksandrovna Adrianova, who was the daughter of Aleksandr Vasil’evich Adrianov, a specialist in regional studies (eight items).

Maps from the Tomsk Oblast Museum of Regional History and Folklife (48 items)

The Tomsk Oblast Museum of Regional History and Folklife (TOKM) map collection represented in the Meeting of Frontiers project numbers forty-nine items on 117 pages. The collection was built quietly throughout the history of the museum. The bulk of the collection consists of nineteenth-century regional maps of Tomsk, Tobolsk, Irkutsk, and Enisei guberniias, land-use and road maps, and maps of Siberian cities.

V. I. Surikov Museum of Art in Krasnoiarsk (321 items)

Works of d. i. karatanov, a. g. vargin, and a. p. lekarenko from their expeditions to siberia (321 items).

This collection presents sketches, drawings, watercolors, and paintings by three well-known Krasnoiarsk artists, Dmitri Innokent’evich Karatanov, A. G. Vargin, and Andrei Prokofievich Lekarenko, produced during their expeditions to Siberia in the 1910s and 1920s. These works are located at two institutions: V. I. Surikov Museum of Art in Krasnoiarsk and Krasnoiarsk Krai Museum of Regional History and Folklife. Karatanov (1872-1952) studied at the St. Petersburg Academy of Fine Arts but left the Academy in 1896 before finishing his course of study to return to Krasnoiarsk. He began teaching at the High School of Arts in Krasnoiarsk in 1910; many well-known local artists studied under him. The main theme of his work was the Siberian landscape. He was named an “Honored Artist of the RSFSR (Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic)” in 1948.  Very little is known about Vargin. The 110 drawings that he made during his trip to Siberia with A. A. Savel’ev are his only surviving works.  Lekarenko (1895-1974) studied under Karatanov and V. A. Favorskii, and was one of the founders of the local artists union “New Siberia.” He also taught at the High School of the Arts in Krasnoiarsk as well as at the Surikov Academy of Arts in that city. In 1967 Lekarenko was awarded the “Order of Honor” and named “Honored Artist of the RSFSR” for his dedication to educational work.

V.A. Obruchev Museum of Kyakhta Regional History and Folklife (71 items)

Russian-chinese cross-border trade (71 items).

A collection of 71 items (photographs and negatives on glass) made in the late 19th century and early 20th century by the famous revolutionary-populist and social and political activist N.A. Charushin (1851–1937) and by N. Petrov. Charushin began serving a hard labor sentence in the Transbaikal Territory in 1878. The materials in the collection illustrate aspects of Transbaikal history in this period, with a particular emphasis on the tea trade with China, which at that time was one of the main branches of the economy of the region. The photographs show various technological processes of growing and preparing tea, sections of trade routes, as well as views of China, Mongolia, Buryatia, and various towns and villages of Transbaikal, as well as images of local people of different ethnicities and nationalities. Several of the photographs, including one of the large and imposing Russian consulate, were taken in Urga, at that time the capital of Outer Mongolia (and known today as Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia).

V.K. Arseniev Primorsky Regional Unified Museum (267 items)

Photo archive of geologist mikhail alekseevich pavlov (125 items).

A collection from the family archive of prominent geologist Mikhail Alekseevich Pavlov (1884–1938). Pavlov was born near Ekaterinburg and completed his schooling at the Nikolai Gymnasium in Tsarskoe Selo (present-day Pushkin) in 1905. He went on to study geology at Saint Petersburg University and participated in many field expeditions. While still a student, Pavlov took part in the attempted expedition to the North Pole in 1912‒14, which was led by the Arctic explorer Georgii Iakovlevich Sedov (1877–1914). Along with his school and university friend Vladimir Iul’evich Vize (1886–1954), who served as the expedition’s geographer, Pavlov collected a large body of scientific data on the northern archipelago of Novaya Zemlya. After finishing his education, Pavlov worked as a geologist and teacher of geology. He devoted most of his career to the geology of the Far East, working as an employee of the Far East Geological Committee (Dal’geolkom) in 1919–31. Pavlov was arrested in 1931 and in 1938 was executed after exhaustion prevented him from reporting for work in the labor camp where he was a prisoner. Such a fate was typical for representatives of the Russian intelligentsia in Stalinist Russia. Many photographs in this collection were taken by Pavlov himself, while others are unattributed. The photographs date from approximately 1875–1929. They depict Pavlov’s geological expeditions in Siberia and the Far East, expedition participants, views of nature, Pavlov during his school and university years, and his family members in various years.

Photographs of Georgii Iakovlevich Sedov's Expedition to the North Pole (59 items)

Senior Lieutenant Georgii Iakovlevich Sedov (1877–1914) was a hydrographer and surveyor who devoted much of his career to exploration of the Northern Sea Route north of Siberia. The son of a poor fisherman, Sedov succeeded in becoming an officer of the Imperial Russian Navy, an unprecedented achievement for someone of his modest origins. This collection, consisting of an album and individual photographs from the family archive of geologist Mikhail Alekseevich Pavlov (1884–1938), depicts the expedition undertaken by Sedov in the years 1912–14. The members of the expedition departed from Arkhangelsk in August of 1912 on the sailing vessel Saint Martyr Foka, intending to travel to Zemlya Frantsa Iosifa, from where they would attempt to reach the North Pole by dog sled. The expedition relied on private means, which contributed to the shortages of fuel and food that led to its failure. Sedov, whose health was already failing when he set out for the pole by sled in early 1914, died before reaching his objective. The members of the expedition nonetheless carried out extensive surveying and scientific observations while wintering on Novaya Zemlya in 1912–13 and made significant contributions to knowledge of northern geography. Many photographs in the collection were taken by Nikolaj Vasil’evich Pinegin (1883–1940), the artist and photographer of the expedition. Other photographs are attributed to Pavlov, the expedition’s geologist, who over the course of his career conducted a great deal of geological research in Siberia and the Russian Far East. The photographs show the expedition’s departure from Arkhangelsk, the members of the expedition on the Saint Martyr Foka, the harsh conditions endured by the expedition in winter, and views of the Arctic.

The Family of Yul Brynner Photo Album (83 items)

A collection of 82 photos from the archive of Yul Brynner (1920–85), the famous Hollywood actor, Academy Award winner, and Vladivostok native, preserved in the V.K. Arseniev Primorsky Regional Unified Museum in Vladivostok. Yul Brynner, whose real name was Iulii Borisovich Briner, was the grandson of the Vladivostok businessman and public figure of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries Iulii Ivanovich Briner (1849–1920), the owner of the lead and zinc mines in Tetiukh (present-day Dalnegorsk) and the shipping company and ship-repair shops in Vladivostok. Iulii Ivanovich had six children: Leonid, Boris, Felix, Margarita, Maria, and Nina. Boris Iul’evich (1889–1949), the father of the future Oscar-winner Yul Brynner, continued his father's business. Most of the Briner family emigrated from Primor’e (the Primorskiy region) in 1931 and lived subsequently in China, France, and the United States. The collection dates from 1923 and the photographs, from different years, depict Yul Brynner himself and his numerous relatives.

Yakutsk State Museum of the History and Culture of Northern Peoples (123 items)

Yakut material culture in ethnographic sketches of the 1920s-1940s (123 items).

A collection of ethnographic sketches created in the Yakut Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic during the 1930s–1940s. The Yakut ASSR—informally referred to as Yakutia and known today as the Sakha Republic—covered a large region in eastern Siberia. It is the historical home of the Yakut (Sakha) people, a Turkic people who arrived in the region around the 13th century and still make up almost half of its population. This collection of sketches was created by Ivan Vasil’evich Popov (1874‒1945), an artist and teacher who was born near Yakutsk and received his education in Yakutsk and Saint Petersburg. Popov was born into a family of priests who had been among the first to give sermons in the Yakut language and had taken part in the writing of a Yakut dictionary. Accordingly, some of his first works of art were icons that he painted as a seminary student. Although Popov had to work as a teacher throughout his adult life, unable to support his family through his artistic activities alone, he made a significant contribution to the documentation of Yakut material culture. In addition to recording Yakut culture in his drawings and paintings, Popov documented Yakut life in photographs and contributed to the recording of oral history and folklore. This collection of Popov’s drawings depicts Yakut material culture of the 17th‒20th centuries. Featured items include furniture, interiors and exteriors of dwellings, grave monuments, hats, footwear, tools, and hunting equipment.

Johnson and Boydell lead No. Highlands in shutout win over Hackensack- Football recap

• Published: Sep. 13, 2024, 10:46 p.m.

Matthew Boydell (5) of Northern Highlands carries the ball against Washington Township during the Battle at the Beach football tournament at Egg Harbor Township High School in Egg Harbor, NJ on Friday, August 30, 2024. Dave Hernandez | For NJ Advance

• Mak Ojutiku | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Nate Johnson and Matthew Boydell each scored two touchdowns to lead Northern Highlands to a 28-0 win over Hackensack in Hackensack.

Johnson rumbled in a 14-yard touchdown rush in the second quarter and threw a 37-yard scoring strike to Charles Goebbert in the third.

Boydell ran in touchdowns of three and 12 yards.

Peter Vafiadis went 4-for-4 in PATs for the Highlanders.

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