Several social processes guide and shape how school actors engage with high stakes state and district policies relative to mandated curriculum and instruction. In this article, we use rhetorical argumentation analysis to explore how stakeholders mobilize resources through argumentation and rhetorical appeals (logical, emotional, and…

Teach For America (TFA) began in 1990 as an organization purportedly interested in working towards ameliorating a national teacher shortage by sending its corps members into urban and rural schools. In the decades that followed, especially during and immediately following a nationwide onslaught of teacher layoffs instigated by the 2008 Great…

From August 2006 through August 2007, Elvira Arellano, an undocumented Mexican immigrant, lived in a church on Chicago's West Side with her U.S.-born 7-year-old son, Saul, to avoid a deportation order. Her plight played out in Chicago-area and national media, piggybacking on a nationwide debate on immigration. This study focuses on one piece of…

The purpose of this study was to provide a description and analysis of repertoire performed at middle school band contests in northern Illinois. Repertoire from 10 Illinois Grade School Music Association--Northern Division district level contests were analyzed in relation to the frequency pieces were performed, dates of publication, publishers…