Coaching for change: A realist grounded theory validation study
Date
2023-08
Authors
Laird, Stephanie
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Advisor
Dyches, Jeanne
Beecher, Constance
Lind, Linda
Crawford, Denise
Marshall, Joanne
Committee Member
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Abstract
While research abounds on literacy coaching and anti-racist pedagogy, a lack of information connecting these two fields was found. Anti-racist coaching, and the Anti-Racist Coaching Framework (ARCF), resulted from an examination of scholarship around literacy coaching and anti-racist pedagogy. The ARCF is a framework that serves to fill a gap in literature by connecting anti-racist pedagogy to literacy coaching. It outlines how the coaching behaviors planning, modeling, facilitating reflective conversations, and leading professional development, are employed when enacting anti-racist coaching at the personal, local, and structural levels. This research study advances anti-racist coaching as a practice for literacy, and other educational coaches, to employ in a collective effort to disrupt racism within K-12 education. Data sources include surveys of 27 literacy coaches, observations of coaching sessions, and interviews with the 5 participating coaches, to discover how they enact anti-racist coaching and to validate the ARCF. Data were coded using initial and theoretical coding to determine whether the coaching behaviors included within the ARCF mirror those used in the field. A realist grounded theory approach guided the data analysis process, wherein I looked at closeness of the ARCF to each slice of data based on the framework’s fit, workability, relevance, and modifiability. Findings, shared across three manuscripts, outline the Anti-Racist Coaching Framework’s theoretical foundation and conceptual beginning, detail the framework’s validation process, and explore anti-racist coaching’s applicability within K-12 educational contexts. Ultimately, this multi-manuscript dissertation speaks to the ways in which literacy, and other educational, coaches draw upon their coaching behaviors and skills to enact anti-racist coaching while disrupting racism at the personal (beliefs), local (teaching), and structural (educational system) levels, to create anti-racist spaces within K-12 classrooms and schools.
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dissertation