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GSE Profiles
Staff Contact: Ann Foley
Cynthia E. Coburn
Associate Professor
Policy, Organization, Measurement, and Evaluation
Office: 3643 Tolman Hall
Phone: 510-643-2616
Email: cecoburn at berkeley.edu
Website:
Office:
Phone: 510-642-0709
Email: afoley at berkeley.edu
Cynthia E. Coburn uses the tools of organizational sociology to understand the relationship between instructional policy and teachers' classroom practices in urban schools. She has studied these issues in the context of state and national reading policy, attempts to scale-up innovative school reform programs, and district-wide professional development initiatives. Current projects include a study of the role of school leaders in mediating between reading policy and teachers' classroom practice. The study brings an analysis of power, authority, and knowledge into scholarship on teachers' interpretation of instructional policy. She also co-directs a cross-case study of innovative efforts to reconfigure the relationship between research and practice for school improvement. As part of that project, she studies an effort to redesign school districts to foster evidence-based practice and decision making. Finally, she is engaged in a study of the role of teachers' social networks in the scale-up of ambitious mathematics curricula in two urban districts.Coburn was the recipient of a Spencer Foundation national dissertation fellowship in 1999, won the 2002 Award for Outstanding Dissertation from Division L (policy and politics) of the American Educational Research Associations, and received the 2006 Palmer O. Johnson Award for outstanding publication from the American Educational Research Association for her research on non-system actors and reading policy. Recent work has been published in Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, Educational Researcher, Sociology of Education, and Educational Policy. At Berkeley, she teaches Ph.D. students in POME and school and district leaders in the Leadership for Educational Equity Doctoral Program (LEEP).
Ph.D. Education, Stanford University
MA Sociology, Stanford University
BA Philosophy, Oberlin College
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Articles (Refereed Journals, Proceeding)Coburn, C. E., Toure, J., & Yamashita, M. (2009). Evidence, interpretation, and persuasion: Instructional decision making in the district central office. Teachers College Record, 111(4), 1115-1161.Coburn, C. E., Bae, S., & Turner, E. O. (2008). Authority, status, and the dynamics of insider-outsider partnerships at the district level. Peabody Journal of Education, 83(3), 364-399.
Coburn, C. E. & Russell, J. L. (2008). District policy and teachers' social networks. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 30(3), 203-235.
Honig, M. I. & Coburn, C. E. (2008). Evidence-based decision making in school district central offices: Toward a research agenda. Educational Policy, 22(4), 578-608.
Stein, M. K. & Coburn, C. E. (2008). Architectures for learning: A comparative analysis of two urban school districts. American Journal of Education, 114(4), 583-626.
Coburn, C. E. (2006). Framing the problem of reading instruction: Using frame analysis to uncover the microprocesses of policy implementation in schools. American Educational Research Journal, 43(3), 343-379.
Coburn, C. E. & Talbert, J. E. (2006). Conceptions of evidence-based practice in school districts: Mapping the terrain. American Journal of Education, 112(4), 469-495.
Coburn, C. E. (2005). The role of non-system actors in the relationship between policy and practice: The case of reading instruction in California. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 27(1), 23-52.
Coburn, C. E. (2005). Shaping teacher sensemaking: School leaders and the enactment of reading policy. Educational Policy, 19(3), 476-509.
Honig, M. I. & Coburn, C. E. (2005). When districts use evidence for instructional improvement: What do we know and where do we go from here? Voices in Urban Education, (6), 22-29.
Coburn, C. E. (2004). Beyond decoupling: Rethinking the relationship between the institutional environment and the classroom. Sociology of Education, 77, 211-244.
Coburn, C. E. (2003). Rethinking scale: Moving beyond numbers to deep and lasting change. Educational Researcher, 32(6), 3-12.
Coburn, C. E. (2001). Collective sensemaking about reading: How teachers mediate reading policy in their professional communities. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 23(2), 145-170.
Book ChaptersCoburn, C. E., Honig, M. I., & Stein, M. K. (2009). What's the evidence on district's use of evidence? In J. Bransford, D. J. Stipek, N. J. Vye, L. Gomez, & D. Lam (Eds.) Educational improvement: What makes it happen and why? (pp. 67-86). Cambridge: Harvard Educational Press.Coburn, C. E. & Stein, M. K. (2006). Communities of practice theory and the role of teacher professional community in policy implementation. In M. Honig, (Ed.), Confronting complexity: Defining the field of education policy implementation (pp. 25-46). Albany: SUNY Press.
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2008 Albert J. Harris Award for outstanding contribution to reading research, International Reading Association2008 Regents' Junior Faculty Fellowship, UC Berkeley
2007 Outstanding Reviewer Award, American Educational Research Journal
2006 Palmer O. Johnson Award for outstanding scholarship in an AERA journal
2002 Division L Dissertation Award, Policy and Politics, AERA
1999 Spencer Foundation National Dissertation Fellowship for Research Related to Education
1988 Phi Beta Kappa
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Policy Analysis and Evaluation
Qualitative Methods
Reform Issues
Research Methods
Teachers' Work
Urban Leadership
Urban Schooling
Last Modified: 7/23/09
