EDUCATIONAL DECISION-MAKERS: INVESTIGATING THEIR ROLE-IDENTITY AND ACTION

Abstract

Educational decision-makers influence the opportunities, experiences, and outcomes for all invested in public education. Given the increasingly complex social, cultural, political, and economic landscape within the United States in the 21st century, it seems more important than ever to better understand and appreciate who educational decision-makers are and the process by which these public education stewards make decisions. But while scholarship pertaining to educational decision-making is vast, only scarce research focuses explicitly on the decision-makers themselves. Specifically, extant research tends to overlook the way educational decision-makers understand their role and how they engage in educational decision-making. Therefore, this study set out to inquire into educational decision-makers’ meaning-making of themselves, their role, and the process by which they make educational decisions. This study’s guiding question was: how do educational decision-makers’ role-identity(ies) manifest and frame their educational decision-making? The study followed a phenomenological approach to investigate educational decision-makers perceptions and actions: the content, meaning-making, and process by which the participants construct their educational decision-maker identity and understand their decision-making process. The guiding theoretical frame for this study is the Dynamic Systems Model of Role Identity (DSMRI; Kaplan & Garner, 2017). The DSMRI conceptualizes decision-making to emerge from people’s contextualized and dynamic role interpretation—their role identity. According to the DSMRI, four interdependent multi-elemental components comprise role-identities: ontological and epistemological beliefs, purpose and goals, self-perceptions and self-definitions, and perceived action-possibilities. These components emerge within social-cultural contexts and function in a non-linear, non-deterministic, emergent manner to guide decision-making. The study investigated the content, structure, and process of formation of educational decision-makers’ role identities and how these elements frame the meaning of impactful decisions they made in their role. Seven educational decision-makers (5 women, 2 men) participated in this study. Each held either a state or a municipal educational decision-making position, with all positions located in the same educational context. Each participant partook in three life-story phenomenological interviews. The interviews followed Seidman’s (2013) protocol focusing on their past to the present (interview 1), their decision-making role (interview 2), and their insights from the previous two interviews (interview 3). Interviews were transcribed and analyzed with Kaplan and Garner’s (2016) DSMRI Codebook and Analysis Guide. The findings highlighted the complex and dynamic constellation of role-identities and role-identity elements that framed each educational decision-maker understanding of him- or herself and their decision-making. The findings depicted the participating educational decision-makers as unique individuals; highlighting their varied lived-experiences, socioeconomic backgrounds, educational degrees, professional expertise, and interpretations of their present self. Yet, the findings also highlighted the very similar process and content the participants engaged in for constructing their educational decision-maker role-identity. Specifically, despite their differences, all the decision-makers construed their current role-identity as grounded in perceived stable value-based personal aspects from their past role identities. In addition, all used similar cultural materials, meanings, and strategies to form their decision-making identity. This manifested most clearly in the shared underlying theme of their varied and dynamic role-identities as educational decision-makers who are “advocates.” The findings across these educational decision-makers paint a collective educational decision-making landscape within which the different decision-makers shared cultural themes and means for interpreting past personal events as forming their identity and decision-making. These insights may provide researchers, public education advocates, and even students and their families better insights into the way educational decision-makers approach their role and tasks. It may further guide stakeholders in strategies to engage these educational decision-makers by considering the fit of their agenda within the life-story educational decision-makers construe as foundational to their role identities and decision-making. The findings may also provide educational decision-makers a framework for reflection on their role and actions, and for further developing their identity and decision-making. Fundamentally, this research contributes to the efforts to improve educational experiences and opportunities for students attending public schools.