Local manifestations of institutional agency: the case of evolution education in Tennessee

这个快速项目探索了2009-2010年田纳西州科学标准的影响，该标准要求全州的学校向小学生传授自然选择如何驱动适应和生物进化。该项目将解决以下问题：(1)如何以及为什么制定和采用这些标准；(2)任务将如何实施(从州到课堂)；(3)这些实施如何在地方一级进行谈判(家长对州政府和教师的需求)；以及(4)由此产生的课程如何为学生学习进化论提供信息。这个项目提供了实时研究当有争议的新标准从远处强加给当地学校时会发生什么的机会。该项目融合了多种人类学和认知学方法，从生物学知识的随机对照实验到收集人种学、调查和对利益相关者的访谈数据。研究结果有望阐明课程发展、教师培训以及影响教与学的社会、组织和政府因素之间的相互作用等问题。

This RAPID project explores the impacts of 2009-2010 Tennessee science standards requiring schools throughout the state to teach elementary school students about how natural selection drives adaptation and biological evolution. The project will address the following questions: (1) how and why these standards were developed and adopted; (2) how the mandate will be implemented (from state to classroom levels); (3) how these implementations are negotiated on the local level (parental demand vis-à-vis state government and teachers); and (4) how the resulting curricula inform students' learning of evolution. This project offers the opportunity to study, in real time, what happens when controversial new standards are imposed upon local schools from afar. The project mixes a variety of anthropological and cognitive methodologies, from randomized control experiments of biological knowledge to the collection of ethnographic, survey, and interview data of stakeholders. The results promise to shed light on issues in curricular development, teacher training, and the interplay of social, organizational, and governmental factors that affect teaching and learning.