Hidden Structures: How Knowledge of New Practices Moves Among Educators in One Rural School District

Abstract

Background/Context: Rural districts often struggle to provide organizational structures that support knowledge-building and sharing among educators, contributing to the challenge of change implementation in rural contexts. Although prior scholarship identifies social relationships centered on trust as important for fostering educator learning, we know little about how knowledge regarding a change initiative moves through a district lacking formal organizational learning supports and the role that informal relationships may play in fostering educator knowledge-building for organizational learning in an under-resourced rural context. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: This article explores the network of knowledge related to a recent change initiative in a rural district striving to implement new instructional practices. Of particular interest is how knowledge is created and shared among educators and the role that organizational structures and informal relationships play in educators’ knowledge-building and sharing processes. Research Design: I present a conceptual model that brings together knowledge-creation and structuration theories. Using a sequential mixed methods design, I examine the information and advice interactions and knowledge-building experiences of educators in one rural school district. Analytical methods include social network analysis of survey data and thematic analysis of interview data. Conclusions/Recommendations: Findings suggest that informal relationships were consequential to organizational learning in this district with few formally designated learning supports, though friendship relationships were not consequential. Instead, knowledge-building interactions occurred when individual educators had a positive prior relationship; when mundane organizational structures, such as the master schedule and the assignment of informal or extracurricular roles, facilitated informal interactions; and when educators were motivated to engage in such interactions. This article makes three important contributions to our understandings of organizational learning in this under-resourced rural district context: (1) through mundane organizational structures, principals influence informal knowledge interactions; (2) educator agency is critical for change implementation; and (3) recursive educator interactions may constitute an informal organizational learning structure. This informal structure supporting organizational learning that was invisible to school leadership—fed by recursive informal interactions and supported by mundane organizational structures—represents a fertile area for future research.