James Spillane's work explores the policy implementation process at the state, school district, school and classroom levels, focusing on intergovernmental relations and policy-practice relations. While building on the policy implementation research tradition, Spillane has worked to develop a cognitive perspective on the implementation process, exploring the substantive ideas about reforming instruction that local policy-makers, both administrators and teachers, come to understand from state and national reforms. Spillane is also interested in organizational leadership and change and is currently undertaking an empirical investigation of the practice of leadership in urban elementary schools that are working to improve mathematics, science and literacy instruction. In this work, Spillane conceptualizes organizational leadership as a distributed practice involving formal and informal leaders, followers and a variety of organizational tools and artifacts. He is the associate editor of Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis.
Policy implementation; educational policy; organizational change; school leadership; relations between policy and teachers' and administrators' practice.
PEER REVIEWED JOURNAL ARTICLES
In Progress
Spillane, J. Organizational Identity: The Stories Schools Live By.
Spillane, J., White, K. & Stephan, J. Expert and Novice School Principals' Problem-Solving Strategies: Significant Difference?
Brenninkmeyer, L., & Spillane, J. School Principals' Problem Solving Strategies: Putting the Expert Typical Differences to the Test.
2007
Spillane, J. & Miele, D. (2007) Evidence in Practice: A Framing of the Terrain. National Society for the Study of Education (NSSE) Yearbook.
Spillane, J. Camburn, E. & Pareja, A. (2007). Taking a Distributed Perspective to the School Principal's Work Day. Leadership and Policy in Schools, 6: 103-125.
Coldren, A. & Spillane, J. (2007) Making Connections to Teaching Practice.: The Role of Boundary Practices in Instructional Leadership. Educational Policy.
2006
Spillane, J. and Burch, P. (2006). The Institutional Environment and Instructional Practice: Changing Patterns of Guidance and Control in Public Education. In B. Rowan and H. Meyer, Eds., The New Institutionalism in Education. Albany: SUNY Press.
Spillane, J. Reiser, B. & Gomez, L (2006). Policy Implementation and Cognition: The Role of Human, Social, & Distributed Cognition in Framing Policy Implementation in M. Honig (ed.), New Directions in Educational Policy Implementation: Confronting Complexity. SUNY Press.
2005
Spillane, J. Distributed Leadership. The Educational Forum. 69(2): 143- 150.
Spillane, J. Primary School Leadership Practice: How the Subject Matters. School Leadership & Management, 24(4): 383-397.
Spillane, J. & Orlina, E. (2005). Investigating Leadership Practice: Exploring the Entailments of Taking a Distributed Perspective. Leadership and Policy in Schools, 4, 157-176.
Diamond, J. & Spillane, J. High Stakes Accountability in Urban Elementary Schools: Challenging or Reproducing Inequality? Teachers College Record.
Loder, T. & Spillane, J. (2005) Is a Principal Still a Teacher?: Women Administrators' Accounts of Role Conflict in their Transition to the Principalship. School Leadership & Management, 25(3), 263-279.
2004
Burch, P. and Spillane J. (2004). "How the Subjects Matter: Instructionally Relevant Policy in Central Office Redesign." Journal of Education Change, 5 (4).
Diamond, J., Randolph, A., & Spillane, J. Teachers' Expectations and Sense of Responsibility for Student Learning: The Importance of Race, Class, and Organizational Habitus. Anthropology in Education Quarterly, 35(1): 75 - 98.
Spillane, J., Halverson, R., Diamond, J. Towards a Theory of School Leadership Practice: Implications of a Distributed Perspective. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 36 (1): 3-34.
2003
Spillane, J., Diamond, J., Jita, L. Leading Instruction: The Distribution of Leadership for Instruction. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 35(5).
Spillane, James P., Tim Hallett, and John B. Diamond. "Forms of Capital and the Construction of Leadership: Instructional Leadership in Urban Elementary Schools." Sociology of Education 76(1).
2002
Spillane, J., Reiser, B. & Reimer, T. Policy Implementation and Cognition: Reframing and Refocusing Implementation Research. Review of Educational Research , 72(3).
Spillane J. Diamond, J. Burch, P., Hallett, T., Jita, L., & Zoltners, J. Managing in the Middle: School Leaders and the Enactment of Accountability Policy. Educational Policy, 16(5).
Spillane, J. Local Theories of Teacher Change: The Pedagogy of District Policies and Programs. Teachers College Record, 104(3).
2001
Spillane, J. Diamond, J., Walker, L, Halverson, R., & Jita, L. Urban School Leadership and Elementary Science Instruction: Identifying, Mobilizing, and Activating Resources in an Under-valued Subject Area . Journal of Research on Science Teaching, 38(8).
Spillane, J. Halverson, R., Diamond, J. Investigating School Leadership Practice: A Distributed Perspective. Educational Researcher.
Drake, C., Spillane, J., & Hufferd, K. Storied Identities: Teacher Learning and Subject Matter Context. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 33(1).
2000
Spillane, J. Cognition and Policy Implementation: District Policy-makers and the Reform of Mathematics Education. Cognition and Instruction, 18(2).
Spillane, J. & Callahan, K. Science Standards: What District Policy-makers Make of the Hoopla. Journal of Research on Science Teaching, 37(5).
Spillane, J. "Constructing An Ambitious Pedagogy in Fifth Grade: The Mathematics and Literacy Divide." Elementary School Journal,
1999
Spillane, J. & Zeuli, J. "Reform and Mathematics Teaching: Exploring Patterns of Practice in the Context of National and State Reforms." Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 21(1)
Spillane, J. State and Local Government Relations in the Era of Standards Based Reform: Standards, State Policy Instruments, and Local Instructional Policy-making. Educational Policy, 13(4).
Spillane, J. External Reform Initiatives and Teachers' Efforts to Reconstruct Their Practice: The Mediating Role of Teachers' Zones of Enactment. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 31(2).
1998
Spillane, J. "The Progress of Standards-Based Reforms and the Non-Monolithic Nature of the Local School District: Organizational and Professional Considerations." American Educational Research Journal, 35(1).
1997
Spillane, J. A Cognitive Perspective On the LEA's Role in Implementing Instructional Policy: Accounting For Local Variability. Educational Administration Quarterly, 34(1).
Spillane, J. & Jennings, N. "Aligned Instructional Policy and Ambitious Pedagogy: Exploring Instructional Reform from the Classroom Perspective." Teachers College Record, 98(3), 449-479.
Spillane, J. & Thompson, C. "Reconstructing Conceptions of Local Capacity: The Local Education Agency's Capacity For Ambitious Instructional Reform." Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 19(2), 185 - 203.
1996
Spillane, J. "School Districts Matter: Local Educational Authorities and State Instructional Policy." Educational Policy, 10(1).
Spillane, J., Peterson, P., Prawat, R., Jennings, N., & Borman, J. "Exploring Policy and Practice relations: A Teaching and Learning perspective." Journal of Educational Policy, 11(4).
Jennings, N. & Spillane, J. "State Reform and Local Capacity: Encouraging Ambitious Instruction For All and Local Decision-Making." Journal of Educational Policy, 11(4).
BOOKS, BOOK CHAPTERS, RESEARCH REPORTS & WORKING PAPERS
In Press Hayton, P. & Spillane, J. (forthcoming). Professional Community or Communities?: School Subject Matter and Elementary School Teachers' Work Environments. In J. MacBeath Leadership for Learning
Spillane, J., & Coldren, A. (forthcoming). Leadership Practice: Taking a Distributed Perspective in Practice. Corwin Press.
2007
Spillane, J. & Diamond, J. (Eds.) (2007). Distributed Leadership in Practice. New York: Teachers College Press.
2006 Spillane, J. (2006). Distributed Leadership. San Francisco: Josey-Bass.
Spillane, J. and Burch, P. (2006). The Institutional Environment and Instructional Practice: Changing Patterns of Guidance and Control in Public Education. In B. Rowan and H. Meyer, Eds., The New Institutionalism in Education. Albany: SUNY Press.
Spillane, J. Reiser, B. & Gomez, L (2006). Policy Implementation and Cognition: The Role of Human, Social, & Distributed Cognition in Framing Policy Implementation in M. Honig (ed.), New Directions in Educational Policy Implementation: Confronting Complexity. SUNY Press.
2005
Stein, M. & Spillane, J. (2005). What Can Researchers on Educational Leadership Learn from Research on Teaching: Building a Bridge. In W. Firestone & & C. Reihl (eds). A New Agenda for Research in Educational Leadership. New York: Teachers College Press, pp. 28 - 45.
Spillane, J. Sherer, J., & Coldren, A. (2005). Distributed Leadership: Leadership Practice and the Situation. In W. Hoy & C. Miskil (eds.), Educational Leadership and Reform, pp. 149 - 167. IAP Publishing.
2004
Spillane, J. Standards Deviation: How Local Schools Misunderstand Policy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Spillane, J. Diamond, J., Sherer, J., & Coldren, A. Distributing Leadership. In M. Coles & G. Southworth, Developing Leadership: Creating the Schools of Tomorrow. pp. 37 - 49. New York: Open University Press.
2003
Spillane, J. & Burch, P. Policy, Administration, and Instructional Practice: "Loose Coupling" Revisited. Evanston, IL: Institute for Policy Research (IPR), Working Paper.
2002
Spillane, J. & Seashore-Louis, K. School Improvement Processes and Practices: Professional Learning for Building Instructional Capacity. In J. Murphy (Ed)., National Society for the Study of Education (NSSE) Yearbook. Chicago: University of Chicago.
Spillane, J. School Districts and State Standards: District Policy-makers' Thinking about Reforming Instruction. In M. Knapp & M. McLaughlin (ed.), School Districts and Instructional Renewal: Opening the Conversation. New York: Teachers College Press.
Diamond, J. & Spillane, J. High Stakes Accountability in Urban Elementary Schools: Challenging or Reproducing Inequality? Evanston, IL: Institute for Policy Research (IPR), Working Paper.
2001
Spillane, J. " All Students: Policy, Practitioners, and Practice." In S. Fuhrman (ed.), From the Capitol to the Classroom: Standards-Based Reform in the States. National Society for the Study of Education (NSSE) Yearbook. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Spillane, J., Hallett, T., & Diamond, J. Exploring the Construction of Leadership for Instruction in Urban Elementary Schools: Leadership as Symbolic Power. Evanston, IL: Institute for Policy Research (IPR), Working Paper.
2000
Spillane, J. (2000). Cognition and policy implementation: District policy-makers and the reform of mathematics education. Cognition and Instruction, spring.
Spillane, J. (2000). Science standards: What district policy-makers make of the hoopla. Journal of Research on Science Teaching, spring.
Spillane, J. (2000). Constructing an ambitious pedagogy in fifth grade: The mathematics and literacy divide. Elementary School Journal, spring.
