Recent research on the relationship between instructional policy and classroom practice suggests that teachers interpret, adapt, and even transform policies as they put them into place. This paper extends this line of research, using an in-depth case study of one California elementary school to examine the processes by which teachers construct and reconstruct multiple policy messages about reading instruction in the context of their professional communities. Drawing primarily on institutional and sensemaking theory, this paper puts forth a model of collective sensemaking that focuses on the ways teachers co-construct understandings of policy messages, make decisions about which messages to pursue in their classrooms, and negotiate the technical and practical details of implementation in conversations with their colleagues. It also argues that the nature and structure of formal networks and informal alliances among teachers shape the process, with implications for ways in which messages from the policy environment influence classroom practice. Finally, the paper explores the role school leaders play in shaping the sensemaking process.

The issue of “scale” is a key challenge for school reform, yet it remains undertheorized in the literature. Definitions of scale have traditionally restricted its scope, focusing on the expanding number of schools reached by a reform. Such definitions mask the complex challenges of reaching out broadly while simultaneously cultivating the depth of change necessary to support and sustain consequential change. This article draws on a review of theoretical and empirical literature on scale, relevant research on reform implementation, and original research to synthesize and articulate a more multidimensional conceptualization. I develop a conception of scale that has four interrelated dimensions: depth, sustainability, spread, and shift in reform ownership. I then suggest implications of this conceptualization for reform strategy and research design.

The decoupling argument-that schools respond to pressures from the institutional environment by decoupling changes in structures from classroom instruction-has been a central feature of institutional theory since the early 1970s. This study suggests the need to rethink this argument. Drawing on a study of the relationship between changing ideas about reading instruction in California from 1983 to 1999 and teachers' classroom practice, the study provides evidence that messages about instruction in the environment influence classroom practice in a process that is framed by teachers' preexisting beliefs and practices and the nature of the messages themselves. Implications are drawn for theories of teachers' autonomy and methodological approaches to studying macro-micro linkages.

A growing body of research has emphasized the social processes by which teachers adapt and transform policy as they enact it in their classrooms. Yet little attention has been paid to the role of school leaders in this process. Drawing on sociological theories of sensemaking, this article investigates how principals in two California elementary schools influenced teacher learning about and enactment of changing reading policy. It argues that principals influence teachers' enactment by shaping access to policy ideas, participating in the social process of interpretation and adaptation, and creating substantively different conditions for teacher learning in schools. These actions, in turn, are influenced by principals' understandings about reading instruction and teacher learning.

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