Megan Hopkins
Biographic Data
| ID | 3638847 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Megan Hopkins |
| GIVEN NAMES | Megan |
| FAMILY NAME | Hopkins |
| SIGNATURE | HOPKINS M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California San Diego |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8261-7247 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 26 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 121 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 26 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Defending Against Challenges to Equity: The Role of State Education Agency Leaders
Across the United States, anti-equity politics are shaping education policies and decision making. While this anti-equity movement is well documented, less is known about strategies to defend against those challenges. We examined such strategies within a highly politicized area of education: multilingual learner (ML) policy and practice. Using critical policy analysis, we analyzed interview and meeting observation data collected over 5 years in a…
Measuring Organizational Learning Outcomes Through Big Ideas
External partnerships can play a vital role in educational change, yet few tools assess how partner ideas become embedded in school systems. This paper introduces measuring organizational learning outcomes through big ideas (MOBI), an emerging methodological approach to identify when and how external ideas take root. MOBI examines the presence, spread, alignment, attribution, and centrality of partner ideas across collective knowledge, policy doc…
People, politics, and pivots: Sustaining research-practice partnership collaboration
A growing body of scholarship outlines the value of research-practice partnerships (RPPs) for disrupting inequities across education systems. While promising, RPP work is also complex as partners navigate politics, turnover, and distinct organizational cultures and goals. To support the field with navigating such complexities, we examine approaches for sustaining RPP collaboration over time. Our work is situated in a national RPP that brings toge…
Computer science for secondary multilingual learners: How school policies and practices enable and constrain equitable access
Computer Science affords a unique context for English Learners (who we refer to as Multilingual Learners or MLs) to engage in disciplinary practices that support computational thinking and language development. Yet MLs at the secondary level tend to be systematically excluded from CS courses. Through a collaborative research process involving teachers, counselors, and administrators in seven high schools, this study considered: How do school poli…
Educator Agency for Multilingual Learner Integration: A Typology of School Ecologies
Refining and expanding accountability policy for English learners to support Lau implementation: A critical policy analysis
How Can Research-Practice Partnerships Advance Multilingual Learner Equity? A Case Study of Partnership with State-Education-Agency Leaders
Shared Responsibility for Multilingual Learners Across Levels of the Education System
Educational change efforts that prioritize equity for multilingual learners (MLs) require attention to several interconnected components of the education system. We build on prior literature and our collective research to clarify the concept of shared responsibility for ML students and to operationalize the concept at the school, district, and state levels. Drawing on institutional theory and a racialized organizations lens, we argue that shared …
Dimensions of bilingual education program implementation in schools serving linguistically minoritized students in the Czech-Polish border region
Introduction A core challenge for the implementation of bilingual programs is ensuring that linguistically minoritized students have equitable access to instruction that honors and values their linguistic and cultural assets and strengths. To understand how leaders of bilingual programs might address this challenge, this study sought to identify dimensions of program implementation in bilingual schools serving Polish minorities in the Zaolzie reg…
Equity and State Immigrant Inclusivity: English Learner Education in Essa
With the 2015 passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), the oversight of language policy in U.S. schools shifted from federal to state governance. Although the education of students officially designated as English learners (ELs) has historically been grounded in federal law, we argue that ELs’ educational experiences are also largely influenced by societal attitudes toward immigrants and immigration. Using a critical policy analysis (CPA…
Educating Transnationally Mobile Students: A Multidimensional Framework
The back and forth migration of children and youth between the United States and Mexico has created a unique group of approximately nine million “students we share” who have been educated in both countries (Jensen and Sawyer 2013). The social, political, and economic interconnectivity of the United States and Mexico suggests that these trends are likely to continue, making the education of transnationally mobile students, or those students who ha…
Upholding Multilingual Learners’ Civil Rights under Essa: State Education Agency Leaders and the Contextual Factors Shaping Their Work
Purpose: Alongside the inequities surfaced by COVID-19, a confluence of demographic and policy-related shifts over the last few decades has elevated the education of multilingual learners (MLs) in state education agency (SEA) leaders’ work. This study employs an ecological perspective to examine how SEA leaders promote social justice policy implementation in their efforts to uphold MLs’ civil rights under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). Re…
Examining the English Learner Policy Ecology: How Educators Navigated the Provision of Designated English Language Development (ELD) Support at the Secondary Level
Under federal civil rights law, U.S. school districts have a dual obligation to provide students identified as English learners (ELs) with designated English-language development (ELD) instruction and integrated ELD support during core content instruction. Drawing on an analysis of interviews with 96 educators in two large California districts, we use an ecological approach to explore how district and school staff navigated the provision of desig…
Linguistically Responsive Teaching in Preservice Teacher Education: A Review of the Literature Through the Lens of Cultural-Historical Activity Theory
This article presents an integrated systematic review of scholarship related to preparing preservice teachers (PSTs) to teach multilingual learners in U.S. schools. We drew from cultural-historical activity theory to investigate how teacher educators who focus on preparing PSTs to work with multilingual students attended to the linguistically responsive teaching (LRT) framework. We identified three distinct activity systems, each linked to specif…
Emergent Change: A Network Analysis of Elementary Teachers’ Learning About English Learner Instruction
We study how a suburban U.S. district in the early stages of demographic change developed systems of support for teachers of English learners (ELs). Using district- and school-level social network and interview data, we examine elementary teachers’ EL-related professional learning opportunities, and how district and school organizational contexts enabled or constrained these opportunities. We find that the separation of language and content at th…
Brokering research in science education policy implementation: The case of a professional association
Recent scholarship suggests that research use is an interactive, social phenomenon, and that brokers play important roles in facilitating the exchange of research evidence. We add to this body of literature by exploring the role of brokers in the exchange of research evidence among state education agency leaders involved in K–12 science education policy implementation in the United States. We focus our study on the lead professional association f…
School District Educational Infrastructure and Change at Scale: Teacher Peer Interactions and Their Beliefs About Mathematics Instruction
While current reform efforts press for ambitious changes to teachers’ instructional practice, teachers’ instructional beliefs are also consequential in such efforts as beliefs shape teachers’ instructional practice and their responses to instructional reforms. This article examines the relationship between teachers’ instructional ties and their beliefs about mathematics instruction in one school district working to transform its approach to eleme…
Shifting the Zone of Mediation in a Suburban New Immigrant Destination: Community Boundary Spanners and School District Policymaking
This paper explores the context of reception for immigrant students and English learners in one medium-sized suburban school district in the northeastern United States. Using qualitative methods, the authors describe how, despite a troubling context of reception emerging from a normative and political community context that harbored resentment toward the new immigrant population, a community-based organization whose members served as boundary spa…
Intra- and Interschool Interactions about Instruction: Exploring the Conditions for Social Capital Development
Understanding those factors associated with the existence of a tie among school staff is important\nbecause such ties are a necessary condition for social capital. Yet, there is a dearth of research\non those factors associated with the existence of these ties. In this paper, we use covariate\nblockmodels and a p2 model to examine the role of both formal organizational structures and\nindividual characteristics in shaping advice and information i…
Organizing English Learner Instruction in New Immigrant Destinations: District Infrastructure and Subject-Specific School Practice
In the context of shifting demographics and standards-based reform, school districts in new immigrant destinations are charged with designing infrastructures that support teaching and learning for English learners (ELs) in core academic subjects. This article uses qualitative data and social network analysis to examine how one district in the midwestern United States organized EL instruction. After describing the district’s infrastructure for ele…
Schoolhouse Teacher Educators: Structuring Beginning Teachers’ Opportunities to Learn About Instruction
While few would disagree that a key component of educating teachers to teach happens on the job, research rarely explores the schoolhouse as a site for teacher education. This study thus focuses on inservice as distinct from preservice teacher education and explores how beginning teachers' learning about mathematics and literacy instruction was supported within 24 elementary schools in two midwestern school districts. A mixed methodology was used…
Building on Our Teaching Assets: The Unique Pedagogical Contributions of Bilingual Educators
This article examines the unique contributions that bilingual and bilingually credentialed teachers make to the instruction of emergent bilinguals in the United States. This mixed methodological study involved 474 teachers in Arizona, California, and Texas, which represent distinct language policy contexts. Results revealed that, irrespective of context, teachers' bilingualism and bilingual certification significantly predicted their reported use…
Fully Accounting for English Learner Performance: A Key Issue in Esea Reauthorization
This article presents a set of recommendations that promote a more nuanced, meaningful accountability policy for English learners in the next authorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The authors argue that the ESEA reauthorization must strengthen the law’s capacity-building purpose so that federal, state, and local leaders support continued attention, direction, and innovation in effectively educating ELs. The recommendations …
Cultivating Capital: Latino Newcomer Young Men in a U . S . Urban High School
Newcomer young men confront numerous obstacles that limit their chances for attainment and achievement. Using social and cultural capital frameworks and a case study methodology, this article examines how four Latino newcomer young men navigated an urban U . S . high school. It reveals how teachers and a counselor cultivated capital and how the young men leveraged this capital, thus challenging traditional depictions of L atino immigrant adolesce…
Arizona’s teacher policies and their relationship with English learner instructional practice
Fully Accounting for English Learner Performance: A Key Issue in Esea Reauthorization
This article presents a set of recommendations that promote a more nuanced, meaningful accountability policy for English learners in the next authorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The authors argue that the ESEA reauthorization must strengthen the law’s capacity-building purpose so that federal, state, and local leaders support continued attention, direction, and innovation in effectively educating ELs. The recommendations …
School District Educational Infrastructure and Change at Scale: Teacher Peer Interactions and Their Beliefs About Mathematics Instruction
While current reform efforts press for ambitious changes to teachers’ instructional practice, teachers’ instructional beliefs are also consequential in such efforts as beliefs shape teachers’ instructional practice and their responses to instructional reforms. This article examines the relationship between teachers’ instructional ties and their beliefs about mathematics instruction in one school district working to transform its approach to eleme…
Organizing English Learner Instruction in New Immigrant Destinations: District Infrastructure and Subject-Specific School Practice
In the context of shifting demographics and standards-based reform, school districts in new immigrant destinations are charged with designing infrastructures that support teaching and learning for English learners (ELs) in core academic subjects. This article uses qualitative data and social network analysis to examine how one district in the midwestern United States organized EL instruction. After describing the district’s infrastructure for ele…
Intra- and Interschool Interactions about Instruction: Exploring the Conditions for Social Capital Development
Understanding those factors associated with the existence of a tie among school staff is important\nbecause such ties are a necessary condition for social capital. Yet, there is a dearth of research\non those factors associated with the existence of these ties. In this paper, we use covariate\nblockmodels and a p2 model to examine the role of both formal organizational structures and\nindividual characteristics in shaping advice and information i…
Building on Our Teaching Assets: The Unique Pedagogical Contributions of Bilingual Educators
This article examines the unique contributions that bilingual and bilingually credentialed teachers make to the instruction of emergent bilinguals in the United States. This mixed methodological study involved 474 teachers in Arizona, California, and Texas, which represent distinct language policy contexts. Results revealed that, irrespective of context, teachers' bilingualism and bilingual certification significantly predicted their reported use…
Facilitating Intercultural Communication in Parent–Teacher Conferences: Lessons From Child Translators
Maria was a fifth grade student when the authors met her in a study of immigrant child-language brokers. Her family immigrated from a farming community in Mexico to a Chicago suburb where there wer
Shared Responsibility for Multilingual Learners Across Levels of the Education System
Educational change efforts that prioritize equity for multilingual learners (MLs) require attention to several interconnected components of the education system. We build on prior literature and our collective research to clarify the concept of shared responsibility for ML students and to operationalize the concept at the school, district, and state levels. Drawing on institutional theory and a racialized organizations lens, we argue that shared …
Shifting the Zone of Mediation in a Suburban New Immigrant Destination: Community Boundary Spanners and School District Policymaking
This paper explores the context of reception for immigrant students and English learners in one medium-sized suburban school district in the northeastern United States. Using qualitative methods, the authors describe how, despite a troubling context of reception emerging from a normative and political community context that harbored resentment toward the new immigrant population, a community-based organization whose members served as boundary spa…
Cultivating Capital: Latino Newcomer Young Men in a U . S . Urban High School
Newcomer young men confront numerous obstacles that limit their chances for attainment and achievement. Using social and cultural capital frameworks and a case study methodology, this article examines how four Latino newcomer young men navigated an urban U . S . high school. It reveals how teachers and a counselor cultivated capital and how the young men leveraged this capital, thus challenging traditional depictions of L atino immigrant adolesce…
Upholding Multilingual Learners’ Civil Rights under Essa: State Education Agency Leaders and the Contextual Factors Shaping Their Work
Purpose: Alongside the inequities surfaced by COVID-19, a confluence of demographic and policy-related shifts over the last few decades has elevated the education of multilingual learners (MLs) in state education agency (SEA) leaders’ work. This study employs an ecological perspective to examine how SEA leaders promote social justice policy implementation in their efforts to uphold MLs’ civil rights under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). Re…
Emergent Change: A Network Analysis of Elementary Teachers’ Learning About English Learner Instruction
We study how a suburban U.S. district in the early stages of demographic change developed systems of support for teachers of English learners (ELs). Using district- and school-level social network and interview data, we examine elementary teachers’ EL-related professional learning opportunities, and how district and school organizational contexts enabled or constrained these opportunities. We find that the separation of language and content at th…
Arizona’s teacher policies and their relationship with English learner instructional practice
Schoolhouse Teacher Educators: Structuring Beginning Teachers’ Opportunities to Learn About Instruction
While few would disagree that a key component of educating teachers to teach happens on the job, research rarely explores the schoolhouse as a site for teacher education. This study thus focuses on inservice as distinct from preservice teacher education and explores how beginning teachers' learning about mathematics and literacy instruction was supported within 24 elementary schools in two midwestern school districts. A mixed methodology was used…
Educator Agency for Multilingual Learner Integration: A Typology of School Ecologies
How Can Research-Practice Partnerships Advance Multilingual Learner Equity? A Case Study of Partnership with State-Education-Agency Leaders
Examining the English Learner Policy Ecology: How Educators Navigated the Provision of Designated English Language Development (ELD) Support at the Secondary Level
Under federal civil rights law, U.S. school districts have a dual obligation to provide students identified as English learners (ELs) with designated English-language development (ELD) instruction and integrated ELD support during core content instruction. Drawing on an analysis of interviews with 96 educators in two large California districts, we use an ecological approach to explore how district and school staff navigated the provision of desig…
Brokering research in science education policy implementation: The case of a professional association
Recent scholarship suggests that research use is an interactive, social phenomenon, and that brokers play important roles in facilitating the exchange of research evidence. We add to this body of literature by exploring the role of brokers in the exchange of research evidence among state education agency leaders involved in K–12 science education policy implementation in the United States. We focus our study on the lead professional association f…
Facilitating Intercultural Communication in Parent–Teacher Conferences: Lessons From Child Translators
Maria was a fifth grade student when the authors met her in a study of immigrant child-language brokers. Her family immigrated from a farming community in Mexico to a Chicago suburb where there wer
Arizona’s teacher policies and their relationship with English learner instructional practice
Building on Our Teaching Assets: The Unique Pedagogical Contributions of Bilingual Educators
This article examines the unique contributions that bilingual and bilingually credentialed teachers make to the instruction of emergent bilinguals in the United States. This mixed methodological study involved 474 teachers in Arizona, California, and Texas, which represent distinct language policy contexts. Results revealed that, irrespective of context, teachers' bilingualism and bilingual certification significantly predicted their reported use…
Fully Accounting for English Learner Performance: A Key Issue in Esea Reauthorization
This article presents a set of recommendations that promote a more nuanced, meaningful accountability policy for English learners in the next authorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The authors argue that the ESEA reauthorization must strengthen the law’s capacity-building purpose so that federal, state, and local leaders support continued attention, direction, and innovation in effectively educating ELs. The recommendations …
Cultivating Capital: Latino Newcomer Young Men in a U . S . Urban High School
Newcomer young men confront numerous obstacles that limit their chances for attainment and achievement. Using social and cultural capital frameworks and a case study methodology, this article examines how four Latino newcomer young men navigated an urban U . S . high school. It reveals how teachers and a counselor cultivated capital and how the young men leveraged this capital, thus challenging traditional depictions of L atino immigrant adolesce…
Schoolhouse Teacher Educators: Structuring Beginning Teachers’ Opportunities to Learn About Instruction
While few would disagree that a key component of educating teachers to teach happens on the job, research rarely explores the schoolhouse as a site for teacher education. This study thus focuses on inservice as distinct from preservice teacher education and explores how beginning teachers' learning about mathematics and literacy instruction was supported within 24 elementary schools in two midwestern school districts. A mixed methodology was used…
Intra- and Interschool Interactions about Instruction: Exploring the Conditions for Social Capital Development
Understanding those factors associated with the existence of a tie among school staff is important\nbecause such ties are a necessary condition for social capital. Yet, there is a dearth of research\non those factors associated with the existence of these ties. In this paper, we use covariate\nblockmodels and a p2 model to examine the role of both formal organizational structures and\nindividual characteristics in shaping advice and information i…
Organizing English Learner Instruction in New Immigrant Destinations: District Infrastructure and Subject-Specific School Practice
In the context of shifting demographics and standards-based reform, school districts in new immigrant destinations are charged with designing infrastructures that support teaching and learning for English learners (ELs) in core academic subjects. This article uses qualitative data and social network analysis to examine how one district in the midwestern United States organized EL instruction. After describing the district’s infrastructure for ele…
Shifting the Zone of Mediation in a Suburban New Immigrant Destination: Community Boundary Spanners and School District Policymaking
This paper explores the context of reception for immigrant students and English learners in one medium-sized suburban school district in the northeastern United States. Using qualitative methods, the authors describe how, despite a troubling context of reception emerging from a normative and political community context that harbored resentment toward the new immigrant population, a community-based organization whose members served as boundary spa…
Brokering research in science education policy implementation: The case of a professional association
Recent scholarship suggests that research use is an interactive, social phenomenon, and that brokers play important roles in facilitating the exchange of research evidence. We add to this body of literature by exploring the role of brokers in the exchange of research evidence among state education agency leaders involved in K–12 science education policy implementation in the United States. We focus our study on the lead professional association f…
School District Educational Infrastructure and Change at Scale: Teacher Peer Interactions and Their Beliefs About Mathematics Instruction
While current reform efforts press for ambitious changes to teachers’ instructional practice, teachers’ instructional beliefs are also consequential in such efforts as beliefs shape teachers’ instructional practice and their responses to instructional reforms. This article examines the relationship between teachers’ instructional ties and their beliefs about mathematics instruction in one school district working to transform its approach to eleme…
Emergent Change: A Network Analysis of Elementary Teachers’ Learning About English Learner Instruction
We study how a suburban U.S. district in the early stages of demographic change developed systems of support for teachers of English learners (ELs). Using district- and school-level social network and interview data, we examine elementary teachers’ EL-related professional learning opportunities, and how district and school organizational contexts enabled or constrained these opportunities. We find that the separation of language and content at th…
Linguistically Responsive Teaching in Preservice Teacher Education: A Review of the Literature Through the Lens of Cultural-Historical Activity Theory
This article presents an integrated systematic review of scholarship related to preparing preservice teachers (PSTs) to teach multilingual learners in U.S. schools. We drew from cultural-historical activity theory to investigate how teacher educators who focus on preparing PSTs to work with multilingual students attended to the linguistically responsive teaching (LRT) framework. We identified three distinct activity systems, each linked to specif…
Equity and State Immigrant Inclusivity: English Learner Education in Essa
With the 2015 passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), the oversight of language policy in U.S. schools shifted from federal to state governance. Although the education of students officially designated as English learners (ELs) has historically been grounded in federal law, we argue that ELs’ educational experiences are also largely influenced by societal attitudes toward immigrants and immigration. Using a critical policy analysis (CPA…
Educating Transnationally Mobile Students: A Multidimensional Framework
The back and forth migration of children and youth between the United States and Mexico has created a unique group of approximately nine million “students we share” who have been educated in both countries (Jensen and Sawyer 2013). The social, political, and economic interconnectivity of the United States and Mexico suggests that these trends are likely to continue, making the education of transnationally mobile students, or those students who ha…
Upholding Multilingual Learners’ Civil Rights under Essa: State Education Agency Leaders and the Contextual Factors Shaping Their Work
Purpose: Alongside the inequities surfaced by COVID-19, a confluence of demographic and policy-related shifts over the last few decades has elevated the education of multilingual learners (MLs) in state education agency (SEA) leaders’ work. This study employs an ecological perspective to examine how SEA leaders promote social justice policy implementation in their efforts to uphold MLs’ civil rights under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). Re…
Examining the English Learner Policy Ecology: How Educators Navigated the Provision of Designated English Language Development (ELD) Support at the Secondary Level
Under federal civil rights law, U.S. school districts have a dual obligation to provide students identified as English learners (ELs) with designated English-language development (ELD) instruction and integrated ELD support during core content instruction. Drawing on an analysis of interviews with 96 educators in two large California districts, we use an ecological approach to explore how district and school staff navigated the provision of desig…
Dimensions of bilingual education program implementation in schools serving linguistically minoritized students in the Czech-Polish border region
Introduction A core challenge for the implementation of bilingual programs is ensuring that linguistically minoritized students have equitable access to instruction that honors and values their linguistic and cultural assets and strengths. To understand how leaders of bilingual programs might address this challenge, this study sought to identify dimensions of program implementation in bilingual schools serving Polish minorities in the Zaolzie reg…
Refining and expanding accountability policy for English learners to support Lau implementation: A critical policy analysis
How Can Research-Practice Partnerships Advance Multilingual Learner Equity? A Case Study of Partnership with State-Education-Agency Leaders
Shared Responsibility for Multilingual Learners Across Levels of the Education System
Educational change efforts that prioritize equity for multilingual learners (MLs) require attention to several interconnected components of the education system. We build on prior literature and our collective research to clarify the concept of shared responsibility for ML students and to operationalize the concept at the school, district, and state levels. Drawing on institutional theory and a racialized organizations lens, we argue that shared …
People, politics, and pivots: Sustaining research-practice partnership collaboration
A growing body of scholarship outlines the value of research-practice partnerships (RPPs) for disrupting inequities across education systems. While promising, RPP work is also complex as partners navigate politics, turnover, and distinct organizational cultures and goals. To support the field with navigating such complexities, we examine approaches for sustaining RPP collaboration over time. Our work is situated in a national RPP that brings toge…
Computer science for secondary multilingual learners: How school policies and practices enable and constrain equitable access
Computer Science affords a unique context for English Learners (who we refer to as Multilingual Learners or MLs) to engage in disciplinary practices that support computational thinking and language development. Yet MLs at the secondary level tend to be systematically excluded from CS courses. Through a collaborative research process involving teachers, counselors, and administrators in seven high schools, this study considered: How do school poli…
Educator Agency for Multilingual Learner Integration: A Typology of School Ecologies
Defending Against Challenges to Equity: The Role of State Education Agency Leaders
Across the United States, anti-equity politics are shaping education policies and decision making. While this anti-equity movement is well documented, less is known about strategies to defend against those challenges. We examined such strategies within a highly politicized area of education: multilingual learner (ML) policy and practice. Using critical policy analysis, we analyzed interview and meeting observation data collected over 5 years in a…
Pedagogy (20 works) · Sociology (19 works) · Psychology (18 works) · Political science (17 works) · Mathematics education (13 works) · Multilingual Education and Policy (13 works) · Second Language Learning and Teaching (8 works) · Teacher Education and Leadership Studies (8 works) · Social science (7 works) · Parental Involvement in Education (6 works)