@EdWorkingPaper{ai26-1542,
title = "“Can we fight this fight?”: How Racial Politics Shape the Implementation of Culturally Responsive and Sustaining Education Teaching Standards",
author = "Maya Kaul, Meghan Comstock, Joy Esboldt, Dayna Muñiz",
institution = "Annenberg Institute at Brown University",
number = "1542",
year = "2026",
month = "August",
URL = "http://www.edworkingpapers.com/ai26-1542",
abstract = {In this study, we investigate the role of teacher education (TE) programs in filtering the implementation of Culturally Responsive and Sustaining Education teaching guidelines in Pennsylvania. Drawing on a comparative case study of three TE programs across diverse institutional and political contexts, we find that implementation varied from surface-level adoption of the guidelines to deeper implementation, depending on actors’ perceptions of the specificity, authority, consistency, power, and stability of the policy and programs’ pre-existing organizational conditions. As racial politics eroded the policy's initial race-conscious language, the labor of preserving the policy’s equity aims fell disproportionately on women of color. These findings point to the uneven costs of equity-based reforms and the need for structures that recognize and redistribute this labor.},
}