Leslie Santee Siskin, Associate Research Professor at New York University, is a sociologist of
organizations and organizational change. An expert on the American high school,
her research focuses on the structuring and restructuring of schools, on the
sociocultural and political contexts of teachers' work, and, most recently, on
issues of accountability, testing, and comprehensive school reform. In a series
of books and articles she has explored subject departments as sites where
school structure, curriculum subjects, and teachers' lives intersect (Realms of Knowledge) and has raised the
possibility of alternative configurations (Subjects
in Question). A former teacher, administrator, and school board member, and
still a parent, Siskin maintains an active interest in all aspects of school reform
while teaching courses on the micropolitics of schools, organizational change,
and qualitative methods. Siskin is currently writing a book, Small Change, which deals with the
challenges of change and leadership within high schools, wrestling with issues
of gender and authority, institutional inertia, and complexity theory. This
project will incorporate data from two major new studies: "Accountability
and the High School," funded through the Consortium for Policy Research in
Education, examines the interactions between external policies and internal
practices in high schools; the federal "Comprehensive School Reform
Design" project explores the prospects for whole school reform models as
they encounter the comprehensive high school. Siskin's prior research projects
have included work with the Center for Research on the Context of Teaching
(CRC), the National
Center for Restructuring
Education, Schools, and Teaching (NCREST), the Coalition of Essential Schools,
and the Annenberg-funded New York Networks for School Renewal; Siskin has also
served as an advisor for major grants for both the Spencer and Ford
Foundations.
