Sense-making of Federal Education Policy: Social Network Analysis of Social Media Discourse around the Every Student Succeeds Act

Abstract

Grounded in the sense-making literature, this study explores the discourse around and sentiment toward the newly passed Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) as discussed on the social media platform Twitter. The study explores the characteristics of and connections between users, the content of posts, and the sentiment toward ESSA. Data consisted of 12,544 tweets posted by 8,063 users analyzed through discourse analysis and social network analysis. Findings suggest that the discourse appears generally nonnegative with a clear pattern of clustering around sentiment. This suggests that users are in discourse with other users who share their view of the law. Discussion of policy issues such as local implementation and equity were common as were discussions of teacher preparation and comparisons to NCLB. Implications for the ongoing implementation of ESSA are discussed.