This article examines the implementation of a school sanctioning policy in two urban high schools. Drawing on a cultural sociological perspective, the authors trace the explanations and remedies of school and course failure that faculty in both schools enacted in response to the sanctioning policy. The authors conclude that although the policy prompted faculty efforts to improve schoolwide tests scores, it had little impact on how principals and teachers understood and responded to the difficulties that students encountered in their academic courses. Although principals viewed course failure as largely intractable, teachers attributed a moral causality to it, locating its cause and responsibility in their students’ moral deficiencies. The study thus raises questions about for what and to whom sanctioning policies ultimately hold schools accountable.

This study uses Gidden’s (1991) concepts of time-space separation and disembedding to identify how teachers and students in a virtual classroom taught by one of the authors constructed social relations. Using discourse analytic methods, the study illuminates the discursive processes through which the teacher and students re-articulated conventional classroom discourse to create hybrid, student-controlled/teacher-centered spaces. The study poses several fundamental questions about our assumptions about teaching and student-centered classrooms.