Showing papers in "Journal of Educational Change in 2004"
TL;DR: The No Child Left Behind Act presents an unprecedented challenge to current educational policy matters as mentioned in this paper, and the current efforts of reform and examines to what extent they actually benefit the children they are designed to serve.
Abstract: The No Child Left Behind Act presents an unprecedented challenge to current educational policy matters. While aimed at addressing the needs of disadvantaged children by claiming to promote equity, justice, and social citizenship among all youth, the new accountability seems to be concerned more with the imperatives of the marketplace. The education framework currently in place becomes a vehicle for social mobility for those few privileged citizens who have the resources and power to make their choices matter, but merely a form of social constraint for those who lack such resources. This paper problematizes the current efforts of reform and examines to what extent they actually benefit the children they are designed to serve.
113 citations
104 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a case study of educational restructuring in Victoria, Australia, how leadership, as a discursive practice, is redefined in the context of spatial and cultural restructuring is presented.
Abstract: The 1990s saw considerable structural reform in school education in many Anglophone nation states, marked by trends towards school-based, site-based, self-managing and self-governing schools. This article illustrates through a case study of educational restructuring in Victoria, Australia, how leadership, as a discursive practice, is redefined in the context of spatial and cultural restructuring. Restructuring produced a spatial redistribution of educational provision and individual opportunities as a result of structural adjustment reforms. These same policy moves towards post-welfarism also produced cultural shifts in attitudes to education with the rise of the new instrumentalism and entrepeneurialism. For school principals at the forefront of self managing schools, this meant shifts in resource distribution through new policy mechanisms of managerial and market accountability, and also new priorities impacting on leadership practices with a move from dialogic to decisional modes of management. The question is how recent policy moves towards learning networks and reinventing systematic support with a focus on locational disadvantage are addressing what were increased educational disparities between schools and students. Does this provide scope for more equity-driven leadership practices?
68 citations
55 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors focus on the overlapping practices of system management and curriculum reforms that map different human kinds, i.e., the child as a lifelong learner, an individual whose qualities entail actively and flexibly participating in communities through problem-solving strategies.
Abstract: Educational reform and reformist research are not merely about school improvement. They embody a field of cultural practices that constitutes the objects of schooling – the teacher who administers the reforms to the child and the distinctions and differentiations about who the child is and should be. Our interest is in the rules and standards of reason assembled through the cultural practices of school reform. Reason is a cultural practice functioning to enact a change in the conditions of people but also invests people with particular capacities and capabilities. This investiture of capacities and capabilities produces particular human kinds or categories of the determinant qualities of the individuals schools administer. Using studies of educational governance and social inclusion/exclusion in Europe and on US educational reform, the discussion focuses on the overlapping practices of system management and curriculum reforms that map different human kinds. One human kind is the child as a lifelong learner, an individual whose qualities entail actively and flexibly participating in communities through problem-solving strategies. The characteristics and qualities of the lifelong learner are differentiated from those who do not embody the norms of participation –the child left behind. The study of the systems of reason that govern the objects of reflection and rectification in school reforms is a strategy to consider the politics of reform, change, and social inclusion and exclusion.
41 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors describe the interplay of top-down and bottom-up processes in recent changes in senior secondary education in the Netherlands, including self-regulated learning by students, flexibility in teachers' tasks, and higher education in higher education.
Abstract: Recent publications on changes in education have paid considerableattention to the interplay of control and extended autonomy. Thisinterplay takes place on three levels: between government and theindividual school; between school and the individual teacher; andbetween teacher and student. At each level there are issues surroundingthe relationship between a top-down and a bottom-up approach to changesin education. The major questions to be answered are: what goals are tobe achieved; what means of direction and control should be preserved;who exercises control over the goals and processes; how extensive is theautonomy of schools, teachers and students; and will self-regulation andautonomy become a reality? In this article we describe the interplay oftop-down and bottom-up processes in recent changes in senior secondaryeducation in the Netherlands. These changes include introducingself-regulated learning by students, flexibility in teachers' tasks,liaison with advanced studies in higher education, and raisingstandards.
37 citations
34 citations
TL;DR: This article investigated the effect of change on teachers' work life and found that teachers tended to be more skill-flexible when they had more of a role inthe change, and less skill flexible when school management initiated change or when change involved administrative objectives, as opposedto educational or social ones.
Abstract: This study investigated skill flexibility (theability to use skills according to changingneeds) among teachers in the context of schoolchange in nine countries. Data were collectedas part of a multi-country study on the effectof change on teachers' work life. Resultsshowed that teachers tended to be moreskill-flexible when they had more of a role inthe change, and less skill-flexible when schoolmanagement initiated change or when changeinvolved administrative objectives, as opposedto educational or social ones. Teachers alsotended to be more skill-flexible when theybelieved that change had a positive impact ontheir work life, professional development,student learning, and general feelings aboutchange. An individual-country analysis revealedthat countries varied in the way skillflexibility was related to change factors.These differences were interpreted in thecontext of cultural background.
32 citations
TL;DR: This article explored the effect of district strategies for improving high-stakes test scores on science teachers' practice and found that the approaches taken by districts influenced the nature of pedagogical and curriculum changes in the classroom.
Abstract: The effect of district strategies for improving high-stakes test scores on science teachers’ practice is explored in case studies of six middle schools in six Massachusetts districts. At each school, science teachers, curriculum coordinators, principals, and superintendents shared their strategies for raising scores, their attitudes towards the test, the changes that they were implementing in their curriculum and pedagogical approaches, and the effects that the test was having on staff and on students. Results from these case studies suggest that districts chose markedly different strategies for raising scores on high stakes tests, and that the approaches taken by districts influenced the nature of pedagogical and curriculum changes in the classroom. District strategies for raising scores that were complementary to the district’s prior vision of science reform tended to cause less teacher resentment towards the test than strategies that departed from previously adopted goals. Differing effects on teachers in socio-economically “advantaged,” “middle,” and “challenged” districts are discussed.
31 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors consider how complex educational change may be managed through the ''metatask'' of orchestration, narrowly distributed among senior formal leaders within and between different administrative levels of large public education systems.
Abstract: This paper considers how complex educational change may be managed through the `metatask' of orchestration, narrowly distributed among senior formal leaders within and between different administrative levels of large public education systems. Orchestration implies steering the change process by organising and maintaining oversight of an intricate array of coordinated tasks. It is the over-arching `complex change management theme' of a hierarchically ordered typology derived inductively from a national study of district-wide initiatives to close or merge schools so as to reduce spare student capacity and improve the quality of educational provision. The paper explores patterns revealed by this research relating to orchestration. The research design and methods are outlined. The relationship is clarified between the concepts of orchestration, leadership and management. An analytical model is built-up for analysing complex educational change along three dimensions: change management themes, headed by orchestration; characteristics of the complexity of the change with management implications; and stages of the change process. The constituents of each dimension in turn are described, briefly illustrated through reference to reorganisation, and linked with orchestration. Characteristics of complexity dictated the response of orchestration and the subordinate complex change management themes across the different stages of the change process. The analytical model is offered as a conceptual framework for future research that would test its wider applicability and as a practical planning tool. The importance is underlined of developing generic yet context-sensitive practical guidance that reflects the degree of complexity faced by orchestrators charged with managing contemporary educational change.
17 citations
TL;DR: This paper explored elementary music teachers' descriptions of the work of teaching music in changing times using survey data derived from a three-year study of itinerant teachers in Queensland, Australia, and found that teaching is described as a ''labor of love'' -an act requiring hard work and self-sacrifice in the face of excess difficulty.
Abstract: In this paper I explore elementary musicteachers' descriptions of the work of teachingmusic in changing times. Using survey dataderived from a three-year study of itinerantmusic teachers in Queensland, Australia, Ianalyze how teachers' descriptions of workpractices provides some insight into the labornecessary to achieve intrinsic rewards fromteaching music. Teachers' accounts convey notonly the delights of teaching, but also thedifficulties inherent in accomplishing the workof music teaching in schools in the late 1990s.In written accounts, teachers contrast the``good'' aspects of teaching against a backdropdepicting the obstacles to be overcome in orderto achieve the rewards of teaching. For manymusic teachers, teaching is described as a``labor of love'' – an act requiring hard workand self-sacrifice in the face of excessivedifficulties. I argue that these teachers aresituated – both through the structure of theirworking conditions, and the nature of thesubject area, music – to take responsibilityfor both their own emotional labor and theconsequences of work intensification withinrestructured educational systems. For teachersexpending increasing amounts of emotional laborin school settings in which the outcomes ofwork intensification are clearly evident, thelevels of intrinsic rewards derived fromteaching may be insufficient to sustain theenergy and enthusiasm necessary for effectiveteaching, or even survival in the workplace.
TL;DR: This paper explored some of the challenges for schooling in the 2lst century from the vantage points of both resource rich and developing countries, suggesting that schools on each side of the global North/South divide have much to learn from each other.
Abstract: Drawing on examples from a range of contexts, this article explores some of the challenges for schooling in the 2lst century from the vantage points of both resource rich and developing countries, suggesting that schools on each side of the global North/South divide have much to learn from each other. It offers an inclusive framework for schooling for the 21st century, identifying the foundations which need to be put in place to establish that framework, as well as the options along the way. The core challenges are seen as how to prepare our young people – the citizens of tomorrow – for an increasingly uncertain and technologically orientated world; how to equip them to assess the relevance of a vast array of facts and information and discriminate between competing ideologies; and how to encourage them to relate to each other in a fragmented, although globalised, world.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined early childhood education in Hong Kong from three perspectives: historical, socio-economic, and educational development, and highlighted different issues and problems in the development of pre-school education.
Abstract: This article examines early childhood educationin Hong Kong from three perspectives: historical, socio-economic, and educational development. Each perspective highlights different issues and problems in the development of early childhood education. The historical perspective identifies some major events and their influence on the formulation of educational policies particularly at pre-school level. The social-economicperspective considers education as the means toachieve economic development, which is whythe amount of resources allocated is closelylinked with the future needs of the economy;therefore preschool education has long beenneglected in Hong Kong. The educationaldevelopment perspective reflects the Hong Konggovernment's expectations for education, and thereview of the educational policies helpsunderstand the development of pre-schooleducation. Analysis of some historicalbackground and current trends of early childhoodeducation development, highlight possible future developments of early childhood education in Hong Kong, particularly after the reunification with her motherland, China, in 1997.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present findings from a study assessing the impact of reforms on mathematics and science instruction to illustrate the multiple levels at which educational change must occur to promote student achievement and close achievement gaps.
Abstract: In this paper, we present findings from a study assessing the impact of reforms on mathematics and science instruction to illustrate the multiple levels at which educational change must occur to promote student achievement and close achievement gaps. We undertake an analysis of the extent to which the rhetoric of national policy, in this case, the National Science Foundation's Urban Systemic Initiative, matches the realities of the day-to-day classroom practices we evaluated in our study. Addressed here is the problem of how applied anthropologists can broaden the scope of research and research findings from the edges of the societal mainstream to address larger policy issues. More globally, we discuss the influence of contemporary applied anthropologists and their colleagues who study marginalized groups on educational research.