Institutional change in teacher education: The faculty's tale

Abstract

A national reform in Israeli seminaries for teachers reclassified them as teachers' colleges. Ten years later the views of faculty members of one teachers' college about this reform were examined. The findings pertained (1) to the nature of academic upgrading, which was vague for most faculty, as it comprised a set of purely organizational changes which were either achieved or will be completed in the future; and (2) to the form of the ultimate college, which looked similar to a university in awarding a degree, yet lacking all the substantial characteristics of academic culture. The failure to achieve institutional transformation and the disparity between the views of the reformers and the faculty were attributed to the nature of the imposed top-down macro-level organizational change with little faculty involvement which led to the continuance of the previous teachers' seminary culture. Suggestions are made for prospective higher education reformers to help them to avoid this outcome.