‘There should be more cooperation in setting the policy’: Israeli stakeholders’ perceptions of their appropriate role in implementing a new educational reform

Abstract

ABSTRACTEffective implementation of educational reforms requires collaboration between stakeholders. The current paper describes and analyzes the findings of a qualitative research, which examined the perceptions of the three hierarchic levels of stakeholders, assigned by the Israeli Ministry of Education in 2010 to introduce and implement a new policy reform. The participant were 24 Ministry of Education district managers and superintendents, 74 District and Comprehensive Superintendents, and 21 school principals. This study emphasizes participants’ distinctions between their formal roles and their actual and appropriate roles in implementing the policy. Thus, this study sheds light on the process of implementing a top-down educational reform in a centralist educational system. The main finding was that participants from each hierarchic level aspired for more autonomy in the implementation process and expressed an interest in being involved in the earlier phases of constructing the policy.