Understanding the role of local educational departments in school collaboration for improvement: Two districts in China

Abstract

As improving low-performing schools has become a critical strategy to achieve educational equity in China, local educational departments have implemented various school collaboration programs. Drawing on international literature and empirical data from in-depth interviews and policy documents in two Chinese urban districts, this multiple-case qualitative study examines local educational departments’ roles in the school collaboration implementation. Our analysis shows that both local educational departments set clear district-wide expectations of school collaborations. While various strategies were implemented to improve low-performing schools, limited opportunities were provided for school-based educators to contribute to decision-making processes. Both districts relied more on structural changes to create conditions to improve teaching and learning, and lacked long-term investments in building professional capacity and fostering data-use cultures. Finally, local educational departments’ goals of equity and school improvement were sometimes overshadowed by other political and economic priorities. This study offers new evidence on the leadership roles that local educational departments play in Chinese school reform implementation, thus responding to a scarcity of district-level empirical research in Chinese literature. It also expands the existing international research base that is largely Western-focused and not necessarily applicable to all countries, especially developing countries where school improvement efforts are often situated in conflicting policy systems.