School Agenda Research Articles

School Restructuring as a Policy Agenda: Why One Size May Not Fit All

Recent studies of school restructuring have suggested that a school's shift toward communal norms is likely to be accompanied by particular types of technical reform. The result has been the emergence of a prescriptive agenda of reform practices in the school-improvement literature, despite evidence that the usefulness and effectiveness of instructional practices vary across contexts. The study presented here examined the relationship between school restructuring (defined in terms of the use of restructured practices) on mathematics achievement across categories of school socioeconomic status. The findings raise questions about the suitability of defining restructuring in terms of any specific reform agenda and indicate the need for caution regarding the broad implementation of such an agenda in disadvantaged schools

Bringing the Politics Back In: A Critical Analysis of Quality Discourses in Education

This paper considers the consequences of, and tensions within, New Labour's quality agenda for schools. In particular, it draws attention to the way in which official versions of quality, characterised by a narrow, economistic instrumentality, are being promoted in schools by various forms of quality control that are marginalising broader, more humanistic conceptions of quality. It is also argued that, despite New Labour's rhetorical emphasis on education for citizenship, the mechanisms of quality control favoured by the government tend to produce patterns of association which are authoritarian and, therefore, unconducive to giving teachers, students and parents opportunities to participate actively in key decisions in and around schooling. The analysis presented in this paper is underpinned by a concern to bring a consideration of educational politics back into education policy debates.

Ritualizing Socialization: The Non-academic Agenda of Japanese Schools

Ritualizing Socialization: The Non-academic Agenda of Japanese Schools

New initiatives to place gender on the agenda in business schools

Discusses universities role in resolving gender problems and of combating “impoverished” learning. Argues that gender should be central to management development and education and proposes that gender should be placed high on the agenda to challenge traditional sex role stereotypes in students’ organizations. Proposes that because of problematic areas in educational environment these may not be conducive to women’s development managerially. States that women academics have to get to these management positions to challenge the status quo, but that the movement up the ladder of management responsibility is very difficult. Goes on to highlight the various supporting arguments and discusses these at length. Gives an example in management educationof gender on the agenda and details out the occurrences and effects. Concludes that the initiatives discussed should be taken on board business/management schools should begin to place gender firmly on the agenda‐increasing awareness of gender issues through the process.

Wild and Tame Zones: Regulating the Transitions of Youth at Risk

ABSTRACT Transitions from school to work were, in a less reflexive modernity, relatively simple processes to manage for large populations of young people. The concept of youth, as a transitional process, emerges as a truth which dominates governmental horizons when these transitions become problematic, and when the practices for regulating these transitions become problematic. Contemporary recompositions of youth transitions can be understood in terms of the structuring influences of global Information & Communication networks. This paper argues that one consequence of these transformations is increased uncertainty and anxiety in relation to the regulation of large populations of youth. In a material and metaphoric sense, certain populations of youth occupy ‘wild and tame zones’ in the governmental spaces of the contemporary Liberal Democratic nation state. Drawing on the Australian context, this paper argues that the emergence of a Vocational Education and Training agenda in schools can be conceived in terms of governmental attempts to regulate the inhabitants of these wild zones.

Techno-Growth Mania: The Means Justify the Means

Education policy, in general, reflects the past and present embrace of science and technology as progressive forces to be further cultivated. Technology has a profound effect on education policy. It serves to divert rather than enhance critical thinking about the future of our race and planet. In addition, the emphasis on technology has dramatically increased vocational emphases that elevate instrumental pedagogical concerns over philosophic reflection on ends. The technology-driven, vocationally rooted school agendas ignore alternative cultural reflections as powerful forces and directions remain exempt from scholarly examination. “How to” triumphs over “why?” The corporate-financed business-education partnership movement gathering momentum in schools across the nation raises a question: If pervasive environmental and human problems are endemic to the emerging technology-supported and technology-driven global order, how will schools end their denial of needed cultural change?

Teacher Development and School Improvement: the use of ‘shared practice groups’ to improve teaching in primary schools

Current government initiated activity appears to be leading to the development of an agenda for primary schools which is not derived from a process which involves teachers. The growing degree of bureaucracy and centrally imposed direction is accompanied by an increasing lack of opportunity for teacher involvement in and ownership of planning for change. This article is concerned with school based approaches to school improvement which are practitioner led and collaborative. A small school improvement project is described. This was based on a ‘shared practice’ model and involved teachers from a number of primary schools planning for, and implementing curriculum change through a process of ‘interactive professionalism’ and personal reflection. The article considers a range of issues related to practitioner ownership and ‘rooted’ change

A Critique of the Talent Searches

While talent search has offered many benefits to those students identified, there are issues which should be resolved to maximize its impact. The program's exclusivity in numbers of students selected for special programs, the cost of the programs both in tuition, transportation, and living expenses at, possibly, very distant locations means that many able learners are left unserved. The difficulties of a university-based program which serves school-age students include school opposition to such proven practices as acceleration, poor (or no) communication regarding identified students and their special needs, and a lack of understanding of talent search goals and procedures. The value of the program makes it worthwhile to address these difficulties through improved partnerships with schools, increased options in course offerings, and other recommended efforts. If the talent search projects are to continue to thrive, they must launch new strategies for growth coupled with an abiding commitment to facilitating the educational reform agenda in public schools.

Critical Issues Literacy Connections between School and Home: How Should We Evaluate Them?

The value of a partnership between teachers and parents in the promotion of children's literacy appears self-evident. It symbolizes both the school's accountability to the community it serves and the complementary responsibility of families to support the school's agenda of empowering their children with the tools of civilization. Many parents and teachers across the world perceive, however, that there is something amiss with the relations between them. On the one hand, they share an interest in the literacy development of the same children, and in some sense, they subscribe to an implicit contract to share responsibility for promoting it. Yet, disagreement frequently arises about how this contract is to be executed in practice. In this eclectic review of research, I consider three complementary ways in which the nature of the connection between children's homes and the schools they attend can be problematized, each focusing on a different criterial dimension for evaluating the home-school connection: (a) congruence of family life with the agenda of schooling, (b) intimacy, or depth of understanding, between teachers and parents, and (c) sociocultural productivity of the interaction between the school and its students' home communities.

Language and the new capitalism

This paper discusses the extent to which conceptions and practices of literacy in schools are currently undergoing change in tandem with the emergence of a new capitalism. It considers the possible emergence of a new word order that parallels the evolving new work order. Some possible implications of the discussion for the theory and practice of inclusive education are raised. The argument moves from a brief sketch of capitalism in general to describe some key features of ‘the new capitalism’. It then identifies six characteristics of a language and literacy agenda for schools promulgated in contemporary educational reform policies. These characteristics are discussed in relation to the new capitalism. The argument concludes by suggesting that proponents of inclusive education must actively engage in debate about the social purposes of language and literacy education, and make this a key component of their political strategy for educational change.

Long-Term PDS Development in Research Universities and the Clinicalization of Teacher Education

In the past decade, educational reformers have created professional development schools (PDSs) similar to those the Holmes Group (1986) and the Carnegie Forum (1986) advocated. PDSs aims are now commonplace: provide exemplary education for preservice teachers, support continuing professional development of experienced teachers, and involve schools and universities in collaborative research. Underpinning this work is the assumption that school reform and the reform of teacher education require simultaneous renewal (Goodlad, 1994, p. 236). Collaboration should transform the school and university cultures (Case, Norlander, & Reagan, 1993; Stoddart, 1993) and result in improved teacher education and increased learning in schools. For this reason, Robinson and Darling-Hammond (1994) conclude, PDSs are much more than a fashionable new idea. They are an imperative of professional responsibility in education (p. 217). Creating PDSs has resulted in new staffing patterns. In research-oriented universities, clinical faculty are assuming increasingly important roles in teacher education (Fullan, Galluzzo, Morris, & Watson, 1996). The place and role of non-tenure-track faculty undoubtedly will expand as programs increase and enrich connections between schools and universities. The American Association of University Professors has expressed concern that increased use of non-tenure-line faculty for university instruction will result in lower educational quality (American Association of University Professors, Committee G, 1993). However, the most recent Holmes Group report (1995) argues that clinical faculty should form a living bridge between campus and practice as they share with colleagues on campus responsibilities associated with the Professional Development School agenda and with the development and operation of professional studies programs. Differentiated roles will be developed, where faculty having their tenure with the schools collaborate with faculty tenured with the university in making significant contributions to programs of teaching and inquiry (p. 62). The Department of Educational Studies at the University of Utah is experimenting with a variety of staffing patterns that include clinical faculty (Ellsworth & Albers, 1995; Fullan et al., 1996). The department, centrally responsible for secondary and elementary school certification programs, is large and diverse, combining undergraduate, masters, and doctoral programs and specialty areas in teaching and learning strategies; and cultural, critical, and curriculum studies. Members of the department have been involved in PDS-related work since the late 1970s (Nutting, 1982). We conducted a study of seven current and former PDS sites and interviewed more than 60 informants to identify program strengths, weaknesses, and issues requiring attention (Bullough, Kauchak, Crow, Hobbs, & Stokes, 1996). The place of clinical faculty in teacher education emerged as a critical issue, resulting in a second, descriptive case study (Yin, 1989), which we report in this article. In this article, we explore through the eyes of clinical, non-tenure-track, and tenure-line university faculty the increased use of clinical faculty in teacher education programs, a shift resulting in what we call the clinicalization of teacher education. Four sections follow. First, we present a brief institutional history of our PDS work and the staffing patterns that evolved. Second, we describe the study. Third, we present themes emerging from our data. Finally, we consider implications of our findings for future PDS development. PDS: A Brief History In the late 1970s, University of Utah faculty and staff, anticipating PDSs, created elementary Professional Development Centers (PDCs) as sites for pre- and inservice teacher education and research (Nutting, 1982). In the late 1980s, the Department of Educational Studies restructured elementary and secondary teacher preparation programs to include extensive field components and extended coursework and was thus in a strong position to respond to the Holmes Group (1986) agenda to establish Professional Development Schools, despite no external funding. …

Pronouns as positioning practices in home-school communications

This study explicates the discursive constitution of particular parent-teacher relationships in home-school communications. It focuses on examples of this type of communication originating from three Australian secondary schools. Analysis shows that these texts constitute particular domains of social action for teachers, parents and students. Certain textual devices are used which constitute the private everyday worlds of homes as school ordered versions of the world. A study of pronoun use in particular shows how parents, teachers and students are positioned and position each other in relation to such discursively constituted facts and knowledges which are produced according to official, public, school agenda. By using certain pronouns, and, at times, invoking other institutions as authorities, the Principals of the three schools are seen to textually colonize home space. The article concludes that home-school interactions thus enter into and enact the relations of ruling of the larger extra-local social world of which they are a part.

Equality in Education: An Agenda for Urban Schools

Equality in Education: An Agenda for Urban Schools

Teacher research and British Columbia's curricular instructional experiment: implications for educational policy

Teacher research serves as an innovative redirection of the tradition of framing the education of teachers around curriculum policies. It recognizes and encourages teachers as agents of knowing and constructors of knowledge. It is inquiry‐based, frequently collaborative, and invariably generative of teachers’ craft knowledge. British Columbia is currently in the middle of a most ambitious revision of its education system. This system‐wide attempt at innovation has provided an enabling context within which teachers in the province could engage in classroom‐based research as they attempt to build a learner‐focused curriculum. This article describes the teacher research efforts that have been taking place in the province, and attempts to derive important implications for educational policy. Teacher research permitted teachers to honour the educative agenda of schools, suggesting that more, rather than less, structures like teacher research groups be provided for in the implementation of complex educational i...

“Needed: An Educational Agenda for the 21st Century”

Emphasizes the need to save public education in America as being essential to the “American way of life”. Pinpoints the lack of a generally accepted goal, the designing of school programmes to suit teachers, not the students, and the movement of state and federal government further into the leadership and day‐to‐day operation of schools, as the factors which have had a detrimental effect on public schools during the past generation. Lists a 12‐point agenda for getting the public schools back on course and advocates a study of public education to identify what the public wants, followed by a plan to implement a suitable education programme.

The New Agenda for the Nation's Schools

The New Agenda for the Nation's Schools

The emerging agenda for Canadian high schools

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional informationNotes on contributorsKen OsborneKen Osborne teaches at the Faculty of Education, The University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada R3T 2N2. He has written many books and articles on social education and critical pedagogy, the latest being Educating Citizens: A Democratic Socialist Agenda for Canadian Education.

Constructing the Captive Audience: Channel One and the political economy of the text

ABSTRACT Educational policy and practice are the results of compromises at many levels with dominant groups attempting to shift the terms of the compromise onto their own terrain. Channel One ‐‐ a commercially produced news program which includes both news and advertisements broadcast to nearly one‐third of the schools in the USA ‐‐ is a paradigm case of the way the conservative restoration builds a coalidon in favor of the business agenda in schools. The economic and discursive strategies involved in creating this coalition, the ideologies constructed by the news, and the daily lives of teachers and students in schools receiving Channel One are analyzed. These are then situated back into the larger rightist project.

A Gender Agenda: A Sociological Study of Teachers, Parents, and Pupils in Their Primary Schools.

Introduction The research project PART I The adults' world of school The school council The teachers The parents PART II The children's world of school Pupil knowledge and school agendas Classroom life Conclusion: new agendas for old

The ideological agenda in class-structured private and public schools: A case study in Mexico City

This chapter deals with two key variables: school administration and communication patterns, and teacher recruitment processes, defined in order to understand the relationship between schooling and the reproduction of the social division of labor in Mexico City, Mexico. The study was based on views of schools organizing their internal structures and activities in order to fulfill underlying requirements dictated by the social division of labor. Selected schools were obtained according to availability rather than random sampling. Results confirmed assumptions made regarding ways in which Authority behaves according to the social classes served in those schools. The same can be stated for the teacher recruitment process.