Implementation Of Education Policy Research Articles

Understanding how institutional dynamics can contribute to educational inequality in Nordic cities

ABSTRACT This article explores the institutional dynamics that contribute to educational inequality within Nordic cities. The persistent issue of social inequality in education remains a prominent challenge for the Nordic welfare states. By investigating the gaps between educational policies and their practical implementation, this study sheds light on the mechanisms that drive educational inequality. Through the application of qualitative methods, the research examines the impediments to achieving educational equity within three distinct municipalities in Norway, Sweden, and Finland. The study identifies several contributing factors to the prevailing educational inequality, encompassing housing policies, urban spatial segregation, diverse principles governing school choice and marketisation, and variations in organisational models intended to promote equity. The research not only offers novel insights into the gaps between educational policy formulation and implementation but also underscores their pivotal role in both generating and perpetuating educational inequality. In the subsequent discussion, the study addresses these identified gaps and outlines their potential implications for future policy-making and practical implementation in Nordic education.

Pedagogical concept and social environment matters: example from parents’ attitudes towards student-learning burden reduction policy and its influencing factors in China

In many societies, parents’ perceptions play a key role in assessing the quality of education policy implementation, and the student learning burden reduction policy is the most discussed and influential education policy among K-12 education policies in China. However, there are few studies examining parents’ attitudes toward the student learning burden reduction policy and its influencing factors. In this study, we used nationally representative data and public opinion data to identify the factors influencing parents’ attitudes towards the student learning burden reduction policy. The. Hovland’s model of attitude change have been adopted in this study. Using factor analysis and structural equation modeling, we found that, for survey analysis results, a total of 83.2% of parents supported the implementation of student learning reduction policies. Parents’ educational/pedagogical and academic concepts, students’ academic burdens, and parents’ after-school service concepts had significant influences on parents’ attitudes toward the implementation of the student burden reduction policy. Our findings show how the social implicit environment in which parents live can shape their perceptions of the implementation of the student burden reduction policy.

Governing early childhood education and care quality development among diverse private ECEC providers in Norway

ABSTRACT This article sheds light on governance mechanisms at work when decentralised implementation of national educational and welfare policies encounters a heterogeneous sector of private service provider organisations. It illuminates how isomorphic pressure plays out at the interface between local governance and private providers’ organisational strategies for quality development in early childhood education and care (ECEC). Key informant interviews are employed to investigate the function of local non-mandatory quality and competence-developing networks (QCDNs) as a locus for these interactions. Findings indicate that QCDNs contribute to shaping private ECEC providers’ quality development efforts, and that coercive, normative, and mimetic isomorphic pressures become intertwined in this process. Most private provider organisations choose to participate in these non-mandatory networks. However, ECEC corporations and small private providers assign different meanings to their participation, and the networks thus appear to spur different organisational strategies. While small private providers harmoniously align their ECEC quality development strategies with institutionalised municipal practice, the provider corporations, while in formal compliance, exploit the resulting inter-municipal variation as one argument among many for more stringent national governmental standardisation. We demonstrate how isomorphic pressure may create and enable an impetus for endogenous and gradual institutional change agency.

Pedagogical Implications on Curriculum Support for Learner Progression

Part of enabling progressed learners’ successes is provision of adequate curriculum support to bridge content gap. Learner progression was introduced as an intervention for retention and to minimise school dropout. Dynamics around education policy implementation gaps seems to be obstacle between progression policy promises and outcomes. This is visible through the national grade 12 results which continue to decline amid learner progression. Within debates of progression policy derailing quality education, Covid19 disruptions unleashed inequalities in the education sector. For instance, learning losses and in turn pedagogical implications for progressed learners’ extended learning opportunities. This paper reports on curriculum support provided to progressed learners reflecting on Covid19 disruptions using Bandura’ Social Learning Theoretical lens. The study adopted a qualitative research approach placed within interpretivism paradigm and employed exploratory case study design. Six teachers were purposively selected from three secondary school in one district of the Limpopo Province, South Africa. Thus, two grade twelve teachers per school whose subjects were directly affected by progression policy because the study focuses on progression from grade eleven to twelve. Data were collected through document analysis and interviews. Thematic analysis was used for data analysis. Findings revealed limitations to reach out to progressed learners’ due catch-up plans because of lockdown and rotational models. This study concluded on a fair compliance on policy stipulations yet limited specific intervention strategies. The unique contribution of this study is the reflection on three implementation gaps which had implications for progression policy outcomes.

Physics Teacher Agency for Physics Education

In the field of middle and high school physics education, teachers must succeed in both “physics education” and “physics as education.” This is because the school classroom is not just a time for learning physics, but also a time for connecting physics to students’ lives “Right here Right now” as an education. Physics teachers are actively interpreting and reconstructing the field with students who change rapidly in society and creating the context of physics education. In this personal and social context, teacher agency is exerted.1) Teacher agency is not just the personal ability of individual teachers to implement policies sincerely or the policies promoted by higher institutions. Teacher agency as a change agent is achieved by creating an environment in which teachers can actively demonstrate their expertise with their own beliefs in a context that encompasses both the personal and social structural dimensions of teachers.2) In order to promote the emergence of physics teacher agency, educational administrative agencies should focus not only on promoting education policies that focus on the individual competencies of teachers, but also on creating a structural context around teachers and teacher networks as important agent in the development and implementation of education policies. The Korean Physical Society, which plays an important role in the development of physics education, needs to expand opportunities for participation in physics education by physics teachers to help expand the network of physics teachers, who are important actors in the network of physics education.

Unpacking Teachers’ Roles in the implementation of New School Curriculum

Teachers play a vital role in the implementation of educational policies and inventions. Without a clear understanding of any programme that teachers have to implement, teachers may not deliver expected outcome. The purpose of this study was to examine the roles of teachers in the implementation of the school curriculum in Namibian schools. The study used a qualitative research methodology, which employed a case study design. Semi structured interview and open-ended questionnaire were used to obtain data from the participants and respondents. The sample was made up of teachers and schools principals who were purposively sampled because of their typicality to the subject of research. The collected data was analysed using thematic analysis method. Key findings reveal that teachers have key roles to play in facilitating the implementation of the new school curriculum. Teachers have a fundamental role to ensure quality implementation of the curriculum. Teachers play an important operational duty of implementing curriculum in the class, and without teachers’ concerted efforts, the quality of curriculum implementation will be compromised. Teachers should also serve as effective collaborators during curriculum implementations. Teachers alone in their own classrooms could hardly implement curriculum effectively, requiring them to collaborate with each other’s on how best they can implement the curriculum collectively. As teachers are key implementers, they should be actively involved in evaluating and assessing learning outcomes of the new curriculum, in order to inform continuous training for improved quality of learning outcomes. Teachers should be cognisant of the key roles that they have to play in ensuring an effective implementation of the new curriculum.

The Role of Non-Formal Education in Elderly Schools and The Implementation of Lifelong Learning

With the increasing number of older people, this community’s protection, welfare, and independence must run well. This research will then be carried out to see how the implementation of elderly schools can empower the elderly to stay healthier and independent through non-formal education. This research will be carried out using a qualitative approach. The data obtained are sourced from various research results and studies that are relevant to this research. The results of this study indicate that the implementation of elderly schools in Central Java province has been carried out for a long time. The implementation of this elderly school is the implementation of lifelong education policies by participating in non-formal education, which is carried out regularly and well planned. Then in its implementation, the elderly school also provides various facilities such as mentors and health and social services carried out by various local institutions.

Building Communities of Teachers: Stories from the Classroom, How to Scaffold Learning Adventures Through Trust

Education is recognised as a viable pathway to a better future. It is not a linear rite of passage but a meandering recognition of learning along the way. The advocacy of education for all, internationally, has led to education policy implementation across our global citizenship albeit at differing levels of accessibility and quality. It is widely recognised that the seminal work of Freire, Rousseau and Dewey have embedded the importance of active learning and critical pedagogy in our modern society. But have our leaders of education sufficiently recognised the need to promote education as a sustainable, complementary activity to social and caring aspects of our society.
 
 This paper focuses on strategies used to build a sense of community in a classroom of educationalists who through their own learning experiences gain empowerment. Drawing on 3 iterations of delivering a module in synchronous virtual classroom, the strategies adopted are outlined, the overall theme is to enable the building of trustworthy relationships and to teach educationalists to embed beliefs and values into their teaching practice. Aspects of the induction period are designed to foster resilience and wellbeing in the teacher cohort for digital and physical life so that students feel nurtured and gain confidence to grow and empower others within the learning lifecycle.
 
 Following on from the global pandemic, most formal education ecosystems had to temporarily pivot to digital education. Reflection and critical thinking beyond COVID position digital education at a juncture that needs careful consideration to understand the giant leap required to utilise advancements in technology in a classroom. This paper presents a pedagogical approach that tightly couples classroom dialogue with the application of existing technology for teaching and learning at level 9 (Masters) to surmount a sense of uncomfortableness encountered for teachers when faced with moving from a whole group, self-contained classroom approach to a multi-faceted learning ecosystem. Furthermore, the case studies described here address complexity in the classroom, acknowledging the ‘valley of death’ approach used in transitioning research into practice, and furthering our understanding how innovative technologies only make a difference when deployed and used in line with user needs and requirements (Maughan et. al, 2018).
 
 Students describe how they overcome fear from one’s own comfort zone toward recognising the power of teachers as change agents using an array of community communication platforms to equip and enhance their toolkit with engagement tools tailored for their subject expert domain needs. 
 
 Technology is a critical enabler to access knowledge, resources and people and has empowered those unable to engage with traditional educational settings to gain formal and informal knowledge whilst making learning more fun and engaging alongside other life responsibilities. Education as a career has expanded, teachers, tutors, lecturers, instructional designers, social and community enterprises, data analysts, database architects, facilitators all contribute to a complex education ecosystems that aspire to equality, inclusion and diversity. The population in this study includes diverse educationalists contexts and demonstrates the use of ice-breakers (Eggleston and Smith, 2004). This paper details examples of community building over a number of semesters delivering the same module to different cohorts. It illuminates the difficult induction period whilst students gain trust within small groups and overcome challenges that are presented. The results identify mechanisms that foster a sense of urgency to advocate for change, overcome complacency in classroom and introduce experimentation as a lever to learning in a failsafe ecosystem. Fear is identified as a concept that prevents the use of some technology due to its unpredictability and teacher legacy for being the person at the top of the class with all the knowledge. Times have changed, creativity is key and teachers are realising that they must prepare their students for failure in addition to success and that they need to model experimentation and failure to demonstrate that recovery and problem based learning prevails in a knowledge economy. As educator's compliance is a critical factor to meet the quality standards of our trade, meeting learning outcomes is just one part of the learning journey, gaining trust, delivery of engaging content and the realisation that students need an education ecosystem that promotes a nurture environment, self-actualisation and phronesis.

Stakeholders’ perspectives on the effectiveness of the Chinese anti-doping education policy

ABSTRACT The significance of anti-doping education in competitive sports is paramount, necessitating athletes and coaches to possess an in-depth understanding of doping prevention strategies. However, information on the Chinese context is limited, prompting a comprehensive examination of the nation’s anti-doping education system. This study explored the experiences of 45 stakeholders involved in Chinese anti-doping education via in-depth interviews and provides a critical analysis of the system’s target audience, delivery methods, timing, and content. The study developed an anti-doping education policy implementation model, assessing its efficacy within the Chinese context. The model posits that while China has made significant strides in addressing key factors of anti-doping education, improvements are still required. Notably, broadening the selection of target groups, enhancing awareness-raising efforts, and establishing comprehensive plans for anti-doping education throughout an athlete’s lifecycle are crucial. Additionally, clear timelines for these initiatives and an optimised anti-doping policy evaluation process, involving increased collaboration with academic institutions and scholar participation in research, are recommended. These findings underline the importance of a continuous and context-specific refinement of China’s anti-doping education strategies, aligning with the evolving needs of stakeholders and the broader demands of the sporting ecosystem.

Нормативные и институциональные основы политики формирования духовно-нравственных ценностей молодежи современной России в контексте развития добровольчества

The article is devoted to the problem of youth spiritual and moral upbringing. The authors evaluate the role of the family, educational institutions and public associations in the development and implementation of youth spiritual and moral education policy. The purpose of the study is to conduct a systematic analysis of the legal and institutional framework of the youth spiritual and moral upbringing policy to identify relevant issues and develop measures for its improvement. The institutional approach makes it possible to identify the main institutions that form the spiritual and moral values of the modern Russian youth. Systematic analysis of the voluntary work development dynamics shows the effectiveness of this institution and emphasizes the necessity to develop its potential. The authors come to the conclusion that it is necessary to intensify measures of spiritual and moral upbringing and that voluntary work has a constructive role in this process.

A Study on The Factors Behind Bilingual Policy Promotion Within Higher Education in Taiwan

This paper aims to examine the ongoing bilingual policy promoted in higher education in Taiwan by exploring the important factors that might affect the promotion of the policy. After using literature review method to explore key factors affecting bilingual policy implementation in higher education, a group of 15 distinguished experts in the fields of language education, EMI promotion centers and in bilingual education policy implementation were assembled to form an expert panel. Leveraging the collective expertise and diverse perspectives of the panelists, the study conducted a questionnaire survey to collect the data. The results show five main categories of factors related to the implement of Bilingual Policy, namely “administrative support”, “school environment and resources”, “curriculum and instruction”, “student learning” and “local linkage”. Among the five categories, “administrative support” has the highest expert consensus of importance in terms of promoting Bilingual Policy, followed by “student learning”, “curriculum and instruction”, “school environment and resources” and “local linkage”. Experts’ comments and suggestions are also discussed.

Role of Governmental and non-governmental agencies in general and special education

Government and non-government organisations do vital work for both the regular and special education systems. the roles that these groups play in making sure that people from all walks of life can take advantage of good educational opportunities. government organisations' responsibilities in creating and enforcing educational policies, regulations, and funding mechanisms, such as education ministries and education departments. nonprofit organisations, community-based programmes, and advocacy groups outside of government that focus on empowering students with disabilities through training and support. Collaborating between government and non-government institutions is necessary for effective educational policy implementation, inclusive service delivery, and the liberation of students with a range of learning requirements.

Canadian Nova Scotian Black learners in the Individualised Program Plan (IPP): intersectionality analysis and findings from a household survey

ABSTRACT In the Canadian Nova Scotian education system, the Individualised Program Plan (IPP) is designed to support students for whom the public school programme curriculum outcomes are not applicable or attainable. Schools can also place students in IPP programmes based on their behaviour. For minority students, especially Blacks, evaluation reports indicate their over-representation in these programmes and, therefore, the need for this research. Through intersectionality analysis of a household survey, our study explores how students’ multiple identities impact their designation as IPP. Our analysis indicated that schools tend to place Black male/female students from non-immigrant households with low socioeconomic backgrounds in IPP programmes making students with these multiple identities the most vulnerable. We argue for an intersectionality framework to address this challenge and inform the implementation of the current Nova Scotia inclusive education policy.

Metafuntional Meaning of the Ministary of Education and Research Policy on Education during the Pandemic: Functional Systematic Linguistic Study

The Indonesian government, through the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research and Technology (Kemendikbudristek), is trying to overcome the spread of the Covid-19 virus so that it does not spread further. In connection with this, the Ministry of Education and Culture has issued a circular letter from the Minister of Education and Culture regarding the implementation of education policies during the Covid-19 emergency period and a circular letter from the Secretary General of the Ministry of Education and Culture regarding guidelines for organizing learning during the emergency period. This research aims to reveal ideational meaning which includes expressive meaning and logical meaning. This research is a type of qualitative research. The data for this research are clauses that contain ideational meaning. The data source is quoted from a letter published by the Ministry of Education and Culture, Research and Technology regarding learning during the 2020-2021 pandemic. Data collection techniques are carried out through documentation techniques, reading techniques and note-taking techniques. The data analysis techniques include data reduction, data presentation, inference and verification. The findings of this research are ideational meaning which includes (1) experiential meaning, and (2) logical meaning. The experiential meaning is, (a) the meaning of the material process in the phrase wash your hands, get used to a clean lifestyle . This phrase means living clean, preventing viruses,(b) the mental process in the phrase knowing learning methods contains the meaning of understanding, and in the phrase getting used to a clean lifestyle contains the meaning of habituation, (c) verbal process of the phrase implementing health protocols and hopefully we can share with each other. The first verbal phrase contains the meaning of prevention, and helping each other in dealing with Covid 19, (d) the relational process in the phrase being an ambassador for change and implementing cough etiquette, both phrases contain the meaning of preventing virus transmission, (e) the behavioral process in the phrase avoiding physical contact and the phrase limiting guests. This phrase contains the meaning of keeping your distance. (2) Logical meaning, namely the use of conjunctions and, after, as long as, because, as, as, and before.
 Keywords: metafunctional meaning, ideational meaning of policy, education, pandemic times.

Local Wisdom-Based Character Building Empowerment at Junior High Schools In Indonesia

Adolescent moral abnormalities are caused by several circumstances, including the weak grasp of religion in a culture where science can accomplish everything. Character education in schools is difficult because student character issues persist. The amount of moral crisis cases suggests that educational institutions are failing to transform student character. This study aimed to determine the implementation of character education policies in schools, the role of teachers in character education, and the role of parents in character education, character education models. This research was conducted using quantitative research using the one-group pretest-posttest design method. In the research, the sampling was carried out by means of saturated sampling. The sample of this study were 30 students of grade seven in junior high school. Based on the results of this study, the results of hypothesis testing using the non-parametric Smirnov test using SPSS 21 can be concluded that (tcount ttable) with tcount = 10.30 ttable = 2.035. Then Ha is accepted, and Ho is rejected so that it can be concluded that the application of character education based on local wisdom is an implication of character conditions that are reduced by various impacts of current scientific and technological advances. The importance of character education based on local wisdom in schools is to remind and cultivate the noble values of the Indonesian nation.

Opinions of the Top Managers of the Ministry of National Education on the Implementation of Physical Education Policies in Schools

"World Physical Education Summit" was held in Berlin in 1999. In the summit, participants from more than 80 countries have determined the policies and reforms for the common solution of all problems related to physical education teaching. At the end of the Berlin Summit, the policies and reforms related to physical education have reconsidered and regulated in many countries. As it is well known, the firstly responsible agency in teaching physical education policies in Turkey is the Ministry of National Education (MEB). Therefore, in this study, it is aimed to reveal the views of the top level managers of the MEB. In this study, phenomenology design which is one of the qualitative research methods has been used. The study group of the research consists of 11 senior managers working in the Ministry of National Education. The data have been analyzed using the semi-structured interview technique and content analysis method. According to the findings of the research, MEB senior managers have listed the components of a quality physical education program as teachers, school administrators, equipment and physical conditions (facility, hall, etc.). They have stated that the biggest obstacles for the physical education curriculum to reach the desired goals are the inadequacy of tools and equipment in schools, the unsuitability of physical conditions, and the fact that the same types of schools do not have the physical conditions at similar standard. They considered the goals and strategies in the development and implementation of physical education curriculum as physical and academic collaborations.

Let’s face it, the racial politics are always there: A critical race approach to policy implementation in the wake of anti-CRT rhetoric

School communities across the United States are experiencing increasing calls to remove the teaching of critical race theory (CRT) from their curricula despite not actually doing so in practice. This anti-CRT push is part of a larger, conservative agenda to ban teaching “divisive” topics in public schools and exemplifies the underlying racial politics existent in educational policy implementation. In this article, we analyze the legal efforts to ban CRT and anti-racist teaching in one state through a framework that situates policy implementation within CRT, which seeks to advance how whiteness, interest convergence, racial realism, and the erasure of people of color are continual to policy implementation. Through a critical discourse analysis of anti-CRT rhetoric, we illustrate how predictable patterns such as white backlash, overt racism, racial violence, and racial trauma are brought to light in policy implementation. We then offer an example of CRT as critical race praxis (CRP) in another state that works to counter racism and create anti-racist change in policy design and implementation. CRP is perhaps one tool school leaders have at their disposal to subvert whiteness and white supremacy in policymaking, especially policy implementation.

Overcoming Obstacles for the Inclusion of Visually Impaired Learners through Teacher–Researcher Collaborative Design and Implementation

Teacher preparation to address the needs of disabled learners in mainstream mathematics classrooms is quintessential for the implementation of the inclusive educational policies that governments are often committed to. To identify teacher preparation needs, we draw on data and analyses from the doctoral study of the first author, who endorsed sociocultural and embodied perspectives in an investigation—first exploratory, then interventional—of visually impaired (VI) learners’ experiences and their teachers’ inclusion discourses. Here, we focus on the intertwined contributions of physical and digital resources in the mathematical learning experiences of VI pupils, as these resources co-existed simultaneously in the observed mathematics lessons. We first summarise findings from the exploratory phase that highlighted inclusion issues related to resource use in the mathematics classroom. We then offer a critical account of the circumstantial and systemic obstacles that impeded the successful intertwinement of digital and physical resources and discuss teacher–researcher collaborative design and implementation of classroom tasks (auditory, tactile) in the intervention phase. We conclude by making the case that well-meaning individual teacher–researcher collaboration is a necessary condition for such interventions to succeed but not a sufficient condition for these interventions to be scaled up and have longevity.

Intergovernmental relations and national education policy implementation in Lagos State, Nigeria

ABSTRACT Intergovernmental relations (IGR), the interaction among multiple levels of government, is an essential factor in implementing public policy in federations. Effective collaboration among numerous agencies of government is necessary for achieving policy goals. This study investigated the IGR framework as an essential factor in implementing the National Policy on Primary Education (NPPE) in Lagos State, Nigeria. The study was guided by administrative federalism theory and primary data were collected using in-depth interviews. This was complemented with secondary data from the scholarly literature and official publications. Data obtained were content analyzed. Findings from the study indicate that intergovernmental relations in Lagos State were characterized by a low level of trust between the implementing agencies, which undermined the achievement of the primary education policy goals. Increased dialogue among officials of the levels of government to achieve the buy-in of all implementing agencies would raise the level of trust needed for effective collaboration.

Managing educational policy implementation at secondary education level

The paper which examined managing education policy implementation at the secondary education level for effective practice was guided by two research questions and two hypotheses. The study adopted descriptive survey research design. The population of the study consists of twenty-one (21) public secondary schools in Aguata Local Government Area of Anambra State. The study utilized simple random sampling technique to select eleven (11) public secondary schools, from the selected schools, eleven (11) principals and thirty-five (35) teachers were picked for the study making a total of three hundred and ninety-six (396). Self-designed instrument entitled “Managing Education Policy Implementation for Effective Practice Questionnaire” (MEPIEPQ) was used to elicit information from the respondents. Validity of the instrument was ensured using expert reviews while Cronbach Alpha was used to compute its reliability which yielded an index of 0.82. Frequency counts and mean ratings were used to answer the research questions while t-test statistics was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The findings revealed among others that managing education policy implementation at the secondary education level is challenged first by educational resources deficiency and concludes that one of the determinants of educational policy implementation is the provision of quality educational resources in sufficient quantity which is totally lacking in managing education policy implementation in Aguata, LGA of Anambra State. The researcher therefore recommended that the policy blue-print should be backed up with the sufficient educational resources for its implementation to enhance effective practice and functional educational delivery process.