Local School Level Research Articles

CURRENT TRENDS OF EDUCATION MANAGERS’ PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: NATIONAL AND GLOBAL EXPERIENCE

Modern trends of education managers’ professional development in Ukraine, Finland, Singapore, and the Czech Republic are investigated in the article on the basis of the analysis of the features of managerial activities.The aim of the article is to analyze the trend of education managers’ professional development in terms of modern educational transformations.Methodology. During the coverage of modern trends in education managers’ professional development, a number of methods were used that contribute to the awareness and analysis of the problem, in particular: analysis of regulatory-and-legal documents and educational-and-methodological sources on the problem of education managers’ professional development; comparative analysis – to study the peculiarities of managerial activities in Ukraine and abroad; systematization and generalization – for formulating conclusions.The scientific novelty consists in the systematization and generalization of the specific features of managerial activity in Ukraine and abroad and, on this basis, the determination of trends in education managers’ professional development in the context of modern educational transformations.Conclusions. In the process of research, it was concluded that managers’ professional development is determined by the specific features of their professional activities. In the national education system, the educational paradigm expands and modifies the content and mechanisms of management activities, the implementation of the autonomy of the educational establishment (financial, academic, personnel and organizational) and provides for the implementation of the following types of management: organizational, educational, financial-and-economic, personnel, quality system. In foreign educational systems, there is a trend towards the globalization of management activities, which involves projecting the impact of management decisions at the local school level on other educational establishments and the development of the country as a whole, and the experience of implementing the systematic involvement of heads of educational establishments in the formation of national educational policy.In this way, the professional development of the head of an educational establishment is formed on the basis of the relevant state priorities for the development of education, professional standards, public demands, regional characteristics and individual educational needs.

Principals’ Enactment of Policy on Research-based Education: Interpreting and Facilitating Policy in Local School Settings in Sweden

ABSTRACT Increased international attention paid to research-based education has resulted in various national initiatives to exploit research in education. However, this poses challenges for school professionals. Based on an ethnographic single case study in a Swedish educational setting, this article investigates how national policy on research-based education is realized at local school level from the perspective of principals. Theoretically, the study applies a policy enactment understanding, arguing that policy is put into action in original ways in various local settings. Through thematic analysis four interrelated main strategies deployed by the principals were identified: strategies facilitating durable structures, developing learning cultures, developing teachers’ competencies, and strengthening leadership. The strategies demonstrate the complexities in policy enactment as it involves multiple embedded local processes and settings. Additionally, the study contributes to an understanding of how different interrelated national policies and initiatives intersect when enacted at school level.

From marketising to empowering: Evaluating union responses to devolutionary policies in education

AbstractMajor reforms in education, globally, have focused on increased accountability and devolution of responsibility to the local school level to improve the efficiency and quality of education. While emerging research is considering implications of these changed governance arrangements at both a school and system level, little attention has been afforded to teacher union responses to devolutionary reform, despite teaching being a highly union-organised profession and the endurance of decentralising-style reforms in education for over 40 years. Drawing upon a power resources approach, this article examines union responses in cases of devolutionary reform in a populous Australian state. Through analysing evolving policy discourse, from anti-bureaucratic, managerialising rhetoric to a ‘post-bureaucratic, empowerment’ agenda, this article contributes to understandings of union power for resisting decentralising, neoliberal policy agendas by exposing the limits of public sector unions mobilising traditional power resources and arguing for strengthening of discursive and symbolic power.

Understanding L1 and L2 teachers’ talk about ‘digitalisation’

In Sweden, The Swedish national strategy for the digitalisation of the educational system has led to a vast number of projects. This study builds on material from a continuing professional development project among L1 and L2 teachers in Swedish on a local school level. The aim is to contribute to the understanding of how the teachers perceive the integration of digital technology in the educational practice by deconstructing their discussions in a Critical discourse analysis perspective. Research questions: 1) What perceptions about the integration of digital technology in the educational practice can be discerned? 2) How are these perceptions related to the teaching profession and the teaching of Swedish? and 3) How do the teachers build their understanding through the discussions? The study shows how a discourse of challenges dominates the teachers’ discussions and that the integration of digital technology in the educational practice is partly perceived as a threat to the teaching profession and, to some extent, the teaching of Swedish. A key finding is that in the way the discussions are enacted, ‘digitalisation’ becomes the reason for what happens. Consequently, the abstraction of ‘digitalisation’ seems to be a hindrance to the development work.

Partnerships to support quality education in Haiti: a case study addressing the Sustainable Development Goals

ABSTRACT This article provides a case study to examine a partnership involving Haitian and Canadian organisations to address Sustainable Development Goal 4, Quality Education, and Sustainable Development Goal 17, Partnerships. Data collection included interviews with leaders of a professional development initiative for teachers in northern Haiti, participants in the initiative, and observations of participants. Findings from three key components of the case study are explored: understanding context and partner needs, monitoring progress by incorporating research and evaluation activities, and mobilising change at the local school level. The article raises important consideration for partnerships to support the Sustainable Development Goals including trust and relationship-building, meeting localised priorities, and the involvement of government actors in fragile states. The article contributes to the limited literature that examines how partnerships, the focus of Sustainable Development Goal 17, can support the advancement of education in fragile contexts such as Haiti.

Multi-Layered Language Policy and Translanguaging Space a Mother Tongue Classroom in Primary School in Sweden

This article is aimed to demonstrate how language policy at the local school level may create space for translanguaging. Focus is on a Mother Tongue (MT) classroom for Somali in a primary school in Sweden by way of an analysis of layers of language policy, with focus on spatial aspects. The empirical material consists of policy documents, interviews and observations documented through field notes and photographs from an MT Somali classroom with grade six students. Through the use of a framework of language policy as layered and linguistic landscaping with a focus on aspects of time, place and social factors, the analysis shows how the mother tongue classroom may constitute a demarcated room, while simultaneously interacting with other spaces both inside and outside school. The understanding of policy as layered made power relations visible in terms of language that moves between layers. It also made visible how school discourses shift between micro/macro, management/practice and inside/outside in the creation of space dominated by Somali and Swedish. It became apparent that an environment that supports the use of Somali inside the MT classroom may increase the likelihood of the pupils using Somali outside the classroom.

Relational pedagogy and the policy failure of contemporary Australian schooling: activist teaching and pedagogically driven reform

ABSTRACT This paper considers the implications of the current landscape of education policy reform in Australian schooling. We argue that the decontextualisation of education policy enactments and the eschewing of concerns relevant at the local level of the school over the past two decades have prompted various reform agendas to fail. We contend that recognition of the deep contextualisation of schools is paramount in any attempt at renewal. Therefore, it is at the local school-level that reform agendas can and should be directed by the pedagogical and innovative work of educators. We focus on ‘relational pedagogy’ because it offers opportunities to enact school-wide reform and enhance the professional capacities of educators as pedagogical innovators. Contemporary education reform agendas are best situated and registered within school sites and relational pedagogy stands as a deeply contextualised provocation for enacting school renewal.

Multilingual education in minority-dominated regions in Xinjiang, People’s Republic of China

ABSTRACTRecent developments in multilingualism and multilingual education in minority-dominated regions in China highlight the importance of policy studies to support the national goals of achieving multilingualism [Feng, A. W., and B. Adamson, eds. 2015. Trilingualism in Education in China: Models and Challenges. Dordrecht: Springer], especially in remote western regions such as Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR) that pose geographical, socio-political, and educational challenges. This study investigates the effectiveness of language policies and the implementation of multilingual education for minority dominated regions in XUAR, and of the extent to which those policies support multilingual education. The data mainly comprise policy documents issued at the national, regional and institutional level, supplemented by interviews with policy makers at regional and local levels. The study finds that, while the policies at both national and regional levels regarding language education in China are generally supportive of multilingualism, in reality, some of the implemented practices at local school levels in XUAR are not totally consistent with the policy goals, while weak local capacity also hinders the implementation of multilingual education.

Relations between an improving Swedish LEA and school principals with joint quality and improvement responsibilities

ABSTRACT This study addresses a fundamental but neglected aspect of efforts to ensure quality and improvement in a decentralised school system: the relationship between the local education authority (LEA) and local school principals. Empirically, it is based on analysis of relevant documents and interviews with key actors in a Swedish LEA (a municipality), selected as a deviant and successful case. The data analysis is rooted in the theoretical concepts of sense-making and framing. The results show that to handle the joint responsibility the LEA introduced new artefacts for quality and improvement work. These included an expanded support unit for quality and improvement, a visionary document for all educational units and a system of tools and forums to expand quality work at local school level and stimulate collaboration between LEA-level actors and school principals. The principals saw a need for most of the artefacts and regarded them as useful. However, the analysis also reveals some negative resonance concerning relevance for the local schools and expectations of uniformity. In addition to presenting and discussing these findings, issues concerning trust and relationships are highlighted in this paper.

Who owns the knowledge? Knowledge construction as part of the school improvement process

When Sweden began to experience a steady decline in student achievement results in PISA and TIMMS, the Swedish National Agency of Education initiated a model of collaboration with Swedish universities aimed at providing support to schools with falling student achievement scores. In this article, we examine how such projects can work at the local school level. Our focus is mainly on how knowledge construction can be realized for teachers and principals; we reflect on whose knowledge is valued, and we explore what role research texts play in school improvement. Working within the frames of both social and cultural processes, we looked at how teachers and principals are provided opportunities to develop and define their own professional understanding of school improvement. We found that knowledge construction of school improvement, as both a political and cultural process, needed to be based on local needs. The guidance of a knowledgeable other in interpreting research literature on school improvement can support such knowledge construction only when the local needs and history are part of the process.

Implementing inclusive education policies – the challenges of organizational change in a Danish municipality

ABSTRACTIn 2012 the Danish Parliament passed legislation mandating that 96% of all students in compulsory public education attend regular classes. This target generally led to severe strains within local education authorities in Denmark. Civil servants, school principals, and teachers experienced inclusive education as a challenge rather than as an opportunity. In 2015 a municipality in Northern Jutland even decided to increase the target to 97% of all students. This article analyses the process and challenges of how inclusive education policies in this particular municipality were implemented and enacted between 2015 and 2019. Drawing on qualitative data, the article maps the discourse surrounding inclusive education and the organizational interactions between three levels of the local education authority: the political level, the civil servant level, and the local school level. The concluding discussion reports the findings and sheds light on the local challenges of organizational change in terms of inclusive education policies.

Current and Ideal Performance Appraisal: Employee Perceptions in an Australian Faith-Based Education System

This article discusses performance appraisal in an education system context. With teacher quality key to improving student performance, school education systems must consider the role of performance appraisal on both teacher and principal development and improvement. This article describes the perceptions of employees within a faith-based education system as to current and suggested improvements in performance appraisal processes. This study utilised a qualitative approach for research design, adopting semi-structured interviews to collect employee perceptions. The employees indicated mistrust in the present performance appraisal processes, noted inconsistent use of performance appraisal, identified a need for evaluator training, and suggested the use of both an internal and external person in the evaluation and development space. These faithbased education system employees indicated that a district wide approach to the performance appraisal process, with flexibility at the local school level, would be beneficial for both the respective schools and the education system.

School autonomy, school accountability and social justice: stories from two Australian school principals

ABSTRACT This paper explores issues of social justice in relation to the practice of two principals from two Australian public schools. The stories of these principals are set against a policy backdrop in Australia that has seen renewed emphasis on school autonomy reform, on the one hand, and heightened external accountability and compliance, on the other. Drawing on interview data from a small-scale study, we highlight some of the tensions for redistributive justice arising within this context. We examine the ways in which the principals’ efforts for redistributive justice at the local school level compromise redistributive justice more broadly. We highlight the ongoing significance of examining how principals are framing their decision-making in relation to social justice. Within the freedoms of the present climate, the paper draws attention to the enduring imperative of centralised equity-focused accountabilities.

State Case Study of Computing Education Governance

High school computing education reform efforts have been ongoing across the United States, particularly in the past decade. Although national Computer Science (CS) for All initiatives are promising, states retain control over education policies. Recent computing education reform efforts in the state of Maryland (U.S.A.) focused on providing every public high school student with access to high-quality high school computing courses. Such access provides exposure to computing careers and better prepares a diverse pool of students for computing majors in college and the workforce. This comprehensive embedded multi-level case study examines the state’s computing education reform efforts from 2010 through 2016. The expansion of computing education indicates that while there was positive growth, the growth was not the same for all categories of public high school students. Top-down policies assist in providing leverage to elevate the need for CS; however, bottom-up efforts to support students and to enable teachers to retain autonomy and professionalism is also needed for CS expansion. Despite successes, barriers at the state, Local Education Agencies (LEA), school, and classroom levels persist and are discussed. The findings in this study can be applied to other states with similar governance structures and policies, and we provide specific recommendations.

Evaluating a high-stakes EFL speaking test: Teachers’ practices and views


 In the present paper, teachers’ implementation practices and views of practicality regarding a paired speaking test, part of a high-stakes national test of English as a foreign language (EFL) in the Swedish upper secondary school, were investigated. In Sweden, national tests are centrally developed but internally marked by teachers at the schools where they are administered. Two-hundred and sixty-seven teachers participated in a nation-wide online survey and answered closed and open-ended questions. The responses reflect how teachers implement and perceive the national speaking test in relation to purposes and guidelines. Furthermore, challenges relating to the implementation were also reported. The results showed that there were variations in how the national speaking test was implemented at the local school level. This has clear implications for standardisation, but must be considered in relation to the decentralised school system that the test is embedded in, which requires local decisions to be made and local responsibility to be taken. In addition, many teachers perceived that they did not receive enough support from the school management, indicating that clearer routines and administrative support are needed. Statistical tests were undertaken to explore potential differences related to certain background variables. It was found that school size accounted for some of the variation in teachers’ responses, with teachers at smaller schools perceiving the practical implementation of the oral tests to be more problematic and time-consuming. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of the findings for the practice of high-stakes speaking assessment programs, focusing on the educational context of the current investigation.

Educación para la Ciudadanía Global a nivel local: un análisis comparado de cuatro distritos urbanos estadounidenses

This paper focuses on exploring how education for global citizenship and competence is being defined and practiced within the U.S. education policy landscape, with a specific focus on the local primary and secondary school level. Against a framework of the multiple conceptions and forms of global citizenship education, including “at home,” “abroad,” and “comprehensive” approaches, the paper explores some select ways in which global citizenship education is developing in select local initiatives. We specifically examine the definitions and practices of global citizenship education in four urban school districts: Boston, Chicago, Seattle, and Washington, DC. Findings show a focus on global citizenship and global competency in local initiatives, but also illustrate multiple approaches to global citizenship education, revealing diverse system ecologies within the national system.

Making Sense, Making Do: Local District Implementation of a New State Induction Policy

Connecticut’s Teacher Education and Mentoring (TEAM) program is in its early stages of implementation. This study examined how local school districts implemented TEAM and identified factors that affected implementation. It was based on interviews with twenty-two participants at the state, district, and local school levels. The intentions of the program designers at the state level were compared to district and school level understanding of the program’s intentions and how those understandings influenced implementation. Additionally, factors affecting local understanding and implementation of the new program were described. The findings of this study suggest that there was close alignment of understanding between the state and local implementers on the key provisions of the program related to its role as a professional development tool. The data reveal tacit rather than explicit understanding at the local level of the program’s intention to improve student achievement. Variations in understanding can be attributed to other factors including contextual, structural, cognitive, and affective elements.

Devolving authority: the impact of giving public schools power to hire staff

Governments in the western world are increasingly experimenting with education policies that devolve responsibility for hiring and staffing to the local school level. Driven by forces of neoliberalism, marketisation and decentralisation, such reforms differentially affect schools as a result of various geographic and socio‐spatial factors. This article presents the findings of a recent study of public schools in the Australian state of New South Wales, and the impact that the government's Local schools, local decisions policy has had on staffing and hiring decisions within schools considered ‘hard‐to‐staff’. Drawing on interviews conducted with school principals and representatives of industrial bodies, this article reveals the differential and geographically diverse impact of devolutionary reform on ‘hard‐to‐staff’ schools. It posits that while the reforms facilitate the augmentation of staffing composition and enhanced decision‐making flexibility, the interaction of the policy with existing staffing processes undermines the reform's potential.

Differential Diagnosis of Dysgraphia, Dyslexia, and OWL LD: Behavioral and Neuroimaging Evidence.

In Study 1, children in grades 4 to 9 (N= 88, 29 females and 59 males) with persisting reading and/or writing disabilities, despite considerable prior specialized instruction in and out of school, were given an evidence-based comprehensive assessment battery at the university while parents completed questionnaires regarding past and current history of language learning and other difficulties. Profiles (patterns) of normed measures for different levels of oral and written language used to categorize participants into diagnostic groups for dysgraphia (impaired subword handwriting) (n=26), dyslexia (impaired word spelling and reading) (n=38), or oral and written language learning disability OWL LD (impaired oral and written syntax comprehension and expression) (n=13) or control oral and written language learners (OWLs) without SLDs (n=11) were consistent withreported history. Impairments in working memory components supporting language learning were also examined. In Study 2, right handed children from Study 1 who did not wear braces (controls, n=9, dysgraphia, n= 14; dyslexia, n=17, OWL LD, n=5) completed an fMRI functional connectivity brain imaging study in which they performed a word-specific spelling judgment task, which is related to both word reading and spelling, and may be impaired in dysgraphia, dyslexia, and OWL LD for different reasons. fMRI functional connectivity from 4 seed points in brain locations involved in written word processing to other brain regions also differentiated dysgraphia, dyslexia, and OWL LD; both specific regions to which connected and overall number of functional connections differed. Thus, results provide converging neurological and behavioral evidence, for dysgraphia, dyslexia, and OWL LD being different, diagnosable specific learning disabilities (SLDs) for persisting written language problems during middle childhood and early adolescence. Translation of the research findings into practice at policy and administrative levels and at local school levels is discussed.

What is the meaning of special education? Problem representations in Swedish policy documents: late 1970s–2014

In Sweden, as in many other countries, inclusion has been on the political agenda for a long time and has served as a blueprint and guiding principle for practical work in school. However, inclusive education has, by and large, been associated with special education measures, which seriously limit the chances of achieving the vision of inclusion. In this article, we analyse how the meaning of special education is constructed in policy documents from four distinct time periods of Swedish education policy from the late 1970s to 2014. The paper draws on an approach to scrutinise the process of problematisation in public policy-making. Based on the analysis, we argue that there are prospects of a hegemonic intervention regarding the meaning of special education during later years in Swedish education policy, emphasising an individual perspective and individual deficiencies. In contrast to inclusive ambitions, this perspective advocate segregated support measures. Finally, based on previous research and tendencies within the field, we present arguments in the concluding discussion why this hegemonic intervention in education policy also might attract the support of school personnel at the local school level and some potential consequences of the expansion of special education in Sweden.