School Reform Research Articles

Gentilejeva šolska reforma in slovensko šolstvo na Primorskem 1918–1943

The article discusses the history of the educational system in the Slovene Littoral (Primorska) in the interwar period, focusing on the northern part of the region. It highlights assimilation pressures that started with the Italian occupation at the end of the First World War and intensified with the rise of fascism. In detail, it presents the impact of the school reform of 1923, which was named after the education minister of the time, Giovanni Gentile; in the next twenty years, this reform enabled a systematic denationalisation of Slovenians in Italy and opened the field of education to fascist ideology. Activities in defence of the nation, which relied foremost on patriotic families and Slovenian priests, largely negated this denationalisation.

Conflict-competent leadership

Conflict management is one of the most stressful and frustrating aspects of a school leader’s job. An inability to overcome conflicting viewpoints, ever more palpable in today’s polarized climate, stymies innumerable school reform efforts. Yet, the subject is rarely examined in graduate-level leadership preparation programs or in-service professional development. Robert Feirsen and Seth Weitzman explain that conflict in schools is normal and discuss why knowing how to manage conflict can strengthen leaders and build capacity for school improvement. They offer specific strategies to build conflict resolution skills and embed collaborative problem solving in school culture.

Instructional leadership practices: Exploring deputy principal’s instructional leadership practices – A Zimbabwean case study

School reform efforts have focussed on the principal as the major determinant of students’ outcome without saying much on the contribution of deputy principals. Deputy principals are 2nd on the school’s hierarchical structure. The distributed leadership construct advocates more actors in instructional leadership. In this study we examined whether deputy principals were engaged in instructional leadership practices for overall student performance. The study was carried out in high schools of the Gutu district of the Masvingo province in Zimbabwe. A qualitative research approach and a case study design were adopted for the study. Three deputy principals, 1 deputising at a government-run school, another at a church-run school and the other at a rural district council-run school were purposively sampled for document analysis, observation and multiple interviews. The findings reveal that deputy principals were engaged in instructional leadership practices cursorily and to a limited extent. Deputy principals performed instructional leadership tasks through vision statement formulation, supervision of lessons, monitoring students’ progress and modelling good teaching behaviour. In the era of accountability and distributed leadership, pressure mounts for more engagement of deputy principals as instructional leaders. We, therefore, recommend a collective approach to vision development by all stakeholders and the development of protocols that encompass pre- and post-observation conferences that mainly focus on the teacher.

Suomalaisen koulutuspolitiikan tasa-arvopyrkimykset: heijastumia ja katvealueita kielikoulutuksessa

In this article, we examine Finnish language education in relation to the historical developments of promoting equality in Finnish education policy. We focus on language education in basic education and discuss this topic through the lens of three cases: the comprehensive school reform, projects to develop language education, and heritage language teaching. Although, in international comparison, the Finnish educational system has good outcomes for certain equality measures (e.g., small differences in student achievement between schools), many aspects of equality have been overlooked. In addition, success in PISA and achieving European goals of mother tongue plus two languages may have caused a certain level of complacency or reluctance to develop the educational system. When striving for justice and equality in language education, it is important to understand the historical and societal structures that have maintained and reproduced inequality up to today.

Experimental education projects and their data collection. Policy history on experiments with “children’s life questions” in welfare-state Sweden late 1960s to early 1970s

ABSTRACT During the twentieth century, an increasing amount of data was collected in connection with engineering of the modern states including their education systems. In the Nordic welfare states post WW2, such data were also generated in experimental projects aiming at reforming curriculum and education, and the data were accumulated either as documentation of the pedagogical experiments that took place or as a knowledge base paving the way for designing pedagogical experiments, or both. The article addresses the methodological challenges when analysing the archived data collected as part of experimental projects concerning children’s expressions of their “life questions” in Sweden following the big school reforms in the 1960s and continued in altogether six projects conducted from the late 1960s and up until the late 1990s. Based on the case of the UMRe (1969-1973), the first archived experimental project that was closely related to the 1960s education politics and education reforms, the article sheds light on the following questions: how should one understand such classroom data historically? How should one understand the archived data in their political and institutional contexts? Whose voices are possibly speaking in the data about “children’s life questions?”

An Unintended Consequence: How the Modern Austrian School System Helped Set Up the Slovene Nation

Abstract The Austrian school reforms of the 1850s and 1860s, inspired by the mindset of the democratic and civic revolutions of 1848, turned a predominantly feudal and religious school system into a modern one and brought basic education to the masses. In the following decades, literacy increased, basic knowledge spread, and the overwhelming influence of the Catholic church in school matters diminished. Yet, as an “unintended consequence,” these reforms also had great implications for the process of building what turned out to be “the Slovene nation.” This article aims to illustrate that the formation of Slovene national identity—based on the use of the Slovene language as the main marker of Slovene ethnicity—was implemented to a large extent with the help of the Austrian school system and its efforts at centralization, systematization, and modernization. Measures like the creation of a school subject for the Slovene language, Slovene reading materials in school textbooks, and statistical categorization within school administrations played a crucial role in that process.

The new Ukrainian school reform: Achievements, developments and challenges

AbstractThis article describes the New Ukrainian School reform and its conceptual framework. The reform builds on advanced pedagogical experience, best education practices, European competency frameworks and the promotion of national values. The system‐wide reform focuses on competency‐based content for teacher professional development, safe learning environments, inclusion and the digitalisation of education. Also, it addresses the internal and external quality assessment of education. The reform is financed through central government grants and the budgets of local governments. To test the newly developed content, the reform was piloted at 143 schools one year ahead of the nationwide roll‐out. The schools are a representative sample of schools in Ukraine. The pilot study involved monitoring student learning outcomes, teacher preparedness to implement the reform, and organisation of education environments. Methods used for the pilot study included a survey, test, pedagogical observations, and secondary analysis of statistics. The national implementation of the reform started in 2017 and is planned to be completed by 2030. Russia's full‐scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has contributed to obstacles and risks such as learning losses, lacking school safety, absence of funding for the development of schools and for printing textbooks. We describe measures undertaken in Ukraine to promote the reform and good results. A range of challenges remain, such as rebuilding destroyed schools, optimising the school network in line with demographic changes and organising shelters at schools. Additional challenges include the promotion of digital technologies at schools, closing learning gaps and the provision of psychological support at school.

An examination of public discourse about teachers’ collective bargaining rights in a portfolio school district

Employing an institutional logics framework and critical discourse analysis, this study examines the discourse of participants in a stakeholder-feedback meeting about a proposal by the Denver Public School board to extend collective bargaining rights to teachers in the district's innovation schools. The findings provide insight into the logics that control how teacher unions and collective bargaining agreements are understood by proponents of autonomous schools and portrayed to the general public through media. The analysis explores how connections to power and status allowed some stakeholder groups to influence the board to revise the policy to one more favorable toward market-oriented school reform. In this case, the dominant narrative that emerged from the stakeholder feedback cycle was one in which the collective bargaining rights of teachers were positioned as a threat to autonomous schools’ ability to provide “what's best for kids” in their classrooms.

Pathways to progress? – collective conscientisation and progressive school reform in Aboriginal education

ABSTRACT Setting in train various forms of curriculum and pedagogic change in schools whilst seeking to improve both teaching strategies and Aboriginal educational outcomes in Australia is a complex business. This involves a sustained effort to equip the next generation of educators with the skills and knowledges to identify, diagnose, and devise remedies for the ‘problems’ that are sometimes ascribed to Aboriginal learners. The work of Paolo Freire is a point of reference here. However, the halo around Freire and his work may occlude thinking about how to evoke his concepts, (specifically conscientisation) in the contemporary Australian context. We discuss the strengths and weaknesses of Freire’s work in this light. We also discuss the Culturally Nourishing Schooling (CNS) project, a whole school reform model where teachers are encouraged to shift their reflective gaze onto themselves and on the settings in which they work. We argue that for ‘success’ in education to no longer be defined by deficit thinking, firstly, conscientisation must be a collective process. To change teachers and their practice and schooling requires a different conception of both change and of conscientisation.

Civil society organisations transforming teacher professional development: Social, Emotional, and Ethical Learning in wartime Ukraine

AbstractA unique model of government and civil society cooperation has emerged in Ukraine since the Revolution of Dignity in 2014 and grew even more important amid the full‐scale invasion of Russia. Recent reforms and teacher professional development in Ukraine build on this model that promotes addressing national‐level challenges in equitable partnerships between government and civil society organisations (CSOs). This paper considers examples and results of their cooperation and draws on: (1) experiences in teacher education—specifically, from the EdWay national platform and the SEE Learning programme, both implemented by EdCamp Ukraine NGO (EdCamp); (2) national sociological studies—specifically, the 2018 study Teach and Learn, and the 2021 Feasibility Study on Opportunities for Social and Emotional Learning in Ukraine; (3) and data from the 2022 case study SEE Learning in Ukraine Through Teachers' Eyes: Before, During, and After the War. Experiences and study data demonstrate the need to support Ukrainian teachers in developing social and emotional skills both for self‐help and for students. These findings align with the requirements of the current New Ukrainian School reform. The authors discuss the potential education CSOs possess in addressing teacher needs for developing emotional and ethical competence and corresponding soft skills. It may be predicted that government and civil sector collaboration will continue to play an important role in the development of education in Ukraine. These expectations are supported by Ukraine's involvement in the 2023 OECD Survey on Social and Emotional Skills where EdCamp is the designated national research centre in Ukraine.

‘A square peg in a round hole’. Transgender and gender diverse youth and schooling in South Africa

There is a continuing thread of research evidence that schools acknowledge just two self-evident genders and that trans and gender diverse (TGD) youth face significant marginalisation and exclusion. Drawing on a qualitative study of educational staff and seven TGD school-attending youth in South Africa, this paper explores two lines of inquiry – how schools as cultural and social spaces produce and resist cisnormativity and how TGD school-attending youth orientate themselves in or out of line with normative power? Shedding light on how orientation marks out boundary lines and practices of differentiation, the analysis highlights how schools produce a field of objects that ensures that schooling is orientated around the cisnormative body. The paper argues that schooling is a space where TGD youth learn their place, which is exclusion and marginalisation. The findings point to the need for urgent school reform, highlighting the need for important intervention paths to address gender diversity and schooling.

Дискуссия по книге А.И. Кубышкина «Город и Мантия. Американский университет в структуре гражданского общества»

The new book by Alexander Kubyshkin, “Town and Gown. The American University in the Structure of Civic Society”, continues the discussion on U.S. education. N.A. Tsvetkova notes in the essay the unique methodological approach used by the author, who combines historical studies and memoirs, that makes the book an exceptional historiographical occasion in Russian-American studies. The review notes the following important topics that this book raises for consideration: metaphorical research, questions on the national and global status of a university, the dilemma of isomorphism, educational environment architecture, and the role of travelogues in understanding US universities. A.A. Sergunin’s essay “‘Gown’ in ‘Town’ and for ‘Town’. About the Place of the American University in Society”) focuses on the part of the study where the contribution of the university to the development of the city is determined. Comparing with his own observations, the author, following A.I. Kubyshkin, notes that the American University plays a multidimensional role, first of all, in the local community, especially if it performs the role of a “town-forming enterprise” in a relatively small settlement. A.L. Perevezetsev, in his essay “The American University: From Past to Future,” focuses on the evolution of the role of universities in the development of American cities, noting their economic contribution to the prosperous existence of the surrounding community. The author of the essay also draws attention to the extensive range of sources that the author of the book has accumulated over the years. The essay by S.B. Tokareva indicates the specifics of the author’s style in the book by A.I. Kubyshkin. The author notes that the book is not a rigorous academic study. Being written in a doxatic, subjective modality, it represents the reflections of a well-versed and interested author who offers the reader a panoramic overview of American university life, in which a historical excursion to the origins of American higher education is combined with a lively description of its present. Special attention is paid to reflections on ways of reforming the American and Russian higher education systems. The arguments against the assessment of the reform of the Russian higher school of the late 1990s and early 2000s as a “catch-up modernization” are presented.

Principals’ attitudes towards on-site school evaluations: contribution to sustained school reform

Principals’ attitudes towards on-site school evaluations: contribution to sustained school reform

Analyzing Reading Education Reforms in Chinese Schools Using an Ecosystem Model: Insights from China's 2018 PISA Reading Test

This paper explores the imperative of enhancing reading proficiency among Chinese students, particularly for studying abroad. Drawing on the 2018 PISA test, it comprehensively analyzes macro and micro factors in the educational ecosystem. It aims to optimize reading literacy education in China using the PISA and Chinese regional tests. It provides recommendations at systemic and individual learner levels. At the macro level, the study examines national policies, cultural values, and the need for a comprehensive policy framework. Adequate resources, evidence-based practices, and a reading culture are advocated. A comprehensive national policy framework, resource allocation, evidence-based practices, and a reading culture are crucial. At the micro level, the significance of individual factors, curriculum design, and parental involvement are emphasized. An effective curriculum, critical literacy skills, and parental support are essential. In conclusion, this paper acknowledges the need to enhance reading skills among Chinese students studying abroad. By examining macro and micro factors, it offers practical recommendations to optimize reading literacy education. This multifaceted approach considers national policies, cultural values, curriculum design, and parental engagement. By addressing these aspects, China can equip its students with the necessary reading skills to thrive in a globalized world.

Professional Learning Communities in Chinese Preschools: Challenging Western Frameworks

In the education field, professional learning communities (PLCs) are regarded as an effective method for fostering professional development for teachers, enhancing student learning and achievement, and promoting school reform. Quality leadership and management are understood to be essential for schools to become effective PLCs. Mainly proposed by Western scholars, existing PLC frameworks explicitly or implicitly assume that PLCs should be initiated and led by teachers themselves, following a bottom-up approach. The goal of this conceptual overview paper is to challenge certain taken-for-granted core principles of Western PLC frameworks by analyzing the current approach to PLCs adopted by preschools in mainland China, which follow a top-down leadership and management approach. We review multiple research streams, including policy frameworks and regulations, as well as the most relevant conceptual, theoretical, and empirical studies published in recent years. After reviewing China’s core socio-cultural traditional values, we describe the recent policies that have mandated the establishment and implementation of PLCs in Chinese preschools. We then review several recent studies that demonstrate that, despite profound differences to Western frameworks, PLCs in Chinese preschools are effective in benefitting teachers and highly regarded by the relevant stakeholders. The literature shows that Chinese preschools enact culturally situated versions of PLCs, characterized by some standard PLC principles (e.g., shared vision, collaboration, and collective responsibility) alongside features that resonate with Confucian values (e.g., strong hierarchical structure, guidance of external experts, internal leadership support, and greater emphasis on ecological support rather than personal agency and autonomy). We conclude that Chinese preschools merit international attention, as their approach to leadership and management allow us to reconsider certain core principles of Western PLC frameworks. Future directions for PLC policy and practice are suggested.

The Effects of Principals’ Transformational Leadership on Teachers’ Self-Efficacy in Federal Government Educational Institutions in Karachi Region

Today's world sees leadership ideas used effectively in most organizations. The researcher wanted to investigate how school leaders' transformational methods affect teachers' self-efficacy sampled 160 secondary school teachers from Karachi's Federal Government Educational Institutions.Descriptive-correlational quantitative survey research. The Multifactor – Leadership Questionnaire by Bass and Avolio and the Teacher's Self-Efficacy Scale 1 (long form) by Megan Tschanmen-Moran and Mary Anita Woolfolk Hoy were adapted. SPSS was used for data analysis and treatment. A regression research found that all eleven institutional principle leadership styles affect teacher efforts with zero coefficients and further showed that two number variables had B-coefficient values of 0.06 (contingent reward) and 0.07 (effectiveness), with related probability not exactly at 0.05.Teachers' self-efficacy is anticipated to rise 0.06 and 0.07 points due to dependent awards and effectiveness. The study recommended that school principals maintain their leadership styles ranking and that more school advancements and reforms be enthusiastically recommended.

Effect of Duration of Education on Sexual Activity and the Mediating Role of Illness in Later Life: A Natural Experiment in English Schooling Reform.

This study aimed to examine the effect of increases in the duration of education on sexual activity in later life using the instrumental variable approach. Cross-sectional data were obtained from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, Wave 6 (2012/2013) for the analysis. The effect of the duration of education on a binary variable for sexual activity in the past month was examined by two-stage least squares estimation using the 1947 schooling reform as the instrument. A total of 1493 participants were included. The 1947 schooling reform significantly extended the duration of education by a mean of 0.86 years (95% confidence interval (CI), 0.52-1.20; F = 24.70) for men and 0.81 years for women (95% CI, 0.54-1.09; F = 33.82). The second-stage regression showed that an additional year of education increased the probability of having sexual activity in the past month by 0.16 points (95% CI, 0.07-0.25) for men and decreased the probability of having sexual activity in the past month by 0.18 points (95% CI, - 0.30- - 0.05) for women. The causal mediation analysis revealed that long-standing illness mediated the mechanism between education and sexual activity, but the mediational effect was clearly observed only for men: the indirect effect for men was 0.10 (95% CI, 0.01-0.20; the proportion mediated, 78.1%) and for women was - 0.16 (95% CI, - 1.23-0.90; the proportion mediated, 97.8%), respectively. This study confirmed the causal effect of education on sexual activity. However, the effect for men and women was completely opposite.

Towards a New Understanding of Swedish School Reforms: A Sociological Analysis of Textbooks’ Role in Reforms of School Mathematics, 1919–1970

This article sheds new light on the Swedish comprehensive school reform implemented in the 1960s (the Grundskolan reform) and the four decades preceding the reform. This reform was typical for the Nordic countries. The presented study concerns reforms in mathematics education and how change was initiated and driven before and during the comprehensive school reform. The analysis has a focus on the role of textbooks in educational governance. The analysis is based on Bourdieu’s field theory and concerns how a new way of preparing and driving reforms of school subjects restructured relationships between the state, textbook producers, and teachers. This article is mainly a synthesis of results from several previous studies on governance of Swedish mathematics education. The analysis reveals not only a new characteristic of the comprehensive school reform (swift and radical rather than slow and successive), but also a bottom-up movement in the school system, which has been commonly understood as top-down, very centralised, and slow moving. The results of the analysis help explain why the Swedish comprehensive school reform gained early acceptance and momentum. Another contribution of this article concerns historical textbook research, particularly regarding how fundamental changes in authorship of textbooks (from visible individual authors to anonymous collectives) can be related to educational governance and changes in power structures.

Ideological aspects of the educational process in schools of the Ukrainian SSR in the conditions of liberalization 1985-1991

The need for a complete cleansing of Ukraine's socio-cultural space from Soviet ideological narratives today highlights the necessity to analyse key ideological concepts that were instilled in the younger generation through the system of general secondary education of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. The purpose of the article is to analyse the ideological aspects of filling the educational process in schools of the Ukrainian SSR in the conditions of liberalization in 1985-1991, the search for an educational paradigm in the process of school reform. The research methodology is based on the principles of historicism, scientificity, objectivity; analytical, descriptive methods, as well as the method of systematization and critical analysis were applied in the work. The article analyses the peculiarities of the ideological content filling of the educational process in schools of the Ukrainian SSR and the features of Soviet ideological education in the conditions of the proclaimed course of “perestroika” in 1985-1991, the search for an educational paradigm in the process of school reform. The ideological and educational strategy of the initial process, the main ideological narratives of the content filling of educational subjects, which were supposed to form “Soviet” patriotism and political consciousness of Soviet citizens, are analysed. It is established that an exclusive role in the educational process was assigned to the political education of teachers, and the unity of views in strategically important directions for the communist regime was ensured by censorship, which controlled the publication of educational and other literature. It is noted that the democratization of socio-political life, which intensified after the XXVII Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and the liberalization of the educational sphere became irreversible. Progressive teachers introduced new methods into school education, sought means of updating the educational process, experimented with new materials in the lessons of periodical publications. The special demand and need for updating were caused by disciplines of the Ukrainian studies cycle, and the most relevant in the educational environment became historical themes and previously banned topics of Ukraine's national life. The materials of this article can be practically applied for further research of the history of general education schools of the Soviet Ukraine in the complex period of socio-political and socio-cultural transformations of the “perestroika” era

“Hope in the Power of Community”: An Interview with shea wesley martin on Writing the Engagement Guide for Punished for Dreaming: How School Reform Harms Black Children and How We Heal by Bettina Love

“Hope in the Power of Community”: An Interview with shea wesley martin on Writing the Engagement Guide for Punished for Dreaming: How School Reform Harms Black Children and How We Heal by Bettina Love