Search

There is growing research interest in school inspection throughout Europe; however, there have been few comparative studies between Swedish and Norwegian school inspectorates. Such a study is necessary since little is known about how inspection policies are shaped through ‘governing modes’ in the two Nordic countries. This paper explores the similarities and differences between state school inspection policies within the two countries from 2002 to 2012. Based on a rigorous, comparative document analysis of 23 policy documents, a particular focus is given to how school inspection adheres to professional-bureaucratic control as a mode of governing and/or details national expectations through performance audit, potentially intervening into school practices. We demonstrate that even if the cases of public administration seem to be somewhat homogenous from the outside, there is substantial evidence of major differences in the inspection policies of these two countries which can be explored by comparative analysis. Specifically, this paper contributes both conceptually and comparatively to understanding how a study of purposive and evaluative modes of governing can add to the field of school inspection studies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper offers a model for evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of judicial involvement in educational reforms. It uses the model to analyze two case studies of court-led educational reforms in the third rail of Israeli politics – the curricula and the admission policies of ultra-Othodox (Haredi) schools. These case studies are located at the knotty junction of human rights, religion, and politics in education policy, generating concern in many countries. The conclusions demonstrate that even when the courts are cautious, judicial involvement in third rail educational reforms may produce impacts that drive the cogwheels of policy-making in directions that are apt to undermine the interests of the petitioners. Therefore, the choice of courts as a forum for shaping education policy in political third rails should be prudently considered. The paper also demonstrates the need to evaluate litigation by means of a contextual, evidence-based analysis. It highlights that in certain cases, what may appear to be unjustified judicial activism or restraint is, in fact, a reasonable response, whose harmful ramifications may be attributed to the context of political third rails. Even the best judges are not immune to the well-known assertion that ‘hard cases make bad law.’ [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper reveals the array of practices arising from strong policy pressure for improved student results in national literacy and numeracy tests in Australia: the National Assessment Programme in Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN). The paper provides an account of a policy context characterised by significant pressure upon teachers and principals to engage in practices to ensure improved outcomes on standardised literacy and numeracy tests, and of teachers and principals’ responses to these policy pressures. Drawing upon Bourdieu’s theory of practice, the article argues that what is described as the ‘field of schooling practices’ has become increasingly dominated by a ‘logic of enumeration’, and that high test results on standardised literacy and numeracy tests are increasingly valued capitals, evident in a strong focus upon teachers meeting, discussing and informing one another about NAPLAN; engaging in curriculum development practices which foreground NAPLAN, and; actively preparing students to sit the test, including, whether intentionally or unintentionally, teaching to the test. Such a focus has important implications for the sorts of practices most valued in schooling settings, as more educative logics are potentially marginalised under such circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Since the 1980s, state schools in England have been required to ensure transparency and accountability through the use of indicators and templates derived from the private sector and, more recently, globally circulating discourses of ‘good governance’ (an appeal to professional standards, technical expertise, and performance evaluation as mechanisms for improving public service delivery). The rise of academies and free schools (‘state-funded independent schools’) has increased demand for good governance, notably as a means by which to discipline schools,in particular school governors– those tasked with the legal responsibility of holding senior leadership to account for the financial and educational performance of schools. A condition and effect of school autonomy, therefore, is increased monitoring and surveillance of all school governing bodies. In this paper, I demonstrate how these twin processes combine to produce a new modality of state power and intervention; a dominant or organizing principle by which government steer the performance of governors through disciplinary tools of professionalization and inspection, with the aim of achieving the ‘control of control’. To explain these trends, I explore how various established and emerging school governing bodies are (re)constituting themselves to meet demands for good governance. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This case study of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) in India, the largest basic education programme in the world, assesses the significance of foreign aid for achieving increased access to elementary education from 2002 to 2010, particularly for the most disadvantaged. It reviews the practical experience of India and its development partners in jointly developing and implementing a national education programme and how greater alignment of external assistance with the Government of India's national policy for achieving universal elementary education was brought about, thus promoting country leadership and harmonising donor practices for effective aid delivery in line with the principles of aid effectiveness set out in the Paris Declaration (signed by the members of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the OECD and representatives of the developing countries in 2005). The paper draws on documentation about, and experience of SSA design and implementation to establish, through analysis, a picture of how foreign aid principally from three development partners is being used effectively to support India's own policy and strategy for universalising elementary education. The case shows that the development partners are playing an important role and that external support for elementary education in India is organised in a unique and effective way and contributed to increased access to basic education, particularly in the populous north of the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the enactment of the policy initiative to promote critical thinking in Singapore schools from the perspectives of educators in Singapore. It is argued that teachers in Singapore are not passive recipients or mere implementers of top-down policy decisions. Rather, they enact the policy initiative by making sense of, negotiating, influencing and capitalising on their unique conditions to achieve their goals and juggle multiple demands. Three research findings are discussed in this article. First, the teachers mediate the policy process through their interpretations of critical thinking and cognisance of the socio-cultural challenges they face. Secondly, they recontextualise the policy initiative by adopting a skills-focused conception of critical thinking in the form of the infusion cum discipline-specific approach. Thirdly, they apply correlative thinking by combining didactic teaching with active student participation in their dual desire to foster critical thinking and prepare their students for the high-stakes exam. This study extends the existing research on policy enactment by identifying and illustrating manifestations of active appropriation in an Asian context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the neoliberal influences on ‘Port City Schools’ (PCS) unique district-wide extended learning time (ELT) initiative. Despite the recent popularity of ELT in urban schools, there have been few qualitative studies that question how stakeholders make sense of ELT on the ground. This research fills that gap in the literature by exploring ELT programming across PCS’s choice and neighborhood K-8 schools. The interview and observation data reveal an inherent tension between ‘more time is better’ in the enrichment-filled choice schools and ‘less is more’ in the intervention-filled neighborhood schools. Findings illuminate the ways in which school choice, neighborhood segregation, and high stakes testing push the district to use ELT to boost test scores in the lower performing neighborhood schools, while the choice schools are given flexibility in ELT programming because they are meeting expectations for student success. Because neoliberalism fails to take into account the strong relationship between test scores and socio-economics and school choice and segregation, it leads to a cycle of inequality in which children in the choice schools receive a well-balanced curriculum and children in the neighborhood schools get test preparation during ELT. Fixing this system could fix inequalities in ELT programming across all schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses changes that have occurred in the elementary education system in Mexico since 1992 when an administrative de-concentration process took place. This process was accompanied by legal modifications that created opportunities for social participation in public elementary schools affairs. As a result, some school communities in collaboration with non-governmental organizations and diverse interest groups created networks to develop educational projects. How can recent public administration theory help us understand this? New Public Management is examined and found wanting; some Governance approaches provide more opportunities to grasp what is essentially a new and changing relationship between government and civil society, and within civil society, in Mexican education. These changes point to a new understanding of the administrative de-concentration process initiated 16 years ago. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For several years now a number of countries have been attempting to increase their numbers of male primary teachers, yet have met with little success. Feminists/pro-feminists have challenged the intentions of these male teacher recruitment drives but failed to offer any interventions that might contribute to a broadening of the primary teacher population. This article seeks to redress this by identifying specific reasons why policy initiatives have failed. Through a review of the literature on teacher identities and analysis of the responses of 20 primary teachers, from a range of backgrounds, to the question 'Has your gender had any impact on your experiences and/or career as a teacher?', it emerged that teacher recruitment campaigns that focus on aspects of personal identity fail to resonate with the motivations of those who are attracted to teaching. Gender is not regarded by primary teachers as of having any particular significance to their careers, whilst minority ethnic and sexuality status are both regarded as having an impact. The conclusions drawn are that policies on teacher recruitment drives need to focus less evidently on gender and more on broader constructions and understandings of what it means to be a 'primary teacher'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]