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The interdisciplinary nature as well as the present and future relevance of the sustainability debate, with all its inherent dilemmas and uncertainties, may constitute a fertile ground for educational innovation. A crucial prerequisite for innovation of schools and instruction in the sense mentioned above is a teacher education which allows for these principals. Against this background the four-semester in-service course “BINE - Education for Sustainable Development – Innovations in School and Teacher Education” was developed at Austrian Universities. The goal of BINE is to encourage participants to deal as a community of learners with subject information on sustainable development (SD) and education for sustainable development (ESD). The results of the evaluation have shown that the course offers an adequate learning strategy for the participants to construct the meaning of the complex issues of SD and ESD by researching, reflecting and exchanging in learning groups focused on concrete examples., APEduC Journal - Research and Practices in Science, Mathematics and Technology Education, Vol 4 Nº 1 (2023): APEduC Revista | APEduC Journal

During recent years many European countries have modernized the governance of their education systems according to an ‘evidence-based model’ which, e.g., materialized in new school inspections and comparative performance assessment. Qualitative case study data of six primary and secondary schools is used to explore in-school processes of sensemaking and constructing consequences of the Austrian performance standard policy (which is taken as an exemplar for evidence-based reforms). Teachers’ understandings and actions are compared with the normative claims underlying this policy. Results show that only two of the five processes claimed to be effective for school improvement through performance standards are found in the data. Version of record

Die Bildungsstandard-Reform in Österreich ist ein Beispiel für aktuelle Governance-Veränderungen in Schulsystemen. In der Logik evidenzbasierter Steuerung setzt sie normative und funktionale Erwartungen in Richtung einer Verbesserung von Unterrichtsprozessen und -ergebnissen durch individualisierenden, kompetenzorientierten Unterricht und durch gezielte Unterrichts- und Schulentwicklung auf der Basis der Rückmeldung von standardorientierten Kompetenztestergebnissen. Der Beitrag prüft durch die Analyse qualitativer Fallstudien dreier Primarschulen, wie Schulleiterinnen und Lehrerinnen diese Bildungsreform rekontextualisieren und inwieweit die durch die Reformpolitik postulierten Wirkungs- und Prozesserwartungen der Bildungsstandard-Reform, die in Form eines Wirkungsmodells rekonstruiert wurden, in den Primarschulen aufzufinden sind. Dabei zeigt sich, dass im Kontext der Bildungsstandard-Reform in den untersuchten Schulen tatsächlich Veränderungen des Unterrichts unterschiedlicher Qualität stattfanden, die von Anpassung an die neuen Testformate bis zu einer stärkeren Kompetenzorientierung des Unterrichts reichte. Von den aufgrund des Wirkungsmodells erwarteten Prozessen des Wirksamwerdens der Reform konnten zwei rekonstruiert werden: Durch die Bildungsstandard-Reform geschieht ein Aufbau von Erwartungen, der durch die Bereitstellung von Unterrichtsmaterialien verstärkt wird. Von Datenfeedback, der Einbeziehung von Stakeholdern der Schule sowie von neuen Notwendigkeiten zur innerschulischen Koordination scheinen dagegen weniger Entwicklungsimpulse auszugehen. The performance standards reform in Austria is an exemplar of contemporary governance changes in school systems. Following the logic of “evidence-based governance” it sets normative and functional expectations for improving the schools processes and outcomes through individualized and competence-oriented learning and through well-focused teaching improvement by using data feedback about student competences. The paper uses qualitative case studies of three Austrian primary schools for studying how teachers and school leaders interpret this policy and whether or not the effects and processes proposed by this reform are reflected by their perceptions and experiences. By analyzing qualitative case studies of three primary schools, the article examines how principals and teachers reconstruct this educational reform and to what extent the expected effect and processes (which were reconstructed in a “conceptual model”) are found in the primary schools under study. The results indicate that there were actually changes in teaching (of different quality, ranging from adaptation to the new test formats to a more competence-oriented teaching) in the three case schools. Two of the change processes expected by the “impact model” have been reconstructed: the educational standard reform is “setting expectations”, which are reinforced by the “provision of teaching materials”. By contrast, “data feedback”, “stakeholder involvement” as well as new needs for “in-school coordination” seem to have less developmental momentum.