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1.
Joyce Bruce 《School Leadership & Management》2013,33(1):53-65
Schools are currently suffering from considerable ‘innovation overload’ with multiple changes being demanded by the Education Reform Act and other sources. Tom Peters (1988) has argued that a similar turbulent situation exists in US business and industry and suggests that the most successful companies are those which are able to ‘Thrive on Chaos’. LEAs and schools need knowledge and skills about school improvement and this article attempts to provide research‐based information to help them cope with innovation and improve teaching and learning. School improvement is seen as a combination of previous research on the management of change and school effectiveness. Eight factors which seem to be related to effective schools are listed and knowledge about the change process is used to consider how a school could be improved. In order to offer practical help to LEAs and schools a set of guidelines is provided and recent research findings are discussed under each heading. The article concludes with an outline of a possible LEA school improvement project, involving a set of stages. 相似文献
2.
This article describes a research project, ‘Improving Learning: The Pupils' Agenda’ (supported by the Nuffield Foundation) in which a team of researchers from Homerton College, Cambridge and the University of Keele, investigated how schools were listening and responding to pupils' perspectives on effective teaching and learning. An account of the project is presented, outlining how the team carried out the investigation and the three themes on which was based. The article goes on to look at the strategies being developed in primary schools, using extracts from the data to illustrate the impact of these strategies in schools. In conclusion it is suggested that the answer to the question posed in the title — can listening and responding to pupils' views give new directions for school improvement — is clearly ‘yes’ and that the advantage of taking this approach lies principally in its potential for improving pupils' attitudes to learning. 相似文献
3.
Brian Wilcox 《Cambridge Journal of Education》1997,27(2):249-260
In recent years schools have come under increasing pressure to raise levels of achievement and educational standards generally. In their attempts to respond to government expectations schools have mounted a number of specific initiatives which have much in common from school to school. Together they embody a largely unexamined notion of the nature of schooling and ‘school improvement’ in particular. This article draws on the views of the moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre to provide a constructive critique of the ‘improvement’ initiatives currently underway in many secondary schools. It is suggested that such initiatives represent an unresolved tension between pursuing the ‘goods of effectiveness’ and the ‘goods of excellence’, which in turn reflect the more general dilemma of reconciling the traditions of modernity and pre‐modernity apparent in the existing practices of schools. 相似文献
4.
Meghan Stacey 《Critical Studies in Education》2016,57(2):209-223
This article reports the findings of a study on the nature of parent–school engagement at an academically selective public high school in New South Wales, Australia. Such research is pertinent given recent policies of ‘choice’ and decentralization, making a study of local stakeholders timely. The research comprised a set of interviews with parents and teachers (n = 15), through which parents – all members of the school’s Parents’ and Citizens’ group – theorized and explained their involvement with the school, and teachers spoke about their views on this involvement. Results are organized around three themes: ‘how parents worked to nurture their children’s schooling’, ‘reasons behind parents’ involvement with the school’, and ‘communication and use of parental resources by the school’. Overall it was found that while parents were making significant efforts to involve themselves in the education of their children and with the school more broadly, the reasons for their involvement were not always consistent, but instead revealed a range of motivations for and conceptions of parents’ roles within schools, which at times were at odds with the teachers’. Through this, the study contributes to our understanding of middle-class parent engagement at an unusual and particular type of school. 相似文献
5.
This paper presents selected findings from a questionnaire completed by 509 primary school teachers in Scotland. Drawing on policy enactment theory, the paper focusses on teachers’ personal experiences of physical education and perceptions of the importance of physical education in their schools. More than half (56%) reported that physical education was either ‘very important’ or ‘important’, while almost 40% perceived it to be of ‘limited’ or ‘very limited importance’. ‘Staff’, ‘time’ and ‘subject status’ were the main themes they drew on to explain their responses. Our findings highlight the diverse nature of the physical education professional cultures in Scottish primary schools. From this, we propose that future initiatives to support change in primary physical education should, as a starting point, acknowledge these diverse professional cultures and move beyond the simplistic one-size-fits-all change projects that have been shown to have limited impact on practice. 相似文献
6.
This article examines how the outcome of neoliberal educational reforms has affected urban schooling in the inner city of Stockholm – making it into a centralized nexus or a ‘hot-spot’ for students and schools. The aim is to analyse how geographical place and space have become major distinctive criteria in inner-city students’ educational strategies, as well as a comparative advantage for upper-secondary schools in the fierce in-between school competition. The data consist of interviews with close to 120 participants, official statistics and marketing from 55 inner-city upper-secondary schools. Our findings suggest that the growing commodification and upward socio-spatial homogenization of the inner city both affect the way schools use spatial representations in their marketing and also the strategies deployed by students in their school choice. 相似文献
7.
Mary Ann Powell Anne Graham Robyn Fitzgerald Nigel Thomas Nadine Elizabeth White 《The Australian Educational Researcher》2018,45(4):515-531
Until recently, children and young people’s perspectives have been largely overlooked in considering optimal approaches to supporting their wellbeing at school. This article reports student views on the meaning of ‘wellbeing’ and how this is best facilitated, gathered as part of a large, national research project aimed at understanding and improving approaches to wellbeing in schools. The data reported here were gathered through 67 focus groups, involving 606 primary and secondary school students, across three Catholic school regions in different Australian states. Students provided rich accounts of how they view their wellbeing, conceptualised across three interconnected themes of ‘being’, ‘having’ and ‘doing’. They identified relationships with self, teachers, friends, peers and significant others, as central to their wellbeing. The findings point to immense potential in accessing and utilising children and young people’s views for change and reform in schools in the area of student wellbeing. 相似文献
8.
It is an irony that, as the educational world has come to recognise the value of school or district‐based teacher leaders, many teachers have become wary of involvement in activities which take them beyond their own classrooms or schools. The problem becomes particularly apparent in centrally organised curriculum reform efforts that call for a cadre of teachers to be co‐opted to act as ‘link’ or ‘lighthouse’ teachers. This paper examines these issues in the context of an Australian state‐wide physics curriculum project in which a ‘pyramid’ implementation model required a group of school‐based ‘link’ or ‘lighthouse’ teachers to work as change agents in district school clusters. The study focused on the motivations of those teachers who chose, and those who chose not, to become involved. It reports a number of critical distinctions, in both experience and motivation, between these two groups of teachers. These differences are analysed as a set of interlocking themes: personal meaning, professional history, ownership, rewards, professional autonomy and gender. 相似文献
9.
ABSTRACT This article focuses upon differential strategies for school development and improvement. It argues that much school improvement work has placed an emphasis upon systemic change and has neglected to consider the extent to which schools have different capacities for change and development. We suggest in this article that different improvement strategies and types of intervention are needed for schools at different stages of growth. Our position is based upon a substantial body of school improvement research which has demonstrated the importance of differential strategies for schools at various developmental stages. We hope that this article will stimulate further discussion, debate and enquiry about the importance of differential approaches to school improvement. 相似文献
10.
《Ethnography and Education》2013,8(3):271-281
The notion of site is critical to ethnography and provides a sense of spatial stability – somewhere the researcher enters in order to research what is contained within. Using contemporary understandings of space, the author reflects on two studies to explore the (im)possibility of poststructuralist ethnography. The first study was undertaken in a ‘real’ school utilising a multi-method approach over a long period of time. The other was conducted in community-based schools where minority language and culture are taught. Such schools operate on a part-time basis and are often referred to as ‘after hours’ schools. These operate, as if by stealth, in borrowed spaces – schools not in use by their normal classes, during normal school times. The nature of these schools necessitated utilising different research approaches. The almost transient nature of ‘after hours’ schools reinforce temporal–spatial instabilities as critical to understanding site as social rather than fixed. 相似文献
11.
This article examines the relationship between school organisational climate and the school's preparedness to undertake restructuring
and improvement. Over the last two decades, much research into school improvement and effectiveness has indicated the importance
of school climate for a school's efforts to change. For school-level personnel, an understanding of the nature of the prevailing
climate would seem valuable in determining the school's willingness and capacity to embark on school improvement initiatives
and to evaluate the impact that such initiatives have on the nature of the school's climate. The research reported here was
conducted in three phases. The first phase involved the assessment of the prevailing organisational climate in 30 secondary
schools drawn from three State education systems in Australia. The second phase involved analysing and documenting the principles
and school-level process associated with the establishment of site-based management in the three State education systems.
The third phase sought teachers' perceptions about the impact of site-based management on school improvement planning, collaboration
and curriculum leadership, and classroom practices. The research indicated the existence of an important relationship between
organisational climate and the school's capacity to implement and sustain authentic site-based management. Where the prevailing
organisational climate is negative, tailored ‘front-end’ strategies designed to improve the climate might be undertaken prior
to the school embarking on substantial school improvement initiatives. Finally, assessing organisational climate can provide
information about a school's preparedness to undertake change, and a re-assessment of climate following a change initiative
can provide evaluative data about the extent of change within the school.
This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date. 相似文献
12.
Universal access to primary schools is a key millennium development goal, still proving difficult to deliver in low-income countries. Schools designed for the poorest remain inadequate for the numbers enrolled, and for the basic needs and functions of today’s classrooms. The key issue is overcrowding; classrooms designed for forty regularly accommodate more than sixty due to the use of outdated international classroom design standards. These schools also have poor access to infrastructure; electricity, drinking water, sanitation, and ICT/library spaces. This paper highlights these issues and suggests strategies for improved school design through the evaluation the EdQual research project school case studies, the author was involved with, and also recent international examples It is argued that schools designed considering these issues, can become ‘hubs’ for development; providing local assets that can be shared by their communities. 相似文献
13.
With the proliferation of choice policies in education, parents are increasingly positioned as ‘consumers’ tasked with choosing the ‘best’ school for their children. Yet a large body of research has shown that the process of selecting a school is far more complicated than policy-makers and researchers often predict. This article uses ethnographic data on middle-class parents in a large city who are considering sending their children to a diverse neighborhood public school to further develop our understanding of school choice. Drawing from sociological research on consumption as a social and cultural process, we examine the intersections between parents’ choice of a particular school (i.e. consumption) and their own identity construction. Our data show that the act of choosing a school can become, for parents, a means of expressing and enacting a particular identity. In this case, the intersections between identity and choice pushed many parents – invested in seeing themselves as liberal urbanites – towards an urban public school. We suggest that similar dynamics could have different outcomes for other groups of parents and that the symbolic nature of the school choice decision has broader relevance and merits further study. 相似文献
14.
This article challenges one of the central orthodoxies of much school effectiveness and school improvement work – namely that schools should strive to become more consistent environments for pupils and teachers. It reviews the arguments for consistency; the success of centralised systems, and the 'mirroring' of factors of effectiveness at the different levels of organisation but also examines the evidence which seems inconsistent with this thesis. For example, the differential performance of boys and girls in some schools and of certain ethnic groups in some school environments. Whilst not suggesting that 'consistency' theories should be rejected in all circumstances the article argues that the motivation of students is the key factor which needs to link school organisation and school context. Drawing on organisational literature the analysis concludes that effective schools are most likely to be those which are able to differentiate their structures, strategies and policies for different groups of pupils and different learning tasks. 相似文献
15.
John De Nobile 《School Leadership & Management》2018,38(4):395-416
While there has been considerable research activity in the area of middle management / middle leadership since the late 1990s, the concept remains under-theorised and ambiguities persist in relation to who middle managers or middle leaders are and what they do. The recent shift in terminology in the literature from ‘middle management’ to ‘middle leadership’ alludes to evolution in the roles these leaders play in schools. However, without a theoretical model to use as a point of reference it is difficult to describe the nature of such evolution and even more difficult to identify implications for teacher productivity, student outcomes and school effectiveness. This article proposes a model of middle leadership in schools based on an extensive review of the literature. The Middle Leadership in Schools (MLiS) model describes factors that influence middle leadership, possible influences of middle leadership on schools, a typology of roles middle leaders perform and how they might perform them. The article concludes with implications for research and theory building in a still-emergent area within the broader field of educational leadership. 相似文献
16.
Sacrificial girls: a case study of the impact of streaming and setting on gender reform 总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1
Emma Charlton Martin Mills Wayne Martino Lori Beckett 《British Educational Research Journal》2007,33(4):459-478
This article reports on research funded by the Australian Research Council to investigate school responses to gender equity. It addresses the efforts of a disadvantaged school to tackle what they perceived to be gender inequalities, but in the process of constructing a top‐set and bottom‐set/stream class they are developing new forms of old inequalities and new forms of inequalities. This research indicates that despite popular assertions that girls' education has become the priority of schools and education systems, girls are being further disadvantaged through attempts to implement market strategies coupled with gender reform agendas grounded in liberal notions of equity and relying on unsophisticated notions of affirmative action. In addition, this study highlights the extent to which a media‐driven debate about boys' education has influenced the constitution of boys as the ‘new disadvantaged’ with the capacity to determine the nature of gender reform agendas and programmes in schools. 相似文献
17.
Geoffrey Walford 《牛津教育评论》2013,39(4):421-422
ABSTRACT Much research on school effectiveness has been characterised by largely overstated claims and poor modelling. School effectiveness research (SER) has tended to define ‘effectiveness’ in terms of a restricted and often inappropriate range of outcomes, to overlook the issue of curriculum alignment, to be limited by the absence of longitudinal data, and it has often been characterised by unsupported assumptions about the homogeneity of school ‘effects’. SER needs to provide justification for the interpretation of ‘effectiveness’ defined as the unexplained part of performance in a statistical model, and a much clearer conception of why certain relationships exist is required. SER has yet to demonstrate the extent to which differences among schools in their ‘effectiveness’ are really caused by identifiable factors within the school and, more importantly, factors within the school's control; evaluations of school improvement interventions are generally unconvincing in this respect. Repeated findings of ‘correlates’ associated with ‘effectiveness’ (particularly when the strengths of the associations are not reported) are no substitute for a well grounded understanding of the specific mechanisms by which schools have their effects. A number of recommendations for future research are made. 相似文献
18.
Tim Brighouse 《School Leadership & Management》2013,33(4):363-377
The research reported on in this article explores how degrees of leadership distribution in schools might be differentiated. Data were collected from ten schools – eight primary and two secondary schools – / which were identified as exhibiting ‘good practice’ with regard to distributed leadership. The conceptual distinctions suggested by the study are discussed and the possible ‘causes’ and consequences of school variations in the degree of distributed leadership considered. 相似文献
19.
Christine Edwards-Groves Peter Grootenboer Ian Hardy Karin Rönnerman 《School Leadership & Management》2019,39(3-4):315-333
ABSTRACTEducational researchers have invested much in isolating the specific ‘drivers’ that influence school change and teacher professional development. In this vein, this article draws attention to necessarily situated understandings of practice development through research into the nature of ‘middle leading’ for site based education development in one primary school district in regional Australia. Drawing on practice theory, the analysis reveals how developing and sustaining change in schools is contingent on middle leaders’ insider knowledge, shared responsibility and capacity to sustain and ‘drive’ teachers’ learning. The article argues more situated understandings of middle leading practices are essential for sustainable educational reform. 相似文献
20.
ABSTRACT A more theoretical approach to effective schools research is needed, and a political systems model is an appropriate starting‐point since it directs attention to power issues, which are critical to school improvement. The model suggests that both internal and external influences on schools are important. There are four main classes of external influence: administrative; professional; societal; and familial. Each has the potential for strengthening or weakening school effectiveness. Studies of family influence on student learning and attitudes emphasize the potential of collaborative arrangements in which families and schools work together. We argue that classroom and school improvement cannot be attained without changing the relationships between the three central figures ‐ teacher, student, and parent; this triad model is an ‘inside out’ version of school improvement, in which classroom and school improvement occurs as fundamental relationships between the triad members become more collaborative. Our web metaphor suggests that those interested in research on effective schools should be sensitive to the impact of external influences; and that effective schools link participants together into a collaborative and responsive mutual influence system, the integrated school environment, the school level version of a political systems model, in which all gain. 相似文献