The enactment of literacy curriculum policy by early childhood teachers in two Australian schools

Since the early 2000s, literacy education has become an area of intense focus in Australian education policy, positioned to have a role in Australia's pursuit of enhanced international competitiveness in the “global knowledge economy”. Policy called for improvements in literacy outcomes, monitored by mandated annual assessments, and policy statements recognised the need to establish solid literacy foundations in early childhood to facilitate learning, and desired improvements, in later years. This article is derived from a larger study that investigated the production and enactment of literacy curriculum policy by early childhood teachers in Australian schools. It focuses on the school level within the State of Western Australia, presenting findings derived from thematic and critical discourse analysis of participant interview and documentary data collected in two case‐study schools. Comparative analysis revealed that literacy curriculum policy processes in both case‐study schools were focused on achieving improved test results in mandated testing regimes. This was impacting upon literacy curriculum in the early childhood years of schooling, in Australia deemed to involve children up to 8 years of age, in many, possibly adverse, ways. These findings may offer insights in other contexts about literacy curriculum policy processes that are focused on enhancing competitive positioning.     

A National Investigation of Teachers’ Environmental Literacy as a Reference for Promoting Environmental Education in Taiwan

Taiwan's government enacted the Environmental Education Act in June 2011. In the beginning of the implementation of the Act, a national assessment of schoolteachers’ environmental literacy was performed in order to establish the baseline for evaluating the effectiveness of environmental education policy. This large-scale assessment involved a large sample size of in-service teachers across schools at all levels and regions in Taiwan using the stratified random sampling method. Data showed that the teachers have satisfactory levels of environmental knowledge and attitudes, but presented low degrees of environmental action. Differing from previous research results, elementary teachers performed better than high school teachers on this assessment, which may be attributed to their teacher training experiences. Results from this study may provide implications for teacher professional development programs and school environmental education policy.     

Turnaround Policy and Practice: A Case Study of Turning Around a Failing School with English-Language-Learners

In an era of school reform and high stakes accountability, the major challenge in education is to turnaround the nation’s lowest-performing schools. National policy provides abundant resources with often restrictive prerequisites. Research indicates that quality principals and teachers are the most important factors for turning around the lowest performing schools; however there is little research in how to turnaround failing schools with high enrollments of students in poverty, who are English-Language Learners, and who are Hispanic. The purpose of this study is to understand how demography, policy and practices affect the educational edge of students in poverty, who are English-Language Learners, and who are Hispanic. How do the practices of a school leader who is professionally/culturally/linguistically responsive affect turnaround for a failing schools? How does the personal and professional background of a Latino principal affect student performance in a failing school? This research conducted a qualitative case study to include principal interviews, principal observations, teacher interviews, and the use of state and school archival data. Analyses included organizing data into data themes and triangulating data themes, using principal background, principal professional/cultural beliefs and practices, school context, teacher data, and archival data. Conclusions confirm the need to conduct research to document and define the performances for professionally/culturally/linguistically responsive principal models and their effect on student performance in historically failing schools. In addition, policymakers need to consider the organizational contexts of professional/culturally/linguistically responsive leadership and teaching models as turnaround school models.     

Contesting educational assessment policies in Australia

ABSTRACT

Assessment is a major component of education, significant in directing what is identified as valued student learning. This paper is framed within an understanding of imperative and exhortative policy. Two paradigmatically different, and potentially contesting, assessment policy directions in Australian education – educational accountability to monitor school and teacher performance, and teacher assessment practices to improve learning (assessment for learning [AfL] or formative assessment) – are examined for their impact on teacher professionalism. Both approaches have official endorsement in Australian policy. Mandated participation in national tests is indicative of educational accountability assessments under national direction. While also endorsed nationally, AfL implementation is reliant on state and territory direction. Our examination reveals tensions in the alignment of both policies. This is evident in the impact of accountability assessment on AfL implementation, in particular, teachers’ understandings of valued assessment evidence. We conclude that a paradigmatic shift to support student learning in Australian schools is a policy imperative that includes the need for professional development and learning support for teachers.     

National policy and the development of inclusive school practices: a case study

National education policy in England under New Labour Governments has encompassed both a ‘standards agenda’ and an ‘inclusion agenda’, with schools required to respond to both simultaneously. Some previous studies have seen these agendas as contradictory and have seen schools' efforts to develop inclusive practices as being undermined by these contradictions. This paper questions this account with reference to a primary school participating in a collaborative action research project which aimed to develop inclusive practices in schools. It shows how the school, far from finding these agendas contradictory, drew on both in making sense of its situation. It argues that the development of inclusive practices may draw on national policy as a productive resource, and suggests that inclusion scholars and advocates may need to refocus their work if they are to offer such schools alternatives to the formulations of national policy.     

Principals’ talking back to mediatised education policies regarding school performance

Increasingly mediatised policy processes influence practice in schools as education becomes a site of parental anxiety and choice exacerbated by standardised national assessment and ranking of schools in the media. This paper analyses the responses to media scrutiny of six principals whose schools’ national test results were reported in the Australian press following the release of the federal Labour Government’s MySchool website in 2010. Drawing on Bourdieu’s theory of social fields, the concept of cross-field effects, and associated research on mediatisation, the evidence suggests that the relationships between the press, education policy and schools are highly contested, and that principals have some agency in talking back regarding their school’s reported ‘performance’.     

中职免费教育政策的十年回顾与展望

中职免费教育政策既是提升中职学校吸引力的现实需要,更是国家职教发展战略的诉求.纵观十年,该政策在优化教育结构、提高中职学校吸引力、增加初中毕业生受教育机会等方面做出重要贡献的同时,也面临偏离教育公平目标、对学生的吸引力有限、降低了中职学生向上流动机会等问题.因此,后续政策需要建立政府主导和企业参与的财政保障体系;提高中职学校教育质量,提升中职学生向上流动机会.     

Policy impact of PISA on mathematics education: the case of Norway

This article addresses the policy implications of participation in international large-scale assessments (ILSAs), particularly the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), and the ways in which such implications might influence mathematics education. Taking Norway as a special case, this discussion focuses on insights into teaching, learning and assessment practices that can be inferred from the PISA study, and how participation in ILSAs has contributed to educational policy and even changed policymakers’ perspectives on schools, teachers and students. Following publication of the PISA 2000 results, Norway experienced a ‘PISA shock’, leading to the implementation of a national quality assessment system and national tests. In addition, changes were made to the mathematics curriculum for compulsory school and to mathematics teacher education. More recently, public debate has focused less on rank and league tables, shifting instead to the high number of low-achieving students and the low number of high achievers. Moreover, there has been little uptake of policy advice provided by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which focuses on strengthening accountability measures. Furthermore, although the Norwegian educational system in the past decade has undergone a decentralisation process, the educational system still follows the Nordic model, which focuses on equity and ‘education for all’. Analyses of the Norwegian case indicate that policymaking takes place in highly cultural contexts, and that international studies might be used merely to validate existing policy directions.     

Integrating gender concerns

This paper focuses on the education of girl children in India. It attempts to understand how gender identity influences the quality of their learning experiences. Reviewing available studies it explores how gender is contextualized within schools and pervades classroom processes, specifically in relation to ‘official’ school knowledge as well as the hidden curriculum of teacher attitudes and peer interaction. It points to the need for a gender perspective to inform school policy and classroom practices and also be integrated in teacher education. It suggests that unless gender concerns are seriously addressed, the number of girls who enrol in schools may increase, but they are unlikely to receive an education that is equitable.     

A comparison of the governing of primary and secondary schools in England

In England, governing bodies continue to be responsible for the conduct of publicly funded schools. This article compares the governing of publicly funded primary schools (for 5–11 year olds) and secondary schools (for 11–18 year olds). The research analysed policy documents and the governing of 16 primary and 14 secondary schools. The main governance mode for both primary schools and secondary schools is hierarchical and similar in nature, and the governing bodies of primary and secondary schools use broadly similar governing instruments. However, they differ in significant ways. In primary schools, governing is smaller in scale and less complex. Primary school governing is closer to the school and children, and the images held by governors of the system to be governed are better developed in primary schools. Functional knowledge was more useful in primary school governing, and the use of informal meetings as instruments of governance was more widespread in primary school governing. The findings and their implications need to be taken into account in the analysis of and policy making for school governing.     

School decentralization as a process of differentiation,hierarchization and selection

The Austrian ‘school autonomy policy’, which allowed schools to develop specific ‘curricular profiles’, is taken as an example for discussing processes and effects of school decentralization policies. Data from school case studies (based on qualitative interviews and document analysis) are used to analyse and interpret the processes by which schools and teachers take up policy innovations and translate it into action and structures on school and classroom level. These policy changes and the resulting governance regimes are examined from a perspective on changing modes of ‘action coordination’ between actors on different levels of a school system and from an attention to processes of ‘re-contextualization’ in multi-level governance systems. The main result is that the Austrian decentralization policy – although not explicitly based on a market approach – boosted principles of competitive coordination between schools. In consequence, it resulted in processes of differentiation and hierarchization of schools and classes and offered new legitimatory and practical opportunities for student selection.     

‘Man enough to do it’? Girls and non‐traditional subjects in lower secondary education

This article examines the processes influencing the choice of non‐traditional subjects by girls in lower secondary education in the Republic of Ireland. In particular, we focus on the traditionally ‘male’ craft technological subjects, namely Materials Technology (Wood), Metalwork and Technical Graphics. Analyses are based on detailed case studies of 12 secondary schools, placing them in the context of national patterns of subject take‐up. Strong gender differentiation persists in the take‐up of these technological subjects. Commonalities are evident across schools in the way in which the subjects are constructed as ‘male’. However, some students, both female and male, actively contest these labels, and school policy and practice regarding subject provision and choice can make a difference to take‐up patterns. It is argued that the persistent gendering of subjects has implications for the skills acquired by students, their engagement in education, and the education, training and career opportunities open to them on leaving school.     

Contributions and Constraints to the Implementation of Inclusive Education in Lesotho

This article reports on a study that investigated the extent to which central ministry policy initiatives result in large‐scale educational change in developing countries. Specifically, Lesotho's policy of inclusive special education was examined as a case study. The study employed a multi‐method approach to yield a large data‐set. Results indicate that policy implementation was limited in both depth (the approaches to inclusive education in some schools) and breadth (the number of schools that have received training in inclusive education). Where implementation was present, perceived teacher knowledge and skill was a strong predictor of success and teachers had positive attitudes toward children with disabilities.     

School reform policy in England since 1988: relentless pursuit of the unattainable

There is growing concern that almost 20 years after the 1988 Education Act, top‐down, large‐scale reform has stalled. The policy mix of choice, competition, markets, regulation, accountability and leadership seems not to have closed the gap between advantaged and disadvantaged areas and individuals, while most variations in school performance can be explained in terms of intake differences. This paper reviews policy and progress since 1988 and assesses the extent to which central government has achieved its educational aims. Unacknowledged tensions and contradictions are identified in structures and practices that are supposed to constitute a reliable framework for sustainable improvement. The conclusion is drawn that since 1988 the national government apparatus has itself become an important obstacle to further progress. An independent review of policy‐making and implementation is recommended so that schools and colleges are enabled to contribute more effectively to improvements in the quality of education.     

Body pedagogies,P/policy,health and gender

Schools within a ‘knowledge economy’ nurture and endorse particular ‘corporeal orientations’, that is to say, ascribe value, meaning and potential to ‘the body’ (particular bodies) in time, place and space. Such processes reflect wider (national and global) socio‐economic trends. In contemporary culture, these processes increasingly celebrate particular virtues—‘flexible identities’, the manifest aspects of ‘performance’ and ‘corporeal perfection’ (usually defined as ‘the slender ideal’). Calling on the voices of a number of young women (aged 11–18) the article illustrates how these processes can intersect to seriously damage some people's health, perhaps especially those of young women and girls. The analyses suggest that the expectations of a ‘knowledge economy’ relating to the body and health enter the school system through two forms of P/policy: ‘formal’, state‐sanctioned, usually legislated education Policy; and ‘informal’, mainly medical and health institution‐based, state ‘approved’ but non‐legislated, pseudo policy initiatives often merely reflecting expectations and pressures laundered through the popular media. Together, these P/policies define not only formal education but increasingly encode other aspects of school life, in effect, making ‘pedagogy’ everyone's concern, everywhere. The article highlights the relentless and inescapable nature of pedagogical activity in the Totally Pedagogised Micro Societies (TPMS) which schools have become.     

Quality assurance and assessment in education in Papua New Guinea

Education in Papua New Guinea (PNG) has experienced major shifts and changes over the last decade or so under the National Education Reform. In that context there is recognition for schools to appreciate their local contexts and conditions regarding assessment. The National Educational Department is also aware of the fact that there is need for some level of control from the national perspective to ensure a level playing field for assessment. Along with school–based assessment and national assessment processes, teacher inspections and appraisal, school and curriculum observations and appraisal are also recognized as elemental in ensuring quality control across the country. This article represents the modes and methods of assessment and quality assurance in PNG within the context of the current policy debates and policy development on education reform.     

我国公共教育制度与教育均衡化发展

“教育的均衡发展” ,是近年来我国基础教育发展的政策导向 ,也是国家公共义务教育体系的价值追求。教育均衡化是围绕教育公平提出的教育发展思路和政策 ,但是不等于教育公平。教育均衡化问题的提出 ,集中地反映了建国以来我国基础教育发展的根本矛盾。我国公共教育制度在社会主义计划经济时代与向社会主义市场经济转型时期所表现的教育公平形态是不一样的。教育均衡化所挑战的是我国公共教育结构性的问题 ,教育均衡化政策集中反映了最高决策部门在中国公共教育发展思路上的改革与创新。它是对趋于失范的公共教育制度的一种及时的调整和再规范。     

Antecedents affecting science achievement scores in classrooms in Trinidad and Tobago

This paper initially notes the role of scientific education in a developing country and the need to enhance scientific education among the school population. Enhancement of science education for all pupils is dependent on the distribution of schools, quality of schools and pupil participation in any country. To understand how science education is advanced in a developing country it is also important to know who is currently succeeding in science education in schools and to understand how this success is distributed amongst the school population. Thus, this paper questions whether school-based science achievement may be predetermined by antecedent factors or whether there is an equal opportunity of success amongst all pupil participants. A review of the literature has found that many antecedent factors affect school and science achievement, and these factors may be more important than within-school processes thought to enhance science education. The antecedent factors refer to: social/home background; age, religion and sex of the pupil; school class level and size; type of school attended and its locality.This study assesses how antecedent factors affect science performance in a representative sample of pupils in primary and secondary schools throughout Trinidad and Tobago. The representative sample totalled 1998 children, aged 6–10 years. Pupils were selected from a geographic transect of Trinidad and Tobago, which fulfilled demographic criteria. Once pupils were selected, biographic data were obtained for each child. Science achievement was measured by an end-of-term science examination designed for each class by the class teacher and graded on a 100% scale (within each class). Within class pupil scores were ‘standardized’ for comparisons between classes, schools, etc. Results from the analyses are summarized as: science achievement scores decrease as pupils increase in age. Girls perform consistently better than boys, with a slight variation in the sex by religion by school level interaction. Pupils in private schools score higher than pupils in similar levels of state schools. Pupils from a middle class background perform better than pupils from a working class background. Differences in performance relate to the religion of the child, with Muslim pupils scoring higher than Hindu or Christian pupils. Pupils in single-sex schools perform at higher levels than pupils in co-educational schools, and this is true for girls-only and boys-only schools. At the secondary school level the type of school attended is related to science achievement performance with pupils in prestige (usually church controlled) schools performing better than pupils in the comprehensive (state controlled) schools.The results support, develop and refine the previous literature on school and science achievement. Unusually, girls are at the forefront of science achievement in both primary and secondary schools. Also, traditional prejudices of social class, school status and location are confirmed within the school system in Trinidad and Tobago. A number of directions for future research and classroom action studies are indicated which focus on the existence of these inequalities.     

Blaming the poor: constructions of marginality and poverty in the Kenyan education sector

The article examines how blame and disconnection from the lives of the poor feature in a nexus of ideas about implementing education policy articulated by education officials and teachers in Kenya. Three different approaches to understanding marginality are distinguished, each associated with a different process of setting a boundary concerning the marginalised. This differentiation is used to analyse qualitative data collected between 2007 and 2011 in three sites – a school, a provincial education department, and the national education ministry. Analysis shows how work practices in all sites entail processes of distancing and exclusion which confirm the boundaries associated with marginalisation, rather than overcoming them. We conclude on the need to pay attention to shifting cultural perceptions concerning the marginalised, opening educational opportunities for officials and teachers to examine their presuppositions, and making space for the poor and the marginal to engage politically and culturally in developing inclusion and social justice in schools.