School governance and teachers' attitudes to parents' involvement in schools

This study probes teachers' attitudes toward parental involvement in schools as a function of four types of school governance as suggested by Bauch and Goldring. Participants of the study included headteachers, chairpersons of parents' committees, and teachers of 11 primary schools in a medium-sized town in Israel. A discriminant analysis found different profiles of teachers' attitudes toward parental involvement: resistant and negative attitudes characterized schools where parents were empowered. Ambivalent attitudes characterized schools with professional and bureaucratic modes of governance, and positive attitudes were found in schools with partnership governance. This implies that the latter mode of governance is a promising step toward a community-oriented approach.     

School-based management: stakeholder participation and the impact of stakeholder values

Abstract

One of the current international trends in educational reform is the devolution of decision-making powers from central government to school level. This trend is related to a move towards institutional autonomy, the so-called site-based (i.e. school-based) management of institutions, which refers to the issue of self-management of the institution.

School-based management is no longer an option but, rather, a reality in South African education. Legislation and policy documents all point South Africa firmly towards a school-based system of education management. The new policy framework for decentralised decision-making is also embedded in the South African Schools Act 84 of 1996. This enables each school in South Africa to renew its management in a responsible and effective way.

In spite of its widespread implementation, school-based management has locally received only moderate attention in terms of stakeholder participation and the impact of stakeholder values on the school-based management process. In response to this, this article is an attempt to incorporate a strategy to conceptualise stakeholder participation in school-based management and assess the impact of stakeholder values on the school-based management process. This philosophical review of the literature on school-based management also aims at raising and answering some of the questions about stakeholder participation and stakeholder values in school-based management in South Africa, where educational reform is the norm rather than the exception.     

校本管理:学校管理的新取向

校本管理是20世纪80年代在英美等发达国家的教育改革运动中兴起的一种学校管理新潮流。本质是以学校为本位或以学校为基础的自主管理。本文扼要介绍校本管理的内涵、着重阐述校本管理的发展、意义和模式，并对校本管理作一简要的评价。     

School-based management developments and partnership: Evidence from Indonesia

School-based management (SBM) with devolution of authority and responsibility to school level decision-makers has become the most prominent feature of public school management systems in most countries around the world. This article provides the global trends and current developments in SBM in Indonesia with an emphasis on how SBM has created partnership and participatory decision-making processes in school level. The data reported here are on the basis of an empirical survey involving 504 school council members from Ngada Flores followed by 42 interviews with all relevant stakeholders.     

香港理工大学教学“零管理”的启示

香港理工大学教学"零管理"建立在良好的社会文化氛围、高素质的被管理者、民主的管理传统、强有力的奖惩措施、现代化的信息管理系统等基础之上。要实行教学"零管理"必须做到科学管理,推行精细化管理,加大执行力度,完善信息管理系统,营造醇厚的校风,以文化育人。     

Local responses to school‐based management in Hong Kong

This paper adopts a qualitative approach to study the perceptions of six secondary teachers from two schools with a similar background and history of school‐based management (SBM). The study aims to explore the views of the teachers in the following areas: changes in school administration and the structure of the school under SBM; changes in the role of teachers and the activities of the Parent–Teacher Associations; the challenges facing principals; and teachers' worries and concerns under SBM. The study is significant as it supplements the limited number of researches on the roles of teachers and principals under SBM in Hong Kong. As serving teachers now play increasingly important roles in schools and work closely with their principals in administrative and educational matters, they can provide invaluable insights into the new era of change.     

After the Big Bang: Estimating the effects of decentralization on educational outcomes in Indonesia through a difference-in-differences analysis

Proponents of decentralization argue that bringing decisions closer to the people improves school quality and efficiency by ensuring that schools are more responsive to local educational needs. In practice, the effects of decentralization vary substantially, given that the implementation of these reforms relies on local resources and management capacity. In this paper, I estimate the effects of decentralization on educational outcomes in Indonesia using a difference-in-differences model. I find no overall effect on achievement, but a negative effect on teacher effort, particularly in rural areas and among schools with inactive school committees.     

Negotiating teacher professionalism: governmentality and education reform in Hong Kong

This research investigates how the Hong Kong state controls and disciplines the education sector through the regulation and manipulation of discourses. The authoritative narratives are that some schools are failing the students and parents for not being able to provide quality education, and that these schools are not subject to public scrutiny while spending public money. This article seeks to understand the role of such narratives in neoliberal politics and the marketisation of education which lead to governance in the form of initiatives in school quality assurance mechanism; how different actors (Education Bureau, Professional Teachers' Union and individual teachers) are involved in the process; how they negotiate this governance of education; how such governance transforms the self-perception of teachers as well as the perception of teachers by others; and how teachers interpret, appropriate and resist such discursive power.     

Changing curriculum policy into practice: the case of physical education in Hong Kong

This article examines the differences between the formally stated aims of education and the implementation of the school curriculum in order to show the divergence between what is initiated and what emerges as school practice. This implementation problem is examined from the policy-makers' and teachers' perspectives, with specific reference to physical education as a school subject in Hong Kong. First, it examines the existence and intention of educational policy towards curriculum as established by policy-makers. Second, the implementation process is evaluated from the teachers' perspective by employing a framework adopted by Cuban (1998) that utilized effectiveness, popularity, fidelity, adaptability and longevity. The data are derived from a case-study of a physical education programme that included document analysis, and interviews with teachers, parents and students. The case-study provided a subjective perspective of teachers and their work, while the framework assisted in demonstrating the absence of cohesion between the various government agencies. The resulting fragmentation of ideas leading to confusion and frustration for teachers also indicates that longevity and adaptability are likely to be the most constructive criteria for the assessment of curriculum change.     

Translations of new public management: a decentred approach to school governance in four OECD countries

Despite the prevalence of corporate and performative models of school governance within and across different education systems, there are various cases of uneven, hybrid expressions of New Public Management (NPM) that reveal the contingency of global patterns of rule. Adopting a ‘decentred approach’ to governance (Bevir, M. 2010. “Rethinking Governmentality: Towards Genealogies of Governance.” European Journal of Social Theory 13 (4): 423–441), this paper compares the development of NPM in four OECD countries: Australia, England, Spain, and Switzerland. A focus of the paper is how certain policy instruments are created and sustained within highly differentiated geo-political settings and through different multi-scalar actors and authorities yet modified to reflect established traditions and practices.     

民众的腐败容忍度: 实证研究及启示——基于世界价值观调查数据的分析

要从根本上消除腐败,不仅需要纪检监察机关加强对政府及公职人员的监督,也需要社会公众的积极参与。降低腐败容忍度是提高公众反腐败参与意愿和实际行动的关键。基于全国314个地级行政区的数据分析发现,政府治理、经济发展和社会文化等三个维度对公众的腐败容忍度有显著影响。地区的政府科教事业支出越高,城乡收入差距越大,离首都的距离越远,则公众的腐败容忍度越高;地区的社会信任度越高,对中央政府的政治信任度、索贿指数越高,则公众的腐败容忍度越低;中西部地区的经济发展与腐败容忍度呈倒U型曲线关系。当前需要持续提高经济发展水平,缩小城乡收入差距,增强公众的政治信任和社会信任度,进一步加大反腐败力度,清除群众身边的腐败现象,从而切实降低公众的腐败容忍度,形成政府与社会共同反腐的合力,巩固发展反腐败斗争压倒性胜利。     

Challenges and management frameworks of residential schools for students with severe emotional and behavioural difficulties in Hong Kong

This study by Stella Suk‐Ching Chong, an assistant professor, and Ka‐wai Leung, a teaching fellow, both at the Hong Kong Institute of Education, focuses on the perspectives of hostel staff from six residential schools for students with severe emotional and behavioural difficulties. Individual or focus group interviews were conducted to explore the range of challenges perceived by staff and the strategies they employed to address the needs of the students. The software N‐Vivo was used to analyse both qualitative and quantitative data. This study finds that staff met a multiplicity of challenges, of which 67.9% were management‐related rather than student‐related (32.1%). In relation to effective strategies for staff, co‐ordinated and concerted efforts are frequently used between different stakeholders, such as intra‐hostel‐staff‐student collaboration (84%), inter‐hostel‐community collaboration (8.6%), inter‐hostel‐home collaboration (5.1%), and finally inter‐hostel‐school collaboration (2.2). In summing up the findings of various approaches deemed favourable by different residential staff, a residential school management framework is conceptualised and presented in this article. Implications and future research directions are also highlighted.     

From autonomy to quality management: NPM impacts on school governance in Switzerland

This article reviews the impact of discourses on ‘New Public Management’ (NPM) on compulsory schooling in Switzerland during the last two decades and traces its implementation in the Canton of Bern. The analysis suggests that while NPM reformers initially promoted increased school autonomy, the introduction of market elements and school choice, the focus subsequently shifted to a concern with school management, supervision and accountability. NPM-guided reforms led to the introduction of headteachers and quality management procedures in a majority of cantons. Ethnographic research in the Canton of Bern shows that NPM-influenced decentralisation policy results in a growing standardisation of schools' conditions and processes. Additionally, lay school boards as traditional, democratically legitimised bodies of local supervision are coming under threat.     

Some possible effects of behaviour management training on teacher confidence and competence: evidence from a study of primary school teachers in Hong Kong

This study aims to explore the relationships between the extent and perceived quality of teachers’ experience of training in behaviour management (BM), and their awareness of the nature and extent of behavioural problems among school students, and their confidence in their own competence to deal with such problems. Teachers (n = 183) from Hong Kong primary schools were surveyed. The results showed that gender, age and whether teachers have received training had no significant influence on teachers’ awareness, conception and confidence regarding BM. A negative correlation was found between teachers’ levels of satisfaction in relation to their training experiences and their perceptions of the level of problematic behaviours among students, and the impact of students’ problematic behaviour on their teaching. A positive correlation was found between teachers’ levels of satisfaction in relation to their training experiences and their confidence in their own competence to deal with students’ problematic behaviour.     

Feedback in Hong Kong secondary writing classrooms: Assessment for learning or assessment of learning?

While much of L2 teacher feedback research has focused on the effectiveness of feedback and its impact on student revision and writing, little has been done to examine teachers’ feedback in the larger classroom context of teaching and learning to ascertain the functions teacher feedback serves from an assessment-for-learning perspective. Using multiple sources of data from 26 secondary teachers’ written feedback to 174 student texts, interviews with six of the teachers and 18 students, the present study investigates the nature of teacher feedback and the functions it serves in the teaching-learning-assessment process in the writing classroom. The findings show that teacher feedback focuses largely on assessing writing summatively, primarily serving the purpose of assessment of learning, rather than assessment for learning – i.e., using feedback as a pedagogical tool for improving the teaching and learning of writing. The study calls for greater attention to the implementation of assessment for learning in the writing classroom, and specifically the use of feedback for formative purposes.     

Practice stories in natural resource management continuing professional education: springboards for learning

The use of stories from professional experience in continuing professional education has been on the rise in many fields, often aimed at bolstering capacity through sharing professional knowledge and/or supporting reflective practice. Practice stories are also suggested to be beneficial in supporting professional learning of new concepts. These uses of practice stories are not evident in public natural resource management (NRM) continuing professional education. In light of greater public involvement in NRM practice over the last 20 years, however, the use of practice stories could now be particularly beneficial to NRM professionals. This study examines the use of practice stories in workshops aimed at deepening public NRM professionals' understanding of social science concepts suggested to be valuable in making sense of the social and political complexity intertwined in public involvement practice. Feedback from workshop participants suggests that practice stories may be able to support NRM professionals in reflecting on previous experiences, learning from colleague's practice experiences and serving as a springboard for learning by fostering linkages between social science knowledge and practice. The study also finds that the perceived benefits of sharing practice stories were comparatively less for some more experienced participants.     

Competition between public supervision and professional management: an ethnographic study of school governance reforms in Switzerland

This article discusses insights from an ethnographic study of local governance practices in the Canton of Bern, Switzerland, under changing policy conditions. Recent reforms introduced and strengthened the position of head teachers, enhanced the responsibility of the municipalities and introduced new quality management procedures in local supervision. Long-time participant observation in the meetings of the different local governing bodies in four case studies revealed not only new modes of governance practices but also changing relations between the governing bodies within a municipality. By ‘studying up, down and across’ institutional borders and hierarchies, we recognised that as a consequence of the reforms local school governance emerges as contested field in which head teachers, school boards and municipal councils try to expand their influence and to contain those of related bodies. By their enactments of policy reforms, local bodies negotiate rationalities between traditional public supervision and professional management of schools.