The impact of school management practices on educational performance: Evidence from public schools in São Paulo

This study examines the causal impacts of a school management program on educational outcomes in São Paulo/Brazil, estimated with the use of a fuzzy regression discontinuity design. I conclude that specific management practices such as performance monitoring, targets setting and incentive schemes have significant positive impacts on 8th-graders' math scores, especially on low performance students. I was unable to obtain similar results for language. I further investigated whether these results were associated with student or staff selection and infrastructure investments or whether they were actually driven by changes to pedagogical and managerial practices. My findings suggest that the latter explanation is more plausible.     

Two moments of school architecture in São Paulo: Ramos de Azevedo and his republican pioneering schools/Hélio Duarte and the ‘educational agreement’

There are two peculiar moments in the history of the ‘struggle for national education’, which, specifically in the city of São Paulo, capital of the State of São Paulo, one of the major and richest cities in Brazil, produced very interesting results in school architecture. The first moment happened in the period called the ‘First Republic’ (1889–1930), when the country abandoned the ‘Imperial’ era. The old and poor city had been practically rebuilt by initiative of the republican government, assuming a European appearance. In this context, the public education service became a motive of the paulistanos (the citizens of São Paulo), which is well illustrated by the set of public school buildings erected at that time. There was a great name related to the reshaping of the city and the construction of public schools: Francisco de Paula Ramos de Azevedo (1851–1928), architect and head of Ramos de Azevedo Technical Office, where most of the large‐scale public projects of the city were designed at that time. Among the huge amount of projects he carried on in his prestigious professional career, there were at least seven school buildings that illustrate his capacity to create a symbolic architectonical image for public education, and where, at the same time, he could employ his personal concepts regarding the theme. Three of them were built in the period ranging from 1890 to 1898, amazing the citizens and launching new paradigms for school architecture in São Paulo at that time. The second peculiar moment occurs during a period of strong industrialization in Brazil, which ranges from 1930 to approximately 1964. São Paulo greatly extended its limits, with the creation of numerous new neighborhoods. In terms of school architecture in the city, the interval between 1949 and 1954 has special meaning. It was during these years that the ‘Educational Agreement’ was in force under the leadership of the Architect Hélio Duarte (1906–1989). This ‘Agreement’, celebrated between the state government and the municipality of São Paulo, allowed the construction of dozens of schools in the city, in an attempt to meet the demands of a growing population in a growing city. Behind each school project conceived within the context of this program there was the vision of Duarte, an idealistic professional who had a close connection with important names in Brazilian education of that period, especially Anísio Teixeira. Duarte had a consistent educational background and a commitment to the ideals of Modern Architecture, a conjunction that resulted in schools that made a very strong architectonic mark and had a precisely delineated functional program distributed in their spaces.     

The role of teachers’ shared values and objectives in promoting intercultural and inclusive school cultures: a case study

This article presents an analysis of teachers’ impressions of their shared objectives and values, together with their conceptions of interculturality and inclusion. The educational reality of a school in Valencia (Spain) is described, based on the exploration through semi-structured interviews. From the systematically categorized information, we obtained two dimensions that, when analyzed, enabled us to draw up lines of action or initiatives for change. We suggest actions that may be taken to transform their school culture and to guide their work towards an inclusive and intercultural model.     

The construction of a New Science by means of an institute and its communication media: the institute of educational sciences in Geneva (1912–1948)

This article is aimed at understanding some mechanisms implied in the construction of educational sciences as a disciplinary field in interaction with other social fields. Its object is the Genevan “Institut des sciences de l'éducation” from 1912 to 1948. This institution is analyzed from two main points of view: the foundation and development of the Institute; the publication activity of its members. In order to understand the reasons that led to the foundation of the Institute, the programmatic text of Claparède (1912) is submitted to a thorough analysis that allows also an understanding of the choices made concerning institutional forms. The history of the Institute is then briefly presented showing that one can distinguish two phases with a transition period from 1929 to 1932. At this moment an important shift takes place from an institution heavily engaged in promoting New Education towards a university institute in which, through specialization and differentiation, one discipline – psychology – progressively emerges. The publication activity of the Institute members is first analyzed through the communication media they create or they are responsible for. The media create a local – and internationally linked – communication space. This space exhibits as much continuity with regard to certain media as an important change: the bulletin designed for linking disciplinary and social fields disappears in favor of media publishing research contributions for researchers. In what concerns the domains and themes treated in the publications one observes an important continuity of the proportion in the different fields, but a certain shift in the themes: New Education is much less prominent in the second phase in which at the same time one finds more strictly scientific and more practical contributions. The intermediate field weakens. The construction of educational sciences appears as a complex, not linear process whereby even a discipline emerges, psychology, in which education seems to be more and more excluded. The analyses show that the Institute of educational sciences in Geneva, like many others, is an essential institution in the construction process of a disciplinary field in the domain of education.     

The ‘critical friend’ role in fostering reflective practices and developing staff cohesion: A case study in a new secondary school,New Zealand

This exploratory case study, arising from a longitudinal project into the establishment of a new secondary school in New Zealand, examines reflective practice through critical friend roles among staff. The paper describes, through the lens of Bourdieu's logic of practice, the implementation of a critical friendship approach linked to the school leaders’ vision and aim regarding learning within open classroom spaces as part of a modern learning environment. Reflective practice involves critiquing, rethinking and reframing existing professional practices, often through a critical friendship approach among school staff within a fostered collaborative and open culture. The researchers interviewed six participants (four leaders and two teachers), observed how the teaching and learning took place in the new open classroom spaces, and reviewed blog posts and the school's website. Findings reveal that critical friendship, as a way to develop staff cohesion, is fostered and supported by the school leaders’ vision and actions, while the physical geography of the new classroom spaces, and the redesign of learning, also make this easier to enact. Staff cohesion, trust and openness to peer scrutiny are hallmark of this emerging school culture. These emerging findings provide some insights into how one new school culture develops cohesion with its stated vision and mission.     

The role of perceptual similarity,context, and situation when selecting attributes: considerations made by 5–6-year-olds in data modeling environments

Classroom data modeling involves posing questions, identifying attributes of phenomena, measuring and structuring these attributes, and then composing, revising, and communicating the outcomes. Selecting attributes is a fundamental component of data modeling, and the considerations made when selecting attributes is the focus of this paper. A teaching experiment involving 2 teacher educators and 25 pre-service teachers (PSTs) was carried out with 24 young children (5–6-year-olds) as part of a 4-day data modeling investigation. Although perceptual features of the data influenced initial approaches to attribute selection, considerations of the problem situation influenced a shift from the perceptual and towards consideration of attributes such as taxonomy, habitat, behavior, and diet. Expertise in the data context (animal kingdom) and ability to collaborate and negotiate within groups supported children in their ability to switch attributes, attend to multiple situations presented by the problem, and modify and extend their categorizations of data.