学校变革的三种影响力量

教育行政推动、社会需求驱动和学校自主选择是影响学校变革的三种主要力量,它们对学校变革的影响各不相同。为使学校变革能顺利推进,一方面要尽力改进教育行政管理和引导社会对教育的需求,为学校变革创造支持环境;另一方面要从学校自主选择切入,培育推动学校变革的力量。为此,要重点提升校长的教育责任感、事业心、办学理念、开拓精神、改革意志等办学品质。     

The politics of student voice: unravelling the multiple discourses articulated in schools

For almost two decades student voice has been used and enacted in educational settings for a range of purposes. Student voice theorists have framed it in sociocultural, social constructionist and poststructural terms. It has been located in a range of schooling discourses and there have been powerful critiques of instrumentalist uses of student voice. It has been reified for its potential to leverage schooling reform, associated with accountability, governmentality and technologies of control, and also heralded as a process to activate radical collegiality in educational settings. This article investigates how school leaders from Aotearoa/New Zealand discursively locate the complex and contested construct of student voice in their schooling settings. Drawing data from principal interviews, discourses inherent in school leader comments are analysed to consider the contribution of student voice. A consideration is provided of how young people are ascribed positions as agents in contemporary Aotearoa schools.     

Lesson study for learning community (LSLC): conceptualising teachers’ practices within a social justice perspective

Under neo-liberal policies in many countries, there has been an extensive trend of educational reform which intensifies competition. Such educational reform is underpinned by direct government control, seen in centre to periphery forms of policy administration and implementation with strong emphasis on managerialism and test-oriented accountability models. There are critical views and opinions about such neo-liberal reforms, but a need still exists to discuss ways forward to protect the equality and right of teachers and student learners in schooling. This essay accordingly aims to discuss how the lesson study for learning community (LSLC) approach of school reform from Japan might signal a practical shift in emphasis away from competitive models of schooling fostered by school reform movements. The aim of this study is to discuss the philosophical underpinnings of LSLC, with particular emphasis on its social justice nature, particularly in reference to criticisms against neo-liberal reform agendas.     

Schools that Make a Difference: a sociological perspective on effective schooling

A recent review essay of three books on effective schooling stated that the literature on school effectiveness largely adopts a functionalist view of society and schooling and the field of inquiry is dominated by a positivist paradigm. The review argued for a sociological analysis of effective schooling. This paper examines from a sociological perspective the nature of effective schooling. The paper draws on case studies of four high schools to analyse their relationship with the social, cultural and policy dimensions of their context. A major focus of the paper is on the dilemmas, tensions and issues arising from the interrelationship between each school and its context, and the implications of these for an understanding of effective practices in schools.     

Scholarisation, apprenticeship and social differentiation. Analysis of the non-industrial craft sector in Morocco

The article approaches the question of the schooling processes in the particular environment of the Moroccan craftsmen of Fez. It shows that the weak schooling of the children is bound to the representations and to the ways of transmission of craft industry knowledge. Schooling is, indeed, the object of tensions between a school system of western inspiration and the Muslim system of transmitting patrimonial knowledge. The article shows then that schooling is integrated into craftsmen's ‘relationships with knowledge’ and ‘reasons of knowing’: because of historic development factors of the school system in Morocco, and of sociological factors of domination in the craftsmen's environment, schooling is not indeed legitimate for most craftsmen. It is not even always “possible”: in fact, social reproduction in craftsmen's environment is indeed, and because of the previous factors, based on holding positions bound to the mastery of the traditional knowledge and of the production market, rather than to the possession of school capital. On the other hand, schooling has gained strong legitimacy at a general society level, so that the craftsmen, and especially their children, are more and more the victims of social declassification.     

US principals’ attitudes about and experiences with single-sex schooling

Despite a lack of scientific evidence supporting the use of single-sex education, the number of US public schools offering single-sex education has increased. However, our understanding as to why decision-makers have implemented single-sex education is lacking. To address this gap, we surveyed US public school principals and assessed their attitudes about and experiences with single-sex schooling. Sixty-seven principals from single-sex schools and 193 principals from co-educational schools participated. The results indicated that principals who had experience with single-sex schooling tended to have more positive attitudes about single-sex schooling, viewed it as more effective, and more often evoked gender-essentialist rationales for the use of single-sex schooling than did co-educational principals. However, both single-sex and co-educational principals noted issues with single-sex schooling. It was concluded that single-sex schooling is not a silver bullet to educational reform and that when single-sex schooling is implemented, one set of issues and problems is substituted for another.     

Curriculum Change as a Form of Educational Policy Legitimation: the case of Spain

ABSTRACT

This paper examines how the main changes in the last Spanish Educational Reform become new forms of state educational control. The article introduces a specific sociological perspective to analyse these changes in semiperipheral social formations. Macro‐contradictions embedded in the process of mass schooling in Spain draw a framework to understand the context and the logics of curriculum change. The extremely acute state legitimation crisis in semiperipheral societies has effects on the structure and the content of curriculum change. These effects are analysed, on the one hand, at the level of educational policy, and, on the other, at the level of school practices, showing the importance of cultural obstacles for curriculum change through teachers’ beliefs and practices.     

校长的社会网络研究:一个导论

社会网络是西方社会学的一个分支领域,一种关于社会结构的观点,一套分析方法和技术。校长的社会网络研究旨在用社会网络分析的范式研究校长的人际关系体系,这与目前教育管理领域对校长的人际关系研究相比,是一种研究范式的改变。校长的社会网络研究可以采用自我中心网络分析的方法,描述校长的社会网络结构特征,比较不同学校校长网络结构的差异,为学校发展提供一种社会学解释。     

美国特许学校改革与教育公平研究

特许学校改革是美国择校运动发展到近期出现的教育改革运动,是美国公立教育改革的重要组威部分.然而从美国第一所特许学校诞生的那天起,特许学校就受到来自各方面的争议,其中最大的担忧就是改革可能造成教育的分化与不公.本文从社会学视角出发,指出经过近20年发展,特许学校一方面促成了基于不同教育理念的社会分化,另一方面也更好地满足了不同社会群体的教育需求.特许学校改革的复杂性和未来的不确定性对我国教育改革有一定的启发意义.     

Navigating the demands of the English schooling context: problematics and possibilities for social equity

The English schooling context has seen radical and rapid reform in recent times with the processes of devolution or deconcentration of centralised school governance, on the one hand, and the instating of ever-increasing and rigid external accountabilities, on the other. These reforms driven as they are by neo-liberal and neoconservative ideologies have created a new kind of ‘system’ of schooling in England, one that is ‘heterarchical’ in governance, increasingly complex in its overlap, multiplicity and asymmetric power dynamics, but one that remains strongly tied to and regulated by the reductive and narrow measures of ‘success’ imposed by the state. Against this complex and changing backdrop, what constitutes quality and equitable schooling has been transformed. This special issue explores these concerns and, in particular, focuses on how the current demands of the English schooling context construct student achievement and identity, teachers' work, conceptualisations of knowledge and pedagogy, and school organisation and collaboration. The issue has a strong equity focus. Many of the papers to this end focus on how teachers and schools are navigating through the demands of current policy reform to mobilise spaces of possibility for equity and good schooling. In this paper, we provide a context and framework to set the scene for the subsequent papers in the issue.     

Teachers’ sense-making about comprehensive school reform: The influence of emotions

The paper examines teachers’ emotions in the process of making sense of educational reforms. We draw upon concepts from sociological theory and education to inform our framework for understanding how emotions, as a social construct, directly and indirectly, influence teachers’ understandings. Using qualitative data gathered in a study of comprehensive school reform (CSR), we explain how teachers make sense of reforms within their school and classroom contexts and the emotions that arise in the process. Findings show that as teachers made sense of reforms at the school level, they attached little emotion to them; whereas, making sense of the reforms vis-à-vis their own classroom practice appeared to be a more emotional process for teachers. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.     

论高考改革与高中新课改之关系

高考改革与高中新课改应该是"貌合神离"的两项改革,合必两败俱伤,分则两全其美。打破"一试定终身"、"高考指挥棒"以及"应试教育"怪圈的途径,是让高中新课改形成一整套包括教育考试在内的测评手段,而不是仅凭单一的教育考试;测评内容既不要忽视知识考查,又要注重能力立意、素养立意;测评性质以标准参照为主,而不是主要靠常模参照;学生在高中学业测评系统中的表现,可以也应该作为与高考成绩并重的高校招生标准。因此,高考改革要大幅度与高中教学内容脱钩,充分发挥自身本质(常模参照考试)与特长,着重测试学生的能力水平、学习潜力,为高校选拔新生补充高中教学测评无法提供的有用参考指标。     

对业余体校教学改革问题的思考

为了适应当前社会发展的需要,新世纪、新形势下业余体校教学改革迫在眉睫,通过对业余体校教学中存在问题的分析,提出了业余体校教学改革的措施和建议,为业余体校教育提供参考依据．     

The failure of the public schools and the free market remedy

A Summary The replacement of the existing system of publicly operated schools by a market of private ones-supported by government vouchers—would probably yield mixed results. On the one hand, some parents would have greater choices among schools and some schools would have to be productive in order to survive in the competitive framework. The increase in consumer choice and the resultant competition among schools would be likely to lead to greater educational benefits for many students and their families (private benefits) than those which they receive under the present monopolistic system.On the other hand, the schools are also expected to fulfill certain social functions. It is in these that a market approach to schooling is likely to yield poor results. For example, basic schooling represents the primary device for equalizing opportunities among racial and social groups. Yet, advantaged children would probably receive far better schooling under the market proposal than would disadvantaged ones, and it is likely that this disparity would lead to larger future inequalities in opportunity between the children of the middle class and those of the poor. Further, it is not clear that a set of largely autonomous schools could provide the common set of values and knowledge necessary for the functioning of a democratic society. Finally, it is likely that the market proposal would increase racial and social stratification of students among schools. Whatever the success of the market in meeting consumer preferences, it would be offset by the market's failure to satisfy the social goals of basic schooling.Fortunately, we are not limited to choosing between the traditional educational bureaucracy on the one hand or an unmitigated free market for educational services on the other. There are several ways to create competition within a public school system. Jencks, Sizer, and Coleman have suggested particular plans based upon the competitive framework, and the proposal for community schools represents a more general framework in which the competition of the market place might be used to advantage. The time is ripe to experiment with at least one of these plans for the children of the ghetto. Do we have any buyers? Henry M. Levin is a research associate with the Economic Studies Division of the Brookings Institute. He has written on economic and educational matters in the Saturday Review, the Journal of Human Resources,and other publications. He is currently organizing a Brookings conference on the community school.     

The impact of reform policies on teachers' work and professionalism in the Chinese Mainland

This paper examines the impact of reform policies on the work of Chinese teachers. It explores the policy context in which a fragile teaching profession attempts to develop and discusses the dynamics of interacting societal forces that have created the dilemmas for the teachers. The authors argue that while the continual implementation of reform policies has fostered a new outlook in Chinese schools, calls for profound change in schooling have caused much anxiety among teachers. The teachers' anxiety stems from the incongruence between their professional outlook, which is intimately linked to student academic achievement, and the dictates of state reform measures, which seek to broaden the conception of education to include other areas of human development. Throughout the years of reform, teachers have had to stretch their professional capacity in order to satisfy competing demands engendered by reform measures and educational reality. It is in the tensions caused by the implementation of reform policies that the humanism of teacher professionalism is magnified. In this paper, the authors discuss the educational and social issues that surround the teachers' preference for conventional practices.     

Regulation in school systems: a theoretical analysis of the structural framework of the school system in French-speaking Belgium

In the context of a weakening social consensus about the purpose of schooling, what kind of social forms and procedures enable educative action to be co-ordinated and stabilized, at least to some extent? In order to answer this question, the authors develop a two-fold approach to regulation within school systems, defining regulation as ‘the process through which rules are produced and social action is oriented’. From a methodological point of view, grasping this process encompasses both an analysis of the structural framework and a comprehension of the social interactions which produce rules. On the one hand, regulation is understood as the articulation of several forms of co-ordination resulting from a particular historical process. The analysis of the structural (institutional) framework in French-speaking Belgium illustrates this first moment of the approach. On the other hand, attention is given to interactions and games between actors, particularly at a local level, in order to understand how rules are constructed and how organized action can emerge.     

进步主义教育的成败对我国新课改的启示

阐述了19世纪70年代到20世纪中叶,美国教育界兴起的进步主义教育。如果将进步主义教育分为进步主义教育思潮和进步主义教育运动两个部分,二者实际上各有成败,从总体上说,前者走向了成功,后者走向了失败。对其成败原因的分析可以给予我国当前的“新课改”以良好的启示,一方面适应时代,联系实际;另一方面吸收传统,面向未来;第三教师参与,双向对接;最后广开言路,去伪取真。     

School educational project as a criterion of school choice: discourses and practices in the city of Barcelona

In its advancement towards an education quasi-market, Catalonia has recently been driving the development of school educational projects in all schools (both public and private) as a tool to facilitate school autonomy and family choices. A school educational project is a formal document in which schools identify their pedagogical goals, missions and orientations, their academic resources and organisational structures. Through the analysis of 60 in-depth interviews with parents of children at the age of commencing universal pre-primary education (three years old) and data collected from surveys completed by a representative sample made up of 3245 families, this article explores the impact of this policy on discourses and practices of school choice amongst families in the city of Barcelona. On the one hand, we observe that interest in educational projects has penetrated the discourses of the most educated parents, even though, at the same time, we detect a generalised lack of knowledge of the content of such projects. On the other hand, we note that the social composition of schools is still a prominent factor in choice practices. Such findings question the ideal of the autonomous and rational citizen-consumer that underlies the policy of establishing educational projects.     

CONSUMING THE PUBLIC SCHOOL

In this essay David Labaree examines the tension between two competing visions of the purposes of education that have shaped American public schools. From one perspective, we have seen schooling as a way to preserve and promote public aims, such as keeping the faith, shoring up the republic, or promoting economic growth. From the other perspective, we have seen schooling as a way to advance the interests of individual educational consumers in the pursuit of social access and social advantage. In the first half of the essay Labaree shows the evolution of the public vision over time, from an emphasis on religious aims to political ones to economic ones and, finally, to an embrace of individual opportunity. In the second half, he shows how the consumerist vision of schooling has not only come to dominate in the rhetoric of school reform but also in shaping the structure of the school system.     

Historicizing the Future: Educational Reform, Systems of Reason, and the Making of Children Who are the Future Citizens

Educational reform and reformist research are not merely about school improvement. They embody a field of cultural practices that constitutes the objects of schooling – the teacher who administers the reforms to the child and the distinctions and differentiations about who the child is and should be. Our interest is in the rules and standards of reason assembled through the cultural practices of school reform. Reason is a cultural practice functioning to enact a change in the conditions of people but also invests people with particular capacities and capabilities. This investiture of capacities and capabilities produces particular human kinds or categories of the determinant qualities of the individuals schools administer. Using studies of educational governance and social inclusion/exclusion in Europe and on US educational reform, the discussion focuses on the overlapping practices of system management and curriculum reforms that map different human kinds. One human kind is the child as a lifelong learner, an individual whose qualities entail actively and flexibly participating in communities through problem-solving strategies. The characteristics and qualities of the lifelong learner are differentiated from those who do not embody the norms of participation –the child left behind. The study of the systems of reason that govern the objects of reflection and rectification in school reforms is a strategy to consider the politics of reform, change, and social inclusion and exclusion.