Variations on Modernisation: Technological Development and Internationalisation in Local Swedish School Policy From 1950 to 2000

ABSTRACT

Since WWII, Sweden has had an international reputation for being modern and progressive, with schooling that provides equal opportunities for all children. Analysing local enactment of the national pursuit of modernisation in two contrasting municipalities, this paper offers new perspectives on Swedish education history beyond the image of schooling as a uniform national project. The concepts of technological development and internationalisation are applied to capture the ideas and visions inherent in this modernisation. The study demonstrates, through the example of the rural municipality of Tierp and the municipality of Stockholm, the complexity of the modernisation process and the interplay between divergent interpretations of national reforms and local enactment of modernisation.     

律师参与政治:法治的和谐音

律师制度是民主制度的重要组成部分，律师应当是国家政治生活的中坚力量。现代西方国家律师们的用武之地都不仅仅限于司法领域，他们在社会事务管理方面也发挥着重大的作用。重要政治家通常都有过从事律师的经历。律师参与政治是具有深刻社会基础和优越的条件的。通过制度建构疏通和规范律师政治参与的渠道，赋予律师表达社会见解的独立地位和话语权利，引导他们凭借职业优势促进政治发展、维护社会稳定是十分紧迫的政治任务。加入世界贸易组织后，我国的律师职业也要与国际接轨，应当对我国律师参与政治的制度进行全方位的设定。     

The ebbs and flows of policy enactments on school-related gender-based violence: Insights from Ethiopia,Zambia, Côte d’Ivoire and Togo

While school-related gender-based violence (SRGBV) is increasingly on the agenda of international development agencies and national governments, there is little evidence on the policy processes that can more effectively address violence. Drawing on data from studies conducted during an innovative three year action research project with UNICEF and governments in Ethiopia, Togo, Côte d’Ivoire and Zambia, this paper explores the struggles of actors and organisations engaged in developing and implementing policies linked to SRGBV at national, mid and local levels. We examine interlinked political, conceptual and resource challenges that frequently hinder the multi-dimensional work needed to respond to and prevent the many forms of everyday violence in girls’ and boys’ lives. Finally, we explore the potential for strengthening government structures, and networks across sectors and state and non-state organisations, that are able to support the creative work of school communities to recontextualise policies, in order to generate more effective multi-dimensional policy enactments.     

The activation of epistemological resources in epistemic communities: District educators’ professional learning as policy enactment

This article argues that professional learning can be understood as a form of policy enactment, characterized by the activation of particular ‘epistemological’ resources within specific communities of shared understanding (‘epistemic communities’). In making this case, we draw upon insights from district officials responsible for enacting a provincial assessment policy in Ontario, Canada. Our research suggests these senior educators' learning about assessment reform, particularly their strong advocacy for teacher learning for assessment reform, were epistemological resources developed within the specific, effective epistemic communities of which they had been a part, over time. Policy enactment is heavily influenced by student-centered school/cross-school/system communities.     

Change management and the SENCo role: developing key performance indicators of inclusivity

This article highlights the changing role of special educational needs co‐ordinators (SENCos) in England. SENCos are now required to manage change strategically and deliver inclusive school cultures. A school‐based evaluative study undertaken by a teacher who is studying for the postgraduate National Award for SEN Co‐ordination (NASENCO) for SENCos is featured within the article to illustrate the principles and techniques associated with strategic change management. The study is framed by a commentary that also includes references to more critical treatments of the shift towards quantified performance assessment, monitoring and management (of pupils, teachers and schools) which has been read as a displacement of professional judgement‐based teaching practice.     

Book reviews

Background: To help equip students with 21^st century competencies, one popular strategy adopted by governments and schools worldwide is to move from less formal to more engaging school environments through School-Based Curriculum Development (SBCD). In Singapore, the governmental call to Teach Less and Learn More has galvanised SBCD in schools nationwide. Schools have been given more autonomy and greater flexibility to develop diverse approaches in innovating their own curriculum frameworks.

Purpose: This study aims to provide a nuanced, retrospective account of the enactment of SBCD via Information and Communication Technology (ICT)-integrated, theme-based programmes in a primary school in Singapore. The research questions that guide this study are: (1) How do the school stakeholders enact SBCD? (2) How does the enactment affect the school stakeholders?

Method: This study looked into curriculum innovation using a retrospective lens and employed a case study approach to examine the enactment of SBCD in the school. Five focus group discussions (FGDs) were conducted with the major stakeholders of the school, including two school leaders, ten key personnel and ten teachers across different subjects and grade levels. Thematic analysis of the data was undertaken.

Findings: Four themes and twelve associated sub-themes were identified from the analysis of the FGDs. The four themes include experimentation, support, growth and challenges. This whole-school approach to curriculum innovation had a clear focus on mobilizing the school community to tackle the uncertainties of implementing an innovative curriculum. The stakeholders played diverse but intertwined roles throughout different stages of the enactment process, producing strong collegiality amongst the stakeholders. This prevailing collegiality, as embedded in the active participation of the stakeholders in a multiplicity of collective sharing and learning practices, seems likely to help the school achieved desired outcomes.

Conclusions: The whole-school approach to curriculum innovation in the case school is promising from the perspectives of teaching-learning and student outcomes, but cannot provide a panacea for all the challenges encountered in the enactment process.     

Policy enactments in the UK secondary school: examining policy,practice and school positioning

This paper presents a first attempt in an ongoing research study of the policy environments in four UK secondary schools to examine policy enactment, where ‘enactment’ refers to an understanding that policies are interpreted and ‘translated’ by diverse policy actors in the school environment, rather than simply implemented. The paper is divided into two parts. The first part presents an audit of the policies encountered in four case study schools in the south‐east of England. The second part looks at one current English government policy, namely personal learning and thinking skills, and how this is taken up in two of the case study schools. In this way, the paper not just explores why a policy is adopted but also illustrates the capacity for school‐based policy elaboration, where schools produce their own ‘take’ on policy, drawing on aspects of their culture or ethos, as well as on the situated necessities.     

Digitalise and capitalise? Teachers’ self-understanding in 21st-century teaching contexts

The digitalisation of educational contexts has changed the practice of teaching and learning. In this, teachers have a key role in enacting digital technologies for this purpose and have different opportunities to do so. This article explores how digitalisation can affect teachers by focusing on: (a) how teachers manage to capitalise on digitalisation; and (b) how digitalisation can affect and reconstruct their self-understanding. Two teacher colleagues of English as a foreign language (EFL) in the same teaching team are interviewed and observed. Drawing on the interplay between self-image, self-esteem, job motivation, and task perception, it is shown how the teachers’ self-understanding is played out and changes due to the call for digitalisation. Whereas one of the teachers has been able to capitalise on digitalisation in a way that has been beneficial both professionally and personally, the other has felt pressurised by it. A conclusion is that a limited or extended use of digital technologies should not be taken as an indicator of teaching quality.     

A space for policy legacy: an ethnographic exploration of a secondary school’s commitment to creativity after national policy priorities have changed

To-date qualitative research in the field of policy enactment has tended to focus on investigating existing national policy discourse and the ways in which this discourse is creatively reconstituted in school-based contexts of practice. In this paper, the focus is on uncovering the ways in which a school-based commitment to a specific policy – in this case creativity – is sustained and has a legacy even after national policy discourse and priorities have changed. By focusing ethnographically upon the legacy of policy at a school-based level, the paper sets out to illuminate the social actions teachers undertake to establish, nurture and protect their institutional and professional investment in and commitment towards creativity.