Contrasting Dynamics in Education Politics of Extremes

Contrasting Dynamics in Education Politics of Extremes
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2015-01-01
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9463002626

This book aims to enhance understanding of school choice as a supra-national travelling policy, explored in two strikingly different societies: Latin American Chile and North European Finland. Chile was among the first countries to implement school choice as a policy, which it did comprehensively in the early 1980s through the creation of a market environment. Finland introduced parental choice of a school on a very moderate scale and without the market elements in the mid-1990s. Predominant aspects of Chilean basic schooling include provision by for-profit and non-profit private and municipal organisations, voucher system, parental co-payment and ranking lists. Finland persists in keeping education under public-authority governance and free-of-charge, and in prohibiting profit making and rankings.

Dynamics in Education Politics

Dynamics in Education Politics
Author: Hannu Simola
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 169
Release: 2017-03-16
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1135084238

Dynamics in Education Politics: Understanding and Explaining the Finnish Case introduces a new theoretical framework characterised as Comparative Analytics of Dynamics in Education Politics (CADEP). Albeit the topicality of comparative research is obvious in the current era of global large-scale assessment, with its concomitant media visibility and political effects, comparative education is still suffering from certain methodological deficits and is in need of robust theorisation. Focusing on relational dynamics between policy threads, actors and institutions in education politics CADEP seriously considers the phenomena of complexity, contingency and trans-nationality in late-modern societies. In this book CADEP is applied and validated in analysing the "Finnish Educational Miracle" that has been attracting attention in the educational world ever since they rocketed to fame following the PISA studies during the 2000s. This book will open up opportunities for mutual understanding and learning rather than just celebrating the exceptional circumstances or sustainable leadership. Areas covered include: The analytics of dynamics in education politics The dynamics of policy making and governance The dynamics of educational family strategies The dynamics of classroom culture It is vital for humankind to be able to learn from each other’s successes and failures, and this applies in education, too. This book is thus a valuable read for anyone interested in the education system and wanting to shape the learning environment.

The Politics of Public Education

The Politics of Public Education
Author: Gunter, Helen M.
Publisher: Policy Press
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2018-11-28
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1447339584

At a time when public education and reform agendas are changing the way we approach education, this book critically examines the key issues facing the public with implications for education policy makers, professionals and researchers. Drawing on empirical evidence gathered over 20 years, Helen Gunter confronts current issues about social justice and segregation. She uses Arendtian ideas to help the reader to ‘think politically’ about education and how and why public services education can be reimagined for the future.

Politics of Quality in Education

Politics of Quality in Education
Author: Jaakko Kauko
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2018-05-11
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1351362518

The question of quality has become one of the most important framing factors in education and has been of growing interest to international organisations and national policymakers for decades. Politics of Quality in Education focuses on Brazil, China, and Russia, part of the so-called emerging nations’ BRICS block, and draws on a four-year project to develop a new theoretical and methodological approach. The book builds a comparative, sociohistorical, and transnational understanding of political relations in education, with a particular focus on the policies and practices of Quality Assurance and Evaluation (QAE). Tracking QAE processes from international organisations to individual schools, contributors analyse how QAE changes the dynamics in the roles of state, expertise, and governance. The book demonstrates how national and sub-national actors play a central role in the adaptation, modification or rejection of transnational policies. Politics of Quality in Education will be of great interest to academics, researchers and postgraduate students engaged in the study of comparative and international education, as well as educational policy and politics. It should also be essential reading for practitioners and policymakers. The Open Access version of this book, available at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781351362528, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

Understanding Educational Leadership

Understanding Educational Leadership
Author: Steven J. Courtney
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 416
Release: 2021-01-28
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1350081841

Understanding Educational Leadership guides you through critical perspectives and approaches across the world, taking in the global north and south, and explores the ways in which educational leadership is currently understood, theorised, researched, modelled and practised. The book also covers contemporary issues including gender, sexual identity and race, as well as topics such as governance, performativity and corporatisation. It brings together evidence and ideas that illuminate the power structures and relations in educational leaders, leading and leadership and helps you to consider the impact on policy and practice, and to think about changes needed to mitigate the issues identified. The book showcases a wide range of theorists, including Bourdieu, Foucault and Fraser. Its impressive scope includes analyses of collectivist, neoliberal and historical influences on educational leadership. It explores forensically leadership styles, with an explicit focus on distributed, instructional, democratic, autocratic, laissez-faire and organisational forms. Carefully curated by the editors, the world-leading contributors draw on their wealth of knowledge about research and practice to provide you with an overview of educational leadership today, looking at global research, evidence, arguments and conceptualisations. Each chapter is written in an engaging and inspiring way, following a consistent approach to help you to develop your understanding in each of the areas covered. Full pedagogical features throughout include chapter summaries, key questions, case studies, questions for readers and further reading suggestions with questions on key texts. A companion website provides links to open-access outputs, research-project outcomes, and networking seminars, conferences with links to local, national and global events and connections.

Great Policy Successes

Great Policy Successes
Author: Paul 't Hart
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2019
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0198843712

"Or, a tale about why it's amazing that governments get so little credit for their many everyday and extraordinary achievements as told by sympathetic observers who seek to create space for a less relentlessly negative view of our pivotal public institutions."

The Autonomy Paradox: Teachers’ Perceptions of Self-Governance Across Europe

The Autonomy Paradox: Teachers’ Perceptions of Self-Governance Across Europe
Author: Wieland Wermke
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 178
Release: 2021-03-24
Genre: Education
ISBN: 3030656020

What do we mean when we speak about teacher autonomy? How free are teachers to go about their work? To answer these complex questions the authors asked thousands of teachers in four national contexts: in Finland, Ireland, Germany and Sweden, what they think autonomy looks like. The resulting book examines teacher autonomy theoretically and empirically, comparing teachers’ perceptions of their professional autonomy. Utilizing a mixed method approach the authors combine data from a large-scale questionnaire study, teacher interviews, lesson and meeting observations, and workshops that brought together teachers from the four participating countries. All this engagement with teachers revealed that simply increasing their professional autonomy might not lead to desired outcomes. This is because, from a teachers’ point of view, increased decision-making capacity brings further complexity and risk to their work, and it may instead lead to anxiety, self-restriction, and the eventual rejection of autonomy. These surprising conclusions challenge the increasingly orthodox view that increased autonomy is a desirable end in itself. This is what the authors call the autonomy paradox.

Belonging in Changing Educational Spaces

Belonging in Changing Educational Spaces
Author: Karen Monkman
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 300
Release: 2022-02-21
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1000541185

This book explores the impacts on personal and professional, local and global forms of belonging in educational spaces amidst rapid changes shaped by globalization. Encouraging readers to consider the idea of belonging as an educational goal as much as a guiding educational strategy, this text forms a unique contribution to the field. Drawing on empirical and theoretical analyses, chapters illustrate how educational experience informs a sense of belonging, which is increasingly juxtaposed against a variety of global dynamics including neoliberalism, transnationalism, and global policy and practice discourses. Addressing phenomena such as refugee education, large-scale international assessments, and study abroad, the volume’s focus on ten countries including Japan, Sierra Leone, and the US demonstrates the complexities of globalization and illuminates possibilities for supporting new constructions of belonging in rapidly globalizing educational spaces. This text will benefit researchers, academics, and educators with an interest in international and comparative education, multicultural education, and educational policy more broadly. Those interested in the sociology of education and cultural studies within education will also benefit from this volume.

The Finnish Education Mystery

The Finnish Education Mystery
Author: Hannu Simola
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 309
Release: 2014-11-20
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1135084092

Finnish education has been a focus of global interest since its first PISA success in 2001. After years of superficial celebration, astonishment and educational tourism, the focus has recently shifted to what is possibly the most interesting element of this Finnish success story: that Finnish schools have been effectively applying methods that go against the flow of global education policy with no testing, no inspection, no hard evaluation, no detailed national curriculum, no accountability and no hard competition. From a historical and sociological perspective the Finnish case is not merely a linear success story, but is part of a controversial and paradoxical struggle towards Utopia: towards egalitarian schooling. Bringing together a collection of essays by Hannu Simola and his colleagues, this book analyses the key dimensions of schooling in Finland to provide a critical, analytical and uncompromising picture of the Finnish education system. Going beyond the story of success, the book reveals the complexities of educational change, but also identifies opportunities and alternatives for smart political action in complex and trans-national societies. Including a selection of key chapters on Finnish education policy and governance, teacher education and classroom cultures, the book will be of interest to researchers, academics and postgraduate students in comparative education, teacher education, educational policy and educational reform.

Knowledge, Policy and Practice in Teacher Education

Knowledge, Policy and Practice in Teacher Education
Author: Maria Teresa Tatto
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2019-02-21
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1350068691

Knowledge, Policy and Practice in Teacher Education reviews the evolution of education policy on initial teacher education as an indicator of the knowledge that is considered important for nation building. It also looks at research on approaches and structures to initial teacher learning as an indication of the intellectual and moral direction to which schooling must aspire. Contributors look at these dynamics across a range of societies including Australia, the Czech Republic, England, Finland, Hong Kong, Israel, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, and the USA. Using a review of the literature approach within a comparative framework, the book seeks to answer the following questions for each country: What has been the evolution of different approaches to learning to teach in each setting, and what factors have influenced change over the years? What are the underlying theories that characterize past and current thinking about the knowledge, skills and dispositions needed by teachers and what evidence is used to support these theories? What does a review on the state of the knowledge about teacher education over the past 30 years reveal about the evolution of the research and knowledge traditions that have supported current and past innovations in teacher education? Maria Teresa Tatto and Ian Menter explore international variability in different conceptions of knowledge in the context of learning to teach and explore the way in which national and international influences interact in the developing trajectories of teacher education policy and practice, considering what knowledge is considered important for teachers to have.