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The purpose of this paper is to analyze critically the evolution of educational reform in Thailand. Three major phases are identified. The special focus of the paper is an assessment of the third reform which began with the passage of the Office of the National Education Commission (ONEC) (2002).

The methodology for the study is mixed methods including document analysis, direct participant observation, and compilation of major statistical performance indicators from diverse sources.

The success of the most recent reform has been clearly mixed. Major structural and legal changes have occurred but overall system performance remains disappointingly low, despite large Thai educational expenditures as a percent of national budget and the presence of much impressive educational leadership talent. The paper identifies what is called the “Thai educational paradox”. The essence of the paradox is Thailand’s failure to achieve its educational potential. The paper identifies key factors explaining the paradox.

The paper has significant theoretical, policy, and practical implications. From a theoretical perspective, the study confirms the persistence of strong regional disparities and a lack of fiscal neutrality associated with a neoliberal model of capitalistic development. From a practical policy perspective, it is imperative for Thailand to improve the overall quality of its educational system and to reduce regional disparities. There have been numerous studies of each of Thailand’s three phases of reform, but this paper’s original contribution is its presentation of a historical, interdisciplinary, and integrated perspective on the evolution of educational reform and the many obstacles associated with its implementation.

The purpose of this essay is to honor, position and reflect on key themes related to high school reform within the careerlong scholarship of Karen Seashore Louis. It is presented in relation to my own and others' key studies and book-length arguments regarding educational change, knowledge utilization, professional communities and innovation, over the past 30 years and up to the present time.

The article examines and interprets major works by Karen Seashore Louis and other educational change theorists that address repeated systemic failures, and episodic outlier efforts, at transformational change in high schools.

High school change has only failed if it is judged by the overarching criterion of system-wide transformation. Fair assessments of high school change must also examine accumulated incremental innovations. In light of the need for transformational aspirations in schools to mesh with transformational directions in society, the global pandemic and its aftermath may provide five key opportunities for long-awaited transformation.

There are different levels and degrees of innovation. Incremental innovation is as important as wholesale transformation. The growing number of networked outliers of innovation raises questions about the false equation of whole system change with bureaucratic state reform. Although the influential literature on whole system change is rooted in a small number of English-speaking countries, transformational change on a system-wide basis already exists in Northern Europe and parts of the Global South. Last, the pandemic and other major disruptions to the global social order have produced conditions that are highly favorable to transformational change in the future.

There is a growing consensus in education that schools can and should attend to students’ social-emotional development. Emerging research and popular texts indicate that students’ mindsets, beliefs, dispositions, emotions and behaviors can advance outcomes, such as college readiness, career success, mental health and relationships. Despite this growing awareness, many districts and schools are still struggling to implement strategies that develop students’ social-emotional skills. The purpose of this paper is to fill this gap by examining the social-emotional learning (SEL) practices in ten middle schools with strong student-reported data on SEL outcomes, particularly for African American and Latinx students.

Case study methods, including interviews, observations and document analysis, were employed.

The authors identify six categories of common SEL practices: strategies that promote positive school climate and relationships, supporting positive behavior, use of elective courses and extracurricular activities, SEL-specific classroom practices and curricula, personnel strategies and measurement and data use. Absence of a common definition of SEL and lack of alignment among SEL practices were two challenges cited by respondents.

This is the first study to analyze SEL practices in outlier schools, with a focus on successful practices with schools that have a majority of African American and/or Latinx students.

Reports the findings of a qualitative study investigating the interactions relating to special education between principals and parent advocates. Specifically focuses on variations in perspectives among the principals and parent advocates on disability, special education and inclusion. Places a particular emphasis on exploring the perceived power imbalances in decision‐making processes and in incompatibility or conflict among values and interests. Data collected through a series of individual interviews and group dialogues involving both advocates and administrators, reveal how the participants define and manage their respective professional roles as they engage with one another in resolving ethical dilemmas in special education. The findings provide rich illustrations of shared decision‐making processes, alternative knowledge and understandings of special education and disability, and more politicized forms of parent involvement. These dialogical interactions also reveal the inequities, power imbalances and politics within organizational arenas that promote conflict. Proposes democratic, critical, and collaborative approaches to interactions as appropriate processes for managing such conflict.

The purpose of this paper is to map, characterize and conceptualize the press discourse of NGO–school interactions within public education in Israel and in England.

The study is based on a corpus of articles published in key elite and popular daily newspapers in Israel and in England. The data were analyzed through two complementary methodologies, framing analysis (FA) and critical discourse analysis (CDA).

Significant differences were observed in the way the topic is framed in the articles, in particular between the different types of newspapers. The elite newspapers (Ha’aretz and The Guardian) tended to frame the events in a thematic manner even when they contained episodic discussions, while the popular newspapers (Yedioth Aharonoth and The Times) tended to cover the events episodically with no thematic coverage whatsoever. CDA of news items identified two major themes: financial issues, and problematization vs normalization discourse. Consistent with the FA, CDA revealed differences in the approaches advocated by popular and elite news outlets in covering news concerning NGO–school relations in each of the examined countries.

It is shown how popular newspapers offer the masses that depend on it a narrow and inferior coverage, of the problematic relations formed between NGOs and schools. A discussion of possible implications of the findings is presented, in light of the growing prominence of external entities in public education.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the interaction between schools and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the Israeli and German education systems from the perspective of the stakeholders involved: school principals, the NGOs’ leadership, and regulatory authorities in each country.

The study documents the process by which the interactions between schools and NGOs emerge, the motivations of each of the involved stakeholders, how stakeholders perceive the interaction and the power relations between the involved stakeholders. The study was conducted using the qualitative “grounded theory” methodology, which the authors applied to develop a concept that is anchored in data collected through the research and systematically analyzed.

Using case studies, the authors examine how the relationships between the formal education system and the external entity are formed, reveal the motivations and strategies of the stakeholders involved in the interaction, and investigate the partnerships’ development process in the two different educational systems studied. Findings from the study leading to the conclusion that school-NGO interaction is based on entrepreneurial activities on the part of the school principals and the NGOs, which is gradually becoming institutionalized.

Through this study, the authors have developed a new empirical based theory on the interaction between schools and NGOs as entrepreneurial activity.

To review what “quality” meant to universities historically and might mean in the future.

Written as a keynote talk for The Australian Universities Quality Forum 2004, this paper problematizes “universities” and “quality” by reviewing the way changing communication modalities have changed the meaning of the two terms over time.

After reviewing some of the literature forecasting alternative futures of universities, the paper settles on a preferred future in which all education, higher and lower, is driven by the logic, best practices, and evolving technologies of electronic games.

The paper reveals that researchers who compare word‐based educational systems with electronic, interactive sound‐and‐image‐based systems should use measures appropriate for the latter, rather than derived from the former.

The paper shows that educators should take interactive electronic game methods more seriously in thinking about and planning for the futures of universities and their curricula.

This paper provides a contribution to the growing emphasis on making learning interactive, engaging, effective, and fun.

This study attempts to provide cross-cultural learning by focusing on a very important aspect of research, the study of teaching materials, known as Kyouzai Kenkyuu in Japan. The purpose of this paper is to investigate teachers’ views and awareness about the study of teaching materials, in particular, the views and awareness of Iranian teachers, who are beginning to understand their teaching practice and professional development through lesson study.

Qualitative research methods were employed for data collection. These methods included comparative analysis of an Iranian mathematics lesson from the perspective of Japanese educators and semi-structured interviews with all participants of the lesson analysis meetings.

The findings are intended to position Kyouzai Kenkyuu as an important aspect of Japanese lesson study and to make explicit the beliefs and values that underpin and shape pedagogical reasoning that support researchers and practitioners to improve the quality of teaching through lesson study. This was achieved through post-lesson discussion meetings, and the beliefs and values were those the participants were largely unaware of but could be clarified through a cross-cultural comparison. For instance, Japanese teachers focus more on learners and the study of teaching materials for raising the quality of teaching, whereas Iranian teachers focus more on the content of teaching and teacher behavior.

This study delivers a transnational learning opportunity for teachers and researchers to learn how to provide evidence-based analysis of a lesson to raise the quality of teaching. However, as this is a case study and focuses specifically on Kyouzai Kenkyuu, it opens up the possibility for comparative analysis of more sample lessons and other aspects of Japanese lesson study.

It may be interesting for teachers and researchers to see how such a study could help them revise their quality of teaching through lesson study and construct shared knowledge about how to teach and to clarify “the pedagogical theories” that underpin such knowledge building.

The value of this study is in its ability to reveal to educators their own unconscious teaching script and knowledge and “the pedagogical theories” that underpin such knowledge. It provides an opportunity for evidence-based critiques of our own teaching script, theory, view and values that we accept culturally, share tacitly and may not even be aware of in the construction process.

This study combines careful measurement with an “insider’s perspective” from Iran and an “outsider’s perspective” from Japan of differing educational concepts within the same subject area. The objective is to provide a deeper understanding of the real world of lesson study and how it can help educators to construct shared knowledge about how to teach in practice and to support teachers to revise the cultural context of teaching.

Teachers' resistance to educational reform has been explored, with special attention given to the reasons driving opposition and the resistance practices employed inside school walls. These studies have not, however, examined the agenda setting strategy employed by teachers opposing new policy on the national level, nor has any extensive study focused on the messages or rhetoric characterizing their opposition. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the rhetoric and images used in web‐based campaigns by teachers to secure public support for their resistance to the “New Horizon” reform in Israel 2007 teachers' strike.

This study employs a descriptive case study methodology to illustrate the bottom‐up political strategy employed by teachers seeking public support for their opposition to reform. Content analysis of entries and manifestos posted on prominent teachers' weblogs and partisan school web sites during Israel's 64‐day teachers' strike in 2007 was conducted. Texts discussing the reform and its leaders, as well as educational and policy issues were analyzed inductively, divided according to meaning units, and then grouped together into categories.

Data indicate that the media, and specifically the internet, are perceived as major arena for garnering legitimacy and support. Teachers' rhetoric of resistance to reform was found to be characterized by: the use of emotional and rational appeals, the attempt to present teachers as “champions of education”, the use of dramatic labeling addressed at reformist leaders, and symbolic images of political parties.

The paper presents a conceptual model of political processes in the education system. The findings show the agenda setting strategy as reflected in teachers' cross‐level bottom‐up attempts to influence politics. Furthermore, teachers' rhetoric in resisting educational reform shows great similarity to the rhetoric of political campaigns. Theoretical and practical implications of findings are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the governance of educational reform, as an interpretive process – “interpretive governance” – through a case study of five superintendents living in a predominantly Swedish-speaking region in Finland.

To foreground superintendents’ perspectives on reforms as simultaneously reflective and constitutive of governance processes, the research applies and extends Rhodes’ (2012) notions of “network governance,” “meta-governance” and “interpretive governance.” Interpretive governance, an underresearched area, is construed as particularly important for developing better insights into how school reform is understood by key actors involved in its enactment.

The research identifies what are described as three “deliberative” dimensions of interpretive governance; these modes of governance are elaborated as “dialogic,” “directive” and “defensive” in nature.

The study reveals senior educators’ interpretations of governance as multifaceted, and argues that these complex modes of deliberation need to be taken into account to better understand how school development is understood and enacted in municipal and school settings.