Search results

This study revisits the discourse on the neoliberalization of business schools and explores how accreditation-linked institutional pressures catalyze cultural change that adversely impact academic labor and academic subjectivities in the Global South.

This study is based on in-depth semi-structured interviews with academics from elite business schools in India.

This study shows how academics encounter institutional pressures in Indian business schools. Three major themes emerged from the data: (1) the conception of the ideal academic that existed before accreditation, (2) how the conception of the ideal academic was fundamentally transformed during and after accreditation, and (3) the challenges academics experienced in achieving the performance targets introduced by accreditation-linked institutional pressures.

This study offers two contributions to the extant literature on business schools located in the Global South: (1) it illustrates how organizational changes within business schools in India are structured by accreditation-linked institutional pressures coming from the Global North, and (2) it adds to the growing body of work on neoliberal governmentality by highlighting the implications of accreditation-liked institutional pressures on academic subjectivities.

The purpose of this paper is to gain a greater depth of understanding of both the pressures and barriers for embedding responsible management education (RME) within business and management schools.

This paper utilises a longitudinal case study design of six business/management schools.

This research identifies a set of institutional pressures and barriers for RME in the business schools selected. First, the pressures appear to come from a number of external business school sources and the barriers from a series of organisational resource and individual factors.

RME cannot be seen as just a bolt on. The orientation needs to change to view RME as requiring a shift in culture/purpose/identity. Due to the barriers this will require systemic organisational change at all levels and an organisational change process to bring about implementation.

The results clearly show these market pressures are no passing fad. Failure to respond in a systemic way will mean business schools will run into serious problems with legitimacy.

This paper fulfils a need for an in depth study of a number of business schools to identify the barriers to RME. This is now a critical issue for schools and this research has provided a number of practical recommendations which will help business schools overcome the identified barriers.

The paper seeks to develop a conceptual framework capable of informing future research into beginning principalship in diverse cultural contexts.

Based on recent literature, and specifically drawing on contributions to this Special Issue, the paper explores the relationship between externally generated pressures and tensions facing beginning principals and their influence on principal socialisation and development.

The paper identifies tensions between increasing pressure on schools to meet a diverse range of social objectives and a context of high‐pressure accountability, limited resources and increasing institutional and systemic complexity uncertainty. Beginning principals face the difficult task of having to reconcile these tensions and in some contexts there is emerging evidence of this impacting on a crisis in principal supply. The paper argues that if systemic problems of supply are to be addressed educational researchers need to develop more sophisticated ways of understanding what factors shape individuals' career paths as they move towards, into and through principalship. One such approach is discussed that integrates the concepts of personal socialisation, professional identity and career trajectory and links these to wider contextual issues.

The paper presents a conceptual framework to underpin future research into the early years of principalship.

The purpose of this paper is to extend the understanding of how internal organisational processes change in response to external demands, by investigating the changes undertaken by two Polish business schools (b-schools) in anticipation of and in response to the demands of accreditation agencies (AAs) and other powerful stakeholders. Specifically, it examines the internal research-related performance measurement (PM) system and changes in the use of performance information (PI).

The case study method is adopted, using data from publicly available documents and interviews with the faculty and management at the two schools. The data are interpreted and analysed using the neo-institutional theory.

Powerful stakeholders are the primary reason for changes in PM systems and the manner in which PI is used. Specifically, AAs reflect an additional layer in the PM system, allowing for a downward cascading PI effect. This also leads to a wider use of PI across different organisational levels.

This study focusses on two case studies in a region still undergoing transition. Thus, this analysis could be reinforced through additional cases, different data collection methods and cross-country and between-country comparative analyses.

The changes in PM systems and particularly the use of PI are discussed in the context of Polish higher education (HE) and, more broadly, the entire Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) region. Moreover, the consideration of two b-school cases facilitates a comparative analysis of the differences in PM systems and the use of PI in the context of stakeholders’ PI needs.

Territory-wide system assessment (TSA) was launched and administered by Hong Kong (HK) Education Bureau (EDB) since 2004. Since then, parents and teachers have been questioning its need, value, uselessness, effectiveness, harm for schools, teachers and students. In 2015, the issue blew up with Kau Yan School’s principal boycotting the tests. A series of discussions in the public and media and different surveys were then carried out widely in HK. After review, EDB announced in 2017 that the revised version of TSA be extended to Primary 3 students in HK. The purpose of this paper is to propose that TSAs for Primary 3, Primary 6 and Secondary 3 need a further review to judge their need and uselessness.

This paper reviews the educational policy governing the administration of the TSA. Primary and secondary data from focus group meetings, press interviews (Bogdan and Biklen, 1982; Miles and Huberman, 1994; Ouiment et al., 2001) and public reports would be analyzed. Besides, participant observation (Nosich, 1982; Sou, 2000; Sou and Zhou, 2007) and theoretical reasoning (Nosich, 1982; Sou, 2000; Sou and Zhou, 2007) have been applied for the critical review of this controversial test. The contrast study on the conflicting views of stakeholders in the education industry would bring up some insights of this controversial educational policy in Assessment for Learning.

Conflicting and contrasting perceptions from TSA to basic competency assessment (BCA) among stakeholders of education and government include governmental stakeholder – EDB’s awareness; EDB stressed that TSA is a low-stakes assessment which does not need extra practice for students; non-governmental stakeholders including legislative councilors’ perception, school principals’ perception, teachers’ perception, parents’ perception and students’ perception. Facing the opposition and grievances of different stakeholders, EDB announced in January 2017 that the revised version of TSA: BCA, be extended to HK in May 2017. Parents and legislative councilors were angry and they ask for a review or even cancellation for Primary 3 TSA.

This original study will initiate more thorough revisions and discussions for the TSAs for Primary 3, Primary 6 and Secondary 3 in HK, as a quality educational management step. While TSA for Primary 3 has been reviewed and substantially “revised,” the community at large still asks for further revision for its needs, uselessness and harm for parents, teachers and students. Since the underlying causes of students’ suicides are not fully identified, the problem of over-drilling practices for TSAs for Primary 3, Primary 6 and Secondary 3 needs to be satisfactorily resolved. Thus, TSAs for Primary 6 and Secondary 3, like that for Primary 3, should be reviewed for probable revision.

The No Child Left Behind Act (2002) and Race to the Top (2009) led to the highest rate of standardized-state testing in the history of the United States of America. As a result, the Every Student Succeeds Act (2015) aims to reevaluate standardized-state testing. Previous research has assessed its impact on schools, educators, and students; yet, youth’s voices are almost absent. Therefore, this qualitative analysis examines how youth of color perceive and experience standardized-state testing.

Seventy-three youth participated in a semistructured interview during the summer of 2015. The sample consists of 34 girls and 39 boys, 13–18 years of age, of African American, Latino/a, Jamaican American, multiracial/ethnic, and other descent. It includes 6–12th graders who attended 61 inter-district and intra-district schools during the 2014–2015 academic year in a Northeastern metropolitan area in the United States that is undergoing a racial/ethnic integration reform.

Youth experienced testing overload under conflicting adult authorities and within an academically stratified peer culture on an ever-shifting policy terrain. While the parent-adult authority remained in the periphery, the state-adult authority intrusively interrupted the teacher-student power dynamics and the disempowered teacher-adult authority held youth accountable through the “attentiveness” rhetoric. However, youth’s perspectives and lived experiences varied across grade levels, school modalities, and school-geographical locations.

In this adult-dominated society, the market approach to education reform ultimately placed the burden of teacher and school evaluation on youth. Most importantly, youth received variegated messages from their conflicting adult authorities that threatened their academic journeys.

While there has been increasing interest in the impact of courtmandated education finance reform on school district efficiency, research on the subject is scant. Taking advantage of New Jersey Supreme Court cases that have altered the way in which state school aid is distributed, this paper examines the effect of changes in the education finance system on school district efficiency. Building on existing literature on public sector efficiency, a longitudinal data analysis based on two-stage DEA models reveals that courtmandated increases in state aid to a limited number of poor school districts decreased the districts' efficiency. Though these results should be interpreted with some caution, in particular, the limitation of DEA as an efficiency measure, they imply that, as with any policy, policy makers and courts should be aware of how policy changes affect local government behavior and that it is necessary to evaluate policy outcome taking into account both resources and performance.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate a dystopian situation with special reference to how a panoptic monitoring system emerges in schools. To satisfy this aim, there will be a close analysis of the city of Nago in Okinawa Prefecture, where there is a huge debate over the new US Marine base construction and how it greatly influences people’s lives.

This study will employ a self-study by the first author, who is a clinical psychologist under the board of education in the city. This self-study aims to examine the lived experiences of the author based on interactions with critical friends.

The government’s selection of the site for the new base created a schism in the community, and the introduction of compensations led to the establishment of a communal panoptic monitoring system. This communal panoptic monitoring largely influences the relationships between pupils, teachers and parents. Further, another panoptic monitoring system has developed inside the Nago schools due to the intensification of the assessment policies given by the ministry in Tokyo.

This investigation purports to analyse a dystopian situation with special reference to how a panoptic monitoring system, a key element of a dystopia, emerges in schools.

A study of the published statements of Australian school administrators revealed that two distinctive configurations of power and service relationships are projected in their publically presented images of state school administration as it relates to government and the public. A previous Traditional Centralist‐Unity configuration is now being replaced by an Emergent Devolution‐Diversity conformation. Analysis was directed to (a) understanding the significance of the two images in terms of their function as public communications, and (b) accounting for the shift in the imagery in the light of pressures for change, the way administrators are interpreting change as turbulence, and the projection of counter images incorporating critiques of government school systems. To help organise analysis, it was assumed that images of system administration have the potential to communicate: 1. information, 2. explanation, 3. judgements and value positions, 4. statements designed to advance sectional interests, and 5. themes and persuasive symbols. It was also assumed that the shift in the public images of administrators may be studied in the way their images relate to three basic sources of administrative tension: tensions which arise from problems of meaning, problems of aspiration, and problems of practice.