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The purpose of this paper is to study the relationship between the attitudes of principals, municipality-specific aspects of reform implementation, and principals’ resistance to change.

The collected data are based on a multi-level structure. The levels of analysis are at the school level (school principal) and at the municipality level. Therefore, the research question posed in this study is examined using a quantitative multi-level analysis.

The results show that both the personal attitudes of school principals and adjustments made by the school presidency of the municipality affect the school principals’ willingness to change.

The study’s focus on schools limits the ability to generalize the results to apply to other organizations. Nevertheless, schools are an important object of study for change management research because they share crucial organizational characteristics with other organizations in the public sector.

Studies that have looked at the change reactions of leaders in the public school sector have rarely examined individual and collective factors together. We focus on both, since the municipalities in many countries have a certain amount of leeway in implementing reforms, meaning that their involvement is of central importance for a successful change process.

The paper aims to clarify how work-specific characteristics at both the individual and organizational level influence professional civil servants’ readiness for change during the implementation of reforms in public administration. We examine the influence of work characteristics at the individual and organizational levels, such as reform-related strains, organizational climate, and organizational professionalism, on the employees’ response to change. In addition, we also consider the interaction between these specific work characteristics.

This article employs a quantitative multi-level analysis to examine the influence of individual and collective predictors of employees' readiness for change. For our analysis, we used data from the evaluation of a school reform in Switzerland aimed at aligning teachers' working conditions with those of other administrative employees. The survey conducted for the evaluation includes responses from 2,162 teachers.

Our study expands the understanding in public management research of work characteristics that either promote or reduce employees’ readiness for change in the public sector. Our findings suggest that the organizational level, in our case the school level, influences the individual’s response to change. Furthermore, the role of organizational professionalism in terms of a reform-related transformation of the identities, structures, and practices of the actors concerned is highlighted as a potential stressor and catalyst that reinforces the negative correlation between reform-related stress and willingness to change.

This paper offers insights into how public managers can effectively overcome challenges in the implementation process of public school reforms. This also includes the awareness among change agents that positively associated changes at the organizational level may have negative consequences at the individual level, due to the fact that they affect professional understanding, for example, which may cause the affected actors to respond with resistance.

This paper contributes to the small number of multi-level research studies on the responses to change in public administration and answers the call for research to investigate the hurdles that may arise when implementing change. Further, the paper contributes to the literature on the impact of new public management (NPM) on the identity of professional civil servants.

This study examines the relationship between teacher leadership and learning in lesson study (LS).

A multilevel analysis of data was conducted based on the results of a questionnaire survey of 129 teachers collected through Google forms from 27 schools in the city.

First, in the sample, leadership and learning perceptions in LS did not differ depending on the school that teachers belonged to but appeared as a difference between teachers who perceived leadership and learning within their school and those who did not. Second, the influence of leadership on learning perceptions in the LS was found to be different depending on the socialization, externalization, combination and internalization phase. Third, the results suggested that principals should provide leadership supporting the research team’s leadership.

Previous research on LS has not focused on the relationship between the principal’s leadership and teacher learning. The findings of this study are significant both academically and practically, as they suggest in what settings of LS leadership can work effectively for teacher learning.

This paper aims to clarify how business education has and should incorporate more resources, policies and stakeholder engagement towards the incorporation of sustainability, by conducting a literature review on sustainability in business and international business education and proposing future opportunities for researchers and practitioners.

The authors take a systematic, qualitative analysis approach to evaluate multidisciplinary literatures on sustainability in business education. The authors identify 192 qualifying papers published in 68 journals between 2015 and 2023.

The authors propose five categories of education solutions. Four of them are integrated, in two macro–micro levels: university (stakeholders and shared-mindset change) and student (pedagogical methods and curriculum); and one at meso level: international business (holistic integration) serving to unify the university and student levels.

The review highlights the value of applying a holistic approach and interdisciplinary pedagogical methods in future research on sustainability education in business school to effectively prepare future business leaders to contribute to a more sustainable future.

Insights from this review can usefully guide scholars and programme directors in their future research and administrative efforts towards business curriculum design, stakeholder management and policy-making.

The findings highlight how by embracing holistic perspectives, proper policies and self-awareness, business education shapes the mindsets and skill sets of the next generation of socially conscious practitioners.

The review stands out as one of the few that offers a forward-looking trajectory for the adaptation of international business education in response to sustainability challenges, through a holistic perspective.

The COVID-19 pandemic, as well as its effects on education in general, has influenced the leadership landscape of school principals, which may have necessitated adaptations and transitions in their leadership orientation. To better comprehend any variations in the leadership orientation of school principals in response to the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic, this study examines leadership orientation in both the pre-pandemic and post-pandemic periods.

In this quantitative research, the authors collected data from 297 school principals in the Balochistan province of Pakistan using the leadership orientation survey (LOS) in a quantitative research approach.

The results indicated that principals’ leadership orientation underwent an observable transition before and after the pandemic. Principals’ preferred leadership orientation notably changed from solely political before the pandemic to a combination of highly political and symbolic after the pandemic.

Using a survey, the study investigated the transition in school principals’ leadership orientation before and after the pandemic. However, the results do not explain what caused the transition in principals’ leadership orientation, which is the key limitation of this study. Future research within a qualitative approach can study the factors associated with changes in principles’ leadership frames.

The overall findings of the study have implications for scholars, policymakers and educational leaders to reexamine and gain a deeper understanding of the leadership roles of principals in the post-pandemic age. This is because principals now operate in a distinct context characterized by new difficulties and opportunities compared to the pre-pandemic period.

This is an original study that examined the transition of school principals’ leadership orientation before and after the pandemic. The body of literature related to the transition between pre- and post-pandemic is limited both in Pakistan and the rest of the world. This study illuminates the literature in this regard.

Education for sustainable development (ESD) has gained significant attention, but integrating ESD into existing education systems is challenging. The study aims to explore the challenges of ESD experienced by school leaders, focusing on the context of Malaysian schools.

The study uses a qualitative approach with a single-case study design. Eight school leaders involved in the Johor sustainable education action plan (JSEAP) were interviewed and analyzed. The study uses thematic analysis to identify the challenges and other causes associated with the implementation of ESD.

This study revealed that the school leaders perceived the ESD challenges at three levels. First, restriction to the standardized curriculum (systemic); second, resistance to change (organization) and third, awareness and readiness (individual). These themes stemmed from seven primary codes that school leaders encountered throughout the JSEAP program.

This paper is limited to a case study of the chosen schools and cannot be extrapolated to a larger population.

The study benefits school leaders and educators concerned about ESD and its role in their schools and other academics interested in ESD.

To the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to investigate ESD challenges in Malaysia. The novel discovery of the three levels of ESD challenges helps readers better understand the recent phenomenon of ESD implementation and compare it to other settings.

This study investigates the effect of business cycles on school enrollment in Turkey. During recessions, school enrollment might increase as opportunity cost of schooling declines, yet it might also decrease because of reduced income households have for education. Which effect dominates depends on the context. We empirically explore this in a context displaying canonical features of developing countries.

Using the Turkish Household Labor Force Survey data for a period covering the Great Recession, we estimate the effect of unemployment rate separately for enrollments in general and vocational high schools and in undergraduate programs. To understand the cyclicality, we use a probit model with the regional and time variations in unemployment rates. We also build a simple theoretical model of work-schooling choice to interpret the findings.

We find that the likelihood of enrolling in general high schools and undergraduate programs declines with higher adult unemployment rates, but the likelihood of enrollment in vocational high schools increases. Confronting these empirical findings with the theoretical model suggests that the major factor in enrollment cyclicality in Turkey is how parental resources allocated to education change during recessions by schooling type.

Our finding of pro-cyclical enrollment in academically oriented programs is in contrast with counter-cyclicality documented for similar programs in developed countries, which highlights the importance of income related factors in developing-country contexts. Our heterogeneous findings for general and vocational high schools are also novel.

This study investigated the problem-solving strategies used in solving problems in the learning domain of numbers and operations in mathematics textbooks for Turkish middle schools.

To this end, four middle school mathematics textbooks published by the Ministry of National Education of Turkey (MEB in Turkish), one from each grade level (Grades 5–8), were examined. The data in this document analysis study were analyzed using semantic content analysis.

The findings revealed that mathematics textbooks' most used problem-solving strategies for each level were drawing a figure (diagram), writing equality and inequality, making a table and making a systematic list. Drawing a diagram (figure) strategy was the most used strategy at each grade level, while working backwards was the least used one. Another finding was that finding a pattern and solving a simpler analogous problem strategies were rarely used at each grade level.

This study points out how problem-solving strategies used Grades 5-8 mathematics textbooks in a different culture like Türkiye. So, it may also give some important clues for applying problem-solving strategies in mathematics classrooms in a different culture.

This study may draw the attention of educational stakeholders and textbook authors who want to understand and implement problem-solving strategies in mathematics classrooms by considering a different cultural perspective.

This study may point to the importance of using problem-solving strategies in mathematics and daily and social learning environments due to the nature of mathematical problem-solving and problem-solving strategies.

This document review study examined the problem-solving strategies used in Turkish middle school mathematics textbooks, and the data were analyzed using semantic content analysis. The findings revealed that mathematics textbooks' most used problem solving strategies for each level were drawing a figure (diagram), writing equality and inequality, making a table and making a systematic list. Drawing a diagram (figure) strategy was the most used strategy at each grade level, while working backwards was the least used one. Another finding was that finding a pattern and solving a simpler analogous problem strategies were rarely used at each grade level.

The purpose of this study is to highlight a paradox between inclusion/exclusion at the level of the organisation and classroom practices, as well as between general and disability/special educational needs (SEN)-specific approaches to diversity in the classroom. The authors recommend better alignment between school policies and teaching practices to offer all students an equal chance to benefit from inclusive pedagogies.

This study analyses a school that has gained public reputation as an innovative, inclusive school in Austria. Applying a case study with an ethnographic methodological approach, the authors explore what strategies are implemented to become more inclusive at the level of school organisation and classroom practices? What are the pedagogical beliefs and actions relating to diversity that drive inclusive efforts? How is this school's general approach to diversity enacted with students with SEN?

The findings show that context-specific circumstances shape inclusive school development, which comes with a set of affordances and challenges. The authors argue that in this case, striving for inclusion indicated two ways of “doing difference differently”. First, the school has built on many cornerstones of inclusion when relating and responding to student diversity, that was remarkably different than in other mainstream schools in Austria. On the contrary, while creating new educational and pedagogical norms, it also recycled conventional segregating tendencies, and as such, reproduced hierarchised difference, but in other ways than schools typically do in mainstream schooling.

This school and its pedagogical mission have never been analysed through the rich data that two researchers were able to gather and work through.

This paper shares findings from a multi-year literacy professional development partnership between a school district and university (2014–2019). We share this case of a Literacy Cohort initiative as an example of cross-institutional professional development situated within several of NAPDS’ nine essentials, including professional learning and leading, boundary-spanning roles and reflection and innovation (NAPDS, 2021).

We asked, “In what ways did the Cohort initiative create conditions for community and collaboration in the service of meaningful literacy reforms?” Drawing on social design methodology (Gutiérrez & Vossoughi, 2010), we sought to generate and examine the educational change associated with this multi-year initiative. Our data set included programmatic data, interviews (N = 30) and artifacts of literacy teaching, learning and leading.

Our findings reflect the emphasis areas that are important to educators in the partnership: diversity by design, building relationships through collaboration and rooting literacy reforms in teacher leadership. Our discussion explores threads of reciprocity, simultaneous renewal and boundary-spanning leadership and their role in sustaining partnerships over time.

This paper contributes to our understanding of building and sustaining a cohort model of multi-year professional development through the voices, perspectives and experiences of teachers, faculty and district administrators.