Search results

Over the past two decades, scholars have noted an increasing global convergence in the policy and practice of education that predominantly contains Western ideals of mass schooling serving as a model for national school systems (Bieber & Martens, 2011; Goldthorpe, 1997; Spring, 2008). A number of transnational organizations contribute disproportionately to global educational discourse, particularly the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) through its international comparative performance measure, the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). This study conducted a critical discourse analysis of the OECD document PISA 2012 Results: Excellence through Equity (OECD, 2013) to examine the ways that PISA and the OECD conceive of educational equity in a global context. Given the growing convergence of global educational policy, the way that transnational educational organizations address equity has crucial implications for the ways that the world intervenes in schooling to promote or diminish equitable outcomes. Analysis revealed that the OECD and the PISA foreground economistic notions of educational equity, which diminishes the role of other factors (i.e., race/ethnicity, gender, immigration status, language) that mediate equity in schools. Findings and implications are discussed.

This chapter presents a theoretical and historical account of the OECD policy diffusion mechanisms, specifically addressing their influence on teacher policy. In order to present our argument, the chapter is divided in three sections. First, we present a historical description of how the Directorate of Education and Skills of the OECD has become a central figure in global policy discussions. Then, we address the particular mechanisms through which the OECD is able to expand their influence. We argue that the scientific validation of their recommendations through country reviews and the invitation to participate in large-scale studies and surveys, such as the Programme for International Students Assessment (PISA) and the Teaching and Learning Survey (TALIS), have become pivotal for communicating policy messages concerning teacher quality and development. Next, we argue that while OECD recommendations are engrained in notions of human capital, their work on teachers has incorporated elements of professional capital. Additionally, we stress how the influence of social science and large-scale survey studies has contributed to the development of a concept of teacher professionalization promoted by the OECD.

Using the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) surveys (2003–2015), this chapter explores the relationship between the gender gap in math test scores and computer (digital devices) gaming, as a potential “swimming upstream” factor in the quest to close that gap. Using a decomposition based on a pooled hybrid specification, we attribute two to three points (from 13% to 29%) of the gender math gap to gender differences in the incidence and returns to intense gaming. The comparison of the negative versus positive girl-specific effects found for collaborative games versus single-player games suggest a potential role for gaming network effects.

This paper explores a district government's role in using school networks to transform turnaround schools in rural Shanghai, China.

Qualitative case studies were conducted.

Findings showed that the C District government varied its power in initiating school networks; collaborative networks were developed but addressed local problems in a limited manner and collaborative networks had difficulties innovating to solve novel problems.

This article presents an “external-internal context” framework for understanding local government's role in school networks and turnaround school transformation in China.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of school discipline in achieving academic performance. The study aims to clarify the role of permissive vis-à-vis authoritative teaching styles with an overarching hypothesis that better discipline leads to better academic performance. The authors also probe whether uniformed students have better discipline.

The authors analyse Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Programme for International Student Assessment data on school discipline dimensions: students listening well, noise levels, teacher waiting time, students working well, class start time. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) with post hoc analysis on five geographic groups established by Baumann and Winzar (2016) was applied to test for geographic differences (Europe, Americas, Far East Asia, Rest of Asia, Anglo-Saxon cluster) in school discipline. ANOVA was further used to test for school discipline and academic performance. Third, t-tests on five discipline dimensions were run to test for differences between students who wear uniforms and those who do not.

The results demonstrate differences in school discipline across five geographic clusters, with East Asia leading the way. The authors demonstrate significant differences in discipline for low, medium and high performing students. Peak-performing students have the highest level of discipline. Students wearing a uniform listen better with lower teacher waiting times.

Students peak perform when teachers create a disciplined atmosphere where students listen to teachers, where noise levels in the classroom are low and they do not have to wait to start class and teach. Good discipline allows students to work well and this ultimately leads to better academic performance. Uniforms contribute to better discipline in everyday school operations. The findings support that in general, implementing school uniforms at schools might enhance discipline and allow for better learning. The authors recommend keeping uniforms where they are already used and to consider introducing uniforms where they are not yet common.

The development of a knowledge society in the Arabian Gulf is a nested and contextualized process that relies upon the development of nation-specific knowledge economies and region-wide knowledge cultures. The role of internationally comparative education data and mass education systems in the Gulf as mechanisms for the development of knowledge economies, societies, and cultures are discussed and debated in relation to the unique contextual conditions countries operate within. The role of “big” data and mass education in creating expectations for achievement, accountability, and access is shown to significantly contribute to the development of knowledge societies by providing the infrastructure and capacity for sustainable change, which potentially leads to the institutionalization of knowledge acquisition, exchange, and creation in the Gulf and beyond.

This study scrutinised Shanghai junior high school teachers’ emotions and emotion management strategies in relation to teachers’ work settings and content. A mixed-methods approach was applied to collect data via field observations, interviews, and a quantitative survey. The aim of this study was two-fold. Firstly, it aimed to identify the typical work settings in which teachers experienced work-related emotions. Secondly, it aimed to reveal teachers’ priority work in school and how it affected teachers’ choices of emotion management strategies.

The data were analysed through the lens of emotional labour theories and professional agency theories. Findings showed that classroom teaching and the professional learning community activities were two typical settings in which the teachers experienced the most intensive emotions. Most Shanghai teachers managed their momentary emotions by either genuinely expressing their emotions that matched their roles and the scenario, or by purposely suppressing emotions to meet social and organisational expectations. Furthermore, most teachers adopted the long-term mood regulation strategy by aligning their emotions with long-term goal achievement in the future. As professional agents, the Shanghai teachers did not only manage their own emotions at work using these two strategies, but also managed students’ emotions as part of the moral education.

Despite children’s academic excellence in East Asian countries, school education in this region faces a range of challenges to build inclusive and quality education for all. This chapter aims at examining how these challenges occur and what actions have been taken to deal with them. By focusing on China, Japan, and the Republic of Korea, the chapter first reviews reforms of school education since the 1990s in these countries. The subsequent sections then present educational disparity and a new mode of teaching and learning in these countries. It concludes by addressing that East Asian countries must explore more common ground for building a more collective sense and identity to share responsibility for building a resilient, inclusive and sustainable world through global citizenship education and education for sustainable development.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework for reconceptualising research on school autonomy to redress the limitations of traditional research, strengthen the conceptual links between school autonomy and learning outcomes and offer a range of new strategies for studying the interplay of school autonomy, leadership and learning.

Based on a review of international studies and the findings of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and the Teaching and Learning International Study (TALIS), the conceptual limitations of and gaps in traditional research on school autonomy in relation to leadership and learning are discussed, and their implications for the development of a new framework are outlined.

The conceptual limitations of traditional research on school autonomy are as follows: internal school autonomy is insufficiently differentiated; too little attention is paid to cultural autonomy and internal structural autonomy at individual and group levels; autonomy is measured only as perceived by principals, with no attention to the perspectives of other key stakeholders; and conceptual links between school autonomy and learning outcomes are missing, leading to inconsistent findings on the effects of school autonomy on student learning. To redress these limitations, a new framework for research is developed. School autonomy is reconceptualised as a combination of functional autonomy, structural autonomy and cultural autonomy. Leadership is also reconceptualised by categorising three types of leadership activity: leadership for functional initiatives, leadership for structural initiatives and leadership for cultural initiatives. This categorisation may help to strengthen conceptions of the relevance of leadership to autonomy and performance in future research.

A typology of research strategies is developed to broaden the possibilities for implementing the reconceptualisation framework. A single-component strategy, a two-component strategy, an interaction strategy and a holistic case-study strategy are presented. Depending on the research purposes and the available resources, one or a combination of these strategies can be used to conceptualise the study of school autonomy, leadership and performance.

The new ideas and perspectives associated with the reconceptualisation framework will contribute to future research in this area on an international scale. Future PISA, TALIS and similar studies will also benefit from this reconceptualisation.

Though we have recently witnessed the “exponential production of digital data to measure, analyze, and predict educational performance” (Salajan & Jules, this volume), there has not been sufficient attention given to the quantitative methods that are used to process and transform this data in order to arrive at findings related to “what works”. This chapter addresses this gap by discussing a range of constraints that affect the main methods used for this purpose, with these methods being known as “impact evaluation.” Specifically, this chapter addresses its purpose, first, by making explicit the methodological assumptions, technical weaknesses, and practical shortcomings of the two main forms of impact evaluation—regression analysis and randomized controlled trials. Although the idea of Big Data and the ability to process it is receiving more attention, the underlying point here is that these new initiatives and advances in data collection are still dependent on methods that have serious limitations. To that end, not only do proponents of Big Data avoid or downplay discussion of the methodological pitfalls of impact evaluation, they also fail to acknowledge the political and organizational dynamics that affect the collection of data. To the extent that such methods will increasingly be used to guide public policy around the globe, it is essential that stakeholders inside and outside education systems are informed about their weaknesses—methodologically and in terms of their inability to take the politics out of policymaking. While the promises of Big Data are seductive, they have not replaced the human element of decision making.