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Data collected from 41 high schools are used to test a set of hypotheses concerning dimensions of organization and alienation. The results from school organizations are then compared with those of Aiken and Hage for social welfare agencies. Although the relationships between bureaucratic structure and alienation are remarkably similar for secondary schools and social welfare agencies, there are striking differences in their organizational structures. Schools are dramatically more formalized and centralized than welfare agencies; and teachers are significantly more alienated than welfare workers. It is theorized that a bifurcation of professional and administrative domains in schools provides a distinctive organizational structure that reduces the impact of structure on alienation of teachers.

Teaching professional literacy is a difficult endeavor, yet it is extremely important that educators are equipped with the required knowledge, skills, and attributes necessary to be engaged and responsible members of the profession. This chapter addresses the combined efforts of a university faculty of education working in concert with a provincial teacher union and school boards to assist pre-service teacher candidates in developing their own sense of professional identity. It will be demonstrated that this partnership assisted students in conceptualizing a professional identity by solidifying their understanding of ethical, legal, and organizational issues commonly associated with the teaching profession.

This study aims to obtain stakeholder perceptions of secondary education quality in Sokoto State, Nigeria.

A qualitative research approach was used by conducting interviews. Data were purposively collected from a sample of 15 education stakeholders in Sokoto State, and analyzed to extract major themes using the NVivo software program.

The results of the interviews suggested that high-quality education is defined by the following seven dimensions that fell under a systems-based framework: the provision of adequate instructional materials, the provision of educational infrastructure, imparting the “right” knowledge, meeting education “yardsticks”, provision of teacher support and welfare, creating a conducive learning atmosphere and availability of high-quality teachers.

The research is confined to the Sokoto State only. Although the findings may be applicable to other states of the Nigerian federation, the qualitative research design limits generalization beyond the present data. The research has methodological limitations in that only a qualitative approach was used in obtaining and analyzing the data.

This study presents dimensions of, and a definition of, secondary education quality, as perceived by education stakeholders in Sokoto State, Nigeria. This systems-based definition could be useful to the government in re-designing its educational plans and ensuring quality in secondary education programs. Once fully applied in the educational system, issues of low-quality education and graduation of unprepared students can be addressed more systematically. The goal of admitting more competent school leavers into tertiary institutions could also be pursued actively. Other social challenges, such as juvenile delinquency, can likewise be addressed. The study draws attention of those responsible for education provision in Nigeria to look inward to focus on those dimensions that need prompt and urgent improvements so that education quality can be ensured for a better society.

This study provides a systems-based framework of educational quality to guide school improvement efforts in Nigerian secondary schools that reflect values of regional stakeholders. This study demonstrates an easy-to-apply method for deriving educational quality indicators with stakeholder involvement. The dimensions obtained are supported by theory and the literature discussed.

The voice of school principals represents the principals' thoughts and experiences because of their as teachers' evaluator. It provides principals' perception on making sense the teacher evaluation. In qualitative research, voice can provide the truth and meaning of principals' experience in teachers evaluation. Their voices in the qualitative interviews are recorded and transcribed into words (Jackson and Mazzei, 2009 and Charteris and Smardon, 2018). By listening to the voices of principals in five provinces in Indonesia, this study, a qualitative research, intends to explore the principals' sensemaking in teacher evaluation.

This study adopted a qualitative approach, as it was principally concerned with capturing participants' direct experiences in their natural setting as both the teachers' evaluator and school leader (Patton, 2002). The qualitative interview and content analysis were used in this study. The qualitative interview is a type of conversation used to explore informants' experiences and interpretations; in this study, the headmaster (Mishler, 1986; Spradley, 1979 in Hatch, 2002). Researchers used the interviews to uncover the structure of meaning used by principals in making sense the policies that determine teacher evaluations and that are used to carry out evaluations within principal's local authority. The implicit structure can be discovered from direct observation, and the qualitative interviews can bring this meaning to the surface (Hatch, 2002). Therefore, by applying the qualitative interviews, it is expected that information or “unique” interpretations from the principal can be obtained (Stake, 2010). Content analysis is a research technique for making valid conclusions from oral texts into a research context. This analysis can provide new insights, improve researchers' understanding of certain phenomena, or inform other practical actions through the use of verbal data collected in the form of answers to open interview questions (Krippendorff, 2004).

There are three important findings relating to principals' sensemaking of teachers' evaluation; they are teachers' length of service, principals' perceptions of teacher evaluations and consistency in teacher performance improvement. The principals' perception greatly influences their beliefs and sensemaking of teacher evaluation. In essence, teacher evaluation has not been used to identify high-quality teachers. Principals focus more on the improvement of teachers' welfare than teacher actual performance.

Future research should explore principals' attitude toward the stakeholders when student achievement is not in line with the consistent increase in teachers' performance ratings. And, it is also necessary to investigate the policy makers response to see the consistent improvement in teacher's evaluation is not in line with student achievement. Finally, how to eliminate the culture of joint responsibility without causing frictions in the school environment.

The authors hereby declare that this submission is their own work, and to the best of their knowledge, it contains no materials previously published or written by another person, or substantial proportions of material that have been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma any other publishers.

The implementation of the policy of devolution in the government school system of Victoria, Australia, has significantly enhanced the opportunities for teachers to become involved in the decision making of schools. This article reports on a study designed to investigate the factors associated with involvement. Analysis of the data found teacher involvement in the decision making of schools to be associated with: gender; seniority and organizational responsibility; age and teaching experience; affiliation with the teachers association; the influence of the principal; the individual's sense of personal, political and professional efficacy; the individual's confidence and trust in the organization and its administration; the conflicting demands, anxiety and pressure of time; and the perceived effects of participation on curriculum and teaching practice.

COVID-19’s influence on the teaching profession will be felt for many years as teachers faced experiences that they have never encountered. The pandemic forced already taxed teachers to assume additional responsibilities, many of which they were not prepared to deal with. The result was an exodus of teachers from the profession, and those who remained reported challenges that impacted their personal and professional lives. The authors describe the effects on teachers and the impact that this had on them, including reasons why many departed from teaching. In closing, the authors offer recommendations to teacher preparation programs, districts, and schools.

Purpose – Young people exhibiting serious behavior problems represent an enormous challenge for municipal child welfare services in Norway. In working with these youngsters, it is vital to create opportunities for them to participate in the decisions affecting their lives. The study aims to explore the dilemmas involving issues of participation on the one side and protection on the other: it is one where the child welfare worker is being required, on the one hand, to provide youths with an opportunity to participate in decisions affecting them while at the same time being required to protect those youths in their care from harming themselves in various ways. These two concerns of participation and protection are spelled out specifically in Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Children of which Norway is a signatory.

Methodology – This study draws from a qualitative reanalysis of interview data from a 15-year longitudinal study of 85 child welfare clients in Norway. They were followed up at three points in time: first when they became clients (age 14–15), next when they were young adults (age 20), and finally when they were 30 years old. All of these 85 informants had initially come to the attention of child protection authorities owing to the severity of their behavior problems.

Findings – The chapter describes how these young people experienced both participation and protection of the child welfare services at the time they were provided and later on when they had become adults. One important finding of the study is that, as adults, their opinions had changed and they then believed that the protection usually in the form of guardianship earlier provided to them as youngsters had been beneficial to them.

School is an institution that provides an opportunity to improve children’s equity and wellbeing and to bridge the potential disadvantage related to ethnic- or language-minority backgrounds. Information sharing between immigrant homes and school can enhance school achievement, support positive identity formation and provide early support when needed. In this paper, the perspectives of immigrant parents, school welfare personnel and school-going adolescents are analysed in order to understand how they see their respective roles in information flows between home and school. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The data consist of qualitative group and individual interviews of 34 representatives of school personnel, 13 immigrant parents and 81 young people who have experienced immigration, in the metropolitan area of Helsinki, Finland.

Despite general goodwill, school personnel may fail to secure the flow of information. Due to structural power imbalance, school personnel are often incapable of engaging the parents in dialogical discourse. Young people of immigrant background in turn try to manipulate the information flow in order to protect their family and ethnic group and to cope with pressures from parents. The patterns of information flows in school as a social field reproduce immigrant homes as subaltern. Adolescents act in a strategically important juncture of information flows between immigrant home and school, which indicates that home-school interaction is actually a triad.

Awareness building among school personnel is vital for equity and wellbeing of children of immigrant families.

This triangulated analysis of patterned information flows in school as a social field provides a fresh perspective to those working with children of immigrant families.

Draws on the findings of a major research project funded by the New South Wales Department of School Education in Australia which sought to examine the school‐community interface and communication in government comprehensive high schools in that state. Data were drawn initially from nine schools in Western Sydney with three of these schools being the subject of in‐depth follow‐up study. These studies revealed the significant role played by senior school executives, particularly the principal, in the development of communication methods in schools and their influence on school culture and climate. Examines decision making and communication methods in the three schools within the context of each school′s environment and draws implications for school leadership, staff morale, and staff, student and community attitudes. A key finding is that there is no “recipe” for success as a principal. Rather, a contingency approach is advocated whereby individual principals adopt a personal position across a range of important considerations, these positions being dependent on contextual and personal factors. The case studies suggest what these positions could be.