The performance of schools is highly dependent on the leadership of school heads, and, flexible leaders accelerate school performance. The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine leadership behavior in selected boys' secondary schools that are performing well. Based on multiple-case study design, four high-performing schools from Quetta…

This study analyses the role that the gender difference of school constituents plays in rating the performance of high-performing principals in 125 schools across Jamaica. A Principal Components Analysis (PCA) generated four dimensions which conceptualized leadership performance in effective principals, and a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was…

Research-Practice Partnerships (RPP) can enable and support an evidence-based school culture for decision-making in districts across the nation. Based on our experiences in a large urban district, a key element for a successful RPP is to understand that school districts have their own research needs/agenda typically articulated in strategic plans.…

This paper aims at providing a theoretical and empirical discussion on the concept of pedagogisation which derives from the hypothesis of a new era of "totally pedagogised society" in Basil Bernstein's work. The article is based on empirical research on higher education policy, with a focus on the implementation of curriculum change…

Many policy systems and education systems have grown more complex in the last three decades. Power has moved away from central governments in different directions: upwards towards international organisations, sideways towards private institutions and non-governmental organisations and downwards towards local governments and public enterprises such…

How do schools maintain momentum with change and enter new cycles of growth when they are attempting to do things differently? This article draws on a two-year evaluation of the "Positive Behaviour for Learning School-Wide" initiative to identify key factors that enabled schools to engage in a long-term and iterative change process.…

Support for producing systematic reviews about health systems is less well developed than for those about clinical practice. From interviewing policy makers and systematic reviewers we identified institutional mechanisms which bring systematic reviews and policy priorities closer by harnessing organisational and individual motivations, emphasising…

At KIPP Comienza Community Prep--an elementary school in Huntington Park, California, where 94 percent of students qualify for free lunch, and more than 60 percent are English language learners--most kindergarteners start out well below pre-reading levels. In 2015, however, just a few years after these students walked in the school doors unable to…

In this study, we examine how the standardizing effects of federal and state education policies in the United States reflect particular ways of understanding the structure and function of education and schooling. This understanding impacts how policies affect schools and those who work and depend upon them. We argue that the disparity between how…

Purpose: Migration to Sweden dramatically increased in 2015 and challenged the reception system at all levels and societal institutions, one of which was the school. As a response to the lack of a comprehensive educational strategy for newly arrived students, new regulations were passed in January 2016, the purpose of which was to guarantee equity…

The successful inclusion of students with special needs in physical education classes requires much planning and preparation. Lack of preparation of physical education teachers working in inclusive settings in Brazil has demonstrated the need for specialized training in strategies for implementing inclusion. The goal of this study was to identify,…

The Full Day Early Learning Kindergarten (FDK) Program has expanded the role of the principal and has altered the teaching dynamics of the classroom with the introduction of an early years team. The early years team consists of a certified teacher with the Ontario College of Teachers and a registered early childhood educator from the College of…

Research on evaluation has mainly focused on the use of evaluation and has given little attention to the origins of evaluation demand. In this article, I consider the question of why parliamentarians demand evaluations with parliamentary requests. Building on the literature of delegation, I use a principal-agent framework to explain the origins of…

Discussions charting the changing role of local government in education have often focused extensively on "concrete" policy changes over time, but have provided less detail on the contribution to changing power relations of less tangible shifts. Drawing on Foucauldian notions of discourse and governmentality, in this paper, detailed…

This article reports on the efforts of Christopher Cerf, the state-appointed superintendent of Newark Public Schools (New Jersey), to protect reform and build collaborative relationships. His tenure followed the controversial leadership of the former superintendent that had enacted a series of unpopular initiatives, including a new citywide…