Description:
The tendency in education writing on globalization has been to examine the congruence of educational policies in western societies and the international effects of global governance of education by powerful transnational institutions such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the European Union. The authors tend to identify massive changes in approaches to educational governance, including the establishment of a broadly common policy and management agenda that is characterized by 'new managerialism', devolution, and rigid accountability structures, entrepreneurialism, and school effectiveness, that have been imposed largely as a result of globalization. These measures are often seen as being directly related to the 'hollowing out' of the state, and the emergence of neo-liberalism as the informing ideology of both international capitalism and residual nation-states. There are few studies, however, of the dynamics of educational life and micro-political activities that enable or challenge or bring about the kinds of educational reshaping and renorming that are typically associated with globalization. This study attempts to analyse such micro-shaping, which, through reporting an ethnographic study in a site of educational practice, examines how school managers and teachers dealt with government policy intervention and, in the process, both willingly and unwillingly implemented significant educational change.
Description:
The tendency in education writing on globalization has been to examine the congruence of educational policies in western societies and the international effects of global governance of education by powerful transnational institutions such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the European Union. The authors tend to identify massive changes in approaches to educational governance, including the establishment of a broadly common policy and management agenda that is characterized by 'new managerialism', devolution, and rigid accountability structures, entrepreneurialism, and school effectiveness, that have been imposed largely as a result of globalization. These measures are often seen as being directly related to the 'hollowing out' of the state, and the emergence of neo-liberalism as the informing ideology of both international capitalism and residual nation-states. There are few studies, however, of the dynamics of educational life and micro-political activities that enable or challenge or bring about the kinds of educational reshaping and renorming that are typically associated with globalization. This study attempts to analyse such micro-shaping, which, through reporting an ethnographic study in a site of educational practice, examines how school managers and teachers dealt with government policy intervention and, in the process, both willingly and unwillingly implemented significant educational change.
Description:
Improving young people's engagement in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) is being promoted worldwide as a means of addressing projected shortfalls in expertise needed to further nations' economic, social and environmental goals. Responding to this, schools are reforming traditional discipline-based curricula into interdisciplinary approaches based on problem and project-based designs, to make STEM learning more relevant and meaningful for students. This study drew on a dataset of 449 Australian principal and teacher interviews, to identify factors influencing STEM curriculum in their schools. It utilised Ecological Systems Theory to build understanding relating to the influence of activities and outputs originating at macro, exo and meso system levels, on STEM curriculum and practices in classrooms. Results demonstrated how many innovative schools were able to successfully leverage community, business and national resources to enhance their STEM curriculum, while others struggled due to limitations imposed by geographic or socio-economic factors, or limited access to resources, expertise or advice. Central to achieving this was the powerful influence of principals' and teachers' 'proximal processes and developmental assets' in establishing effective and engaging interdisciplinary STEM curricula, despite constraints imposed by, at best, ambiguous national and state curriculum and policies, rigid assessment regimes and compliance-focused reporting requirements.