Currently there`s a global trend in educational systems to assure the quality of education through the implementation of achievement standards respectively international and national testing (TIMSS, PISA, NCLB, Bildungsstandards etc.). The implicit implications of such a strategy are daring, its sideeffects are rather disillusioning and the appropriateness of this approach to reach systemic and sustainable improvement is highly questionable (Cuban 2008; Hopmann et al. 2007; Shirley &Hargreaves 2008; Deretchin&Craig 2007; Leithwood 2002). Considering the undoubted dependence of schooling on external influences like SES, parental, communal and political influences an important prerequisite for sustainable school improvement to happen is to consider schools as entities being highly intervowen with its surroundings. As current reform initiatives (see above) constantly neglect to consider the embeddedness of schools within specific conditions I want to focus on it. I build on theoretical concepts like social capital and civic capacity (Putnam 2000; Bourdieu 1986; Stone et al. 2001) as well as on models of school-family-community partnerships and empirical evidence (Fung 2004; Stone et al. 2001; Sanders&Epstein 1998;) to show that what I call the “external flexible social capacity” being the intensity and kind of interaction between actors within the school (teachers, pupils, principals) and actors outside the school (parents, politicians, stakeholders in local economy, organizations, associations and public service) is an important element for a) a school`s quality in terms of a school being able to achieve its aims and b) for sustainable school improvement. I build on structural theories of action (Wellman&Berkovits 19982; Burt 1982) to explain the relation between interaction and structural settings within which interaction takes place. I want to investigate 1) in how far different schools make use of “external flexible social capacity” 2) characteristics of a school [school climate, leadership, “internal flexible social capacity” defined by the intensity and kind of interaction between actors within a school (teachers, pupils, principals) and political structures within which the school is operating] which may correlate with the use of “external flexible social capacity” 3) if and how the investigated schools use “external flexible social capacity” to treat and cope with their specific problems and challenges. This is planned to be done in a comparative study between schools in Austria, the U.S. and Norway which operate in very different structural settings. Thus the empirical analysis also allows to find possible relations between structural settings and “flexible external social capacity”.

Data is gathered by the use of quantitative and qualitative methods (conducting interviews and using questionnaires which combine closed and open questions). First information on schools` specific challenges and problems will be collected through a) available data on student population, student dropout-rate etc. and b) the perception of pupils, teachers and the principals (primarily qualitatively). Second “external flexible social capacity” is measured by specifically developed questionnaires (for all groups of stakeholders within school and outside school) containing specifically modelled scales based on sociological techniques like network-analysis. Information about a school`s specific problem constellation collected beforehand is incorporated in these questionnaires. Third existing measures for “internal flexible social capacity”, “school climate”, “leadership” and “the political structure within which the school is operating” will be used or adapted and if necessary new measures will be developed.

The explorative design of the study allows for finding patterns how schools within and across different school systems make use of “external flexible social capacity”. The study as well provides answers to the questions if the measured factors “internal flexible social capacity”, “school climate” or “leadership” more or less relate to these patterns and how they do so. By comparing schools across different school systems there may also be found indications if the use of “external flexible social capacity” is supported respectively impeded by certain structural settings. The research findings are of practical significance as they may provide useful knowledge for building and sustaining a high level of “flexible external social capacity” which can be useful for sustaining and developing high quality schools.