Since the transition from the “Hauptschule” to the “Neue Mittelschule” (NMS) began in 2012 in Austria, lower secondary schools are confronted with a wave of changes which have a significant impact on school culture. The NMS removes streaming, requiring teachers to transform their practice from a culture of selection to a culture of achievement. This transition on the macro level of the school system has led to a multitude of complex demands placed on school leaders and teachers, including new teacher leader roles and new assessment practices. Each school responds differently and experiences more or less upheaval as it begins the transition. To facilitate the transformation, resources for school development are provided on the provincial level. This paper will present the initiation phase of the transition process of a model region chosen by the provincial government of the Province of Tyrol focusing on how school leaders and practitioners experience the changes occurring in their school culture and its impact on the local community. Development portraits of seven schools are used to show how each individual school struggles setting off on its transformative journey into a new organizational culture. The researcher’s field experiences in each school’s community are put together into a development portrait, which contains a self-evaluation of the school (internal view) and the data from fieldwork at the school (external view). The school visit includes interviews with students, teachers, parents and school principals, as well as group discussions and visits to classrooms, as well as “photo evaluations” executed by students (Schratz & Steiner-Löffler 1998). “Vignettes” are used as a way of capturing lived experience, which help to render the portrait a dynamic element by showing how individuals experience transition (Schratz, Schwarz & Westfall-Greiter 2012).

Schratz, M. & Steiner-Löffler, U. (1998): Pupils Using Photographs in School Self-Evaluation. In: J. Prosser (Ed.): Image-based Research – A Sourcebook for Qualitative Researchers (pp. 235-251). London: Falmer. Schratz, M., Schwarz, J. F. & Westfall-Greiter, T. (2012). Lernen als bildende Erfahrung. Vignetten in der Praxisforschung. Innsbruck: Studienverlag.