This paper seeks to examine the impact school external evaluation has on school leadership practice through the use of two case studies based on the systems of evaluation in Norway and Ireland. These school systems have different approaches to school evaluation;  the Norwegian system has a narrow,  more limited focus on legal compliance while Ireland has a broader focus on all aspects of school practice and outcomes. In setting the context for this review of school evaluation three broad areas were identified to act as a framework within which to conduct this critique i.e. the intended, implemented and attained or achieved outcomes of inspection and evaluation (see Akker, J. van den (1998). This framework has been used in the past to examine situations where there are identified ‘major gaps between ideals and outcomes’ (ibid, p.6).  Because the literature identifies such gaps relating to evaluation and inspection, this model provides a very clear critical lens of enquiry to be applied to both national contexts. It also provides a strong framework within with to present and critically interrogate the increasing range of scholarship emerging in relation to inspection and evaluation.

The first part of the framework relates to what is intended by School evaluation in both national contexts. Specifically the model explores the stated/ espoused purposes of school evaluation by policymakers and in policy document and seek to identify the extent to which evaluation is intended to serve accountability, improvement or other outcomes.

The second area focuses on how the evaluation and inspection is actually conducted in schools. i.e.  how the policy intentions espoused by ministries and inspectorates are enacted in schools, how evaluation is  or how they are translated into practice by inspectors and inspection teams. 

Finally and arguably the most important dimension of this model, is a critical examination of the actual outcomes of school evaluation on what school leaders are expected to do to mediate the outcomes of school evaluation in order to take account of recommendations arising from evaluation.  

A key focus in this report will be the extent to which each of these domains are aligned or the extent to which there are incongruities both within and between each domain of practice.

Two main theoretical perspectives will facilitate this comparative analysis:

1. Some recent work on the multiple, sometimes contradictory and incongruent purposes of inspection and evaluation. Key issues here will include work on neo- liberal imperatives driving the development of inspection and evaluation systems, the homogenisation of inspection process, the increasing comparative focus of inspection results.
2. The manner in which evaluation and inspection function as very substantial constituents of the pedagogical device - conceived by Bernstein (1990) and formed of the rules of Distribution, Recontextualisation and Evaluation. The Pedagogic Device also facilitates the relay of rules and procedures and transforms knowledge in to pedagogic communication (Singh, 2002) and in this way operates similarly to Bourdieu’s (1990) concept of habitus. The Pedagogic Device (Bernstein, 1990, 1996, 2000) goes further in demonstrating modalities of control with regard to evaluation development and implementation. The device appropriates other discourses, which are selected, transmitted, sometimes altered and influence the operation of professional fields. Bernstein (1996) explained that the device orders and reorders discourse through grammars in this case as they relate to evaluation,  within itself and ‘regulates the distribution of knowledge by either enhancing or constraining classroom communication’ (McFadden and Munns, 2010, p. 362). 

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