Session Information
32 SES 11, Understanding School Improvement From Different Perspectives - Reconstructive Qualitative Methods
Symposium
Contribution
School improvement as a concept of educational policy and educational sciences promises, besides the tendency to increase autonomy, bottom up development. Another aim is to raise the students’ learning outcome. Taking a close look at Austrian’s education system two recent tendencies can be noted. Firstly, alongside the obligation for each school to work on their improvement (see BGBl. 2011) common goals were set nationwide. This situation of decreed self-management (Czejkowska/Dörler/Seyss-Inquart 2016) raises the question of who is represented as being in power to decide. Secondly: Studies show that schools compete among each other for a higher amount of socio-economic privileged students to increase the learning outcome, while the school’s perspective on their social selection lessens (Altrichter/Heinrich/Soukup-Altrichter 2011). To what extent is this demand of output improvement presented as being linked to reducing educational inequality? While in other countries like Great Britain studies face those effects of school improvement on the school system (see e.g. Gomolla 2013, Bogotch et al. 2007), there is a lack of studies on long term effects in the German speaking countries. This presentation is based on the results of a discourse analysis of educational policy papers and educational journals covering the time period of the last two decades. Answering the two stated problems above the study focuses the negotiation of students’ heterogeneity and the decision-making structures (which are localized in a continuum between the two poles of including everybody in a decision-making process and concentrated power in the position of the headmaster) on the macro-level of Austrian’s school development discourse. Data show that the policy and science part of the discourse are tightly linked to each other and stress more and more i.a. the heterogeneity of students and the importance of leadership in schools. I will elaborate on how teachers and students are addressed by education officials and scientists in this discourse and how power relationships are re/produced in this situation. I will conclude in debating if a critical approach to this rationality of school improvement is possible for teachers whilst being involved in reproducing those power relationships.
References
Altrichter, Herbert/Heinrich, Martin/Soukup-Altrichter, Katharina (2011): Governance-Regime der Schulprofilierung. In: Altrichter, Herbert/Heinrich, Martin/Soukup-Altrichter, Katharina (Ed.): Schulentwicklung durch Schulprofilierung? Zur Veränderung von Koordinationsmechanismen im Schulsystem. Wiesbaden: VS, 217-239. BGBl. I Nr. 28 (2011): Änderung des Bundes-Schulaufsichtsgesetzes. Online unter: https://www.ris.bka.gv.at/Dokumente/BgblAuth/BGBLA_2011_I_28/BGBLA_2011_I_28.pdf [01/2019]. Bogotch, Ira/Mirón, Luis/Biesta, Gert J. J. (2007): “Effective for what; effective for whom?” Two questions SESI should not ignore. In: Townsend, Tony (Ed.): International Handbook of School Efectiveness and Improvement, Part 1. Dordrecht: Springer, 93–110. Czejkowska, Agnieszka/Dörler, Tobias/Seyss-Inquart, Julia (2016): Kritische Schulentwicklung. Im Dilemma einer verordneten Selbststeuerung. In: Czejkowska, Agnieszka/Dörler, Tobias/Seyss-Inquart, Julia (Ed.): schule entwickeln. Bildungstheoretischen und -forschenden Spielräumen auf der Spur, 11-27. Wien: Löcker. Gomolla, Mechtild (2013): Schuleffektivität und die Verschiebung von Gerechtigkeitsdiskursen im Bildungsbereich. In: Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Soziologie, Jahrgang 39, Heft 2, 245-265.
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