Long periods of policy stability are rare in education. The intensification of external pressures over educational systems that we have witnessed in the last two decades has changed the focus and the rhythm, but also the very nature of educational reform, which currently mainly gears around the goal of strengthening the effectiveness, performance and competitiveness of educational systems. Beyond inputs, current reforms are guided by the definition of learning and other performance goals, and outcomes-based management approaches seem to enjoy bipartisan support in the sector of education. Despite equity and innovation tend to be part of reform intentions as well, they are always articulated with, subordinated to and assessed against performance standards.

Regarding this trend, school autonomy and accountability have become two central policy principles in the contemporary educational reforms we are describing. We label this reform approach as school autonomy with accountability (SAWA), given its emphasis on simultaneously promoting school-based management among public schools and strengthening outcomes-based accountability relations between schools and educational authorities. Issues of centralization, power and control in school decisions are at the core of SAWA as a model of educational governance. To a great extent, school actors have increasing capacity to decide on school management and pedagogy, as far as these decisions are taken to address centrally-defined performance outcomes, and feed a course of continuous school improvement. Within the SAWA model, schools are conceived as autonomous managerial units that enter into contractual relationships with public authorities and are encouraged to engage in performance data-use, (self-)assessment, innovation and improvement virtuous cycles (Grek et al 2022). Despite their piecemeal approach, SAWA reforms have great transformatory potential. They can alter schools’ ethos and organizational routines, change the interactions and decision-making capacity of key educational actors, and modify the main objectives and practices of teaching work.

However, and paradoxically, countries are adopting SAWA policies despite only weak evidence on their benefits. Empirical research in this area reaches very different and even contradictory conclusions. There is a body of literature that reports the positive effects of SAWA policies (especially in student learning outcomes) that clashes with another current that points to negative results (especially in relation to educational inequalities and segregation) and numerous adverse effects. Some of these impact studies conclude that the difficulty of reaching more conclusive and generalizable results is related to the context-dependent nature of SAWA interventions.

The main purpose of the symposium is to examine the enactment of SAWA instruments and their regulatory effects on school actors’ behaviors and their practices. The panel will combine single-case studies with comparative papers that will address enactment’s similarities and differences in different countries, allowing for a better understanding of the role of regulatory factors in mediating enactment processes and their effects.

The cases covered include countries and regions with different administrative traditions and educational arrangements on school autonomy, teachers’ regulations and accountability: The Netherlands, Spain (Catalonia), Italy, Norway, England and Chile. The papers presented in this symposium will allow for a better understanding of the mechanisms and circumstances that explain variegated effects in schools. Thus, this session will shed light on the implementation of recent education reforms across diverse contexts by paying attention to different components of the global education reform agenda -i.e., performance-based accountability, school autonomy, curricular standards, educational innovation- in local contexts. Furthermore, the papers included in the panel will provide insights on the role of local education markets, and sense-making processes together with an account of the administrative designs of the cases studied, which also mold the policy mandates in its implementation phases, bringing to the surface tensions and dilemmas (Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2017).

Grek, S., Maroy, C., & Verger, A. World Yearbook of Education 2021: Accountability and Datafication in the Governance of Education (proofs). Pollitt, C., & Bouckaert, G. (2017). Public management reform: A comparative analysis-into the age of austerity. Oxford University Press.