Managing Transition from Primary to Secondary School at the District Level: Relevant Actors and Fields of Action

Author(s):

Hanna Järvinen(submitting)Katharina Sartory(presenting)Sendzik Norbert Johanna Otto

Conference:

ECER 2012

Network:

26. Educational Leadership

Format:

Paper

Session Information

26 SES 10 C, Educational Leadership

Parallel Paper Session

Time:

2012-09-20

15:30-17:00

Room:

FFL - Aula 24

Chair:

Simon Clarke

Contribution

Decentralization as a governance strategy has been on the political agenda in Western societies for more than 30 years now. Also in the field of education a trend of decentralization and regionalization can be observed in many countries (cf. Karlsen, 2000) - also in Germany. In the course of these developments, especially in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, a new local player, the so called Local Education Office, has gained in importance (Berkemeyer, Otto & Olschewsky, 2010) as a “boundary spanning” (cf. Honig, 2006) and intermediary local actor. Even though the significance of the Local Education Offices in coordinating educational activities and driving district-wide reform is high-lighted, up to now there is only little information about their concrete sphere of activities and cooperation structures. Only some insights have been provided by a state-wide survey conducted in year 2011 (Manitius & Berkemeyer, 2011). The initial results indicate that the most important domain of Local Education Offices is the management of transitions in the educational system (transition from kindergarten to primary school, transition from primary to secondary school, transition from school to work) (ibid.). However, more differentiated, theory- und data-based descriptions are still rare. In this paper, we aim to give a first description of the activities of the Local Education Offices in one its main domains, primary/secondary school transition management, and explore the following research questions:

Which activities are connected to a local management of primary/secondary school transition?
Which institutions are cooperating with the Local Education Office in the course of a local management of primary/secondary school transition? Which partners are regarded as important?
Are there significant differences between districts?

In the analysis we apply Rorrer´s et al. (2008) Theory of Systemic Reform as a general theoretical framing to categorize the activities and cooperation structures of Local Education Office in the context of local management of primary/secondary school transition. The theory distinguishes essential roles and functions of districts in educational reforms and enables a holistic view by combing structuralistic and action theoretical approaches.

Method

The data was collected in the school improvement project “Schulen im Team – Übergänge gemeinsam gestalten”. In the project, the Local Education Offices of eight districts are in charge of “managing” local networks working on new strategies for a better transition from primary to secondary school. All in all, 100 primary and secondary schools are organized in 25 local school-to-school networks for a timeframe of three years (2011-2014). Additionally, further local cooperation partners are integrated into the local networks by the Local Education Offices in order to develop a comprehensive strategy for a local transition management. To answer the research questions we use a triangulative design. Partly standardized net-maps (of project coordinators in the district) are used to collect data about the networking activities of the Local Education Offices. They also contain a list of cooperation occasions. The data is collected once a month, for a time period of six months (N=48). The net-maps also serve as an interview guide in following interviews with the coordinators in order to reconstruct activities associated with a local management of primary/secondary school transition (N=8). To analyze the data, we use the methods of social network analysis (Scott, 2000) and content analysis (Bos, 1999).

Expected Outcomes

The results show a complex picture of the evolving cooperation structures of the Local Education Offices in the project context and indicate a multifaceted activity profile of Local Education Offices in the field of management of primary/ secondary school transition. Furthermore, the analysis shows that Rorrer´s et al. (2008) model is transferable into the German context and is useful for a classification of different approaches of local management of primary/secondary school transition. All in all, the paper makes a contribution to a better understanding of education governance structures at the district level and provides empirical information about the new intermediary actor in the German educational system.

References

Berkemeyer, N., Otto, J. & Olschewsky, C. (2010): Schulträger im Wandel. Zur neuen Rolle des Schulträgers in der Reform des Schulsystems. In W. Böttcher, J. N. Dicke & N. Hogrebe (Hrsg.), Evaluation, Bildung und Gesellschaft (pp. 231-250). Münster: Waxmann. Bos, W. & Tarnai, Ch. (Eds.). (1999). Content Analysis in Educational Research. International Journal of Educational Research: Special Issue 31(8). Hollstein, B. & Straus, F. (Hrsg.). Qualitative Netzwerkanalyse: Konzepte, Methoden, Anwendungen. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag. Honig, M. (2006). Street-Level Bureaucracy Revisited: Frontline District Central-Office Administrators as Boundary Spanners in Education Policy Implementation. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 28(4), 357–383. Järvinen, H. & Otto, J. & Berkemeyer, N. (2011). Neue Wege kommunaler Schulentwicklung. In H. Buchen, L. Horster & H.-G. Rolff (Hrsg.),Handbuch Schulleitung und Schulentwicklung (Loseblatt-Sammlung)(pp. 163-178) Stuttgart: Raabe Verlag. Manitius, V. & Berkemeyer, N. (2011). Regionales Bildungsbüro - ein neuer Akteur der Schulentwicklung. In N. Thieme, F. Dietrich & M. Heinrich (Hrsg.). Steuerung und Entwicklung im Bildungssystem. Neue Steuerung - alte Ungleichheiten? (pp. 53-64). Münster: Waxmann. Scott, J. P. (2000). Social Network Analysis: A Handbook (2nd edition). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Rorrer, A.K., Skrla, L. & Scheurich, J.J. (2008). Districts as institutional actors in educational reform. Educational Administration Quarterly 44 (3), 307-339.

Author Information

Hanna Järvinen (submitting)

Institute for School Development Research, TU Dortmund, Germany

Katharina Sartory (presenting)

TU Dortmund

Institut für Schulentwicklungsforschung

Dortmund

Sendzik Norbert

Institute for School Development Research, TU Dortmund, Germany

Johanna Otto

TU Dortmund

Institute for School Development Research