Abstract
International trends in education are outlined that are important for school improvement efforts at both the national level and in local schools. Key concepts include competitiveness, efficiency, freedom of choice, flexibility and decentralisation. International knowledge measurement is a driving force when national educational reforms are planned and implemented. The concrete meaning of these concepts and the international knowledge measurements vary between countries and between local schools. The aim of our study was to explore and describe how improvement capacity in local schools is organised and to develop an understanding of this organisation as a practice and as a sensemaking process in local schools. We present Hopkins’ four drives towards building an effective local capacity for improvement and consider what kind of support schools need in order to be effective. In contrast to Hopkins, we focus on how local schools put their improvement work into their situated and sensemaking practices, which are not always perceived as progress from the outside. The chapter ends with an overview of the book.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Aasen, P., Møller, J., Rye, E., Ottesen, E., Prøitz, T., & Hertzberg, F. (2012). Kunnskapsløftet som styringsreform—et løft eller et løfte? Forvaltningsnivåenes og institusjonenes rolle i implementeringen av reformen [The knowledge reform as steering reform—A promise or a boost?]. Rapport 20/2012. Oslo: NIFU.
Apple, M. W. (2006). Educating the “right” way. Marketing, Standards, god and inequality. New York: Routledge.
Bauman, Z. (2002). Det individualiserade samhället [The individualised society]. Uddevalla: Daidalos.
Beck, J. (1998). Morality and citizenship in education. London: Cassell.
Beck, U. (2000). What is globalization? Malden, Mont: Polity Press.
Beck, U., & Beck-Gernsheim, E. (2002). Individualisation: Institutionalised individualism and its social and political consequences. London: Sage.
Blossing, U., Imsen, G., & Moos, L. (Eds.). (2014). The Nordic education model. ‘A school for all’ encounters neo-liberal policy. Dordrecht: Springer.
Dale, E. L., Engelsen, B. U., & Karseth, B. (2011). Kunnskapsløftets intensjoner, forutsetninger og operasjonaliseringer. En analyse av en læreplanreform [The intentions of the knowledge reform preconditions and operationalisations. An analysis of a curriculum reform]. Oslo: University of Oslo.
Dalin, P. (1994). Utbildning för ett nytt århundrade [Education for a new century]. Stockholm: Liber.
Daun, H. (2002). Educational restructuring in the context of globalization and national policy. New York, London: Routledge Falmer.
Giddens, A. (1996). Modernitetens följder [The consequences of modernity]. Lund: Studentlitteratur.
Giddens, A. (2003). En skenande värld. Hur globaliseringen är på väg att förändra våra liv [A runaway world: How globalization is reshaping our lives]. Kristianstad: SNS Förlag.
Giroux, H. (1997). Crossing the boundaries of educational discourse: modernism, postmodernism and feminism. In A. H. Halsey, H. Lauder, P. Brown, & A. S. Wells (Eds.), Education, culture, economy and society (pp. 113–130). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hargreaves, A. (1998). Läraren i det postmoderna samhället [Changing teachers, changing times]. Lund: Studentlitteratur.
Harvey, D. (2007). A brief history of neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hodgson, J., Rønning, W., & Tomlinson, P. (2012). Sammenhengen mellom undervisning og læring. En studie av læreres praksis og deres tenkning under Kunnskapsløftet [Consistency between teaching and learning. A study of teachers’ practice and their thinking during the knowledge reform]. NF-rapport nr. 4/2012. Bodø: Nordlandsforskning.
Hopkins, D. (2001). School improvement for real. London: Routledge Falmer.
Hopkins, D. (2007). Every school a great school: realizing the potential of system leadership. Maidenhead: Open University Press.
Kumar, R., & Hill, D. (2009). Neoliberal capitalism and education. In D. Hill & R. Kumar (Eds.), Global neoliberalism and education and its consequences. New York: Routledge.
Lawn, M. (2011). Standardizing the European educational policy space. European Educational Research Journal, 10(2), 259–272.
Lawn, M., & Grek, S. (2012). Europeanizing education: Governing a new policy space. Oxford: Symposium Books.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Blossing, U., Nyen, T., Söderström, Å., Hagen Tønder, A. (2015). Introduction. In: Local Drivers for Improvement Capacity. SpringerBriefs in Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12724-8_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12724-8_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-12723-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-12724-8
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawEducation (R0)