The introduction of English and other foreign languages as media of instruction, which is generally referred to as content and language integrated learning (CLIL), has transformed the teaching experiences of a large number of educators. Yet their daily struggles and personally ambivalent stances have hardly been examined. This paper addresses this…

This article examines the vision of the Swedish comprehensive school reform between 1946-1962 as it pertains to the ever-troubling questions of discipline and order in school. Inspired primarily by the work of Michel Foucault and his genealogical perspective, the article problematises the notion that character formation and school discipline…

Professional collaboration in schools features prominently in contemporary approaches to educational change. Advocates highlight the importance of situated knowledge to continuous teacher learning, sustained school reform and improved student learning. Critics portray collaboration as an invisible and coercive means of official control. The…

School decentralization, which has reshaped power relations in the educational system, has empowered teachers and parents. Taking Abbott's approach to professions, the authors examine teachers' perceptions of the implications of parents' empowerment for teacher--parent relations. In-depth interviews with homeroom teachers in affluent urban…

To understand the role of the media in schooling and school reform, it is necessary to examine how the media collude in the construction of the political spectacle, which Edelman (1988) called a meaning machine of alternative realities. The media uses spectacle to generate points of view, perceptions, anxieties, aspirations, and strategies to…

Examines the concept, implications, and dilemmas of school restructuring, whose meanings are confusing and complex. Restructuring can be synonymous with top-down reform or ruthless retrenchment or can signify redefined power relationships in classrooms, staff rooms, and schooling communities. This paper identifies four restructuring dilemmas…

The concept of power, fundamental to understanding human interactions and institutions, remains puzzling, elusive, theoretically complex, and largely unexamined by practitioners. A school restructuring agenda that purportedly changes power relationships in schools is being proposed and tested throughout the country. Basic questions are being asked…

The psychological fallout of school restructuring can paralyze central office staff. Superintendents need effective incentives to keep people engaged in organization-building. They must create a trusting, risk-taking environment, develop a shared mission, empower staff to make decisions, provide learning opportunities, afford professional…

Site-based management (SBM) is an increasingly popular approach to school restructuring. SBM aims to transfer authority from state agencies and school districts to committees based at schools. To garner a consensus supporting reform, these committees are to be representative of educational and community members. SBM plans are characterized by: (1)…

Tasmania's history of reforms in state education administration were inspired yet pragmatic responses to social, political, and economic crises. A progressive devolution of managerial responsibility to schools and colleges between 1982 and 1989 resulted in little movement of governance powers. Hughes's state corporate managerialism has not proved…

Uses qualitative research methods (interviews, classroom observations, and document analysis) to determine whether a rural midwestern high school's restructuring process serves particular values and silences others. Findings showed lack of consideration for social power and student identity issues. Basic restructuring elements (outcome-based…

In this article, we examine the behaviors and contrasting perspectives, attitudes, and expectations of three sets of stakeholders--school personnel and the two communities of parents that represented equal portions of the population at an elementary school that had recently undergone substantial restructuring resulting from a desegregation order.…

Administrators must abandon transactional (control-oriented) and instructional leadership modes and use facilitative power to make second-order changes in their schools. Transformational leadership provides the proper focus by helping staff members develop and maintain a collaborative, professional school culture; fostering teacher development;…

The approach of the School without Walls illustrates how collaborative curriculum can empower students and can address the problem that our schools do little to change power relations between students of elite families and those of minorities and low socioeconomic status. Data from a study of the school's student outcomes and a national study of…

The first year of shared governance in a Canadian urban elementary school and the responses of the school's 14 teachers to the system of equal rights and responsibilities for teachers and the principal were described. Shared governance worked well, although not without conflict, but the group eventually used shared governance to resolve conflicts.…