To afford school middle leaders meaningful opportunities to initiate change, we must provide them with the space and flexibility to engage with agentic and creative responses to policy and practice. Whilst we argue that the tensions identified in Bennett's seminal reviews persist, there may, nonetheless, be opportunities for school middle leaders…

The number of international schools has increased significantly this century, with new schools predominately situated in Asia and the Middle East. This growth has also seen a shift from not-for-profit to for-profit education, and from such schools being primarily for children of expatriates to being mainly for host nation children. New actors,…

Since 2017, new modes of regulation have been implemented in French-speaking Belgium and have resulted in responsibilization and accountability policies. This article aims to define the characteristics of control regulation, which corresponds to explicit and official rules implemented by the central government. Based on a textual analysis…

This paper draws on interviews with 10 psychologists working in NHS (National Health Service) Adult Gender Identity Clinics across the UK and focuses on the way they put their clinical knowledge about gender into practice. It also questions how two major NHS consultations set the parameters for professional and clinical practice in relation to…

Distributed leadership is propagated internationally as an effective means to improve teaching and learning in schools. Increasingly it is acknowledged that practices of distributed leadership depend on their context and governing conditions. Based on ethnographic research, this article discusses how distributed leadership is put into practice…

Despite over two decades of research, initial teacher education (ITE) partnerships remain problematic. Our study explores the development of a mandated ITE university-school partnership in Wales amidst significant educational reform. Through qualitative research, involving focus groups with 47 teacher educators from a university and 15 schools, we…

Despite the positive impact of collaborative school cultures on teachers' professional growth and student achievement, it is difficult to create such a culture. This study explores the types of school cultures in one school district in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to identify factors that could foster or inhibit true teacher collaboration. Data…

Processes of market-making and regulation are recalibrating the work of teacher education. While an established body of research has examined changes to the content and control of teacher education in the UK and internationally, the impact of audit-based accountability on the work of academic leaders is neglected. This study explores the career…

A significant paradox of school autonomy is that it tends to constrain the autonomy of teachers, instead subjecting them to the increased controlling of their work, heightened monitoring, and greater accountability. This paper draws on interview data to show how teachers in accountability-driven and business-like schools face three different but…

The rise of performative culture in education and intensifying forms of test-based accountability have subjected teachers to a ubiquitous 'field of judgment' through which they are held to account. Within this context, professional development is consistently deployed as a key solution to stagnant or declining student outcomes. In this paper, we…

Countries regarded as holding high levels of educational autonomy face a different set of constraints to that of countries with low levels of autonomy, these constraints being linked to the marketisation of schools. As schools become decentralised and given greater autonomy, school leaders are steered by a responsibilising framework that includes…

This paper explores how trust in teacher professional judgment has been reconstituted through the globalised trends of performative accountability and reductive data-driven logics. The article draws upon empirical research from interviews with teachers and school leaders as well as observations of teacher preparation days, classroom and staff…

The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between school structure, distributed leadership and accountability of school administrators. Relational survey design was adopted in the study. 444 elementary school teachers working in Aziziye, Palandöken and Yakutiye in Erzurum participated in the study. In sample selection, stratified…

Purpose: This study aimed to explore Kuwaiti public school principals' experiences in relation to autonomy and accountability after the implementation of the School Education Quality Improvement Project, which aimed to increase the autonomy and accountability of Kuwaiti public schools. Design/methodology/approach: This study adopted a qualitative…

This paper was invited as a commentary on the keynote paper for this special issue by Simon Marginson and Lili Yang. The paper begins by noting the importance of a fully balanced approach to comparison in higher education, that gives equal value and weight to Sinic and Anglo-American views by adopting a transpositional approach and also…