School practitioners' receptivity to reform influences the success of policy implementation. In Taiwan, the Ministry of Education launched a curriculum reform in 2019. To determine how to enhance school agency for the policy, we explored the individual and contextual factors affecting receptivity to the new curriculum. With a survey design, this…

This study explores how White principals in the Seattle metropolitan area implemented an active anti-racist stance through school-based racial equity collaborations. Using participatory action research, the study follows three White principals in the Ally Engagement program, a community-based racial affinity leadership intervention, during the…

Although distributed leadership and inquiry-based working are relevant topics to primary education, there has been little discussion about how team members perceive these practices as meaningful in their day-to-day work. Following on from prior quantitative studies, the present study conducted a case study in which semi-structured interviews were…

This case was specifically written for practicing school leaders, as well as educational leadership preparation programs, to help create a nuanced conversation about how to decenter whiteness in the practices and policies of rural schools in the United States. The work is challenging, particularly given how race is baked into social institutions…

Purpose: Despite the school organizational culture broad literature, there is still a gap on culture and educational management, mainly in the public environment. To fill out this space, this article wants to point out the cultural factors that creates school management change in the Brazilian public school context. Design/methodology/approach:…

Because the role of literacy coach as a transformative change agent is a goal of many literacy programs, we set out to examine the process by which a literacy coach becomes a leader and transforms the learning environment of an "underperforming" high school being monitored by the state education department for low test scores. In the…

The current context of standards-based reform has positioned regional service centers (RSCs), intermediary governmental agencies that support state policy implementation in local districts, as a critical source of professional development (PD). In this article, we ask how a governing body that districts often interact with during challenging…

The current context of standards-based reform has positioned regional service centers (RSCs), intermediary governmental agencies that support state policy implementation in local districts, as a critical source of professional development (PD). In this article, we ask how a governing body that districts often interact with during challenging…

Purpose: Existing research on loosely coupled educational systems has largely ignored the social and affective dimensions of such systems. Drawing on literature from organizational behavior, this study examines how "human" factors, including role identity dynamics, power dynamics, and stereotyping, shape the implementation of state-led…

The North Carolina legislature has mandated establishing school/university partnership lab schools. Partnership schools may help to drive school improvement efforts; however, educators have been forced to adopt multiple initiatives aimed at the improvement of K-12 education and teacher preparation. The likelihood of teachers and professors yet…

This study examined educators' attitudes, values, and beliefs about families and the development of family-school partnerships in demographically changing school and community contexts. Survey data were collected from 188 educators in nine school districts. In-depth interviews were conducted with four teachers, four leaders, and one parent…

Personalized learning refers to a collection of practices designed to place student interests and needs at the heart of schooling. Schools that implement personalized learning need leaders that support educators and students in redesigning the core practices of teaching and learning in K-12 schools. To answer the question of how leaders support…

Cooper's (1989) LPP framework focuses on 'who' the policy planner is and 'who' implements the policy to 'whom.' These are particularly significant factors in a highly centralized education system such as China's, where the effect of different individuals as actors in LPP remains largely unexplored. This article examines the controversy around the…

To what extent does the adoption of consociational power-sharing affect the design and implementation of education reforms? This article maps this territory through rich and detailed interviews collected in Lebanon, Northern Ireland, and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia in 2012-2013. Insights from these interviews are corroborated by…

This study is a critical discourse analysis of the New Jersey Opt-Out Movement. In 2015, and in response to the increasing standardization of US public school instruction, and over-use of high-stakes testing, NJ parents began to refuse to allow their children to take a key end-of-the year exam, the PARCC. We employ the concepts of master and…