Background/purpose: This study aims to determine the effect of faculty members' psychological empowerment on their change orientation and the mediating role of knowledge inertia (learning and experience) in this effect. Materials/methods: A cross-sectional research design was used to achieve this goal. The opinions of 398 faculty members working…

This article surveys current management ideals of higher education institutions, and our analytical focus is on the balance between line management and faculty self-governance. It presents an empirical study of evolving governance structures including all 31 public sector higher education institutions in Sweden. The point of departure is the…

Purpose: Drawing upon research into standards reform, and theorizing of professional and political capital, this article seeks to understand the development of and advocacy for the Next Generation Science Standards in the United States. As well as revealing how professional capital exists in three dimensions--human, social, and decisional--the…

The Soviet period is described as a highly centralised top-down system where schools and teachers had little to say about managerial topics. Instead, change was initiated by the resolutions and decisions of the Ministry of Education. This article aims to shed light on the establishment of Foreign-Language Subject Councils in Soviet Estonia in the…

This article explores teacher discretion in the context of the English 2014 science curriculum and assessment reforms. The study positions primary and secondary school science teachers as "street-level bureaucrats" in which they are not just mere implementers of policy but instead pivotal actors with much agency. Through the analysis of…

This case study examined teacher professional learning in the context of the Abu Dhabi New School Model educational reform initiative. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews that were conducted with teachers and school leaders. The study's findings reveal a serious disconnect between formal policy, practice, and implementation as…

This paper examines how the policy process around initial teacher education (ITE) during the pandemic of 2020 was experienced by the leaders of ITE programmes across England. Education policies, it is argued, are solutions to perceived problems, revealing latent values that drive action. Group interviews with leaders of ITE programmes across the…

Forty-six interviews of French and Finnish Junior High School teachers clearly show a strong will to link professional commitment to common progressive values. However, the interviewees have to adjust these political or philosophical views when confronted with the reality of their professional everyday life and to the development of widely…

Autonomy is often discussed as a necessary condition for professionalism in any field, including the teaching profession. In the educational context, autonomy is seen to be critical for teachers to be able to synthesize their knowledge and skills and translate them into effective classroom practices in the best interest of their students. In…

There is growing momentum in teacher education to organize the preparation of teachers around "core practices." Advocates call for identifying discipline-oriented, research-based teaching moves associated with student learning and then shifting teacher education pedagogies and programs toward preparing beginning teachers to implement…

The role of teacher agency in professional learning has been the subject of several qualitative studies but has not yet been tested in an experimental setting. To provide causal evidence of the impact of teacher agency on the effectiveness of professional learning, we conducted a preregistered randomized controlled trial in an online computer…

Teacher autonomy has been a popular topic of investigation over the past decades. This article contributes to the debate by casting light on Irish and Finnish teachers' perceptions of their professional autonomy, drawing from teacher interviews conducted in both countries. The intersection of newly introduced curriculum reforms, differing…

This paper aims at showing how a bottom-up approach of the study of educational policies can shed some light on how elementary school teachers deal with educational policies to make them work. This is a partial report on a larger focus group study conducted in Bogotá, Colombia, where a group of elementary school teachers shared their opinions…

The COVID-19 pandemic, recent awakening of society to its enduring racial pandemic, rising expectations for employer accountability, and an increasingly diverse populace jointly indicate that times are changing for the future of education work. Yet the approach to human resource management (HRM) employed in schools has been criticized for being…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to theorize teacher agency as enacted through a P/policymaking lens in three elementary classrooms. Big-P Policies are formal, top-down school reform policies legislated, created, implemented and regulated by national, state and local governments. Yet, Big-P policies are not the only policies enacted in…