Although the role of international organizations in the diffusion of education policy is widely acknowledged, their role in the articulation of policy ideas remains comparatively underresearched. This article addresses this gap through a case study on the role of the OECD in the construction of the School Autonomy with Accountability policy…

Spreading like wildfire, school autonomy with accountability (SAWA) policies have transformed education worldwide. Rooted in new public management, SAWA is a 'policy bundle' that links greater decision-making at the school level with standardization and monitoring practices like large-scale assessments and performance indicators. As with every…

In 2012, the Vietnamese government enacted the institutional autonomy policy to support the reform process of the higher education system. The autonomy policy signifies the transfer of decision-making authority from ministries to public universities to increase university performance and competitiveness in the globalized knowledge economy. This…

In 2003, Qatar launched the "initiative for Developing Education, called Education for New Era Reform," based on four principles: independence, accountability, diversity, and choice. Public schools were therefore converted to "Independent Schools" and provided with more resources. We examined the reform's effectiveness using an…

Abundant research has shown the influence of social background on university dropout. However, there is little research that considers the different progression options for analysing the structure of the decisions that students make. This article explores the possible alternative decisions of: (1) continuing the initial degree course chosen; (2)…

This contribution examines recent transformation in the institutionalization of a new mode of governance in the field of Higher Education. We identify three characteristics of the institutional design of public Quality Assurance Agencies (QAAs) that operate at the national level in the field of higher education. In order to do so, we examine three…

This discussion builds on the analyses in the chapters in this volume. As the OECD has been and remains a powerful agent in the development of public governance, and thus in education governance, the discussion is also structured on the basis of OECD governance and leadership reports. Some of the results from those reports are used but that does…

Over the course of the twentieth century, Ontario teacher education underwent substantial transformations in terms of policy, jurisdiction and design, which shifted authority from provincially controlled normal schools to more semi-autonomous teachers' colleges and finally to faculties within university campuses. In looking at these top-level…

The education system in England, along with the leadership and management of its schools, has changed dramatically over the past fifteen years, heavily influenced by key features of the private school sector. However, in this article, it is argued that the strong policy focus on autonomy and diversity was in fact an accentuation of the historical…

Much research into structural reform in education has reported on the success or failure of individual projects. Less attention has been paid to how the discourses associated with reform are normalized in teachers' and head teachers' thinking, and realized in their actions. In this article, we engage with resistance at the interface of legal…

Purpose: This study builds on research scrutinizing school autonomy in policy and school governance by shifting the focus from a formal structural view of autonomy to examining how principals negotiate autonomy in their daily work. Drawing on multiple dimensions of autonomy and street-level bureaucracy, this study examined how principals, as both…

In this paper, I explore the enactment of institutional autonomy policy as a reform strategy to support the internationalization of higher education in Vietnam. The autonomy policy signifies the transfer of decision-making authority from the ministries to public universities so that university leaders can decide on matters of teaching, research,…

We spend a lot of time arguing about how schools might be improved. But we rarely take a step back to ask what we as a society should be looking for from education--what exactly should those who make decisions be trying to achieve? In "Educational Goods," two philosophers and two social scientists address this very question. They begin…

While past studies on school district decentralization found that central office leaders can limit school leaders' decision-making power, the studies did not examine how they do so. We investigated this in eight elementary schools in two large urban school systems with official policies of school site-based decision-making. We found that even…

While past studies on school district decentralization found that central office leaders can limit school leaders' decision-making power, the studies did not examine how they do so. We investigated this in eight elementary schools in two large urban school systems with official policies of school site-based decision-making. We found that even…