This report provides Moldova with concrete guidance and practical considerations for transitioning from an ad hoc approach to a planned, cyclical curriculum review. Drawing on international research and experience, as well as Moldova's own efforts in curriculum reform, it addresses six key questions: what are the main purposes of the curriculum…

This paper develops a new, broader, and more realistic lens to study (lacking) linkages between government policy and school practices. Drawing on recent work in organization theory, we advance notions on cluster of organization routines and the logic of complementarities underlying organizational change. This lens allows looking at how schools do…

This paper focuses on the formation of the Rand Change Agent Study, characterizes it as the pursuit of school reform for "social equity" and attempts to demonstrate anew its significance. First, the paper finds that "social equity" was among the main motivations for the Rand Change Agent Study. It was clear in the earliest…

Although the role of leadership in school improvement is widely recognized, there is less understanding of what leaders can do to support (and mitigate barriers to) the implementation of mandated educational change. This systematic literature review analyzed findings from 191 relevant primary studies published between 2000 and 2020 and identified…

Purpose: In the wake of interlocking pandemics, educational systems are resetting in important ways, pursuing aims that are not exclusively instructional (e.g., social justice, well-being). As systems (re)build, they may vary in how they manage their institutional and policy environments, which may or may not be reorienting toward these same…

Most higher education institutions in the United States are bound to the triad's regulations, but their methods for integrating external policies with internal ones are unstudied. Employing a single-case, embedded design, this qualitative study centers on a midsize public, research institution in the eastern United States to explore how one higher…

This paper undertakes a critical analysis of a planned change, the Safe Learning Model (SLM), devised over time by Concern Worldwide, and implemented in 100 primary or elementary schools in a rural district of Sierra Leone. We situate the documentation pertaining to the SLM (micro) within its wider national (meso) and international (macro) context…

Over the past two decades, federal education policies such as the No Child Left Behind Act and the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) have sought to improve school performance through accountability systems. As states emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic, many began exploring ways to expand accountability beyond ESSA requirements. These efforts…

The purpose of this study is to conceptualize and theorize the circulation-chain model as an education policy implementation framework systematically. The circular-chain education policy implementation process and effect evaluation analysis model are a theoretical innovation model and practical exploration path to explore the implementation and…

Education for sustainable development (ESD) aims to empower future generations to address current global environmental threats, though it faces challenges to implementation, often linked to narrow perceptions of sustainability. To observe such changes in practice and draw their implications for ESD, we explore the effects of COVID-19 in…

Educational researchers need to pay more attention to understanding the perspectives of implementers as a means to preventing future implementation failures. In an attempt to elucidate the reasons for resistance to the implementation of the 2013 education reform in Mexico, qualitative methods were used to explore the lived experiences of…

Though government funding has shrunk, Nepal's higher education (HE) sector has expanded in the last three decades in terms of the establishment of new institutions and the implementation of a series of projects funded by the World Bank. Using neoliberal instrumentalism as a theoretical framework and critical policy sociology as a methodological…

Policy implementation is vital for the realization of predetermined policy goals. In the last decades, several studies have analyzed higher education policy reforms. Nevertheless, studies on institutional politics and the implementation of higher education policy reforms in the Tanzanian context are scant. Drawing on new institutionalism, this…

This article explores how the implementation of the education reform led by the federal government in México (2012-2018) took place in rural disadvantaged contexts and, specifically, in schools where an anti-establishment union movement has been developing for several decades. Based on semi-structured interviews and classroom-focused ethnographic…

School-based vocational education and training (VET) systems are undergoing important changes with a view to strengthening their work-based learning component and, overall, their relationships with the local production environment. This paper looks at the introduction of dual VET in the Basque Country within the Spanish and European contexts.…