The recent review of the Scottish professional standards for teachers, led by the General Teaching Council for Scotland, offered a unique perspective to interrogate participative approaches in policy-making in the Scottish education context and to provide insights and implications for future policy-making. Using one of the authors' experiences as…

There is considerable focus on finding effective governance approaches. This article examines experiences with using more collaborative approaches to developing new governance instruments in the context of higher education. The specific empirical case focuses on the introduction of multi-annual performance agreements between the ministry and the…

The intention of government to create a fully academised school system in England, whereby every academy will belong to a large multi-academy Trust (MAT), further erodes community engagement and accountability. This paper illustrates how the policy of academisation has enabled a top-down governance framework to emerge, replacing the power and…

The past two decades have seen a growing de-professionalization of teaching. Combating this educational climate requires music teacher education programs to prioritize both critical pedagogical practices and policy knowhow in order to reestablish a focus on relational engagements and the navigation of the complex tensions lived daily in schools.…

This book provides new and experienced Special Educational Needs Coordinators (SENCOs) with a critical approach to understanding the importance of outstanding leadership of Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and how to effectively meet the current SEND policy requirements. Closely informed by the statutory guidance for SENCOs, this…

Research argues the importance of including young people, especially youth of color, to participate in educational leadership. However, adults who enact performative allyship towards these youth leaders often obstruct young people's ability to authentically participate in educational decision making and achieve justice-driven outcomes in K-12…

While there is no shortage of scholarship on "equity" in higher education, researchers typically examine whether a policy or practice is (in)equitable rather than how those responsible for designing and enacting a policy or practice make meaning of equity. Using a sensemaking framework and case study approach, I explored the collective…

Governmental policies in the United States and beyond increasingly call for school leaders to involve local communities in decision-making, yet engagement practices have often centered the perspectives of White parents and marginalized the voices of racially minoritized families. In this comparative case study of seven school districts, we draw on…

This article reports on a study in which the legitimisation of shared governance in the Chinese higher education sector was investigated. Norman Fairclough's three-level discourse analysis was used for analysing documents and interviews. The research materials consist of thirteen Chinese university statutes and qualitative semi-structured…

Research on school improvement has accumulated an extensive list of factors that facilitate turnarounds at underperforming schools. Given that contextual or resource constraints may limit the possibilities of putting all of these factors in place, an important question is what is necessary and sufficient to turn a school around. We use a…

Purpose: To know and study the participation of young students and their voice in decision-making in their schools in a competitive education regulated by excellence. To understand if and how students are involved in the democratic management of schools, given that these young people are involved globally, with an active participation in society.…

This article presents a comparative interview study (N = 45) with Swedish and German special educators working in inclusive school settings in order to gain an understanding of how inclusive education is operationalized by the provision of special education needs (SEN) support; and how both aspects are conditioned by nation-specific…

The success and failure of education reform policies often depend on the strategies of reformers. This article suggests a framework to understand the "positionality" of reformers, as they vary in their strategy (i.e., technical vs. relational) and focus for change (i.e., process- vs. outcomes-focused). Using the case of individuals who…

This essay offers a framework for broader community involvement as a means of increasing the relevance and usefulness of evidence developed. This essay begins by defining key concepts related to democratizing the development of evidence. The sections that follow outline a logic model that calls for a bidirectional, iterative set of core activities…

This report presents the results of the 2023 data collection on the structural indicators for monitoring education and training systems in the area of key competences. The report contains indicators on key policies related to: 1. cross-curricular learning at school; 2. active student participation in decision-making at school. The report contains…