School self-evaluation (SSE) or data-based decision making is now a common feature of mainstream education in an increasing number of jurisdictions. The participation of stakeholders including students, is promoted internationally as a key feature of effective SSE. Despite this, very little research has been carried out on how education systems…

The challenge of educational improvement, due mainly to the complexity of educational systems, is well-known. The aim of this study is to provide knowledge regarding the process of change within schools to better understand how it might depend on cultural context and the characteristics of individual schools. Based on interventions in four…

When Sweden began to experience a steady decline in student achievement results in PISA and TIMMS, the Swedish National Agency of Education initiated a model of collaboration with Swedish universities aimed at providing support to schools with falling student achievement scores. In this article, we examine how such projects can work at the local…

Organizational building is essential if school leaders are to promote school improvement, but it can be difficult to combine with school leaders' requirements to satisfy teachers' personal and relational needs. The the aim of this study is to explore critical aspects when combining organizational building with requirements to satisfy teachers'…

School improvement frameworks and their associated reform efforts often have limited durability and are frequently not fully implemented. Improving their viability, requires a more realistic understanding of contextual organisational structures and the school culture in which the reform is to be implemented. Internationally, and in Australia…

This literature review tests a framework for coherent implementation of school improvement initiatives. Often in education, initiatives are introduced as disparate, isolated approaches towards improved student learning. As a result, teachers, school-based administration and school districts frequently change their focus, contributing to…

This article explores the use of student voice to contribute to improving schools. Through the gathering of perspectives and experiences of staff and students, it considers how the responses to requirements for both student voice and school improvement interrelate and identifies challenges to be addressed. The research was conducted in Norway…

An interpretive narrative inquiry approach is adopted to shed light on the improvement agendas applied in a specific set of coastal schools. The unifying thread between the focal cases is that they had been designated as failures and made notorious through association with their communities' tainted reputations. These schools feature in a report…

Through a mixed methods approach, this article explores young people's perceptions about critical issues in secondary school and the improvements being made to prevent dropout risk. The empirical data were gathered from a representative sample of young people (14-24) in a socioeconomically disadvantaged region in the European Union. A principal…

Current approaches to the regulation of schools in most jurisdictions tend to combine elements of external inspection with systems of internal self-evaluation. An increasingly important aspect of the theory and practice of both, but particularly the latter, revolves around the role of other actors, primarily parents and students, in the process.…

Using an inquiry-based approach to address the challenge of improving schools provides opportunities for informed decision making and carries great promise for return on investment. Taking a collaborative approach toward improvement can be complex, yet also rewarding because of the opportunity to leverage the knowledge and capacity of multiple…

This article reports on findings related to possible strategies of improving school effectiveness in Abu Dhabi from the perspectives of their stakeholders' perceptions, namely, principals, teachers, students, and parents. This study considered 18 strategies of meaningful school improvement (SI) to help align Abu Dhabi schools to international…

External consultancy in schools by those who do not belong to the teaching staff has always been an important factor in school development. Such consulting goes hand in hand with the idea that internal school development processes and their results can be influenced positively by external experts. This is even more so for "failing…

This article focuses on the interplay between the concepts of 'educational infrastructure' and 'organisational memory'. Using data from collaboration between a Swedish university and a local municipality, the article draws attention to the interplay between three nation-wide improvement programmes and their educational infrastructures, and the…

In school systems around the world, there is an increasing focus on students' academic achievement. The challenge of how to improve schools is an important issue for all levels in the school system. However, a central question of both practical and theoretical relevance is how it is possible to understand why (or why not) school-development…