This study examines the interaction between non-governmental organization (NGO), the Local Education Authority (LEA), and public schools in communities of different socioeconomic backgrounds in Israel. We characterize how schools serving more and less affluent communities create, cultivate, and preserve interactions with NGOs; how NGOs form, and…

This article examines the neoliberal influences on "Port City Schools" (PCS) unique district-wide extended learning time (ELT) initiative. Despite the recent popularity of ELT in urban schools, there have been few qualitative studies that question how stakeholders make sense of ELT on the ground. This research fills that gap in the…

The politics of the later part of the twentieth century have been marked by the emergence of neoliberalism, which has consequently impregnated the global policy climate with neoliberal technologies of government. It is within this political scenario of hegemonic neoliberal discourse that I explore one aspect of school reform in Malta--contrived…

In this paper, we describe one secondary school's radical attempt to rethink the shape and purpose of education for its pupils, and its subsequent return to more traditional methods in the face of pressures of performativity and accountability. Framing our analysis within activity theory and its emphasis on contradiction as a driver for change, we…

This article seeks to augment an emerging interest in education policy research in enactment theorising, to explicitly consider the role and contribution of materiality in this theorising. Guided by the notion of policy "matters," the article takes as its empirical context a major policy initiative, the Building the Education Revolution…

Scholars studying the global governance of education have noted the increasingly important role corporations play in educational policy making. I contribute to this scholarship by examining the Assessment and Teaching of twenty-first century skills (ATC21S™) project, a knowledge production apparatus operating under cognitive capitalism. I analyze…

This article concerns policy implementation and examines the processes of translation through which policy may be enacted at local level. In particular, it focuses on education policy and constructions of teacher professionalism, drawing on a framework of critical logics--social, political and fantasmatic--which examine different dimensions of…

In this multisite case study, we examine the personal capacities of six high school principals who have developed the leadership capacities of other leaders in their respective schools. Participants were purposefully selected by two teams of researchers in two states of the United States, one on the east coast and one on the west coast, who…

This paper explores how the strong policy push to improve students' results on national literacy and numeracy tests -- the National Assessment Program, Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) -- in the Australian state of Queensland influenced schooling practices, including teachers' learning. The paper argues the focus upon improved test scores on NAPLAN…

Policy implementation at school level is often recognised as transformative enactment. Positioning school leaders as gatekeepers in this enactment is limiting. This study of one Australian school explores the complex contextualised agency of school leaders showing that their role, far more than gatekeeping, can be enabling and transformative.…

Taking recent policy on education and social mobility as a working example, this article examines developments in the mechanisms for realising policy over the past ten years, as indicative of changes in the neoliberal state. This initial analysis suggests that, despite similarities in the process of policy formation before and after the General…

Although many states in the United States are adopting policies that require all students to complete college-preparatory science classes to graduate from high school, such policies have not always led to improved student outcomes. There is much speculation about the cause of the dismal results, but there is scant research on the processes by…

Parent involvement policies have been central in the Dutch push towards educational governance. How the implementation of these policies plays out on the ground is context-dependent. The ethnic and class cleavages impacting the Dutch educational system should be taken into account. On the basis of 50 in-depth interviews with teachers, social…

This study investigates how new presidents of higher education institutions struggle to understand their organisations, paying special attention to campus resistance, and how new presidents manage institutional dynamics and expectations. A qualitative study using a phenomenological approach is conducted with 11 single-campus presidents of…

In an era of curricular accountability where everything from reading and math scores to body fat are events to be assembled, scrutinized, and standardized, the health-conscious school plays an ever-important role in community and the nation (or so we are told). This qualitative study analyzes interviews with school leaders in their role in…