This paper studies when decentralization improves public service delivery. I analyze a Chicago reform that awarded select principals greater autonomy over budgets and operations while holding resources largely unchanged. A meta-analysis of similar reforms shows substantial heterogeneity, including both positive and negative effects. Building on…

Purpose: Teachers unions in the United States are increasingly taking up issues of equity and justice. While there is a growing and robust body of scholarship on leading for equity, unions are rarely included as sources of education leadership. This creates an opportunity to not only consider unions in these equity efforts, but also re-shape our…

This systematic literature review examines how teacher unions frame professionalism discourses within contemporary socio-political contexts. By synthesising insights from international empirical research, the study explores the roles teacher unions play in challenging neoliberal education reforms that emphasise standardisation, accountability and…

Sustaining change beyond individual teachers is challenging and understanding factors making educational change effective is needed. We aimed to identify the factors that educators and construction specialists considered influential to educational change of a general upper-secondary school that was under construction and was to meet the…

The Victorian Government has engaged in multiple reforms in early childhood education and care, marketed to support quality education and increase investment in social reform. Initiatives accompanying reforms, aiming to assist teacher knowledge and skills. However, with each new initiative more pressures are placed on early childhood…

Historically, teachers had been delegated the primary responsibility for the organization and management of classroom instruction in US public schools. While this delegation afforded teachers professional autonomy in their work, it has also resulted in disparities in students' educational experiences and outcomes within and between classrooms,…

Notable within the rhetoric of recent global reform trends is the (re)positioning of teachers from peripheral to critical stakeholders in educational change processes. Responding to this imperative, programmes of Initial Teacher Education (ITE) are now frequently tasked with promoting teacher agency as a core dimension of teaching. Yet, much…

This chapter presents three Chinese teachers' narrative accounts about how they live in dilemmatic spaces due to excessive entitlement. Still, the teachers move forward with transformative agency. The thick description of the three teacher participants has been reported elsewhere as the narratives of Lee -- a math teacher, Ping -- a Chinese…

Teacher curriculum leadership is a key driver of curriculum reform in basic education and of improvements in student literacy. The mechanisms that underlie its development therefore constitute an important area of study. This case study analyzed the developmental trajectory of three teachers who became curriculum leaders. Results showed that from…

This study assesses the role a teacher-led social studies group played in the evolution of three teachers' professional biographies over the course of seven years. It uses a conceptual framework based on Priestley, Biesta and Robinson's (2015) theory of teacher agency to explore the ecological relationships between professional biography, the…

Background/purpose: This study aims to determine the effect of faculty members' psychological empowerment on their change orientation and the mediating role of knowledge inertia (learning and experience) in this effect. Materials/methods: A cross-sectional research design was used to achieve this goal. The opinions of 398 faculty members working…

The articulation of school autonomy into practice nationally, regionally and locally is highly situated in terms of what it enables or impedes with regard to the professional autonomy of principals and teachers. Principal autonomy does not necessarily mean greater teacher professional autonomy. In this paper, we draw on a three-year qualitative…

In predominantly white and affluent communities, it is a common belief that race and racism are irrelevant because there is little to no racial diversity in these communities. Elyse Hambacher and Denise Desrosiers describe how a New Hampshire school district in a mostly white community navigates teaching and leading for social justice despite…

This article explores Swedish teachers' and school leaders' Facebook rebellion groups as a medium where professional needs and actions can be formulated. Data consist of interviews with administrators representing the rebellion groups. Based on a theoretical perspective of teacher agency we searched for experiences and visions related to…

In Mexico, as in other countries, several circumstances have converged to inform political decisions that have driven a series of reforms in higher education. The reforms are designed to improve the performance of higher education institutions and their adaptability to new economic and social scenarios, as well as foster changes to the way they…