Autonomy is considered to be an important feature of professionals and to provide a necessary basis for their informed judgments. In this article these notions will be challenged. In this article I use Michel Foucault's deconstruction of the idea of the autonomous citizen, and his later attempts to reconstruct that idea, in order to bring some new…

To effectively address teacher turnover, Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) grantees need to follow an approach that entails aligning the tracking, diagnosing, and intervening processes. Unfortunately, too often retention strategies are implemented without regard to the various types of teacher turnover and specific data about the causes of turnover.…

The major curricula revisions in South Africa in the last two decades or so have changed the curriculum landscape. These revisions are meant to effect among other issues, the socio-economic development for all through quality education. The latest curricula transition from National Curriculum Statement (NCS) to Curriculum and Assessment Policy…

Context: Clinical education is the interaction between a clinical preceptor and student within the clinical setting to help the student progress as a clinician. Post-professional athletic training clinical education is especially important to improve these students' clinical knowledge and skills. However, little research has been conducted to…

This study explores how teachers' shared perception of empowerment influences teacher efficacy and organizational commitment in the Chinese Mainland. A two-level hierarchical linear model is used to test the proposed theoretical framework. The results indicated that "professional growth", a school-level teacher empowerment factor, was…

The purpose of this research was to evaluate the psychometric properties of Friedman's (1999) Teacher Work-Autonomy Scale (TWA) in order to determine whether it was an acceptable instrument to measure U.S. teachers' autonomy in the present educational context. A second purpose was to ascertain the current status of teachers' perceptions of their…

An evaluation of the impact of a professional development experience on participants' ability to explore student voices as input for improving the teaching of mathematics evolved into a self-study of our growth as non-evaluative listeners. This paper specifically describes our emergent awareness of the evaluative stance implicit within our attempt…

This book was written across a period of intense turmoil and change in higher education in Australia and England. The authors are deeply unsettled by these changes and wish to open up the discussion about what it means to be an academic and engage in academic work in the 21st century. Accordingly, each of the authors has nominated a theme or lens…

The development of critical sensibilities in English Language Teaching (ELT) in recent years has seen challenges to assumptions and methodologies in the field, placing an explicit focus on the manifestation of structures and relations of power. The critical stance affords a growing acceptance of English Language Teaching as a complex situated…

The aim of this article is to examine the role taken by the Institute for Learning (IfL) in England to promote the nature of professionalism in the lifelong learning sector. It raises the possibility that the decisions taken by the IfL, since its inception in 2002, are leading to the de-professionalisation of teachers. It is argued that what is…

The anticipated constraints imposed by the accountability process associated with standards-based reform on teachers' practice suggest a tension between teachers' desire for flexibility and the accountability mandates associated with reform initiatives. In particular, we posited that the teachers would negatively perceive the influence of…

Although there is wide consensus that teacher evaluation processes should be used to identify and measure effective teaching, this has always been an elusive goal. How teachers perceive the evaluative process is a crucial determiner of how the results of the evaluations are utilized. In 2010, the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and…

This study explores the question of how Boston Public Schools (BPS) can strengthen and support autonomy and accountability across its portfolio to promote innovation and expand access to equity and high performance. Some of the specific questions guiding this work are: (1) Should all schools within BPS operate within autonomous structures? (2) Is…

The conceptual framework guiding this study focuses on local, state, and federal standards as well as demands on schools to improve performance of underserved student populations as impetuses for school structure changes. As related to the aforementioned framework, many schools have developed innovative school restructuring methods such as the…

Turning around chronically low-performing schools is challenging work requiring fundamental rethinking of the change process, and a systemic rather than school-by-school approach. Without a doubt, high-impact school leaders are critical to turnaround success, and pockets of success around the country demonstrate this. However, transformational and…