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Crisis makes bold policy actions possible. In responding to socioeconomic and technological ruptures, policymakers create new imaginaries or revitalise existing ones. With the Australian Government’s Job-Ready Graduates (JRG) reform during the COVID-19 pandemic as an empirical case, this paper shows how crisis instrumentalism and policy imaginaries intersect to effect swift policy changes. Drawing on a thematic analysis of key documents that constitute the JRG reform, we highlight three findings. First, the reformers used a new crisis context to repackage pre-existing policy agendas. Second, in justifying the timeliness of the reform, rather than constructing new imaginaries, the Government reactivated old neoliberal visions of society and the economy. Finally, the reform agendas are characterised by reductionist accounts of the value of university education, a nativist view of the future workforce, and the omissions of key issues: research training, social justice, and the urgency of decarbonising the economy. We close the paper by arguing that crisis makes swift reform possible to the extent that key actors can mobilise new or pre-existing policy imaginaries.

Examines transitions within education - between year groups, key stages and schools - and how they can be managed and supported for the maximum benefit of the pupil. There is recognition that educational experiences can have a profound impact on both employability and future well-being. Beneath the political rhetoric is the need for a deepened understanding of how to develop lifelong learners, who can react positively to change and who can think critically, reflectively and independently. Supporting and managing transitions within the educational system lies at the heart of this and is therefore vitally important for all pupils. Drawing upon theory, the book provides examples of practical strategies supported by real life case studies from both working practitioners and key stakeholders including pupils and parents. These raise awareness of both challenges and good practice, while also providing key opportunities for different sectors to learn from one another.

The main aim of this article is to contribute to the understanding of organizational autonomy and control in higher education reform and related expectations as regards the performance of universities. Our analyses draws on principal-agent models as a normative theory of policy reform, and institutionalist approaches in public policy and institutional design as an analytical theory of policy reform. We discuss how the dominant narrative of political reform moves away from traditional beliefs in university autonomy that are built on institutional trust and linked to professional autonomy. In the emerging narrative of political change, autonomy becomes re-defined as the 'new organizational autonomy' of universities as both strategic actors and as an addressee of governmental control. The concept of 'regulatory autonomy' captures the use of organizational autonomy of universities as a tool of a new regime of governmental control. Exemplified by the Dutch case, we analyze autonomy policies for strengthening managerial discretion and internal control of universities that are combined with regulatory policies for external control that steer organizational choices. Regulatory autonomy thus aims at aligning universities more closely with governmental goals and improve respective performance. Our literature review shows, however, that there is scarce, inconclusive and methodologically problematic evidence for a link between 'organizational autonomy and performance'. We point at promising avenues for further research on autonomy and performance as two core concepts in the contemporary higher education debate. (HRK / Abstract übernommen).

Ecologizing Education explores how we can reenvision education to meet the demands of an unjust and rapidly changing world. Going beyond \"green\" schooling programs that aim only to shape behavior, Sean Blenkinsop and Estella Kuchta advance a pedagogical approach that seeks to instills eco-conscious and socially just change at the cultural level. Ecologizing education, as this approach is called, involves identifying and working to overcome anti-ecological features of contemporary education. This approach, called ecologizing education, aims to develop a classroom culture in sync with the more-than-human world where diversity and interdependency are intrinsic. Blenkinsop and Kuchta illustrate this educational paradigm shift through the real-world stories of two public elementary schools located in British Columbia. They show that this approach to learning starts with recognizing the environmental and social injustices that pervade our industrialized societies. By documenting how ecologizing education helps children create new relationships with the natural world and move toward mutual healing, Blenkinsop and Kuchta offer a roadmap for what may be the most potent chance we have at meaningful change in the face of myriad climate crises. Timely, practical, and ultimately inspirational, Ecologizing Education is vital reading for any parent, caregiver, environmentalist, or educator looking for wholistic education that places nature and the environment front and center.

BackgroundTeacher emotions are sometimes underplayed in the research field of teaching and teacher education. Also, teachers often undergo transformations in their professional identities during education reforms. However, very few studies explore the connections between teacher emotions and their professional identities against the background of education reforms, especially in Asian contexts. There is an increasing emphasis on STEM as an education reform in China and the world, and a deep understanding of STEM teacher emotions and professional identities is necessary in the fast development of STEM education. This study examined how a STEM teacher emotionally constructed her professional identities under the STEM education reform.MethodsThis is a 3-year longitudinal case study employing a narrative inquiry approach with one STEM teacher in China. Data collection included one in-depth, semi-structured interview, three conversations, personal emotional diaries, and correspondence records. A four-step data analysis was conducted.ResultsThree major themes reflecting the participant’s emotional professional identities emerged, including “an interested but confused learner”, “an enthusiastic but nervous explorer”, and “an excited but unsatisfied mentor”. In the participant’s experiences as a learner, explorer, and mentor, positive and negative emotions were always intertwined. These helped construct and shape her professional identities and encouraged her to be the best STEM teacher that she could be.ConclusionThis study provides a series of vivid and dynamic pictures of a STEM teacher’s emotions and professional identities against the background of STEM education reform in China from a 3-year longitudinal perspective. It also indicates the personal, social, cultural, and contextual factors that could have strong effects on teachers’ emotional experiences and the construction of professional identities. Furthermore, this study reveals that three processes (i.e., the process of education changes, the process of creating new or multiple professional identities, and the generation process of teacher emotions) could be intertwined and developed together.

Across countries and over time, support for economic globalization is strongest among individuals with the highest levels of education. Yet despite long-lasting debates on the sources of this correlation, reliable evidence that isolates the causal effect of education from the nonrandom selection of individuals into education is lacking. To address this fundamental issue, I exploit compulsory-schooling reforms that increased the minimum school-leaving age in eighteen countries. Employing a fuzzy regression discontinuity design, I find that the reform-induced added years of education substantially and durably increased support for trade liberalization. And using new data on the content of school curricula, I find that the effect of schooling largely stems from instilling tolerance and pluralism in citizens and reducing the perceived cultural threat of globalization. In contrast, there is little evidence that the effect of schooling reflects the distributive consequences of international trade, separating globalization winners and losers.

Changing whole education systems for the better as measured by student achievement requires coordinated leadership at school, community, district, and government levels. This book lays out a comprehensive action plan for achieving whole-system reform.

Romania inherited a tightly controlled and strictly regulated mass education system from socialism, which inevitably has gone through a systematic reform. However, transformation or change of any education system does not take place for its own sake, but it is intended to meet certain social and political challenges and requirements. Therefore, the present study investigates the significant changes that have taken place in early childhood education (ECE) in Romania since the collapse of the Ceausescu regime in 1989. Specifically, the impact of the reform measures on ECE provision is examined in relation to curriculum content and structure. Explanation of how to investigate education have been central to the present research. The analysis of documentary data corpus identified three main themes reflecting the changes that took place: (i) the introduction of education reforms, (ii) the emergence of educational pluralism, (iii) the various iterations of the early childhood curriculum. Findings suggest that decentralisation processes led to the spread of alternative pedagogies in ECE add the findings about curriculum content change our investigation offers a detailed picture of the educational processes of decentralization and the changes it has brought in the early childhood curriculum.

Background Calls to improve student learning and increase the number of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) college and university graduates assert the need for widespread adoption of evidence-based instructional practices in undergraduate STEM courses. For successful reforms to take hold and endure, it is likely that a significant shift in culture around teaching is needed. This study seeks to describe the initial response of faculty to an effort to shift teaching norms, with a long-term goal of altering the culture around teaching and learning in STEM. While the effort was envisioned and led at the institutional level, dialog about the proposed change and actions taken by faculty was emergent and supported within departments. Results Faculty identify a variety of barriers to proposed changes in teaching practice; however, faculty also identify a variety of drivers that might help the institution alter teaching and learning norms. Analysis of faculty responses reveals 18 categories of barriers and 15 categories of drivers in faculty responses. Many of the barrier and driver categories were present in each department's responses; however, the distribution and frequency with which they appear reveals departmental differences that are important for moving forward with strategies to change teaching practice. Conclusions Addressing faculty's barriers to change is essential, but identifying and leveraging faculty's drivers for the change is potentially equally important in efforts to catalyze changes that are supported or constrained by the local context. Further, the collection of faculty perspectives opens a dialog around the current and future state of teaching, an important step in laying the groundwork for change. Departmental differences in barriers and drivers make clear the importance of \"knowing\" the local contexts so strategies adopted by departments can be appropriately tailored. Results are discussed in light of what kind of strategies might be employed to effect changes in STEM education.