Nivi Gal Arielyi and Emanuel Tamir
The purpose of this paper is to examine why, despite the advantages they might gain by participating in regulation of teaching by law, Israeli teachers’ unions leaders abandoned…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine why, despite the advantages they might gain by participating in regulation of teaching by law, Israeli teachers’ unions leaders abandoned the opportunity to obtain the right of regulation and instead preferred an ambiguous role.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a policy research study, involving documentary analysis, focusing on one specific bill and data from interviews with teachers’ union leaders and officials who participated in discussions on the bill, and/or in crucial negotiations concerning teaching regulation.
Findings
It was found that unions’ leaders preferred to leave the licensing process for teaching as an open-ended and constantly negotiable issue with their employer rather than assuming the role of gatekeeper, understanding that this gave them more space and power to maneuvre in future struggles. Consequently, only the Education Ministry determines who becomes a teacher.
Research limitations/implications
These findings can inform educational policy makers and stakeholders, by giving them a glimpse into policy considerations. New knowledge is offered for the development of theory concerning teaching profession regulation and involvement of the teacher unions in these processes.
Practical implications
Policy makers may re-evaluate their interests as stakeholders in the education system, when they try to shape the profession through regulation of those who seek to become teachers.
Originality/value
The research sheds light on a hidden part of the policy-making puzzle that most studies do not explore and educational leaders prefer not to discuss especially when there is no proof of achievement, nor a public crisis.
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Emanuel Tamir and Mirit K. Grabarski
This paper aims to apply the garbage can model to identify factors that affect managerial decision-making processes in educational systems undergoing reforms.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to apply the garbage can model to identify factors that affect managerial decision-making processes in educational systems undergoing reforms.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper used a qualitative approach using semi-structured interviews with 39 teachers and managers in schools undergoing a system-wide reform.
Findings
The paper presents examples for a typology of decision outcomes found in the model and provides explanations for their emergence. It shows that there are many challenges that are associated with reform implementation and suggests factors that need to be taken into account when planning and implementing a reform.
Originality/value
School management and policy makers can learn about the risks that are associated with garbage can decision-making and the various risk factors. Practical suggestions are given to reduce the probability of suboptimal decision-making.
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Emanuel Tamir and Sherry Ganon-Shilon
The study explores characteristics of strong school cultures through principals' exploitation of additional resources within implementation of a national reform.
Abstract
Purpose
The study explores characteristics of strong school cultures through principals' exploitation of additional resources within implementation of a national reform.
Design/methodology/approach
An interpretive approach was utilized to analyze qualitative data from semi-structured interviews with 35 Israeli high school principals who implemented a national reform in state and religious-state schools from all school districts.
Findings
The article presents four types of cracking cultures led by the principals: (1) a school values-based culture, such as respect; (2) a caring culture based on trust and a positive atmosphere; (3) a maintenance achievement-oriented culture; and (4) a creative culture that supports the teachers and takes risks in using resources beyond their intended purpose.
Originality/value
Exploring principals' exploitation of resources within a cracking culture may promote school improvement and innovation during national reform implementation.
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The purpose of this paper is to examine considerations employed in decision-making processes by Israeli high school leaders, when implementing the “Courage to Change” reform. The…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine considerations employed in decision-making processes by Israeli high school leaders, when implementing the “Courage to Change” reform. The reform gave schools large supplementary resources in the form of “weekly instruction time” and they decided how to exploit these additional hours.
Design/methodology/approach
Qualitative analysis focused on data from interviews with staff from 19 high schools.
Findings
The research identified three types of consideration adopted by managerial staffs: “Hasty,” “Conservative” and “Path-breaking.” Findings contribute to theory concerning incremental decisions in schools concerning the allocation of resources, in line with the institutional approach, and also inform other schools coping with similar tasks.
Originality/value
The research is original both in its topic and context. Further conclusions and implications are discussed.
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Jennifer A. Hartfield, Derek M. Griffith and Marino A. Bruce
There are racial differences in policing and treatment when people are stopped for the same crimes, and scholars have long documented and expressed concern regarding the police’s…
Abstract
There are racial differences in policing and treatment when people are stopped for the same crimes, and scholars have long documented and expressed concern regarding the police’s reactions to Black men. In this paper, we argue that racism is the root cause of police-involved killings of unarmed Black men. Utilizing several contemporary examples, we articulate the ways racism operates through cultural forces and institutional mechanisms to illustrate how this phenomenon lies at the intersection of public safety and public health. Thus, we begin by defining racism and describing how it is gendered to move the notion that the victims of police involved shootings overwhelmingly tend to be Black men from the margins of the explanation of the patterns to the center. Next, we discuss how the police have been used to promote public safety and public health throughout US history. We conclude by describing common explanations for contemporary police-involved shootings of unarmed Black males and why those arguments are flawed. Reframing the phenomena as gendered racism is critical for identifying points of intervention. Because neither intent nor purpose is a prerequisite of the ways that racism affects public safety and public health, the differential impact of policies and programs along racial lines is sufficient for racism to be a useful way to frame this pattern of outcomes. Incorporating gender into this framing of racism introduces that ways that Black men have been viewed, stereotyped, and treated implicitly in institutional practices and explicitly in institutional policies.
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Ruby Mendenhall, Taylor-Imani A. Linear, Malaika W. Mckee, Nicole A. Lamers and Michel Bondurand Mouawad
Black feminist scholars describe resistance as Black women’s efforts to push back against ideologies and stereotypes that objectify them as the other. The contested sites are…
Abstract
Black feminist scholars describe resistance as Black women’s efforts to push back against ideologies and stereotypes that objectify them as the other. The contested sites are often neighborhoods, schools, the media, corporations, and government agencies. W. E. B. DuBois and Audre Lorde both spoke about a dual consciousness among Black women, and the larger Black population, that included the power of self-definition. This particular study centers the lived experiences of African American women living in Englewood, a neighborhood with high levels of violence in Chicago. Using data from 93 in-depth interviews, this study illustrates Black mothers’ efforts to resist ideologies and stereotypes about their mothering, beauty, socioeconomic status, etc. This study also centers their voices and lived experiences to capture the power they express by engaging in self-definition. Self-definition includes descriptions of themselves, their current situations and the changes they would like to see in their neighborhoods and the larger U.S. society. This chapter ends by discussing the implications of the findings in relation to two programs developed to help these mothers work toward neighborhood change called DREAM (Developing Responses to Poverty through Education And Meaning), and De.SH(ie) (Designing Spaces of Hope (interiors and exteriors)), a collaborative which seeks to remedy the paradoxical existence of spaces of hope and spaces of despair through an innovative approach that melds Architecture, African American Studies, Sociology, and beyond.
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Ebony M. Duncan-Shippy, Sarah Caroline Murphy and Michelle A. Purdy
This chapter examines the framing of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) Movement in mainstream media. An analytic sample of 4,303 articles collected from the Dow Jones Factiva database…
Abstract
This chapter examines the framing of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) Movement in mainstream media. An analytic sample of 4,303 articles collected from the Dow Jones Factiva database reveals variation in depth, breadth, and intensity of BLM coverage in the following newspapers between 2012 and 2016: The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and Al Jazeera English. We review contemporary literature on racial inequality and employ Media Framing and Critical Race Theory to discuss the implications of our findings on public perceptions, future policy formation, and contemporary social protest worldwide.
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Emanuel Leite Junior and Carlos Rodrigues
The purpose of this paper is to report a critical analysis of the plan recently launched by the Chinese Government for the development of the football industry in China. The…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to report a critical analysis of the plan recently launched by the Chinese Government for the development of the football industry in China. The analysis encompasses the impact exerted by the new policy instrument on the Eurocentric trend that configured the power relations in the football realm, as well as the challenges raised by barriers deeply rooted in culture that Chinese authorities should face in order to foster pervasive change and thus create the conditions for success.
Design/methodology/approach
The analysis of the policy document has been carried out under the light of the theory of innovation, namely, the contributions of Peter Drucker, who looks at innovation as a means to foster change in the social and economic environment, inducing new patterns of behaviour and creating new habits. This theoretical framework provides ground to the analytical endeavour because the Chinese plan for football development presents the overall goal of shifting the habits of sporting practice and consumption.
Findings
The first and most visible “innovative” effect of the policy took the form of a shock provoking an unprecedented change in the geopolitics of football and the inherent disturbance in the traditional Eurocentric structure of football power relations. At the domestic level, the Chinese Government is assuming the “educating” role in order to change behaviour and habits, that is, to ensure the transformative power necessary to overcome barriers deeply rooted in culture. Accordingly, rather than the availability of financial resources, the capacity to materialise this pervasive switch in behaviour and habits in terms of football practice and consumption is the major challenge, the one of a social innovation endeavour.
Originality/value
The research reported in this paper provides an original and innovative approach to the analysis of a sports relevant public policy document, namely, because of the theoretical framework wrapping up the analytical endeavour.