Gerald K. LeTendre and Alexander W. Wiseman
Teacher effectiveness and teacher quality have become the focus of intense international attention and national concern. Dozens of nations are implementing a diverse set of…
Abstract
Teacher effectiveness and teacher quality have become the focus of intense international attention and national concern. Dozens of nations are implementing a diverse set of strategies that aim to improve the quality of education by improving the quality of teachers. These efforts have not been well coordinated, and as the authors in this volume show, core constructs of quality have not been well defined. In this introductory chapter, we discuss why teachers are now “under the microscope” of policymaker’s attention and elaborate how the chapters in this volume identify particularly fruitful avenues for further study. The assembled chapters address two complex questions: (1) what existing cross-national measures of teacher effectiveness and teacher quality are most promising and how can these be aligned to maximize their research potential? and (2) what core constructs of teacher quality or effectiveness are missing from the evidence-base, and how can cross-national comparative research help refine these? To investigate these questions, the chapters in this volume address different aspects of “quality.” While quality may be politically contested, there is a significant need to continue to articulate a truly global perspective on teacher quality. The authors look at a wide range of aspects of quality in order to advance thinking about teacher education, instructional quality and workforce or organizational conditions that affect quality; to analyze instruments, tools, or measures used to assess quality; and identify what measures need to be developed further. We also note how scholarly study of the spread of transnational teacher reforms has failed to keep pace with national policy changes regarding teacher quality, and advance a more general theory of the forces affecting national policymakers.
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Ted Baker, Timothy G. Pollock and Harry J. Sapienza
In this study we examine how resource-constrained organizations can maneuver for competitive advantage in highly institutionalized fields. Unlike studies of institutional…
Abstract
In this study we examine how resource-constrained organizations can maneuver for competitive advantage in highly institutionalized fields. Unlike studies of institutional entrepreneurship, we investigate competitive maneuvering by an organization that is unable to alter either the regulative or normative institutions that characterize its field. Using the “Moneyball” phenomenon and recent changes in Major League Baseball as the basis for an intensive case study of entrepreneurial actions taken by the Oakland A’s, we found that the A’s were able to maneuver for advantage by using bricolage and refusing to enact baseball’s cognitive institutions, and that they continued succeeding despite ongoing resource constraints and rapid copying of their actions by other teams. These results contribute to our understanding of competitive maneuvering and change in institutionalized fields. Our findings expand the positioning of bricolage beyond its prior characterization as a tool used primarily by peripheral organizations in less institutionalized fields; our study suggests that bricolage may aid resource constrained participants (including the majority of entrepreneurial firms) to survive in a wider range of circumstances than previously believed.
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Despite high aspirations to pursue personal development, self-sustaining employment, socio-economic integration, and stable futures in their host, origin, or resettlement…
Abstract
Despite high aspirations to pursue personal development, self-sustaining employment, socio-economic integration, and stable futures in their host, origin, or resettlement countries through higher education, intersecting legal, economic, linguistic, and sociocultural barriers severely constrain refugees’ options. There is limited research on how refugee students overcome these barriers to access higher education, particularly in displacement settings like Turkey, which perpetuates a deficit view of these learners. This chapter seeks to address this gap and challenge deficit ideologies through an asset-focused perspective on the stories of 10 Syrian young adults accessing higher education during forced displacement in Turkey using a composite narrative portrait crafted based on common experiences running across the participants’ individual narratives. The narrative illustrates the importance of equitable policies, quality language instruction, inclusive pedagogies, and supportive interpersonal relationships for young people aspiring to invest in their futures during displacement as well as the resourceful and dynamic strategies they devise.
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Gerald K. LeTendre and Alexander W. Wiseman
Research has already uncovered a great deal of evidence about the individual and organizational qualities that enhance effective teaching and the kinds of qualifications…
Abstract
Research has already uncovered a great deal of evidence about the individual and organizational qualities that enhance effective teaching and the kinds of qualifications (attributes) that are associated with effective teaching and learning. From a research perspective, increased precision and specificity in the definition and refinement of specific concepts (e.g., pedagogical content knowledge) will increase academic knowledge about the relationship between teacher characteristics, working conditions, and the quality of instruction that takes place. This knowledge may have little effect on policy formation. From a policy perspective, a holistic or organic conception of teacher quality will be critical for effective policy formation and implementation. At some point, academic knowledge about different aspects of effective or “quality” teaching need to be connected to a general concept of a quality teacher in order to be effectively inserted into policy debates and the general media. Systematic use of academic knowledge is often hindered by either the narrow focus of the research, or by its limited application to actual teacher practice. In spite of these limitations in academic research, there are areas where academics, policymakers, and practitioners have achieved consensus or are converging on shared constructs of promise. In other areas, both academic and political debates seem locked into conflict over constructs related to teacher quality. Identifying these three broad categories of consensus, convergence, and conflict provides a broad framework to assess the kinds of research and the kinds of reform that need to be carried out in order to promote and sustain teachers’ development and implementation of their professional skills in the classroom.
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This chapter proposes a reconceptualization of educational formalization. By formalization I broadly mean when school attendance ceases to be voluntary, and state authority is…
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This chapter proposes a reconceptualization of educational formalization. By formalization I broadly mean when school attendance ceases to be voluntary, and state authority is elevated over local controls. Although these twin processes tend to parallel each other, there is sufficient variation that while both conditions may obtain, countries can be located on a distribution measuring centralized to decentralized control over educational dimensions (see e.g., Baker & Letendre, 2005, p. 139). Very different social origins may indeed matter as the primary source of subsequent centralized or decentralized controls, and yet countries may adopt broadly similar forms of national authority in spite of very different social origins. The former takes the more historicist strategy, concentrating on national differences that elaborate into different organizational outcomes (see especially Vaughan & Archer, 1971; Archer, 1979). The latter argues that transnational, global forces exert defining influences on countries, producing educational patterns that are visible at the global level and are independent of national differences (see especially Boli, Ramirez, & Meyer, 1985; Ramirez & Boli, 1987; Astiz, Wiseman, & Baker, 2002; Werum & Baker, 2004). Nonetheless, there is no straightforward causality that links social origins to formalization, for it is clear that each strategy needs and incorporates elements of the other. At minimum, the characterization of an educational system as centralized or decentralized remains conceptually risky. This chapter suggests an alternative conceptualization that may lighten this conceptual risk, and bridge the distance between the historicist and institutional approaches to comparative educational systems.
Alexander W. Wiseman and David P. Baker
As comparativists of education are well aware, over the second half of the 20th century there was a dramatic increase in the pace of educational expansion around the world. This…
Abstract
As comparativists of education are well aware, over the second half of the 20th century there was a dramatic increase in the pace of educational expansion around the world. This revolution has made the world a schooled place both in terms of enrollment rates and increased average total years in schooling. What has been particularly noticeable is the degree to which governments in all types of nations have come to see that education plays a central role in the future development of the nation's human capital, and in turn governments have become the main providers of schooling. This alone is a significant shift from anything ever seen before the 20th century. Further this remarkable expansion of education has fostered notable homogeneity of goals, aims, and basic organizational forms of elementary and secondary schooling and, more recently, higher education.
Erwin Wauters, Yann de Mey, Frankwin van Winsen, Steven Van Passel, Mark Vancauteren and Ludwig Lauwers
Building on the risk balancing theory and on recent discussions the appropriateness of using farm income maximization as behavioural assumption, this paper extends the risk…
Abstract
Purpose
Building on the risk balancing theory and on recent discussions the appropriateness of using farm income maximization as behavioural assumption, this paper extends the risk balancing framework by accounting for business-household interactions. The purpose of this paper is to theoretically introduce the concept of farm household risk balancing, a theoretical framework in which the farm household sets a constraint on the total household-level risk and balances farm-level and off-farm-level risk.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper argues that the risk behaviour of farmers is better understood by considering risk at the household level. Using an analytical framework, equations are derived linking the farm activities, off-farm activities, consumption and business and private liquidity.
Findings
The framework shows that a farm household that wants to minimize the risk that total household cash flow falls below consumption needs, may exhibit a wide variety of behavioural responses to changes in the policy and economic environment.
Social implications
The framework suggests multiple ways for policy makers and individual farmers to support risk management.
Originality/value
Risk management is at the core of the agricultural policy and it is of paramount importance to be able to understand behavioural responses to market and policy instruments. This paper contributes to that by suggesting that the focus of current risk analysis and management studies may be too narrowly focused at the farm level.
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Yann de Mey, Frankwin van Winsen, Erwin Wauters, Mark Vancauteren, Ludwig Lauwers and Steven Van Passel
The purpose of this paper is to present empirical evidence of risk balancing behavior by European farmers. More specifically, the authors investigate strategic adjustments in the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present empirical evidence of risk balancing behavior by European farmers. More specifically, the authors investigate strategic adjustments in the level of financial risk (FR) in response to changes in the level of business risk (BR).
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conducted a correlation relationship analysis and run several linear fixed effects regression models using the European Union (EU)-15 FADN panel data set for the period 1995-2008.
Findings
Overall, the paper finds EU evidence of risk balancing. The correlation relationship analysis suggests that just over half of the farm observations are risk balancers whereas the other (smaller) half are not. The coefficient in our fixed effects regression suggests that a 1 percent increase in BR reduces FR by 0.043 percent and has a standard error so low that the existence of non-risk balancers is doubtful. The results reject evidence of strong-form risk balancing – inverse trade-offs between FR and BR keeping total risk (TR) constant – but cannot reject weak-form risk balancing – inverse trade-offs between FR and BR with some observed changes in TR. Furthermore, the extent of risk balancing behavior is found to differ between different European countries and across farm typologies.
Practical implications
This study provides European policy makers a first insight into risk balancing behavior of EU farmers. When risk balancing occurs, BR-reducing agricultural policies induce strategic upwards leverage adjustments that unintentionally reestablish or even increase total farm-level risk.
Originality/value
Making use of the large and unique FADN database, to the best of the authors knowledge, this study is the first that provides European (EU-15) evidence on risk balancing behavior, is conducted at an unprecedented large scale, and presents the first risk balancing evidence across countries and farming systems.