Several social processes guide and shape how school actors engage with high stakes state and district policies relative to mandated curriculum and instruction. In this article, we use rhetorical argumentation analysis to explore how stakeholders mobilize resources through argumentation and rhetorical appeals (logical, emotional, and authoritative). However, their mobilization process creates opportunities and constraints for the interpretation and implementation of mandated curriculum. Findings show that school actors use state policy as a resource to make logical and authoritative claims in their attempts to clarify conflicts between new curriculum ideas and their implicit schemas.

L’article présente un cadre de références théorique et empirique fondé sur des constats émanant du champ de la construction de sens et se divisant en deux grandes tendances : les approches sociocognitives et sociologiques. Les auteurs tentent ainsi d’explorer une dimension clé du processus de mise en œuvre : la construction de sens par les acteurs scolaires lors de réformes en éducation. Dans le corpus littéraire nord-américain, le cadre théorique de la construction de sens a permis plusieurs contributions importantes à l’étude du changement et de l’implantation des politiques éducatives. Certains auteurs ont pu démontrer les différentes manières dont les chefs d’établissement et les enseignants construisent du sens autour d’une politique expliquant les variations locales du changement ou de l’implantation des politiques (Spillane 2001, 2002, Coburn 2001, 2005). Elles illustrent, en particulier, que les enjeux locaux vont bien au-delà d’une résistance aux changements.

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This study assesses the coherence of Canada’s educational policy regime with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ (UNHCR) Refugee Education 2030 strategy. We articulate a theoretical framework that combines theories about policy coherence, policy attributes, and policy tools, which informs a two-phase methodology. First, we conducted jurisdiction-based scoping reviews of policies in Canada’s 13 provinces and territories which have constitutional authority over education. This yielded a sample of 155 documents, which we then analyzed for its vertical coherence with Refugee Education 2030. Our analysis focused on five categories of need in the UNHCR strategy with respect to refugee students, namely access to education, accelerated education, language education, mental health and psychosocial support, and special education. The findings reveal there are policies across Canada that target responses to the five categories of need. Although some policies are exemplary in their coherence with Refugee Education 2030, Canada’s refugee education policy regime is characterized by many inconsistencies and significant gaps. Policymakers in Canada could use the specific findings to develop or revise policies to address shortcomings. Researchers and policymakers in other countries who find value in our approach could replicate the study’s method in their own jurisdictions, using the instruments provided in appendices to identify strengths and gaps.

While many studies on external accountability forms have illustrated the impact on the prevailing conceptions and values about the nature of school organizations, still little is known about the active role of school leaders as sense-makers who deal with conflicting accountability demands. We argue that while multiple external accountability forms driven by policies often manifest in apparently conflicting ways in school organizations, recent findings suggest that some school leaders have come to understand and adapt strategically and reconcile these logics in practice over time. In this article, we seek to highlight the institutional complexity that school leaders face when attempting to make sense of, interpret reconcile and/or counterbalance competing accountability demands from multiple and incompatible logics while considering their schools’ needs and conditions. We develop a conceptual framework that unpacks the intersection of the institutional complexity triggered by multiple institutional logics and school leaders’ sense-making about reform. This framework could illuminate how and why the multiple logics in the institutional environment shape and are being shaped by school leaders’ sense-making in the complex policy implementation processes that lead to different policy outcomes.