Capacity building for school improvement or creating capacity for learning? A changing landscape

Stoll, Louise

doi:10.1007/s10833-009-9104-3

Cited by 184 publications

(191 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…It is very important that schools that are prepared to innovate continue doing so (Stoll et al, 2003). Other schools, however, struggle with innovative practices; often, this does not have to do with the content of a certain innovation but rather with the school's preparedness to be reflective and self-evaluative (Slavin, 2005;Stoll, 2009). Although the limited time invested by the external school coach did not seem to affect the tolerant practices towards multilingualism (Research question 4), our findings, overall, point to the recommendation to invest more intensively in the coaching of schools and teachers in order to prepare them for changing their practices.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Opening up towards children’s languages: enhancing teachers’ tolerant practices towards multilingualism

Wildt

Avermaet

Houtte

2016

School Effectiveness and School Improvement

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Mainstream teachers struggle with linguistic diversity, often leading to restricting multilingualism. Scientific research, however, recommends including pupils' home languages in school. Various qualitative studies have evaluated implementations in schools and indicated possibilities for improving teachers' attitudes towards multilingualism. This paper evaluates an experimental implementation targeting an increase in tolerance towards multilingualism. The implementation was facilitated by external school coaches and consisted of 3 experimental tools affecting the school. Data originated from 62 Flemish primary schools (of which half were experimental schools) that participated in 3 survey waves (2012 and 2014; 763 teachers completed both waves). We used multilevel regression. We concluded that the implementation leads to higher rates of tolerance. The fulfilment of the basic conditions needed for a successful change was important, and the linguistic diversity of the pupil population and the investment by external school coaches did not affect the tolerant practices of teachers towards multilingualism. ARTICLE HISTORY

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Opening up towards children’s languages: enhancing teachers’ tolerant practices towards multilingualism

Wildt

Avermaet

Houtte

2016

School Effectiveness and School Improvement

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“…A perspective also shared by Land and Jarman (1992: p. 30), who state "The reality of evolutionary success demonstrates that "fitness" is not simply about "adapting to environment', but rather the continuing improvement in the capacity to grow and build ever more connection in more varied environments" (Slonimsky & Shalem, 2006;Stoll, 2009). …”

Section: Investing In Dysfunctional Schools-an Affirmation Narrativementioning

confidence: 99%

Reclassifying Township Schools—South Africa’s Educational Tinkering Expedition!

Monyooe¹

2017

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This article critiques a proposed policy by the Gauteng Department of Education to reclassify province's "Township" schools. In 2016, Gauteng MEC for Education Panyasa Lesufi announced that province's schools will be reclassified to obliterate the "Township" School Tag commonly associated with the past regime. The reclassification is based on a three-pronged school performance category in a) Matric pass rates, b) Maths and Science passes and c) Bachelor passes. The new classification is arbitrarily divided into the following categories: 1) Poor schools with 0% to 40% performance; 2) Fair schools with 41% to 60% performance; 3) Good schools with 61% to 80% performance and; 4) Great schools with 81% to 100% performance. It is argued that the three tier classification criteria lack theoretical rigour and explication to justify policy's credence and implementability. It further argues that "Township schools" exist in real geo-spaces, and changing name tag shall not obliterate their geographic presence. It concludes by cautioning that classifying schools based on performance might have unintended consequences, for instance, schools tagged as "poor" might naturally disappear as parents would not want to enrol their children in schools state deem dysfunctional. Failure by both "Poor" and "Fair" schools to enrol adequate learners puts more pressure on rest of schools to accommodate additional learners. When learners' en-masse moves to urban schooling environments, it creates an operational conundrum and has potential to destabilize the educational provisioning processes and system in general. In a nutshell, the proposed reclassification of schools by the Gauteng Department of Education is flawed and unsustainable because it: a) waters down systemic challenges to simple act of rearranging of schools based on sectorial learner performance rather than holistic and research based form of rationality; b) fails to interrogate a suite of intertwined factors that underpin educational provisioning in its entirety; c) is sectorial in outlook and fails articulate modus operandi to institutionalize teacher efficacy and organizational effectiveness; d) obfuscates tenets for robust engagement on creative whole school improvement trajectories firmly anchored on solid research; e) will not enhance learner performance and quality education; and f) is an inconclusive political tinkering expedition devoid of sustainable beneficiation.

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“…It can be viewed as the potential of things, individuals, or groups (Newmann, King, & Youngs, 2000), or even as a "habit of mind" (Stoll, 2009, p. 125). Stoll (2009) defined capacity as a quality that allows people, individually and collectively, routinely to learn from the world around them and to apply this learning to new situations so that they can continue on a path toward their goals in an ever-changing context (p. 125).…”

Section: Capacitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Developing Leadership Capacity in Others: An Examination of High School Principals' Personal Capacities for Fostering Leadership

Huggins

2017

IJEPL

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In this multisite case study, we examine the personal capacities of six high school principals who have developed the leadership capacities of other leaders in their respective schools. Participants were purposefully selected by two teams of researchers in two states of the United States, one on the east coast and one on the west coast, who engaged their professional networks of current and former educational leaders to obtain recommendations of high school principals known for developing the leadership capacities of formal and informal leaders in their schools. The findings indicate that the principals possessed a strong commitment to developing leadership capacity, that they understood leadership development as a process, and that they tolerated risk. This study adds to the rapidly growing corpus of literature focused on distributed leadership; it does so by illustrating the complexities of developing leadership capacity in attempts to increase organizational leadership capacity, and by highlighting the relevant characteristics of principals who have intentionally sought to do so.

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Capacity building for school improvement or creating capacity for learning? A changing landscape

Cited by 184 publications

References 17 publications

Opening up towards children’s languages: enhancing teachers’ tolerant practices towards multilingualism

Opening up towards children’s languages: enhancing teachers’ tolerant practices towards multilingualism

Reclassifying Township Schools—South Africa’s Educational Tinkering Expedition!

Developing Leadership Capacity in Others: An Examination of High School Principals' Personal Capacities for Fostering Leadership

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