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School systems are shifting towards forms of post-bureaucratic governance (PBG), implying higher levels of school autonomy, choice, and performance-based management. Under this governance approach, which combines forms of administrative and market accountability, schools face greater levels of competition and external pressure to perform. Schools experience such pressures unevenly and address them through different responses. The paper develops a mixed-methods case study conducted in Madrid, a Spanish region where PBG reform has intensified in the last decades, and proposes a novel index to position schools within their reference local education markets. The results show that schools articulate a broad range of logics of action, largely interrelated with their position in the education marketplace. We also show that schools' responses to external pressures are dynamic and marked by tensions of a different nature, which schools need to navigate, often without sufficient support from public authorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The articulation of school autonomy into practice nationally, regionally and locally is highly situated in terms of what it enables or impedes with regard to the professional autonomy of principals and teachers. Principal autonomy does not necessarily mean greater teacher professional autonomy. In this paper, we draw on a three-year qualitative study investigating the social justice implications of school autonomy reform in Australia. We present interview data from a case study of a large secondary college to present two conflicting stories of autonomy. Supported by a managerial restructure reflecting distributed leadership, we juxtapose the positive account of autonomy expressed by the leadership team with the negative one expressed by teachers. We explore the justice implications of this disjuncture and argue the importance of critically examining the complex ways in which the intentions and enactments of distributed leadership can be differently articulated and understood within the context of school autonomy reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is a government response to a report by the Education Select Committee on Ofsted's work with schools. The government emphasizes the importance of education experts running schools and highlights the autonomy and freedom given to schools in England to develop ambitious curricula. The government claims that its reforms since 2010 have led to a rise in standards, with 90% of schools now providing a good or outstanding education. The government supports the role of Ofsted inspections in school accountability and improvement but acknowledges the need to balance accountability with support for school leaders. The government agrees with most of the committee's recommendations but disagrees with reducing the frequency of inspections and inspecting multi-academy trusts. [Extracted from the article]

Contemporary educational reforms emphasise school autonomy, performance-based management, and accountability as necessary policies for attaining improvement goals. Despite their widespread adoption, the configuration and enactment of these policies are discretionary and contingent, deeply influenced by the interaction of local contexts, organisational features, and teachers' beliefs about policy and pedagogy. Apart from these challenges, schools serving disadvantaged students, often targeted for educational improvement, also struggle with significant organisational constraints and policy overload. This study explores how disadvantaged urban schools make sense of their policy environment and engage with the school improvement mandate through different logics and practices. The analytical framework stresses the policy filtering and adaptation processes that school actors undergo when tasked with multiple implementation demands, and how these interact with school contexts to produce diverse responses. This research is conducted in Catalonia, Spain, and adopts a sequential mixed-methods strategy, relying on interviews with principals and teachers, as well as survey and administrative data. The findings are organised in four ideal types of school responses to the improvement mandate, showing the diverging ways schools engage with policy. Disadvantaged schools exhibit diverse improvement approaches despite sharing structural characteristics, explained by the interaction of contextual factors and organisational characteristics. Each ideal type prioritises different aspects, such as performance, innovation, or inclusive practices. The heterogeneity of school responses highlights the necessity for targeted, context-sensitive support to ensure equitable educational practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amidst increasing global pressures on school leaders, particularly during crises when unforeseen situations necessitate prompt and decisive action from them, understanding the multifaceted dimensions of their well-being is essential for ensuring effective leadership and maintaining educational quality. This study examines the well-being of school leaders during crises by analysing survey responses from 1299 school leaders in Kazakhstan. Employing a well-being framework comprising dispositional, relational, and contextual dimensions, various predictors were assessed within each dimension. Gender biases (dispositional), challenges such as managing conflicts with parents (relational), and limited school autonomy and digital infrastructure (contextual) were identified as factors negatively impacting school leaders' well-being. Notably, gender significantly influences well-being, particularly impacting female school leaders. School location and medium of instruction are not associated with well-being, implying the pervasive impact of remote schooling on school leaders' well-being. Findings underscore the importance of integrating crisis management courses in professional development, implementing policy initiatives to handle contextual factors like equitable resource distribution and increased school autonomy, promoting self-care practices, and advocating for gender perspectives in institutional policies to bolster support for women school leaders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research examines the relationship between teachers' perceptions of autonomy and their instructional emotions. The sample included 264 teachers working at various educational levels in Konya, Turkey. The findings showed that teachers had the highest perception of autonomy at the classroom level and the lowest perception at the school level. When teachers' instructional emotions were examined, it was found that among the positive emotions, the highest was the feeling of enjoyment and the lowest was the feeling of pride. Among the negative emotions, the highest was the feeling of disappointment and the lowest was the feeling of anxiety. Importantly, higher perceptions of autonomy were found to be associated with more positive and fewer negative emotions, suggesting that autonomy may have a positive effect on teachers' instructional emotional states. The research indicates that fostering teacher autonomy could be an important strategy for enhancing teachers' positive emotional experiences in the classroom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Working (or volunteering) in a Lithuanian Saturday (or Sunday) school abroad is difficult. Teachers must balance work, family, and teaching in those schools, give up their free time to prepare for classes, and spend Saturdays working. Some of them need to find not only teaching materials, but also a place for teaching. Moreover, some parents often have very high expectations for the school—they do not speak enough Lithuanian at home, or not even at all, but they expect that the school will teach their child to speak it fluently in a half of a day. In addition, the Lithuanian language is a quite rare, non-international language for teaching and learning of which another motivation needs to be found rather than size, usefulness, and prestige. However, the number of schools abroad not only do not decrease in number, but every year more and more are established, and in more distant countries. The fact that this number of schools is growing tells us that teachers who want to take on the challenge can in fact be found. This article aims to find out why people choose to work or volunteer in these schools, what brings them there, and what keeps them there—what is their motivation. This article is based on the data of a quantitative survey about Lithuanian Saturday school teachers' attitudes and motivation (2021–2022). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines from a contractual logic the problems of quality and equity of education in the Colombian educational system, within a subnational context. The study applies a mixed and sequential approach considering the transaction and its attributes as the basic unit of analysis. The findings suggest that more autonomous educational systems are associated with better performance and indicate that the risks of inequity in performance are greater when the organization mode of the educational system has greater autonomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Profesorado: Revista de Currículum y Formación del Profesorado is the property of Profesorado: Revista de Curriculum y Formacion del Profesorado and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This study aimed to identify the factors that foster a collaborative culture in the school improvement process. Estonian schools are characterized by a high degree of autonomy in developing the school curriculum and choosing the appropriate methods for its implementation. As a result, some schools are more successful, while others face difficulties in improving their pedagogical processes. Six Estonian schools with lower performance indicators participated in the School Improvement Program in 2021–2022. In each school, leaders and teachers formed a team together with two mentors. Supported by university experts, the school teams began working on a topic they chose to improve their students' learning while simultaneously increasing the school's leadership capacity by strengthening a collaborative school culture. The results of this qualitative research demonstrate that the arrangement of teamwork and the creation of shared values and goals constitute the key factors in creating a collaborative culture. Collaborative culture can be fostered by composing a stable team, developing routines for collaboration, ensuring open communication among all parties, focusing consistently on the goal, and building trust among participants. The obstacles are resistance to change, an unstable team, no routines for collaboration, a lack of communication, and no commitment to the goal. External support is important for both successful school teams and those facing challenges in the improvement process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Lusofona de Educacao is the property of Universidade Lusofona de Humanidades e Tecnologias, CEIEF and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

It is unlawful under the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Cth) for Australian schools to discriminate against students based on disability. Yet discrimination against students with disability is on the increase in Australian schools, and so is the decentralisation and autonomy of schools. This scoping review set out to determine what evidence exists of an association between school autonomy and discrimination against students with disability, primarily in Australia but with an additional examination of studies conducted in England. It further examined the type of research methods that have been used to investigate this topic. Included studies did not provide direct evidence of a causal association between school autonomy and discrimination against students with disability; however, the findings uncovered worrisome trends suggesting that an association may exist. Examination of the included studies' research methods suggests that a more fit-for-purpose methodology is required to determine the association between school autonomy and discrimination against students with disability in primary and secondary education settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teacher professional autonomy is important to teachers' work satisfaction, efficiency, well-being, and empowerment. However, it cannot simply be defined as freedom from control because it is relational and contextual. In this paper, we examine the relationality and contextual sensitivity of teacher professional autonomy at 'Newstall' College, a senior secondary government school in Australia. The paper draws on a larger study that examined the social justice implications of school autonomy reform in four Australian state education systems. Newstall College was one of the five case study schools included in this study. Findings generated through in-depth interviews with eighteen staff members (including teachers, professional staff, the deputy principal and the principal) are presented that examine teacher professional autonomy. Conceptualising teacher autonomy as relational and contextual, the paper provides insight into the ways in which teacher autonomy was enabled at this school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Foco (Interdisciplinary Studies Journal) is the property of Revista Foco and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista Foco (Interdisciplinary Studies Journal) is the property of Revista Foco and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Despite impacting almost three million students annually, and disproportionately impacting Black students, little is known about district policy and central office staff in the use of in-school suspension. The purpose of this study was to understand how districts use in-school suspension over time, with attention to racial disparities, programmatic changes, and central office perspectives. Case study methods were used to examine in-school suspension in one large school district in the Western United States. Data included two district board school discipline policies, quantitative in-school suspension data, and interviews with central office staff. We found a history of on-going racial disparities for Black and Latinx students and that decisions made by central office about in-school suspension had likely sustained these disparities over time. District policy goals of reducing racial disparities were found to be largely rhetorical in the face of an ethos of non-enforcement. Central office administrators believed they lacked the power to hold school principals accountable for implementing school discipline policy with fidelity to redressing racial disparities. Through the concept of Whiteness as Property, we argue these patterns demonstrated central office administrators' protection of White educational and political propertied interests above those of educational opportunities for Black and Latinx students. This study contributes to the literature on in-school suspension by finding discrepancies between policy and practice and contributes to the field's understanding of how school autonomy can undermine equity-oriented school discipline policies through racial negligence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The widespread adoption of school autonomy with accountability reforms in education has generated debate regarding the relationship between autonomy, innovation and accountability. While at the policy design level, these three elements are highly related, several authors highlight the contradictions among them. By analyzing key documents and interviews, this paper aims to identify the program ontology behind the current Italian National Evaluation System (SNV), with a focus on the way in which autonomy, accountability and innovation have been conceptualized and linked together. The paper also aims to explore whether pitfalls and/or tensions exist that might hamper the achievement of the SNV goals. The findings highlight the peculiarities of the Italian autonomy with accountability system, which has resulted from the involvement of different stakeholders in the design and implementation of the reforms. The findings also reveal contradictions regarding some of its premises. Various rationales (improvement, efficiency, equity and transparency) emerge that seem to have acted as drivers of the reforms, however, the influence of globalizing discourses on international competition and the benefits of datafication also appears significant. A number of contextual aspects are finally considered which hamper the expected change mechanisms, highlighting the discontinuous ground in which such policy dispositifs operate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThe logics of policy privatisation in schooling, including decentralisation, school autonomy, and discretionary funding mechanisms, shift responsibility for particular types of students onto individual schools and their staff. Burch (2021) asks to what extent the most disadvantaged students in government schools are able to access services most beneficial to them, under these emerging forms of privatisation. With this question in mind, this paper considers the delivery of English as an Additional Language/Dialect (EAL/D) services under the umbrella of the Queensland Department of Education Inclusion policy, in two Queensland government secondary schools. We tease out how the Inclusive Education (IE) policy, of which EAL/D is a subset, is interpreted and translated (Ball et al. 2012) in the situation of privatisation practices. We found that inclusion was understood as primarily targeted at students with disabilities, and that mainstreaming of all learners was considered unsustainable for teachers. In interpreting and translating inclusion for EAL/D, both schools pushed back against the ‘mainstreaming’ discourse, and instead, EAL/D service was provided through targeted programs, staffed with key specialist personnel. In both cases, privatisation logics enabled the ‘EAL/D aware’ principals to justify and enact specialised EAL/D services. In this policy context, there is a need for widespread professional development to ensure all principals understand and apply appropriate supports for EAL/D learners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some school districts have centralized school operations as a means to ensure universal access to schools of choice. Yet, centralization can infringe on charter school autonomy. We explore how district and charter school leaders in three contexts perceive and negotiate the trade-offs between centralized versus school-based autonomy. We find that decision-making and governance of student transportation are inherently place-specific, with conditions of history, geography, infrastructure, and state governance dominating leaders' preferences. Therefore, despite the recognized benefits, school leaders maintain vastly different perspectives about the feasibility and appeal of centralized transportation within the charter sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzed the mechanism of school autonomy on principals' organizational commitment by applying self-determination theory. Participants were 223 Chinese principals from primary and secondary schools. The survey results revealed that (a) school autonomy, job satisfaction, self-efficacy, principal–teacher relationships, and organizational commitment were positively correlated with each other; (b) job satisfaction, self-efficacy, and principal–teacher relationships played multiple mediating roles between school autonomy and organizational commitment; and (c) the respective strength of the three mediation effects was not significantly different. The findings enrich knowledge of school principals' organizational commitment and imply a need to pay attention to the satisfaction of their psychological needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The background of this research is the granting of broad educational autonomy to schools, which is a big concern for the government of Indonesia. School-based Management (SBM) appears as an alternative to the new paradigm of education management offered. One of the characteristics of SBM is inseparable from the participation of the community. School Committee is a forum for parents, communities, stakeholders, and entrepreneurs in school development and can bridge the interests of all the parties. To date, not many School Committees have been able to play an effective role in supporting the implementation of education in schools. One of the contributing factors is that the institutional design is not seriously empowered into an independent and professional institution. This study aimed to examine the effectiveness of school committees in school-based quality improvement management. The study method is qualitative descriptive. Data were collected through interviews, observation, and documentation. Validation of the collected data was done through triangulation techniques. The results showed that thematically the author underlined four important things, namely: first, the school committee has effectiveness as a consideration partner, material support, financial, thought and energy, and learning mediator; second, quality improvement strategies can be achieved through efforts to improve school subject competence and involvement in competitions; third, to measure the results of achievements, an education quality management audit is carried out, and; fourth, the budget as one of the determining factors in achieving school goals and objectives must be optimized by utilizing the flexibility of implementing Law No. 23 of 2014 and optimizing available resources. This research has implications for considerations in the preparation of internal school strategies to prioritize school needs and recommendations related to budget policies and inventory of school components. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the findings of a study measuring perceptions of teacher autonomy of practitioners of English as a foreign language (EFL). This study also sought to identify areas in which Indonesian secondary schools need to improve to enable teachers to enjoy a greater degree of freedom while completing teaching-related activities. Additionally, it aimed to explore correlations between practitioners' perceptions of teacher autonomy and their gender, school location, school status and teaching experience. This was a mixed-methods study comprising a sequential explanatory design with two consecutive stages: quantitative and qualitative. The data were gathered using two instruments: a closed-ended questionnaire and a focus group. The sample consisted of 185 (74 male and 111 female) Indonesian secondary school EFL teachers, recruited using convenience sampling. The findings indicated that teachers' sense of autonomy in relation to seven specific areas of their work was relatively high. Specifically, they perceived themselves to have a considerable amount of autonomy with respect to teaching methodology, instructional materials, course content, assessment, and, more recently, lesson planning. However, they expressed disappointment at being excluded from the decision-making process regarding the school curriculum. The findings also revealed that teachers expected more school support in relation to teaching facilities and professional development. The article concludes by considering several key implications for school management teams regarding the need to foster teacher autonomy among English language practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explored teachers’ perceptions of their experiences participating in self-directed learning (Knowles, 1970, 1975). The teacher participants (n = 127) were guided through a self-directed learning framework for professional learning and reflected on their experiences. Findings indicate teachers reporting increased autonomy and personalization compared with traditional professional learning opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

“Deficit remediation” as an educational governance paradigm has given rise to many problems, whereas principal positive leadership under the “strengths development” paradigm has the potential to give new impetus to school development. Based on large-scale survey data within a provincial region, this study investigates how the school context and principal positive leadership impact student academic achievement using structural equation models. Research findings show that principal positive leadership as a structural latent variable has positive impacts on student academic performance and significantly mediates the effects of the school context on student academic results; and that the patterns of the impacts of principal positive leadership differ according to the variations of the school’s autonomy in operation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The questions addressed in this essay are (1) how has the work environment of school leaders changed in the early years of the 21st century, (2) how have these changes affected the role of the school leader, (3) what is the association between an evident deterioration in the work environment and the trend to more autonomy for schools and their leaders, and (4) how can school systems be more effective in supporting school leaders? The essay is organised into three domains that emerged from a review of the literature on changes in the work environment: intensification–intimidation, autonomy–accountability and system–support. Six recommendations are derived from the evidence: principals should have greater control over their work environment, system leaders should remove many reporting requirements from schools, there should be "organised abandonment" of outdated practices, the potential benefits of AI should be realised, there should be more engagement in planning for the future, and there should be further research on processes and outcomes through randomised controlled trials of new practices. It is not so much new theories in leadership but rather new roles and new practices within different arrangements for governance, informed by ongoing research as the context changes, amid evidence of deterioration in professional wellbeing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presidential Decree 80/2013 initiated the self-evaluation of schools and the acquisition of awareness by headmasters and teachers of their role in implementing improvement paths and processes. Among the elements that have not yet entered a common language, the added value is essential for thinking about schools and the concept of quality education. It constitutes an interesting point of view to evaluate how effective the school is in breaking down educational inequalities by offering quality education capable of fixing that "broken" social lift described by many international reports. In this article, qualitative research conducted by interviewing some head-masters from institutions that have achieved a positive school effect aims to identify good practices that promote school effectiveness and thus added value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The function of school leadership has been significantly changed by the multi-layered school context to meet the demands of stakeholders. Increasing autonomy and accountability pressures have made it difficult to maintain the balance of principals' tasks, which gives rise to a variety of challenges. This study adopted a descriptive quantitative form of a systematic review to analyse 169 related studies about the challenges faced principals and research-informed coping solutions for such challenges published in the international journals indexed by the WoS, SCOPUS, and ERIC databases between 2001 and 2020. This analysis identified 734 contextual challenges, including challenges related to principals' roles and actions (31.3%) influenced by institutional contexts (24%), socio-cultural contexts (11%), stakeholders (3.4%), and parents (5.2%). Additional contextual challenges were related to the leading staff (6%) and teachers (7.9%). Finally, 11.2% of the contextual challenges corresponded with concerns about student performance. This research highlights the need for modifying leadership preparation programs in a context sensitive manner, active participation of all stakeholders in setting school targets and methods for achieving them, and creating a supportive culture that encourages mutual progressive trust between governments, local communities, and school principals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mid-1980s was a period of significant growth and change in Hungarian education, with numerous debates discussing the potential transformation of the schooling system. These discussions took place years before the political regime changed in 1989/1990, were primarily focused on the issue of school autonomy and the promotion of workplace democracy. This modernization trend, which was allowed and supported by some reformsocialist politicians in the Cultural Ministry and experts from the Pedagogical Institute, was not without its critics. In this study, I aim to unveil a forgotten and unanalyzed national dispute based on discourse analysis. This is a significant and yet unexplored chapter in Hungarian education history, in which many educationalists, teachers, and principals have played a pivotal role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Diversitätsforschung und -Management is the property of Verlag Barbara Budrich GmbH and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The concept of naturalness in biodiversity conservation remains polysemic, hampering decision‐making. Although some conservationists claim ecosystem naturalness should be primarily determined by composition (integrity), others argue it should be determined by the extent of freedom from anthropogenic influence (autonomy). Problems arise when deciding how to treat affected ecosystems. Although the integrity school promotes benchmark‐based active restoration, the autonomy school advocates a hands‐off policy, making these 2 approaches contradictory. Moreover, expected global changes have promoted advocacy for ecosystem resilience, further complicating the debate. We argue that autonomy, integrity, and resilience are all morally valid. The conflict between them is contained by recognizing that full naturalness is an unattainable goal; restoration and rewilding processes are not an act of curation, but a contrary‐to‐duty obligation; principle pluralism can accommodate integrity, resilience, and autonomy as pro tanto principles in a case‐specific approach; and naturalness, as an overarching value, gives unity to the plurality of principles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research generally intended to ascertain how organizational commitment was influenced by psychological empowerment, job autonomy, and distributive justice of tertiary school leaders in selected colleges and universities in Southern Philippines. Two hundred fifty-two (252) tertiary school administrators with at least three years of experience in Southern Philippines as program heads, deans, directors, vice presidents, and presidents made up the participants. The "Basic Social Justice Orientations Scale," "Psychological Empowerment Scale," "Job Autonomy Scale," and "Organizational Commitment Scale" were employed to collect data needed for this study. Then, Pearson r product-moment correlation, multiple regression analysis, and path analysis were applied to evaluate the data. Research findings supported the hypotheses that were developed in the theoretical model. The findings demonstrated that job autonomy acted as a mediator between distributive justice and psychological empowerment, which has direct and indirect consequences on the organizational commitment of school leaders. Additionally, it was discovered that both psychological empowerment and job autonomy greatly affected organizational commitment. Therefore, it can be said that the distributive justice, psychological empowerment, and job autonomy of selected tertiary school leaders in Southern Philippines had influences on their organizational commitment. This means that distributive justice, psychological empowerment, and job autonomy are good predictors of the organizational commitment of tertiary school leaders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although scholars have proposed school climate as a key mediator through which school-based management (SBM) can improve educational outcomes, empirical evidence on the relationship between SBM and school climate improvement is sparse. In this article, we use three waves of Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) data across 57 countries to examine the association between SBM autonomy and different dimensions of school climate (academic, community, and safety). We find that greater school autonomy is associated with significant improvements in all dimensions of school climate, although the strongest improvements occur in safety. Our results show that these improvements primarily occur when schools are given greater autonomy over students (student assessment, admission, and discipline), whereas giving schools greater autonomy over teachers, budgets, or curricula is not associated with climate improvement. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that increased school autonomy is overall associated with improvement in all three dimensions of school climate in high-income countries but not in low- and middle-income countries. However, the positive association between autonomy over students and school climate is observed in both groups of countries. The results suggest that increased autonomy over students should be prioritized in the sequencing of SBM reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to analyze the implementation of school-based management in the Christian Religion High School (CRHS) Kupang. The method used in this research is a qualitative method with a descriptive approach. The subjects in this study amounted to 3 (three) people consisting of the principal, vice principal and school committee. Data collection techniques used are interviews and documentation. The data analysis technique used is Analysis Interactive which is divided into four parts, namely data collection, data condensation, data presentation and conclusion. The results of the study show that the implementation of school-based management at CRHS Kupang has been carried out in almost all areas of school-based management which are the indicators in this study. CRHS Kupang has carried out school program planning, implemented the learning process, conducted curriculum management, managed personnel, managed facilities, implemented financial management, implemented student services, built good relations with the community, and carried out a good evaluation of school programs. CRHS Kupang still needs to pay attention to managing the school climate.

This article explores the impact of strategic management accounting (SMA) on the performance of public universities in Vietnam. The study collected data from accountants in higher education institutions and used regression analysis to analyze the findings. The results indicate that certain factors of SMA have a positive impact on university performance, and that the degree of autonomy and number of students also play a role. The study contributes to understanding the importance of quality management accounting information in improving university performance. [Extracted from the article]

The series of responses in this article were gathered as part of an online mini conference held in September 2021 that sought to explore different ideas and articulations of school autonomy reform across the world (Australia, Canada, England, Ireland, the USA, Norway, Sweden and New Zealand). It centred upon an important question: what needs to happen for school autonomy to be mobilised to create more equitable public schools and systems of education? There was consensus across the group that school autonomy reform creates further inequities at school and system levels when driven by the logics of marketisation, competition, economic efficiency and public accountability. Against the backdrop of these themes, the conference generated discussion and debate where provocations and points of agreement and disagreement about issues of social justice and the mobilisation of school autonomy reform were raised. As an important output of this discussion, we asked participants to write a short response to the guiding conference question. The following are these responses which range from philosophical considerations, systems and governance perspectives, national particularities and teacher and principal perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines principals' perceptions of school autonomy and leadership as part of a 3-year research project looking at the implications of school autonomy on social justice across four states of Australia (Victoria, New South Wales, Western Australia and Queensland). Drawing on interviews with principals and representatives from principal stakeholder organisations in these four state jurisdictions, the paper identifies a number of key issues for school principals and the implications for understandings and practices of educational leadership. These include varied understandings of autonomy, practices of leadership and implications for health, workload and well-being. The paper argues that while principals have mixed perceptions of school autonomy policies, there has been a narrowing of leadership experiences by principals in the form of managerialism and compliance. Furthermore, principals continue to experience high levels of workload, and some principals, depending on career stage and experience level, feel better able to work within and sometimes against these policies in their schools and communities. These practices are sometimes felt to be despite the system and not due to school autonomy policies themselves. The implication of these findings is that principals are inequitably able to respond to and implement school autonomy policies, an issue often glossed over in educational leadership research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whether schooling systems with greater autonomy offset or reinforce educational inequalities remains debateable. Yet school autonomy is often advocated by different actors including donors and international organisations in many countries. This study examines the association between school autonomy and the inequality in maths achievement of 15-year-olds by socioeconomic status (SES), and whether this correlation differs by countries' level of development. We construct a country-level panel using six waves of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) from 69 countries in 322 country waves. We first estimate the gradient of SES and maths achievement as a measure of achievement inequality at the country level and take the country mean of the relevant covariates including school autonomy. Results from weighted mixed-effects models suggest that the association between all autonomy variables and inequality in achievement is not significant. However, academic autonomy is linked to increasing achievement inequality in high- and upper-middle-income countries compared with low- and lower-middle-income countries. But the coefficients for budget and personnel autonomy do not differ by the development level. The results remain similar in several specification tests including country and year fixed effects, which leads us to suggest not to simplistically apply autonomy reforms regardless of context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article aims to analyze the Direct Money at School Program as an educational policy and its relationship with decentralization. Presenting some concepts of decentralization and the resignification suffered over the years due to the interference of neoliberalism and capitalism, based on market criteria. From literature review of articles published between the period (2006-2022), documentary sources, and educational legislation. An exploratory and descriptive methodology was used, with a qualitative approach and bibliographic-documentary strategy, with content analysis as a data analysis method. The results indicated practices of decentralization and autonomy implemented in schools, however, the State, through the adopted reforms, often transfers its responsibilities to other spheres, at the same time as it aims to centralize the guidelines through evaluation and control mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Local Schools, Local Decisions (LSLD) was a package of school autonomy reforms operating in the state of New South Wales, Australia from 2012 to 2020. The set of reforms centred on the devolution of additional powers and responsibilities to school principals, namely enhanced capacity to manage staffing and financial functions in response to local conditions. Using a conceptual lens of policy enactment, we analyse interview data gathered from 31 teachers and school leaders on how these reform areas were understood and enacted at the school level. Our findings highlight the tensions in enacting devolutionary reform in schools. While the centrality of the school principal's role was emphasised, including in relation to contested levels of principal discretion, the enactment of devolved powers and responsibilities also produced a fracturing of staff relationships within schools, notably between principals and teaching staff. This finding is understood within a context of heightened workload and unclear expectations which attended the policy's introduction. We contribute to the school autonomy literature through: (a) the inclusion of teachers' voices, a stakeholder perspective often missing in the autonomy literature, enabling the impact of the reforms on interpersonal, relational dynamics to come to the fore; and (b) exploring implications for future reform suggested by the fate of LSLD. In doing so, this article deepens knowledge on the enactment of autonomy reforms in schools, drawing implications for understanding school autonomy reform around the globe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The purpose of this quantitative descriptive study is to shed light on the driving forces of the mentor's positions in teacher training processes in Israel. The research is based on an exploratory cross-sectional study which included 170 preservice teacher mentors in the north of Israel. The mentoring position, despite its importance, is often unappreciated, even by the mentors themselves. It is barely rewarded, in money, status, or prestige. The current study focuses on the internal motivation of mentors for choosing to serve in this role in addition to their main role as classroom teachers. In this regard, the theory of cognitive-effective perspective can help us to understand the reasons behind these motivations. Our findings indicate that mentors exhibit internal motivation from the pro-social and cognitive-effective perspectives. The average score for attitudes was M = 2.92 (SD ± 0.42). The total score was higher for the cognitive components than for the effective ones (M = 2.98, SD ± 0.44, and M = 2.85, SD ± 0.52, respectively). The main motivations of the mentors were based on their strong desire to improve the level of teaching in Israel. Contributing to the future of education was a dominant part of their personal educational philosophy. These insights depict the mentor as a pillar of the teacher training community in Israel. Our findings also indicate that, while a supportive school climate and autonomy in the mentor's role are factors that promote mentoring practices, a lack of theoretical knowledge about teacher training and a lack of clarity about the mentors' responsibilities are factors that hinder such practices. It is important to address these factors in order to enhance the desirable variables while decreasing the undesirable ones, in order to translate educational philosophy into stable and sustainable improved teacher training processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The universalization of schooling has triggered issues about the organization and management of more inclusive education systems. Several transnational organizations have produced guidelines that have contributed to the concept of inclusive education being incorporated into national educational policies. To identify the ideas underpinning this concept, we mobilized a policy cycle theoretical–methodological proposal. From a thematic analysis of (inter)national texts, four themes emerged: the recognition of diversity, the struggle for equity, the promotion of school autonomy and the emphasis on the participation of the educational community. In this article, we analyze the ideas underpinning the themes of struggle for equity and promotion of school autonomy to analyze the challenges and opportunities resulting from their articulation. Analysis of the Portuguese case revealed that the legal and normative framework shaped by international documents underlines a tension between these two themes, raising questions regarding the practices enacted by national and institutional actors. The findings suggest that equity is conditional on school autonomy; nevertheless, granted autonomy may not translate into improved equity. The extent to which our analysis of the Portuguese case reflects other national contexts where effective autonomy enhances equity remains to be seen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]