Schools Implementing a Central Reform Policy: Findings from Two National Educational Contexts.

During the last decade in Belgium and the Netherlands, comprehensive reform of primary education emanated from central policy. In both countries the national authorities set up a program to encourage and facilitate the new primary school concept. This paper reports on 25 schools in the Netherlands and 52 in Belgium that acquired special funding and assistance. Research was based on the assumption that the school's response manifests itself in three ways: in the nature of the implementation agenda; in specially arranged structures to conduct the implementation activities; and in steering the flow of implementation work. Data were collected from interviews, questionnaires, observation, and document analysis. Respondents included principals and staff, external change facilitators, school inspectors, and policy makers. The first part provides an overview of national policy at the local school level, with attention to school/national policy interaction. Part 2 outlines and illustrates a profile of steering functions--direction/concept clarification, directional pressure, assistance/support, and latitude definition. The concept of implementation as an intervention in the ongoing school organizational processes is examined in part 3, which describes the local concerns generated by comprehensive mandates for change. Part 4 accounts for differences in the two national repertoires of policy inducements and addresses the question of how a central policy program presents itself locally. A profile of policy inducements from the school's perspective is articulated. Two figures are included. (29 references) (LMI)