Session Information
26 SES 13 B, The Imposition of Government Education Policy Initiatives and School Enactment: Responses in Mediterranean Countries
Symposium
Contribution
Rapid socio-economic and political changes in the modern world have necessitated continual reevaluation of the role and strategies of the world’s educational systems in preparing their students for the reality they will face upon leaving school. National governments have adjusted education policies, realigning educational priorities to meet what they perceive to be the imperatives of national needs and/ or globalization, imposing never-ending reforms on the education systems, engendering turbulent changes (Darling-Hammond & Rothman, 2011; Mitchell et al., 2011; Rizvi and Lingard, 2011).
The proposed symposium gathers scholars from several Mediterranean countries, a geographical-cultural region that receives little attention in the education literature. The zone connects the varied countries of South Europe and North Africa and has "for centuries…been a fertile meeting place for diverse civilizations. But it is also a fractured space, marked by violent confrontations and conflict. …facing up to and resolution of these conflicts depends primarily on mutual understanding and a spirit of tolerance, both of which are promoted by education” (Duby, 1996, p1).
Although Mediterranean region education policies are influenced by globalization processes there is perhaps a reciprocal reaction whereby policies initiated in the Mediterranean region also influence global education (Sultana, 2012; Rizvi & Lingard, 2011) and local education systems.
Governments often use education policy to reinforce national goals, enhance economic development and/or develop human capital. Yet they may also dictate and enforce education to further political goals or the survival of a particular ideology or social system. In Mediterranean states, government education policies arouse fluctuating praise and condemnation; especially under pressure from global demands to comply with standardized exams and standard tables, often with negative repercussions for school discourse and daily practices. Student achievements in Mediterranean states consistently fall below student achievements in Northern Europe or Asian states such as China, Singapore and South Korea.
Education is crucially important on both Mediterranean coasts. Along the African coast, rapidly increasing numbers of school-age children challenges governments to provide sufficient quality schools. Along the European coast, the number of school-aged children is decreasing each year. Yet, both sides have trouble adapting their education systems to the needs of national and international labor markets. Education funding and policies in some Mediterranean states are driven by market economics dictated by organizations such as the World Bank and OECD (Sultana, 2011), while in Turkey, and Egypt education is funded and driven by centralized political power. Political upheavals such as the Arab Spring in Egypt and Libya inevitably have repercussions for education (Garratt & Forrester, 2012; Piety, 2013).
Aims
The symposium aims: (1) To describe local government-initiated education policies in recent decades in Mediterranean states - Italy, Malta, Israel and Turkey, and (2) To explore potential school responses to government-initiated reforms at different levels in these countries.
The symposium will facilitate dialogue and fertilization of ideas among the region’s researchers, within the frame of several essential questions:
- What are the recent reforms Mediterranean governments have imposed and how they have been implemented in local education systems?
- How do local school principals respond to the imposed policy initiatives?
- Can school principals serve as a bridge between government policy level and school level?
These issues are explored within the debate on recent top-down and/or grass-root policy implementation (Hargreaves & Shirley 2009; Garratt & Forrester, 2012). Do government-imposed reforms that emphasize the need for school leadership and accountability simply reinforce centralized school systems? Or can educational leadership shape policy, in the ways that local leaders implement, test, report on and challenge these policies and can leaders find ways to carve out areas for autonomous initiatives within schools?
References
Darling-Hammond, L & Rothman, R (2011) (Eds.) , Teacher and Leader Effectiveness in High-Performing Education Systems .Washington, DC: Alliance for Excellent Education and Stanford, CA: Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education. Garratt, D., & Forrester, G. (2012). Educational policy unraveled. London: Continuum. Rizvi, F., & Lingard, B. (2011). Globalizing education policy. London: Routledge. Bernhardt, V. (2004). Data analysis for continuous school improvement. Larchmont: Eye on Education. Piety, P. J. (2013). Assessing the educational data movement. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Duby, Georges (1996). Editorial, MJES, 1(1) Hargreaves, A., & Shirley, D. (2009). The fourth way: The inspiring future for educational change. Thousand Oaks: Corwin Press. Sultana, R.G. (Ed.) (2011). Educators of the Mediterranean: Up Close and Personal - Critical Voices from South Europe and the MENA region. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
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