Session Information
23 SES 01 C, Policy Reforms and the Regulation of Teachers and Their Work
Paper Session
Contribution
In most countries, the expansion of educational opportunities has gone hand in hand with nation building (e.g., Bales, 2015; Peck, 2011). But when global organizations like the World Bank Group (WBG) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) put forward teacher education policies, the theories of action for teaching and learning become nebulous. This paper shares research examining the WBG and UNESCO teacher education policies with a focus on five areas – recruitment of candidates into teaching; preparation program inputs and outcomes; professional development requirements; evaluation of teachers’ classroom practices; and the criteria by which one continues to teach. In doing so, the author seeks responses to the conjoined question, what is the vision of teacher prepared through these reforms and who is served?
Review of the Literature
Scholars have long indicated that high levels of student learning are directly linked to teacher quality (e.g., Darling-Hammond & Falk, 2013) even as controversy surrounds how one measures the construct of “quality” (e.g., Garrett & Steinberg, 2015). Still, “more and more countries are looking beyond their own borders for evidence of the most successful and efficient policies and practices” (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2014, p.3) despite the fact that “40 [countries and economies with comparable data] improved their average performance” (p. 3).
In this context, global organizations like the WBG and UNESCO offer policy strategies to improve student learning. UNESCO, for example, purports it is “in a unique position to create and promote internationally agreed teachers standards, drawing on the work already going on in some regions as well as on the pioneering work done in particular countries, including open and accountable self-regulations” (United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, 2012, p. 6). The WBG offers a slightly different education strategy where the “bottom line…is: Invest early, invest smartly, and invest for all” (The World Bank, 2011, p. 4).
Critics challenge the legitimacy of both organizations to make teacher education policy recommendations. Steiner-Khamsi (2012) notes,
- In this particular role as knowledge bank the World Bank now determines what works and what does not work in terms of educational development…, [which] in effect, generated a fourth conditionality for recipient governments: programmatic conditionality. [This suggests] they now have to subscribe to a particular reform package (‘best practices’) that was first piloted in a few countries, analyzed in impact evaluations, and then disseminated to other recipient governments. (p.4)
Moreover, this type of policy borrowing assumes a ‘reform package of best practices’ can be leveraged in all countries and economies, regardless of local epistemologies, ideological beliefs, or initiatives already underway.
Theoretical Framework
This research draws together the theoretical tenets of policy analysis and policy instruments. Policy analysis assumes, more often than not, a policy problem. While the nature of that problem is “constituted by the differences among its definitions” (Edelman, 1988, p. 15), it often embodies a core set of agreed upon facts generally supported by analytic data. Every policy also carries embedded assumptions about the inherent issue as well as the normative aspects of a policy-maker’s values and the social systems in which these are situated.
Policy instruments are the “mechanisms that translate substantive policy goals into concrete actions” (McDonnell & Elmore, 1987, p. 134). They include mandates, inducements, capacity building, standards, system changing, and ideas. Each has a primary element, an expected result, and a range of associated costs and benefits. Selection of any particular instrument reflects an assumption about the policy problem and projects a typical consequence. Each instrument also has an inherent accountability system, which establishes who is accountable for what and to whom they are accountable.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Bales, B. (2015). Restructuring Teacher Education in the United States: Finding the Tipping Point. Athens Journal of Education, 2(4), 297-312. Coffey, A., & Atkinson, P. (1996). Writing and Representation Making Sense of Qualitative Data (pp. 108-138). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Darling-Hammond, L., & Falk, B. (2013). Teacher Learning Through Assessment: How Student-Performance Assessments Can Support Teacher Learning. Edelman, M. (1985). The Symbolic Uses of Politics. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press. Fenwick, T., Mangez, E., & Oga, J. (2014). Governing knowledge: Comparison, knowledge-based technologies and expertise in the regulation of education (2014 ed., pp. 3-10). London: Routledge. Garrett, R., & Steinberg, M. (2015). Examining teacher effectiveness using classroom observation scores: Evidence from the randomization of teachers to students. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 37(2), 224-242. Harris, H., & Herrington, C. (2015). Value added meets the schools: The effects of using test-based teacher evaluation on the work of teachers and leaders [Special issue]. Educational Researcher, 44(2). Hodder, I. (2000). The interpretation of documents and material culture. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The Handbook of Qualitative Research (2nd ed., pp. 703-715). Thousand Oaks, C.A.: Sage Publications. Hsieh, H. F., & Shannon, S. E. (2005). Three approaches to qualitative content analysis. Qual Health Res, 15(9), 1277-1288. doi:10.1177/1049732305276687 McDonnell, L. M., & Elmore, R. F. (1987). Getting the job done: alternative policy instruments. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 9(2), 133-152. Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. (2014). PISA 2012 Results: What Students Know and Can Do – Student Performance in Mathematics, Reading and Science (Vol. I, Revised edition, February 2014). OECD Publishing: PISA. Peck, J. (2011). Geographies of policy From transfer-diffusion to mobility-mutation. Progress in Human Geography, 35(6), 773-797. Saldana, J. (2009). The Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers London: Sage Publications. Steiner-Khamsi, G. (2012). For All By All? The World Bank’s Global Framework for Education. In S. Klees, J. Samoff, & N. Stromquist (Eds.), The World Bank and Education: Critiques and Alternatives (pp. 4-20). Rottermdam: Sense Publishers. The World Bank. (2011). World Bank Group Education Strategy 2020: Learning for All Investing in People's Knowledge and Skills to Promote Development. Washington, DC: The World Bank. United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization. (2012). UNESCO Strategy on Teachers (2012-2015). Zeichner, K. (2010). Preparing globally competent teachers: A US perspective. Paper presented at the 2010 Colloquium on the Internationalization of Teacher Education. NAFSA: Association of International Educators.
Search the ECER Programme
- Search for keywords and phrases in "Text Search"
- Restrict in which part of the abstracts to search in "Where to search"
- Search for authors and in the respective field.
- For planning your conference attendance you may want to use the conference app, which will be issued some weeks before the conference
- If you are a session chair, best look up your chairing duties in the conference system (Conftool) or the app.