Session Information
23 SES 12 C, The Globalization of Reform
Symposium
Contribution
The four papers in this symposium draw on data from the results of the 2006 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) to present systems level analyses of school reform patterns and policies in high performing or strongly improving education systems. The systems level analyses of Canada, Finland, Norway, and Singapore pinpoint countries that have high performance or strong improvement trajectories on the international PISA test results. Canada, Finland, and Singapore score among the top ten on PISA while Norway is currently on an improvement trajectory that might lead toward convergence with Finland by the time of the next PISA assessment.
All four countries embody different elements and combinations of what have been called Third and Fourth Way strategies of educational reform, and of policy change. Third Way policy strategies (Giddens, 1999) have come to stress setting of clear system-wide goals and targets around very specific demands of tested learning (literacy and numeracy), supported by resourced professional development and curriculum materials, and both steered and pushed by data-driven innovation from the level of individual students and entire states. Fourth Way strategies (Hargreaves & Shirley, 2009) provide teachers and schools with greater freedom from political target setting, embrace a broader set of curriculum and learning goals, suggest stronger degrees of local flexibility and direction to address varying community needs, and actively encourage public engagement in education through parental involvement in school, and strong support for healthcare, social services and public life.
This symposium draws together research experts on the four countries to determine how the application of Third or Fourth Way strategies or combination of the two contributes to their striking trajectories of improvement and success.
The paper on Finland describes how its Fourth Way approach contrasts with what the author calls the Global Educational Reform Movement (GERM) of markets and standardization, yet how the approach is also in danger of inhibiting further change and renewal. The Norwegian paper analyses how a country with improving performance is seeking to find its own way, its Nor-way, that is neither Third nor Fourth. Canada’s combinations of Third or Fourth Way strategies vary according to the province or policy in each particular case, and will be explored in the varying instances of Ontario and Alberta. Finally, Singapore’s “top-down support for ground-up initiatives” approach, applied within a context of national curriculum and examinations, exhibits combinations of Third and Fourth Way strategies, yet also raises questions for the applicability of both of them.
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