23. Policy Studies and Politics of Education
Paper
Chinese University Teachers’ Perceptions Of Measures Promoting Applied Research
Jiaying Liu, Manhong Lai
The Chineses University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong S.A.R. (China)
Presenting Author: Liu, Jiaying
Policy-related discussions increasingly view universities as so-called “engines of economic growth” (Hayter, 2018). The unique process of academic capitalism, which integrates the search for truth and the pursuit of economic revenue, has turned public research universities into enterprises competing for external funding and knowledge producers looking for profitable patents (Münch, 2014). In China, ‘the 13th five-year plan of developing science and technology in higher education’ announced in 2016 has encouraged the partnership between universities and enterprises to develop applied research and obtain external funds (Lai&Li, 2020). Since then, Chinese universities have been adjusting their measures from different aspects to respond to new national policies and encourage university teachers to participate in entrepreneurial research activities. Adopting a university capability perspective, we seek to understand the challenges faced by Chinese academics when conducting applied research, and hence identify the drawbacks of current measures and figure out how Chinese universities can better promote applied research in the context of academic capitalism.
To facilitate a more fine-grained discussion about how different measures may contribute to encouraging teachers to participate in applied research, the ‘university capabilities’ framework will be adopted (Rasmussen, 2015). This framework was developed from studying the process of university spin-off venture formation and offers a theoretical basis to understand the strategic measures on promoting university teachers’ participation in applied research. Simply stated, Universities can develop measures to better promote applied research around the following three capabilities, namely, capabilities that open new paths of action, capabilities that integrate internal and external resources, and capabilities that balance academic and commercial interest. Using these three capabilities provides an analytical framework that identifies the drawbacks of current university measures and helps unpick how the university can improve current measures in order to better promote applied research. Existing research has mainly focused on the implementation process of the measures related to these capabilities, their effectiveness, and how they affect individual academics needs further illustration. Therefore, university teachers’ perceptions of these three aspects will be investigated in this research. Specifically, the research questions are as follows:
1. How do university teachers perceive and interpret current measures that are aimed at opening new paths of action?
2. How do university teachers perceive and react to the measures related to integrating internal and external resources?
3. How do university teachers perceive measures on balancing academic and commercial interests?
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedSemi-structured interviews will be the main form of data collection for this study. In-depth interviews will be conducted with 20 university teachers from four academic areas including Social Science, Education, Engineering, and Arts. Under the context of academic capitalism, the characteristics of different disciplines lead to differences in their access to external funds (Lai&Li, 2020). In this case, the four chosen areas are aligned with the market at different levels. The research will be conducted in a second-tier research university in China, who have been focusing on seeking external funded research and actively introducing new measures for this purpose.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsPreliminary findings for this study are as follows.
Firstly, the capability of opening new paths of action focused on the university-level measures which trigger university teachers’ participation in applied research. According to the informants, currently there are no implicit or explicit backings from the university which help academics decouple from the traditional university tasks and spend time on entrepreneurial activities. Most informants pointed out that current university measures discouraged them from participating in applied research because funding obtained from the partnership with industry was not one of the indicators of an academic’s performance in annual appraisals. Only traditional university tasks and funding from the national foundation of social/natural science can save them from being punished in their annual assessment.
Secondly, a combination of resources is the driver for the research commercialization process (Greene et al., 1999). In terms of the capability of integrating resources, most informants responded that the university can provide connections to industry partners and access to inter-disciplinary expertise in the start-up phase. However, follow-up resources including academic sabbaticals, laboratory space, technician time and consumables are insufficient, and there are no organizations like TTO or patent offices to turn to for professional guidance.
Thirdly, capabilities that balance academic and commercial interest refers to how universities overcome the challenges brought about by the differences in cultures and work practices between the university and industry. Most informants indicated that due to copyright issues, the data of applied research can barely be employed to write academic papers; other problems including intellectual protection and poor quality of the applied projects also stopped the informants from translating outcomes of applied research into academic outputs. The selected university was in lack of policies to alleviate the tension between the need for external funding and the chase for academic freedom.
ReferencesGreene, P.G., Brush, C.G., Hart, M.M., 1999. The corporate venture champion: a resource-
based approach to role and process. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 23 (Spring),
103–122.
Hayter, C., Nelson, A., Zayed, S., & O’Connor, A. (2018). Conceptualizing academic
entrepreneurship ecosystems: A review, analysis and extension of the literature. The J
ournal of Technology Transfer, 43(4), 1039-1082.
Lai, M., & Li, L. (2020). Early career researchers' perceptions of collaborative research in the context of academic capitalism on the Chinese Mainland. Higher Education Research and Development, 39(7), 1474-1487.
Münch, R. (2014). Academic capitalism : Universities in the global struggle for excellence
(Routledge advances in sociology ; 121). New York, NY: Routledge.
Rasmussen, & Borch, O. J. (2010). University capabilities in facilitating entrepreneurship: A
longitudinal study of spin-off ventures at mid-range universities. Research Policy, 39(5),
602–612. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2010.02.002
Rasmussen, & Wright, M. (2015). How can universities facilitate academic spin-offs? An
entrepreneurial competency perspective. The Journal of Technology Transfer, 40(5), 782–
799. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10961-014-9386-3
23. Policy Studies and Politics of Education
Paper
First Teacher Assignments in the light of Responsibility and Accountability
Anders Urbas, Jaana Nehez, Petra Svensson
Halmstad University, Sweden, Sweden
Presenting Author: Nehez, Jaana
The aim of the study is to analyse the first teacher arrangement between principals and first teachers in Sweden. The theoretical perspective used is the distinction responsibility between accountability.
Public administration is a complex phenomenon characterized by a diverse interaction between different actors and institutions. This is the case within the educational system and schools, where, amongst others, politicians and public officials on different levels (international, national, and subnational), private companies, principals, teachers, and students act in order to gain and maintain influence. The political steering of the educational system and schools is best described as somewhere between traditional government (top-down or vertical) and regulatory governance (interactive); different actors and institutions exercise political power over the field. The complexity within the educational system and schools is only partly reduced when considering only official government regulations and the implementation of them by public officials such as teachers, our area of focus on in this study. Thompson (1980) formulates the complexity as ‘the problem with many hands’:
"Because many different officials contribute in many ways to decisions and policies of government, it is difficult even in principle to identify who is morally responsible for political outcomes. This is what we call the problem with many hands". (Thompson, 1980, p. 905)
Public officials like teachers, do, of course, always act within the intersection of being governed by formal and informal political regulations, such as laws and norms, and autonomy (Alvehus et. al., 2021; Bengtsson et. al. 2018; Högdin & Urbas, 2021). In the Swedish political framework, this is manifested by the idea of ‘trust-based steering’ (Bringselius, 2017) meaning a focus on, amongst others, trust, citizen-orientation, collaboration, delegation and openness within the political and legal framework (Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions, 2022).
The characteristics of the Swedish public administration raises, in accordance with Thompson’s description of the problem with many hands, and, what Bovens (2007) calls the problem with many eyes – i.e., to whom is account rendered to? the question of both responsibility and accountability. Responsibility is moral and future-oriented, meaning that an actor should act in order to achieve positive outcomes or at least avoid negative ones. Accountability is social and backward-looking, implying expectations that someone’s actions will be evaluated by somebody else, and that the evaluation will be followed by sanctions or rewards (Hall & Ferris, 2011). Accordingly, accountability requires that X is appointed a certain task by Y, that Y knows whether the performance of X is satisfactory, which means that some sort of evaluation, follow-up or scrutiny of the performance, and that Y can enforce positive or negative consequences on X (cf. Ahlbäck Öberg, 2018).
The aim of the study is to explore the first teacher arrangement between principals and first teachers in the light of responsibility and accountability. It is based on assignment descriptions for 172 first teachers all working in the same municipality in Sweden. Given that the first teachers individually and explicitly are appointed certain tasks and expected to achieve specific goals in the assignment descriptions, the question to be answered the study: How is evaluation of first teachers’ performance, and the possible consequences of that evaluation, handled in assignment descriptions?
The point of departure in this study is that a governance arrangement needs both some sort of evaluation, and the possibility for consequences based on that evaluation to qualify as an accountability (backward-looking) arrangement (cf. Bovens, 2007). An arrangement that consists of, amongst other things, tasks and goals but lacks the characteristics of accountability is an arrangement that fulfils the criteria of responsibility, i.e., moral, open and forward-looking (without evaluations and possible consequences).
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThe data analysed in this study contains of 172 assignment descriptions for first teachers from one Swedish municipality with a population of approximately 150, 000 inhabitants located in south Sweden. Four questions structured the analysis:
1. To what extent do the assignment descriptions contain an explicit evaluation or follow-up of the first teacher’s performance?
2. What kind of evaluation or follow-up do the assignment descriptions contain?
3. To what extent do the assignment descriptions contain a the possibility for consequences or sanctions?
4. What kind of possible consequences or sanctions do the assignment descriptions contain?
Related to the questions, an assessment of expressed thoughts about evaluations and consequences in the assignment descriptions were made, i.e., if whether such thoughts existed, as well as if whether they were relevant in content and of reasonable quality. Moreover, the identified expressions were qualitatively categorized. In total, the analysis consisted of an in-depth qualitative and quantitative analyses of the assignment descriptions using the theoretical perspective of responsibility and accountability as a lens. We have translated the quotes that are used to illustrate the content of the assignment descriptions.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThe result of the analyses of first teachers’ assignment descriptions is unambiguous. The arrangement as a contract is characterized by responsibility, rather than by accountability. Firstly, the assignment descriptions do, not include any discussion of positive or negative consequences related to the performance of first teachers. Secondly, the question of evaluation is touched upon in a majority of the assignment descriptions; however, the content is scarce and consists either of only a mention of the word evaluation in the template or of a couple of words and phrases that do not describe the evaluation at all or in a clear manner. Differently expressed, it does not seem as if evaluation and its possible consequences has been at the forefront when the assignment descriptions were discussed and finalized. It is rather the opposite; the question of evaluation and its possible consequences is quite carelessly treated in a majority of the assignment descriptions.
ReferencesAhlbäck Öberg, S. (2018). Att kontrollera förvaltningen: Framväxten av granskningssamhället [To control public administration: The emergence of the audit society]. I C. Dahlström, (Ed.), Politik som organisation: Förvaltningspolitikens grundproblem [Politics as organisation]. Studentlitteratur
Bengtsson, H., Svensson, K. & Urbas, A. (2018). Ansvar och sekretess i förskola, skola och fritidshem [Responsibility and secrecy in preschool and school] (8th ed.). Liber.
Bringselius, L. (2017). Tillitsbaserad styrning och ledning: Ett ramverk [Trust-Based Steering and Leading: A Framework] (2nd ed.). Tillitsdelegationen.
Bovens, M. (2007). Analysing and assessing accountability: A conceptual framework, European Law Journal, 13(4), 447-468.
Hall, A. T., & Ferris, G. R. (2011). Accountability and extra-role behavior. Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal, 23(2), 131–144. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10672-010-9148-9
Högdin, S. & Urbas, A. (2021). Förhandlingar om befrielse från obligatoriska inslag i grundskolans utbildning [Negotiations of exemptions from mandatory moments in school education]. I P. Ouis, (Ed.), Sexualitet och migration i välfärdsarbete [Sexuality and migration in welfare-work]. Studentlitteratur.
Thompson, D. F. (1980). Moral responsibility of public officials: The problem of many hands. The American Political Science Review, 74(4), 905-916.
23. Policy Studies and Politics of Education
Paper
The chaotic Icelandic education Action Plan for 2021–2024: Focus on everything and nothing at once.
Hermína Gunnþórsdóttir1, Ingólfur Ásgeir Jóhannesson2
1University of Akureyri, Iceland; 2University of Iceland, Iceland
Presenting Author: Gunnþórsdóttir, Hermína;
Jóhannesson, Ingólfur Ásgeir
The Ministry of Education, Science and Culture in Iceland introduced a new education policy in 2021 (Parliament Resolution) and the First Action plan 2021–2024 (hereafter the Action Plan) for the new policy was published last year ( Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, 2021). We see this document as the most significant document on educational policy in Iceland since the publication of the national curriculum guide for pre-, compulsory-, and secondary schools in 2011 and 2013. In this presentation we will explore how this official paper came about and it‘s content.
The background and the preliminaries to the new policy and the Action Plan can be traced to 2016, when the Icelandic educational authorities asked the European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education to write a report on the state of inclusive education in Iceland. For several years there has been a growing debate among teachers and principals that the policy of inclusive education has never really been implemented and teachers claim not to have clear ideas of what the policy entails for them as teachers. At the same time Iceland had put itself at the forefront of having very few students at the compulsory school level (age 6–16) in special education schools. For instance, in autumn 2021, there were only three special schools at the compulsory level with 203 students (approximately 0.43%), according to Statistics Iceland (2022).
In 2017, the European Agency published the report: Education for all in Iceland. External audit of the Icelandic system for inclusive education (European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education, 2017). The report was followed up by meetings and discussions across the country with stakeholders and the school community resulted in the report: Education for the future. Actions and measures taken in the wake of a series of meetings on inclusive education and the formation of an education policy until 2030 (Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, 2020a).
In the later stages of the process (in spring 2020), the OECD was consulted regarding the formation and implementation of the new education policy and an OECD report on the implementation of an education policy was published (Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, 2020b).
OECD is one of the most influential organisations on national education policies (Iceland included) as they develop framework and indicators that nations are encouraged to follow. Through the years OECD has been criticised for focusing almost solely on systems, economic factors and competition between countries instead of looking at education as a common responsibility and cooperation. Bjarnadóttir (2022) explored the most recent educational policies by OECD and UNESCO; one of her findings “is that the OECD’s future policy does not represent a convincing turn towards a humanitarian emphasis” (p. 10).
Goals of the presentation are to:
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedWe first familiarized ourselves with the events leading up to the Action Plan’s creation in 2021. We also familiarized ourselves with the document itself, which we decide would be the only text for scrutiny. For this purpose, we used a historical discourse analysis (Jóhannesson, 2006, 2010). The main characteristic of this method is to ask how rather than why it is well suited to describing one or more documents. Another point of emphasis is to note what is not revealed (silences) in the document concerned. Furthermore, the method requires each policy document to be regarded as an independent unit with the researcher attempting to read between the lines of the document what it fails to reveal.
We singled out several questions and read the documents with them in mind:
What does the document look like?
Who is the document intended for?
What is the story line in the document?
What are the main themes of the document?
Does the document contain contradictions?
Will the strategy prove effective – in what respects and relating to whom?
What is not included?
What is the document silent about?
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThere was considerable impact of the European Agency report in the Icelandic education discourse. This impact seems to be quite direct in the sense that its 2017 report instigated major policy making efforts that have been described above. Both the European Agency report and the OECD consultation in 2020 are also an important background to the efforts apparent in the Action Plan 2021–2024 of the ministry.
The Action Plan is 22 pages and is somewhat unapproachable since it neither contains a table of contents nor does it offer a preface or a form of elucidation as to the context of its publication.
It includes a compilation of proposals: It specifies nine separate actions, each of which is divided into several sections, thus making up a total of 41 work components. The components include a professional knowledge centre, a new school development team, an annual contribution to school development projects, and the strengthening of three funds. Nine of those actions must involve considerable costs.
In a nutshell, the Action Plan 2021–2024 is a compilation of actions and work components with little or no prioritization sequence, nor is it placed in the context of other current policy documents. When plans for two new laws were published 17 October 2022 by the governmental consultative board a priority arrangement appeared, however, to the effect that the first two actions were of highest importance; on the one hand Planned legislation – school services and, on the other, Planned legislation – a new organization (Ministry of Education and Children, 2022a, 2022b).
When this proposal was written in January 2023, the legislation proposals have not been put forward to Althingi, the Parliament. While the focus in the presentation, will be on the Action Plan, we will consider these legislation proposals or laws if they have been passed.
ReferencesBjarnadóttir, V. (2022). Tilgangur og framtíð menntunar í ljósi stefnumörkunar
OECD og UNESCO til 2030 [The purpose and future of education in OECD’s and UNESCO’s 2030 educational policies]. Netla. DOI: https://doi.org/10.24270/serritnetla.2022.83
European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education (2017). Education for all in Iceland. External audit of the Icelandic system for inclusive education. Translated from English. Ministry of Education, Science and Culture. https://www.stjornarradid.is/lisalib/getfile.aspx?itemid=cca962f5-be4f-11e7-9420-005056bc530c
Jóhannesson, I. Á. (2006). Leitað að mótsögnum: Um verklag við orðræðugreiningu. [Looking for contradictions. On methods of discourse analysis. In Rannveig Traustadóttir (Ed.), Fötlun. Hugmyndir og aðferðir á nýju fræðasviði [Disability. Ideas and methods relating to a new academic field (pp. 178–195). University of Iceland Press
Jóhannesson, I. Á. (2010). The politics of historical discourse analysis: a qualitative research method? Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 31(2), 251–264, DOI: 10.1080/01596301003679768
Ministry of Education, Science and Culture. (2019). Menntun fyrir alla – horft fram á veginn. Skýrsla unnin fyrir mennta- og menningarmálaráðuneyti [Education for all – the road ahead]. https://www.stjornarradid.is/library/01--Frettatengt---myndir-og-skrar/MRN/MFA_horft%20fram%20a%20veginn_starfshops_vefur.pdf
Ministry of Education, Science and Culture (2020a). Menntun til framtíðar. Aðgerðir og viðbrögð í kjölfar fundaraðar um menntun fyrir alla og mótun menntastefnu til 2030 [Education for the future. Actions and responses relating to a series of meetings on education for all and the formation of an education policy until 2030]
https://www.stjornarradid.is/library/01--Frettatengt---myndir-og-skrar/MRN/Menntun%20til%20framtidar_skyrsla_17012020.pdf
Ministry of Education, Science and Culture. (2020b). Menntastefna2030. Skýrsla OECD um innleiðingu menntastefnu [Education policy2030. OECD report on the implementation of an education policy (Icelandic translation)] https://www.stjornarradid.is/library/01--Frettatengt---myndir-og-skrar/MRN/Iceland%20Policy%20Perspectives_%C3%9E%C3%BD%C3%B0ing_Loka%C3%BAtg%C3%A1fa%207.%20j%C3%BAl%C3%AD%202021.pdf
Ministry of Education, Science and Culture. (2021) Menntastefna 2030. Fyrsta aðgerðaáætlun 2021–2024 [Education policy 2030. First action plan 2021-2024]. https://www.stjornarradid.is/library/01--Frettatengt---myndir-og-skrar/MRN/Menntastefna_2030_fyrsta%20adgerdar%c3%a1%c3%a6tlun.pdf
Ministry of Education and Children (2022a). Áform um lagasetningu – skólaþjónusta [Planning for legislation – school services]. https://samradsgatt.island.is/oll-mal/$Cases/Details/?id=3308+
Ministry of Education and Children (2022b). Áform um lagasetningu – ný stofnun [Planning for legislation – a new institution]. https://samradsgatt.island.is/oll-mal/$Cases/Details/?id=3308+
Statistics Iceland. (2022). Compulsory school students according to grade and school, 2001–2021.
https://px.hagstofa.is/pxis/pxweb/is/Samfelag/Samfelag__skolamal__2_grunnskolastig__0_gsNemendur/SKO02102.px/table/tableViewLayout1/?rxid=aca68d79-a619-4f5e-b346-b30faf0d2dfd
Þingsályktun um menntastefnu fyrir árin 2021–2030 nr 16/151 [Parliamentary resolution on education policy for the years 2021-2030]. https://www.althingi.is/altext/151/s/1111.html
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