Conference Agenda

International organisations and their role and impacts on local/national and global policymaking in the sector of education have been object of discussion in a vast number of academic studies during the past decades (e.g. McNeely 1995; Verger, Novalli, and Altinyelken 2018; Martens and Windzio 2022). However, the perspectives of the practitioners working within these international organisations are rarely analysed. In this study we analyse the role and impacts of international organisations in the differentiation between education systems through the understandings of education experts in these organisations. Empirically the paper builds on thematic semi-structured interviews with Finnish education experts working in international organisations. Our research question is: How are the international organisations impacting the reduction, construction or continuity of differentiation between the educational systems of the Global North and the Global South through development collaboration initiatives?

We develop our analysis by combining the onto-epistemic lenses of complexity thinking (e.g. Cilliers 1998) with the Luhmaniann concept of differentiation (e.g. Luhmann 1982; Baraldi, Corsi, and Esposito 2021;) and utilise the perspective of sensemaking as a tool to guide the analysis (e.g. Weick, Sutcliffe, and Obstfeld 2005; Brown, Colville, and Pye 2015). The combination of different perspectives and concepts has been done successfully in previous literature (e.g. Zahariadis 1998; Howlett et al. 2016; Santos 2022) demonstrating that different theoretical lenses can benefit from being aggregated, not only leading to a better understanding of the phenomenon under analysis, but also by contributing to advancements of each of the different theories utilised, while also innovating the ways in which theories are utilised in qualitative research. In the case of this study, this theoretical aggregation enables the development of a more holistic analysis of the dynamics of development cooperation in the education sector, contributing not only to a better understanding of these dynamics but also of how the Finnish education experts involved in them make sense of what happens around their professional environment.

The study starts with two assumptions a) that there is an imaginary, blurry divide between the so-called Global North (often described as developed countries, also donor countries) and the so-called Global South (frequently see as the underdeveloped, peripherical countries, which are the receivers of international support); and b) that the initiatives developed by international organisations impact the development of education globally, but more intensively in the Global South as it has been discussed in earlier research (e.g. Verger, Novelli, and Altinyelken 2018).

Hence, while bundles of studies, analyse the role of international organisations from distant, macro-economic perspectives. We study the sensemaking of the (Finnish) education experts working in international organizations to understand, from an internal perspective, the roles and impacts of international organisations in development cooperation, with the aim of comprehending if these organisations indeed maintain or even increase differentiations North-South or if they actually manage to reduce this differentiation and harmonise education systems, access and quality globally, as it is the aim Sustainable Development Goal 4 – Quality of education. This study contributes to complementary fields of research, namely Global Education Policies studies and Development studies.

Our findings indicate that interviewees understand the complexity and ambiguity of development cooperation and that international organisations, by keeping the leadership of development cooperation initiatives often maintain and can even increase differentiations among education systems along the divide North-South.

Education systems globally are grappling with the challenge of how to best prepare children and young people for life and work in the context of a rapidly changing and uncertain future. This focus has become more urgent given the impact of the recent COVID-19 pandemic and the imperative for rapid economic recovery, promoting societal cohesion and building healthy, resilient citizens. In this context, contemporary thinking and research is no longer focussing on system reform, as in reshaping what is already in place, but rather system transformation which requires a fundamental rethink of the purpose and goals of education (Sengeh & Winthrop, 2022) and the ways in which learning is organised to ensure that every child is learning successfully (Masters, 2022). This presentation illustrates the research process and outcomes of doing system transformation in partnership with a national education system. The research contributes new methodological understandings to the practice of system transformation relevant to a broad international audience.

Education systems around the world are grappling with the challenge of how to best prepare children and young people for life and work in the context of a rapidly changing and uncertain future. This focus has become more urgent given the impact of the recent COVID-19 pandemic and the imperative for rapid economic recovery, societal cohesion and building healthy, resilient citizens. In this context, thinking and research is no longer focussing on system reform, as in reshaping what is already in place, but rather system transformation, which requires fundamental rethink of the purpose and goals of education (Sengeh & Winthrop, 2022) and the ways in which learning is organised to ensure every child is learning successfully (Masters, 2022).The system transformation literature (see Fullan, 2009; 2011; Fuller & Kim, 2022; Masters, in press; Sengeh &Winthrop, 2022; Winthrop et al., 2021) reflects common themes including developing a shared vision for the purpose of education, the importance of participatory approaches and, focussing system efforts on the teaching and learning core to ensure all students learn successfully.

Masters (in press), building on a review of practices across five of the world’s top performing systems, including two European systems (Finland and Estonia), conceptualises a learning system as six interconnecting components: a quality curriculum; informative assessment processes; highly effective teaching; comprehensive student support; strong leadership of learning and; a supportive learning ecosystem. At the centre of the learning system is a clear purpose- preparing young people for life and work and ensuring every student learns successfully. Sengeh and Winthrop (2022) conceptualise system transformation similarly. In their model, which they call a participatory approach to transformation, they refer to 3Ps: Purpose, Pedagogy and Position. Purpose is self-explanatory. This is the notion that, in a particular context, a shared vision of the purpose of education needs to be developed. Pedagogy refers to a sharp focus on the teaching and learning core. Position relates to the cohesion between different system elements to support the pedagogical core.

In 2022, ACER partnered with a national education system to implement a major system transformation initiative focussing on five core areas: curriculum implementation, quality teaching, assessment processes and practices, educational leadership, and school and system school improvement.

Consequently, the overarching research questions were:

1. What are international benchmarks describing international good practice in the areas of this system’s focus focus?
2. How does the current state of the system compare to international best practice as identified international benchmarks?
3. What key strategic actions need to be undertaken to work toward international best practice?

We find ourselves at the beginning of what might become an exciting new era in the field of Educational Change. Andy Hargreaves and Dennis Shirley anticipated a new era, what they called a Fourth Way, that, “pushes beyond standardization, data-driven decision making, and target-obsessed distractions to forge an equal and interactive partnership among the people, the profession, and their government” (2009, p. 71). Many different stakeholders are now working in partnership to improve schools, including, among others, educators, university-affiliated researchers, parent groups, for-profit and charity organisations, and government agencies. This plurality of participants has helped a more diverse research landscape emerge. A welcomed departure from a technocratic model of evidence-based education, which narrowly assumed that, “the only relevant research questions [were] questions about the effectiveness of educational means and techniques” (Biesta, 2007, p. 5). Instead, researchers are developing new collaborative research strategies (Penuel et al., 2020) and refining working arrangements, such as Research Practice Partnerships (Coburn et al., 2021; Coburn & Penuel, 2016) and Networked Improvement Communities (Bryk et al., 2011; Russell et al., 2019), to support engagement between multiple stakeholders and build collective capacity for sustained improvement across large school systems (Fullan, 2010).

However, as Stephen Ball aptly points out, “policy works by accretion and sedimentation rather than revolution; new policies add to and overlay old ones, with the effect that new principles and innovations are merged and conflated with older rationales and previous practices” (Ball, 2021, p. 63). Festering just beneath the surface of this supposed collaborative landscape is a policy strata where accountability was, and in many areas, remains the cornerstone of education policy (Smith & Benavot, 2019). Dominant school improvement models emanating from this policy context have similar characteristics- they involve mandates for teachers in the form of prescribed practices and specified outcome targets, and involve routine standardized testing to support comparisons of student academic achievement across schools (Afdal & Afdal, 2019; Biesta, 2009; DeLuca & Johnson, 2017; Fuller et al., 2008; Jackson & Temperley, 2007; Taubman & Savona, 2009). Even in national contexts like England where schools appear to be gaining autonomy through networked governance (Goldsmith & Kettl, 2009), organizational replication reigns (Peurach & Glazer, 2012) as government agencies continue to steer education provision, albeit from a distance (Whitty & Wisby, 2016), resulting in “coercive autonomy” (Greany & Higham, 2018) and schools well within the “shadow of hierarchy” (Davies, 2011).

This presentation reports on findings from a Mixed Methods Social Network Analysis project that traced the activities of a teacher innovator as they scaled up their own educational improvement initiative from a single-school pilot into a thirty-school regional program. The research is part of a larger effort to explore how teacher-led educational change can thrive in contexts dominated by networked governance. Specifically, this research asks- How can classroom teachers repurpose School Improvement Networks to replicate their own improvement initiatives in schools?

In England, School Improvement Networks, or educational systems in which a central hub organization works with outlet schools to enact change (Peurach & Glazer, 2012), is becoming the predominant model for large-scale school improvement. For example, the Education Endowment Foundation’s (EEF) Research Schools Network and the Department for Education (DfE) curriculum hubs and Teaching School Hubs are all systems where a lead school connects with outlet schools across a region to deliver common approaches for learning and teaching. Furthermore, by 2030, all schools in England are expected to be members of Multi-academy Trusts (MATs), or networks of schools, sometimes with dozens of members, controlled by lead schools and early joiners. Teachers can repurpose the relational infrastructure of networked governance to lead large-scale school improvement initiatives.