Dynamics of change: The upper secondary schools’ responses to ministerial demands for change

Abstract

The emerging literature highlights a complex interaction of diverse actors and social structures influencing educational change. The aim of this paper is to shed light on the dynamics of change in upper secondary education in Iceland and understand how school leaders, on the one hand, and teachers, on the other, see themselves, and other educational actors in their schools, responding to the ministerial demand for change. The findings are based on interviews with 21 school leader and 22 teachers from nine upper secondary schools all over Iceland. The schools were selected on the basis of stratified sampling. The school leaders were also selected based on stratified sampling with regard to the schools’ hierarchical structures. The teachers were, however, randomly selected on the basis of classroom observation conducted in in the schools. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data (Braun and Clarke, 2006) and the main focus is on Coburn’s (2004) theoretical underpinnings. She identifies five types of response categories to macro demand for change. These categories are: 1) Rejection, which occurs when new ideas are dismissed within schools. 2) Decoupling, refers to symbolic change with no internal influences. 3) Parallel structure, where concurrent approaches are used to meet different forces and priorities within the schools. 4) Assimilation, which refers to situations where messages from the macro level are interoperated and transformed to fit with the existing understanding of educators. And finally, 5) accommodation, the deconstruction of existing understanding to charter new information, leading to major change in teaching practices. The data are also discussed in the light of ideas expounded by Ball et al. (2012) on policy implementation and policy enactment. The findings indicate that most of the responses discussed by the participants fall under Coburn’s (2004) categorisation. The data also brought about an additional sixth category named “pioneering”. The definition of pioneering is when newly established or recently transformed schools are designed around a specific vision and certain pedagogy led by the school leaders who are hired to design the school around new curricular ideas. Among the schools fitting the parallel structures in the study, at least two different nuances of the other categories were identified. There was not complete harmony between what the school leaders perceived and what was discussed by the teachers within the same schools. More inertia to change was observed in the teachers’ attitudes than among school leaders. The findings indicate the importance for school leaders, teachers and the Ministry of Education to be aware of the diverse ideas and different working cultures between and within the schools to understand the varying views and different dynamics within the schools. By understanding those dynamics, these stakeholders may become more competent to facilitate intended change and overcome the diverse obstacles they face in their everyday work.