Competing Contexts: How Principals Adapt Policy to School Realities

• In Event: Moscone Center West Roundtable Session 14
  In Roundtable Session: Evidence on Cross-Sector Partnerships, Improvement, and Adaptation

Abstract

This study examines how local school context shapes policy enactment and its implications for the scaling up of educational initiatives. We analyzed principals' considerations and priorities in their enactment of an Israeli educational initiative that has been rapidly scaled up over the past five years in two large districts, focusing on their adaptation of the initiative’s resources and structures to their school’s circumstances and needs. We collected over 110 interviews with school staff and district management, among them 45 interviews with principals. Our findings suggest that although the initiative itself afforded principals the freedom to address their school’s context, other actors exerted external pressures and demands that shaped principals’ adaptations, resulting in enactments that were incompatible with the initiative’s principles.

Authors

• Tali Aderet-German, Aalborg University

• Hilla Tal, Israeli Ministry of Education

• Adam Lefstein, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

• Noga Knoller, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev