D. Brent Edwards

Social Justice Leadership and Family Engagement A Successful Case From Ciudad Juárez, Mexico

Research Approach: This in-depth qualitative case study explores one school leader’s enactment of social justice leadership in an elementary school in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. Analysis of interviews and observations revealed how this leader adapted her leadership to prioritize the severe needs of families and students in one of the world’s most violent cities. Findings: The article describes how the leader made sense of the community and its needs. Then, it examines how the leader enacted social justice leadership by addressing the out-of-school challenges that affected student achievement and well-being. Consequently, the leader’s focus shifted toward meaningful family engagement through adult education, community advocacy, and critical questioning of the status quo. Implications: Implications for future research, theory, and administrator preparation programs are presented at the conclusion of the article.

The global education policy of school-based management in conflict-affected contexts: Current reach, prominent rationales, and future research

For those who focus on the role of education in international development, the approach to education governance of school-based management (SBM) has been the primary means by which the participation of community members has been incorporated into the provision of education. However, while SBM is a well-known approach to governance that has become a global education policy, in that it is widely promoted, adapted, and implemented, a trend that stands out—and which is addressed in this paper—is the use of, and reference to, SBM in work on conflict-affected contexts (CACs). Indeed, there has been insufficient attention directed at understanding how SBM is advocated in these contexts. Our intention is to use the present paper as a point of departure for further discussion on issues that arise in relation to the intersection of SBM and CACs. With that in mind, we seek to characterize the extent to which international organizations espouse support for SBM, particularly when it comes to its applicability in CACs; to review the rationales that are invoked in favor of this governance model, again with a focus on CACs; and to highlight important areas for future research.

The Case of EDUCO: Political-Economic Constraints and Organizational Dynamics

This chapter transitions to the empirical of focus in this book, that is, the case of the Education with Community Participation (EDUCO) program. The first section addresses the structural context that characterized El Salvador prior to the emergence of this program, in order to understand the larger enabling and constraining factors that affected this policy’s origins and trajectory. The second section then turns to characterize the organizational and strategic relational dynamics that would not only influence EDUCO’s evolution but which are also necessary to understand in order to grasp later in this book how and why EDUCO itself has been so influential. In ways that are discussed, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the World Bank, and the United Nations Education, Science, and Culture Organization (UNESCO) were integral to the case of EDUCO.

A Political Economy Perspective on Knowledge Production

This chapter delineates what it means to bring a political economy lens to the issue of knowledge production within the field of global education policy. In addition to characterizing this perspective generally, this chapter addresses knowledge production in relation to the World Bank, one of the most influential knowledge-producing organizations in this field and the organization at the center of the empirical case presented in this book. Both the material and ideational dimensions of the World Bank’s influence are discussed. Beyond these issues, this chapter also (a) defines and characterizes impact evaluation; (b) discusses the purpose, argument, and contribution of this book; (c) provides background information on the policy case from El Salvador that serves as the book’s empirical basis; and (d) situates this book in relation to previous work by the author.

Situating a Critical Review of Impact Evaluations Within the Political Economy of Global Education Reform: Definition and Method

This chapter addresses issues of definition and method. The first section takes on the challenge of defining what it means to conduct a critical review of impact evaluations within the political economy of global education reform. As discussed, one must go beyond a critical evaluation of the findings of impact evaluations and beyond a critical appraisal of the production of impact evaluations to also consider the role that impact evaluations play, once produced, in the field of global education policy. Considering this role means examining their influence at the level of policymaking processes, organizational agendas, personal careers, and discursive context, among others. The latter sections of this chapter suggest methods that can be used to put this approach to critical review into practice. The specifics of how these methods were employed in the policy case from El Salvador (the focus of Chaps. 4, 5, and 6) are also detailed.

Impact Evaluations: Persistent Limitations, Alternative Approaches, Possible Responses

This chapter addresses how the studies reviewed in this manuscript are generally problematic for two reasons that go beyond their specific findings. The first problem is the econometric nature of the studies, while the second is the political-financial-intellectual complex from which these studies were borne and back into which they went as they furthered the interests of that complex. In addition to discussing these issues, this chapter focuses on how the combination of these issues contributes to relations of dependence between international researchers with expertise in these methods and their counterparts in low- and middle-income countries. In response to this situation, alternative methodological approaches are advocated. A number of suggestions are also made for addressing the political-economic challenges that confront knowledge production in the field of global education policy.

Reconsidering the EDUCO Program and the Influence of Its Impact Evaluations

This chapter accomplishes two tasks. First, it reevaluates what is known about the Education with Community Participation (EDUCO) program in light of the critical review provided in Chap. 5. Second, it reconsiders the influence of the impact evaluations of EDUCO in terms of national and international implications. Not only did these studies provide justification for scaling up EDUCO within El Salvador, but, internationally, they changed how international organizations and development professionals thought about decentralization and provided a basis from which these organizations and individuals could promote an extreme form of community-based management (one where parents are responsible for hiring and firing teachers, among other things). Crucially, it is also shown that, due to the knowledge base that has been created by the World Bank in the form of impact evaluations, EDUCO has taken on a life of its own and continues to live on in the literature on decentralization as well as school- and community-based management.

Critically Understanding Impact Evaluations: Technical, Methodological, Organizational, and Political Issues

It is crucial that scholars, but also policymakers and practitioners, have a critical understanding of the conceptual and technical limitations of impact evaluations, as well as the ways that they are necessarily affected by organizational and political dynamics. In order to achieve a critical understanding of impact evaluations, this chapter directs its attention toward both their most common form—regression analysis—as well as the form that is seen to be more robust, that is, randomized control trials (RCTs). The methodological assumptions of each of these are discussed, first, in conceptual terms before moving on to a review of some more technical issues. The final section of the chapter turns to a consideration of how the production of impact evaluations is affected by organizational and political dynamics. In all, this chapter advocates a critical understanding of impact evaluations in five senses: conceptually, technically, contextually, organizationally, and politically.

Impact Evaluations of EDUCO: A Critical Review

Despite the excitement around the Education with Community Participation (EDUCO) program during the early 1990s as it was being scaled up, the Ministry of Education and the representatives of the World Bank knew that they would need solid evidence which demonstrated that the program produced beneficial outcomes in order (a) to continue to promote the program as a central policy for education reform in El Salvador and (b) to be able to credibly promote the program internationally as a best practice. It was in this context of excitement and determination that the World Bank began to carry out evaluations of EDUCO. With this in mind, this chapter critically reviews six key studies that were carried out between 1994 and 2005 by the World Bank on the EDUCO program. These six studies are included here for critical review because they represent each of the studies that were produced as impact evaluations, all of which were generated by the World Bank. They represent the entire body of “legitimate” and “policy-relevant” knowledge that was created in order to evaluate whether the program worked by identifying the effects of the EDUCO intervention.