José Weinstein

Getting Lost in Translation: An Analysis of the International Engagement of Practitioners and Policy Makers with the Educational Effectiveness Research Base

Educational effectiveness research (EER) has accumulated much knowledge in the areas of school effectiveness research (SER), teacher effectiveness research (TER) and school/system improvement research (SSIR). Yet many schools and educational systems are not making enough use of the material and their insights. The article reviews evidence of practitioner engagement and finds it limited in the areas of SER, greater in the area of TER and most prevalent in SSIR. Policy-maker engagement has been notable in some countries, but more limited in others. The article concludes by arguing for a new paradigm of EER that studies multiple levels of the educational system simultaneously utilising multiple methods and involves practitioners and policy-makers in a true EER community of expertise, in order to increase the reach and take-up of the discipline.

School Leadership in Chile: Breaking the Inertia

Chile’s school leadership is in the midst of a difficult transition in which principals must face new demands and implement innovative practices even though they lack the legal powers and training to do so properly. The search for school leadership is part of a more far-reaching push for decentralization and greater accountability of schools that would grant principals a more central role. The purpose of this chapter is to describe the tensions of this developing movement in regard to the principals’ position, actual leadership practices, and existing opportunities for training. The text also offers suggestions for educational policy that could favor the proper channeling of this transformative force. The content of the chapter is based on available statistics and intensive use of the results of a national research project that its authors are directing. Given the singular importance of the private sector in education in Chile – enrollment in private and private subsidized schools is higher than that of public schools – special attention is paid to the implications of these institutional management conditions for the exercise of leadership.

Relational trust and positional power between school principals and teachers in Chile: A study of primary schools

The article analyses the trust relationship between principals and teachers in primary schools in the specific Chilean educational context. The analysis is based on the concept of school trust, emphasizing Bryk and Tschannen-Moran’s classic works. A mixed sequential quantitative–qualitative research methodology is used, including both a survey and a qualitative case study carried out in nine schools. The main results, include: principals and teachers take a different approach when forging trust they have in one another. While principals confer this trust, teachers earn it. Likewise, principals mainly set the tone, intensity and scope of the trust relationship; principals are more critical of teachers, mainly questioning certain aspects of their professional skills. Conversely, teachers normally base trust on more personal matters; individual traits of both principals and teachers have little impact on their relational trust, the exception being the number of years teachers have been on the job. While for teachers there are hardly any differences (and this changes only when it comes to the prevailing principal’s leadership), among principals, differences emerge from schools’ size, socio-economic level and public or private status; and a final discussion propounds the importance of the educational context when analysing trust relationships and positional power in schools.

La direction pédagogique des chefs d’établissement, un défi à relever. Le cas du Chili

Le role des chefs d’etablissements scolaires au Chili a subi de fortes modifications ces dernieres annees. Autrefois charges de la mise en œuvre des politiques nationales, ils sont desormais responsables educatifs des communautes scolaires dont ils ont la charge. Cet article montre comment ce processus a eu lieu et dans quelle mesure les definitions legales et administratives ont precede le changement dans les pratiques de direction d’etablissement. L’article met egalement en evidence le caractere complexe de ces processus de changement, dans un systeme ou les etablissements scolaires relevent majoritairement du prive subventionne. Enfin, les auteurs indiquent les principaux defis a relever, tels que l’amelioration du statut de directeur ou le controle de la qualite de l’offre de formation, pour qu’effectivement les chefs d’etablissement soient a la hauteur de la mission dont le systeme scolaire les a investis et des fortes attentes qui en decoulent.