ethanporcaro/eric-fulltext-meta huggingface dataset:
Framing Neoliberalism: A Content Analysis of Ley de Reforma Educativa de Puerto Rico
Author: Virella, Patricia M.
Date: 2023-05-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Educational Policy,Neoliberalism,Politics of Education,Educational Change,School Law,School Choice,Educational Vouchers,School Closing,Rhetoric,Charter Schools,Resistance to Change,Content Analysis,News Reporting,Newspapers

The American educational policy agenda has been fraught with neoliberal laws that center educational improvement and innovation (Barros, 2012). Neoliberalism operates on the premise that market competition will spur excellence in educational opportunities and decrease the education debt in marginalized communities (Fejes &amp; Salling Olesen, 2016). Moreover, in the case of urban education systemic reforms, researchers need to endeavor how marginalized communities relay their concerns or endorsements in the media. News articles are one appropriate unit of analysis for investigating this problem. In this paper, I examine how an education reform law in Puerto Rico, &quot;Ley de Reforma Educativa de Puerto Rico&quot; (LREPR), was reported on in the four most popular newspapers on the Island. Conducting content analysis of newspaper articles produced findings that contribute to the policy literature by describing three central frames found in the media coverage of LREPR: (a) rhetoric on the &quot;Free Selection of Schools&quot; school voucher program, (b) the effects of mass school closures on municipalities, and (c) rhetoric on Alianza Schools--Puerto Rico's Charter Schools Initiative. I close with how the frames depart from the Republican-leaning political affiliation of the newspapers and present a collective resistance to the neoliberal education reform policy.
Durability and Debate: How State-Level Policy Actors Frame School Choice
Author: Daramola, Eupha Jeanne
Date: 2023-06-06
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: State Policy,Educational Policy,School Choice,Educational Objectives,Educational Quality,Equal Education,Freedom,Cultural Pluralism,Educational Innovation,Policy Analysis,Parent Rights,Educational Opportunities,Educational Improvement

School choice policies have become a prominent feature of K-12 education in recent decades, reflecting the broader institutionalization of market-based political ideology in education. In this qualitative multiple case study, we draw on framing theory and interviews with 57 state-level education policy actors to explore the nature of the continued debate over school choice in five U.S. states. We find five patterns of framing choice as beneficial, centering around five purported goals-- quality, equity, liberty, plurality, and innovation--along with critiques of these frames. Our findings illustrate that despite the contested nature of these policies, the broad appeal and flexibility of &quot;choice&quot;' helps to explain its durability.
Taming the Time Zone: National Large-Scale Assessments as Instruments of Time in the Russian Federation
Author: Piattoeva, Nelli
Date: 2023-06-13
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Educational Assessment,Performance Technology,Governance,Exit Examinations,Compulsory Education,Educational Policy,Time,Educational Sociology

Nationwide large-scale assessments (NLSA)--an example of cross-border policy mobility--manifest a proliferating means of governing formal schooling. In the Russian context, NLSA takes the form of a compulsory graduation examination called the Unified State Examinations (USE). In this article, we explore how a mobile policy instrument of the NLSA participates in the relational processes of time- and space-making in a particular federated context of Russia, and how this process intertwines with and is shaped by the presence of multiple time zones. We argue that NLSA is an instrument of time that attempts to achieve centralization of the complex federated structure of the Russian Federation. Yet, the work of the NLSA is not a smooth process in a country characterized by territorial vastness, a complex federated structure, and the existence of multiple time zones. Guided by the theory of logistical power and sociological perspectives on time, as well as empirical insights, we show how the time zones need to be tamed in order for the NLSA to exercise its centralizing role. Discursively, the time zone is introduced and publicly discussed to symbolically characterize Russia and justify political actions or their outcomes. Bureaucratically, the desire for simultaneity and synchronicity takes the form of a meticulous ordering of a sequence of actions through prescriptive documentation that regulates the NLSA. Technologically, synchronicity, simultaneity, and instantaneousness rely on and engender an expanding national infrastructure that mediates social relations and the processes of conducting the NLSA, cutting across the time zones and federal units. Based on this analysis, we propose that scholarship on policy mobility and education policy sociology at large could benefit from examining the relationship between time and education policy and governance in four intertwined ways: the time of policy, context as time, policy instruments as instruments of time, and time in policy instruments.
Regional Policy Trajectories in the Spanish Education System: Different Uses of Relative Autonomy
Author: Bonal, Xavier
Date: 2023-06-13
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Educational Policy,Governance,Educational Change,Privatization,Political Influences,Competition,Conflict,Institutional Autonomy

Federal and highly decentralized political systems open different spaces to interpret, adapt, and enact international policy trends and ideas within the same territory. Spain, a country with a highly decentralized educational system and contentious territorial politics, is a very suitable case to analyze these dynamics. Spain and its different regions have not been immune to the influence of global policy ideas that gear around promoting private provision, school choice, and New Public Management (NPM) in education. However, the consolidation of the decentralization project, together with the fact that many regional governments have aimed to construct, for a variety of reasons, singular political profiles, have resulted in markedly different policy trajectories. To show this, this article pays particular attention to recent changes in the educational governance arrangements of two important Spanish regions, Madrid and Catalonia, as they have gone through differentiated processes of educational reform. Albeit the two regional education systems share important features (such as a historical and wide-scale public-private partnership for school provision), they have engaged with, combined, and mobilized exogenous and endogenous privatization policy ideas in remarkably different ways. The article delves into the political drivers behind this policy differentiation process by paying special attention to the relations of coordination, conflict, and competition that prevail within an incomplete federal system, such as the Spanish one.
An Evidence-Based Approach to Employability Curricula and Transferable Skill Development: A Mixed Methods Study
Author: Gouda-Vossos, Amany
Date: 2023-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Evidence Based Practice,Student Attitudes,STEM Education,Employment Potential,Futures (of Society),Capstone Experiences,Gender Differences,Career Development,Academic Persistence,Education Work Relationship,Outcomes of Education,Undergraduate Students,Transfer of Training,Self Efficacy,Employment Opportunities,Intervention,Elective Courses

Within Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), there is cross cultural evidence of gaps in transferrable skills between new graduates' capabilities and employers' expectations. These gaps hinder graduates' ability to obtain employment. Herein we report the impact of an evidence-based approach to closing skills gaps in senior STEM students based on their self-perceived employability. A capstone-style, for-credit elective module was developed for STEM students based on the skills gaps found in prior research. The impact of this intervention was measured utilising a mixed-method design. Students' self-perceived employability pre- and post- module completion were measured, along with postmodule reflections collected via a series of open-ended questions. Overall, the module had a positive impact on student self-perceived employability, with the greatest impact in the areas of 'awareness of opportunity', 'perceptions of future success', and 'confidence in skills'. A post hoc analysis indicated significant increases in post-module completion 'confidence in skills' for women, an important insight given the gender-based issues in career progress and retention in STEM. The qualitative analysis suggested that students highly valued the opportunity to develop job application and transferable skills. The results are discussed in the light of the importance of evidence-based, curriculum-embedded interventions in guiding students to employment.
A Pilot Study of Transdisciplinary Graduate Capabilities, Interpersonal Communication, and Technical Competence: Bachelor of Applied Information Technology and Master of Social Work Student Partnership
Author: Gallagher, Hilary
Date: 2023-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Interdisciplinary Approach,Graduate Study,Graduate Students,Interpersonal Communication,Competence,Bachelors Degrees,Information Technology,Masters Programs,Social Work,Partnerships in Education,Foreign Countries,Educational Change,Teaching Methods,Cooperative Learning,Active Learning,Problem Solving

Academics at Griffith university envisioned a complementary learning and supportive relationship could be developed between Bachelor of Information Technology (BAIT) students and Master of Social Work (MSW) students. Discussions between discipline specific staff highlighted that each discipline had strengths and expertise that could assist students to overcome challenges brought about by systemic changes in tertiary education, gaps in skillsets and curriculum, and workforce expectations. Pressures included students attending university from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, the increasing importance of information technology (IT) in the classroom and workplace, as well as the requirement to communicate effectively across a range of disciplines. Working, interacting, and communicating effectively in cross-discipline and culturally diverse environments is a requisite for all graduates, however academics found there were few opportunities for students to partner across disciplinary silos. Staff from both disciplines collaborated to develop a conversational pedagogical framework to underpin a pilot program to support peer learning, using active problem-based learning with IT and social work students. The pilot program evidenced a complementary transdisciplinary, learning partnership and enabled students from IT to help students from social work develop IT skills, while social work students assisted IT students to become more confident in their interpersonal communication skills.
Imagining &quot;National&quot; Funding in the Australian Federation: The Gonski Review and the Schooling Resource Standard
Author: Di Gregorio, Elisa
Date: 2023-06-13
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Educational Finance,Federal Aid,Financial Policy,Needs,Governance,Educational Policy

This paper takes the landmark review into the federal funding of schools in Australia, known as the Gonski Review (2011), as an illustrative case to demonstrate the scalar practices involved in policy production and enactment. Its primary argument is that, while its core recommendation was a needs-based funding model for the federal government funding of schools, the Gonski Review also articulates an aspiration for the translation of this funding model into a comprehensively national approach. This is done, I argue, through important practices of scalar imagining and reasoning (Papanastasiou, 2017b). However, these national aspirations sit uneasily with the realities of schooling and school funding in the Australian federation, which includes constitutional arrangements, legislation, and policy principles that distribute responsibility for funding across multiple spaces of governance. Drawing on documentary evidence, I argue that scalar tensions are produced between these national aspirations and the realpolitik of Australian federalism. By challenging &quot;the national&quot; as a coherent and predetermined &quot;scale,&quot; these findings reinforce the importance of attending to the mediating forces of subnational governments, as well as global policy influences, when thinking about policy mobilities in federations.
Assessment Strategies in Online Learning Environments during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Oman
Author: Al-Maqbali, Asma Hilal
Date: 2023-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,COVID-19,Pandemics,Online Courses,Educational Technology,Student Evaluation,Computer Assisted Testing,College Faculty,Evaluation Methods,School Closing,Alternative Assessment

The shift to successful online learning requires online assessment strategies that could facilitate the learning and teaching process and determine the achievement of learning outcomes. This study examined how students' achievement was assessed in an online learning environment during the COVID-19 pandemic and how the College of Education (COE) responded to the shift to online assessment strategies. A mixed-method design using questionnaires and interviews was conducted to collect data from academic staff at COE at Sultan Qaboos University. The study sample consisted of (n=60) academic staff who agreed to answer the research questionnaire. Moreover, the researchers interviewed four academic staff who were experts in online assessment and teachers of practical courses. The interview data were analysed and corroborated with evidence from documents issued by the COE and SQU. The study's findings showed that the academic staff applied various online assessment strategies to measure the learners' achievement. The most applied online assessment strategies were individual projects, presentations, online discussions, and written assignments. The study also found that the COE took measures to enhance its online assessment procedures, including developing an online assessment policy, providing professional development programs, workshops and webinars, and encouraging its staff to conduct further studies to improve online learning practices. Based on the findings, the study suggested some educational implications and recommendations.
Analyzing (and Comparing) Policy Mobilities in Federal Education Systems: Potentials of a Topological Lens
Author: Hartong, Sigrid
Date: 2023-06-13
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Educational Policy,Policy Analysis,Topology,Policy Formation,Educational Change,Heuristics,Foreign Countries,Public Policy,COVID-19,Pandemics

This contribution takes up and discusses topology as a relational approach to better understand and empirically trace policy mobilities in federal education systems. While topology echoes other relational approaches in its simultaneous focus on ongoing change and the &quot;making&quot; of stabilized forms (e.g., policy scales), it also brings attention to facets of policy mobility research that other approaches have, at least so far, considered to a much lesser extent. Such facets include the systematic integration of a &quot;temporal dimension&quot; (e.g., rhythms of scale- or policy-making) as well as the consideration of &quot;digital/data space-times.&quot; Equally, topology reminds us that policy itself is increasingly becoming &quot;topological&quot;--that is to say, policy-making is increasingly ruled by movement spaces, logics of connectedness, and capacities for change, instead of formal authority, position, or transmission. Integrating these different dimensions into a heuristic framework, we illuminate what we see differently when applying a topological lens to policy mobility analysis in federal education systems, using the example of German education policies since the 2000s, particularly transformations induced by the ongoing pandemic, as a case study.
Toward Ensuring the Equitable Allocation of Federal Funding: An Analysis of Hispanic-Serving Institutions&apos; Pursuit and Receipt of Title V Grants
Author: Aguilar-Smith, Stephanie
Date: 2023-05-23
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Equal Education,Resource Allocation,Hispanic American Students,Minority Serving Institutions,Educational Legislation,Federal Legislation,Higher Education,Grants,Capacity Building,Educational Finance,Educational Policy,Competition,Eligibility,Financial Aid Applicants

Despite Hispanic-serving institutions' (HSIs) growing number and ongoing institutional diversification, appropriations to Title V, capacity-building grants, has plateaued. Considering these trends, we constructed a unique dataset of Title V non-applicants, applicants, and recipients from 2009-2017 to examine how equitably these federal funds were allocated across HSIs. Through our analytic modeling, we examined HSIs' pursuit and receipt of these grants, finding that HSIs with large, Latinx enrollments are much more likely to secure funding. Although the distribution of these grants is more uniform across institutional characteristics than suggested in previous studies, we identify several opportunities to improve the equitable allocation of this public resource.
Policy Mobilities in Federal Systems: The Case of Proyecta tu Futuro, a Social Impact Bond for Education and Employment in the City of Buenos Aires
Author: Esper, Tomás
Date: 2023-06-13
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Employment,Policy Analysis,Public Policy,Foreign Countries,Public Sector,Private Sector,Cooperation,Efficiency,Laws,Educational Policy,Educational Finance,Networks,Governance,Barriers,Entrepreneurship,Political Influences,Local Government,Youth Programs

Global policy mobilities have been studied predominantly at the national level of education, but their implications and effects at the subnational level have been disregarded. This paper analyzes Proyectá tu Futuro, the first social impact bond (SIB) for education and employability implemented in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Since 2010, SIBs have become a booming type of policy, rapidly traveling and being adopted across countries and policy spheres. SIBs aim to align the incentives of the private sector--the third sector--and the public sector to obtain results while improving public-policy efficiency. However, often it is policy entrepreneurs' agendas and not results or efficiency goals that trigger SIBs' adoption. In this study, we analyze the diffusion of SIBs as policy mobilities and the processes of adoption and translation in the context of Buenos Aires. To this end, we draw on an analysis of policy documents, existing legal frameworks, and interviews with key actors. Our findings point to the role of &quot;glocal&quot; policy entrepreneurs as key agents for the adoption and translation of SIBs, as well as their capacity to advance their own agendas in the context of global policy mobilities in federal education systems.
Developing Researcher Identity through the PhD Confirmation
Author: Heron, Marion
Date: 2023-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Doctoral Programs,Doctoral Students,Professional Identity,Researchers,Student Attitudes,Peer Relationship,Supervisors,Supervisor Supervisee Relationship,Foreign Students,Intellectual Disciplines

The PhD confirmation, or upgrade stage, is a key requirement and rite of passage for most doctoral students. Yet despite its significance and high-stakes nature, little attention has been paid to students' experiences of this stage of the PhD journey and how it influences the development of their researcher identity. Through semi-structured interviews with PhD students from a range of disciplines who had recently successfully completed the confirmation stage, we found that for many the confirmation stage was a catalyst for 'feeling' like a researcher through external validation, recognition and legitimacy. Students also developed their researcher identity through talking about their research with significant others. We argue for recognising the pivotal role the confirmation stage plays in developing doctoral students' researcher identity and offer suggestions on how supervisors and researcher developers can support students through this transition.
Exploring Faculty Mindsets in Equity-Oriented Assessment
Author: Elkhoury, Eliana
Date: 2023-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Equal Education,Student Evaluation,COVID-19,Pandemics,College Faculty,Teacher Attitudes,Online Courses,Instructional Design

The COVID-19 pandemic and the resultant move to remote learning in 2020-2021 paved the way for deeper conversations about assessment practices in higher education. Over the last two years, there have been an increasing number of discussions about alternative assessments and about equity in assessment. This study examined the impact of a course (entitled &quot;Equity in Assessment&quot;) delivered by the authors on the participants' understandings of equity and assessment. We used semi-structured interviews to collect data from the participants. Data collected from six interviews were systematically and thematically analysed in line with Braun and Clarke's (2006) six stages of conducting thematic analyses. The data analysis resulted in three main emergent themes: flexibility, academic rigour, and wellness. The implications of the findings of this project are important for educational developers, institutional leadership, and researchers.
Regionalization and Policy Mobilities in Comparative Perspective: Composing Educational Assemblages in Quasi-Federal Polities
Author: Jules, Tavis D.
Date: 2023-06-13
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Educational Policy,Policy Formation,Policy Analysis,Politics of Education,Foreign Countries,Educational Change,Discourse Analysis

We employ a policy assemblage, mobilities, and mutations framework to analyze the geographies that constitute and reflect educational policy circulation at the regional or supranational level in trans-regional regimes and/or quasi-federal polities such as the European Union (EU) and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). Recognizing that policies are mobile in a fragmentary fashion as they are re/dis/assembled in specific ways, places, and purposes, we move beyond methodological nationalism and pay attention to the make-up of policies as they are in motion and the places they affect. In other words, using the trans-regional and/or quasifederal level, we juxtapose the tensions between policy as fixed, territorial, or place-specific against the dynamic, regional, and relational policy elements. Methodologically, we use a comparative federalist lens to trace and examine the distillation, translation, and mobilization of education policy across and between quasi-federal polities. In this sense, epistemologically, we further explicate the manner in which such policy instruments move across the various interconnected units and sites composing these federal-type entities, while (re)territorializing and deterritorializing what we construe as complex educational assemblages. We show that contra to the extant literature, in Europe/EU and the Caribbean/CARICOM, movement, and mobility involves the connectivity between policymaking sites, and policies arrive at their destination in the same form as they appeared elsewhere, allowing for forms of discursive isomorphism.