Donovan Et Al (2020) Curriculum, Schooling and Applied Research

PALGRAVE STUDIES IN
EDUCATION RESEARCH METHODS
Curriculum, Schooling
and Applied Research
Challenges and Tensions
for Researchers
Edited by
Jennifer Donovan
Karen Trimmer
Nicholas Flegg
Palgrave Studies in Education Research Methods
Series Editors
Patrick Alan Danaher
University of Southern Queensland
Toowoomba, QLD, Australia
Fred Dervin
University of Helsinki
Helsinki, Finland
Caroline Dyer
School of Politics and International Studies
University of Leeds
Leeds, UK
Máirín Kenny
Independent researcher
Wexford, Ireland
Bobby Harreveld
School of Education and the Arts
Central Queensland University
Rockhampton, Australia
Michael Singh
Centre for Educational Research
Western Sydney University
Penrith, NSW, Australia
This series explores contemporary manifestations of the fundamental
paradox that lies at the heart of education: that education contributes
to the creation of economic and social divisions and the perpetuation
of sociocultural marginalisation, while also providing opportunities
for individual empowerment and social transformation. In exploring
this paradox, the series investigates potential alternatives to current
educational provision and speculates on more enabling and inclusive
educational futures for individuals, communities, nations and the
planet. Specific developments and innovation in teaching and learning,
educational policy-making and education research are analysed against
the backdrop of these broader developments and issues.
More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/15092
Jennifer Donovan
Karen Trimmer
Nicholas Flegg
Editors
Curriculum,
Schooling and
Applied Research
Challenges and Tensions
for Researchers
Editors
Jennifer Donovan Karen Trimmer
School of Education Faculty of Business, Law, Education & Arts
University of Southern Queensland University of Southern Queensland
Toowoomba, Australia Toowoomba, Australia
Nicholas Flegg
School of Education
University of Southern Queensland
Toowoomba, Australia
ISSN 2662-7345 ISSN 2662-7353 (electronic)

Palgrave Studies in Education Research Methods
ISBN 978-3-030-48821-5 ISBN 978-3-030-48822-2 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48822-2
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Jenny, your voice will be heard
Foreword
eflections about Conducting Research

R
in Teacher’s Science Classrooms
My experiences conducting research with science teachers and their stu-
dents in schools mirror many of the challenges and tensions of these well-
articulated scenarios reported by the editors and chapter authors of this
book. I can relate well to many of the topics—or should I state the issues
behind the topics—in this volume such as the need to develop and main-
tain effective dialogue between researchers and school personnel, the care
needed to effectively introduce innovative teaching methods into the
school curriculum, the need to understand the often invisible (to an out-
sider) politics of the school system and the politics of the individual
school, and the need to have a flexible curriculum so that science topics
that excite and interest young children can be taught in the school cur-
riculum. In this foreword, I illustrate how I recognise the challenges and
tensions of conducting research in schools from my own experiences and
comment on similar issues raised by several chapter authors.
vii
viii Foreword
Gaining Access
At one level, access to conduct research in schools is becoming increas-
ingly difficult for researchers. There are many reasons for this—the edu-
cational jurisdictions need to ensure that the proposed investigations will
benefit the schools, the students and teachers involved in the research,
that the time involved is not a distraction from teaching and learning of
the regular curriculum and that all ethical issues have been carefully con-
sidered. Once these aspects have been satisfactorily attended to, the real
communications and negotiations can begin with the school principals
and teachers. These communications are generally very accommodating
and the mutual respect between researchers and teachers in being involved
in the research project is evident. The teachers willing to engage in the
research project are keen to see that their students can improve their
learning of the science topics or enhance their attitudes to science. A key
element to commence and conduct the research is the need to collect all
permissions from the teachers, parents and students. Often this goes
smoothly, but in a recent study, in one school where we have had permis-
sion to conduct research from the school principal and teachers, a major-
ity of parents of students in some classes did not return the permission
slips. While the teachers can carry out the intended new teaching ideas to
benefit the students (which they did), the researchers cannot ethically
collect any data in the form of completed questionnaires or interviews
from those students whose parents did not sign and return the permis-
sions forms. In this situation, we may have been successful in helping the
teachers introduce different ways of teaching an aspect of the science cur-
riculum in their lessons for improved learning outcomes, but as research-
ers we were not able to collect sufficient data to be able to assess the
effectiveness of the teacher intervention.
Schools Participation in the Research

Some years ago, as the main investigator on a research grant, we sought
to work with science teachers to enhance secondary students’ metacogni-
tive capacities to use different ways to explain scientific concepts. We
Foreword ix
provided the teachers with a range of strategies within a teaching/learning

sequence. Unfortunately, for various reasons which I will describe, the
research project was not successful in achieving the intended outcomes.
We approached two educational jurisdictions who supported the research.
For each educational jurisdiction, one school was recommended that
would benefit from the research and improve the academic outcomes of
their students. We had enthusiastic support from the school principals
and the heads of science. Subsequently, as part of the planning for this
grant, we worked with science staff in the two schools to find out what
topics of the science curriculum they would like to improve their teach-
ing and student learning outcomes. We conducted short workshops in
each school to demonstrate the kinds of academic and affective changes
the teachers could make to their teaching so that students might have
greater success in their science learning. The research involved the science
teachers in a teaching/learning intervention to explain science phenom-
ena using diagrams and models and, for example in chemistry, to show
the relationship between macro and micro forms and symbols in chemi-
cal reactions.
Teachers were also to teach students how to use metacognitive strate-
gies which were assessed by a pencil and paper instrument and small
group interviews. We agreed to work collaboratively with the science
teachers to focus on student engagement and understanding in their
classroom to improve student outcomes in science. Initially we worked
with individual science teachers to increase their awareness of common
student difficulties and alternative conceptions and we engaged in some
co-teaching when agreed by the teachers. To ensure the program could be
effective we also provided resources, materials and assessment tools to
increase teacher effectiveness to facilitate student learning.
Despite agreement by the teachers to participate and as stated above
with much support from each head of the science department and school
principal, any consistent changes in teaching along the lines of the inter-
vention were not sustained by most of the teachers during the year. The
task of implementing the lessons, even with one of the research team
being available to help with materials support, analyse tests and provide
feedback the next day appeared to be difficult for the teachers to use with
their student groups across topics.
x Foreword
Some of the problems could be that the researchers had too high a level
of expectation of how the teachers may teach these lessons. However, we
had much experience working with science teachers on different projects.
Several years earlier we had conducted successful research in one of the
schools but with different teachers. Consequently, we were aware of how
to introduce ideas to teachers as part of an intervention and worked
around the teachers’ schedules. In the next paragraph I offer some analy-
sis and explanations for the outcomes which became part of our critique
of our research presented at the 2010 meeting of the Australasian Science
Education Research Association, entitled “Why does research in schools
not change the practice of science teachers?” Perhaps such a title was
overstated but it provided an avenue for discussion based on our work
more than a decade ago and fits very well with the many of the issues
about challenges and tensions for researchers that are raised in the chap-
ters of this book. So, the topics in this book remain current concerns for
researchers conducting research with teachers and students in schools.
Invisible Tensions
While the heads of science and school principals in both schools were
very supportive of the science programs that we had helped the teachers
develop, our initial observation working with the teachers in these two
schools was that the schools’ teaching programs in science appeared to
lack coherency. In school A, while there was positive support of the sci-
ence staff during one semester for a genetics topic, several of the science
staff became less inclined to work directly with the researchers over the
year although the head teacher did maintain enthusiasm. In school B,
individually, most teachers showed strong interest and were keen to
ensure that the interventions were successful. A very positive beginning
was that several teachers came to Curtin University in the school holidays
to develop their teaching programs along the lines of our initial work-
shop. However, as a result of industrial action organised by the Teachers
Union during the year over a pay dispute after we commenced the study,
there were problems to find adequate meeting times with the teachers.
Essentially, these meeting times had to be either allocated as hours of
Foreword xi
professional development and/or at lunchtimes so there were lost oppor-

tunities to discuss events as they occurred.
Nevertheless, several teachers in both schools participated in enacting
metacognitive skills in a comprehensive way for a series of lessons. Some
teachers recognised what changes they could and should make to their
teaching to enhance students’ metacognitive capabilities using different
types of explanations and for some topics were pleased with results.
However, other teachers made little attempt to change their teaching
despite the data from tests and instruments administered to their stu-
dents showing what these changes could be.
What We Learned
We attempted to help teachers develop relevant teaching materials such
as designed lesson plans about the particulate nature of matter or genetics
and a pencil and paper test about metacognition that could be used to
guide student learning. However, despite their willingness, some teachers
clearly were not comfortable with researchers in their classrooms. Even
some teachers interested in improving their practice seemed to not change
their practice based on responses from students. During the project, there
were only a few clear and convincing sources of evidence where teaching
and learning improved as a consequence of the research with science
teachers in these two schools.
However, we learned many things about working with educational
jurisdictions, schools and teachers. Teachers do not necessarily accept
support to change their teaching to improve student learning when the
decision to conduct research is agreed by the school principal and head of
science. At the outset, these decisions need to include those teachers who
will be involved; we suspect that the latter was not the case in these two
schools. Despite having a research assistant in the classroom who was an
experienced senior teacher with a recent PhD degree, we underestimated
the sense of threat of our presence in several of the teachers’ science class-
rooms so much so that in school B I decided not to attend some teachers’
lessons.
xii Foreword
We overestimated several aspects about the teachers—the coherence of

their teaching programs and the extent of their willingness to participate
as verbally agreed. Also we may have overestimated the extent of new
ideas in the intervention and our appraisal of the teachers’ backgrounds
and instructional competences to incorporate these new ideas. Despite
previous experiences working in schools over several decades, we also may
have underestimated the amount of time needed to engage the teachers.
Furthermore, in school A the climate created with the industrial action
did not allow for effective engagement in the form of professional devel-
opment during the teaching intervention. Conducting research in schools
can also have unexpected outcomes. As stated earlier, we were unsuccess-
ful in achieving the aims of the research for several of the reasons pro-
vided. However, six months after the completion of the project, the
principal from school A contacted me to state that the school science
teaching programs had improved thanks to our involvement. The level of
change had been noticed by the head of science but not by the researchers
who no longer were going to the school.
Links to the Chapters
Gaining Access: One cannot conduct research in schools without adequate
ethics clearance that includes signed parental permission slips. Jennifer
Donovan in Chap. 1 experienced difficulties getting permission slips
returned from parents which was resolved by having the principal trans-
late the information sheet into parent-friendly language. In our case, the
issue appeared to be that the students did not see the point of the permis-
sions and so did not adequately communicate with their parents the
importance of signing and returning the permission forms.
Who Benefits? One of the outcomes of conducting research in schools
is the consideration for whom the findings benefit. This is one of the
reasons for the rigorous vetting of educational research proposals by edu-
cational jurisdictions. Rasmussen and Andreasen in Chap. 5 explain that
the findings from research and innovation conducted in Danish schools
tends to be for authorities and stakeholders to make decisions rather than
for the schools and teachers. Similarly, Harris and Danaher in Chap. 10
Foreword xiii
comment on the tensions and contradictions with colleagues and stake-

holders when putting research-based ideas into practice. Upon reflection
I wonder if the teachers in the two schools with whom we worked, were
not invited but were told by the school principals to participate in the
study. I mentioned that in school A we had successful engagement con-
ducting research with teachers some years ago. However, this was at a
time when the researcher would approach teachers about a study; if the
teachers agreed and this was supported by the head of science and the
school principal, the research applications were made to the educational
jurisdictions, and of course to the university research office. So at the
outset the individual teachers had a vested interest in the success of the
project.
Invisible and Visible Tensions. In discussion about the innovation policy
for promoting school improvement strategies at the local level by the
French Ministry of Education, Normand in Chap. 2 identifies many ten-
sions within the different organisation levels of schooling. I suspect many
of these tensions are evident in educational jurisdictions in other coun-
tries. Normand emphasises the point that French primary teachers con-
sidered that national assessments or booklets about neuroscience to
explain ways to improve students’ reading and writing were far removed
from and did not fit their daily teaching. Having read this chapter, I won-
der if the teachers in the study I described, felt the same way about
explaining science concepts and developing metacognitive capabilities.
While we did not provide a 120-page booklet, we did provide power
point presentations and short explanations for the teachers to model as
well as conceptual tests and metacognition questionnaires for the stu-
dents along the line we considered needed. Nevertheless, these may not
have fit the how the teachers thought about their science teaching.
Reading the chapters in this volume has reawakened my interest in the
complexity of those issues needing to be given consideration when
researchers work with teachers and their students in schools. I reflect on
my interactions with the teachers involved in the two schools where we
conducted the research. One essential point is the entry level to conduct
research in schools in Australia—also described by Nicholas Flegg in
Chap. 1—by first gaining permission from the Education Department or
the Independent Schools administration. Essentially this direction does
xiv Foreword
not enable the teachers in the schools selected for research to bring their
agendas to the task at hand. Unfortunately, requests from schools to uni-
versities to conduct research are not very common. Help is at hand—
reading this book provides researchers with a deeper understanding of the
tensions and challenges that need to be considered and negotiated when
conducting research in schools.
Curtin University, Bentley, WA, Australia David Treagust

Acknowledgements
The editors are very grateful to the following individuals without whom
this book would not have been published:
• Rebecca Wyde, Eleanor Christie and the editorial team at Palgrave

Macmillan for all their work in getting this publication to press
• Katrina Wilson for her dedication and attention to detail in copy-
editing the manuscript
• Professor David Treagust for writing the Foreword and Associate
Professor Judy MacCallum for the Afterword
• The chapter authors for their respective chapters and for engaging
wholeheartedly with feedback from editors and peer reviewers
• The scholars who provided double blind peer reviews of one or more
submitted chapters:
–– Emilio A. Anteliz, Faculty of Engineering, Central University of

Venezuela
–– Professor Patrick A. Danaher, University of Southern Queensland,
–– Associate Professor Roselyn M. Dixon, University of Wollongong,
NSW, Australia
–– Dr Yvonne S. Findlay, University of Southern Queensland,
xv
xvi Acknowledgements
• Our colleagues for their continuing encouragement and interest

• Our families and friends for their inexhaustible love and support.
Jennifer Donovan
Karen Trimmer
Nicholas Flegg
Contents
1 Educational Innovation: Challenges of Conducting and

Applying Research in Schools 1
Karen Trimmer, Jennifer Donovan, and Nicholas Flegg
1.1 Introduction 1
1.2 Literature Review 3
1.3 Examples from the Editors’ Own Research 5
1.4 Book Outline 11
1.4.1 Part 1: System Level and Policy Issues 11
1.4.2 Part 2: School and Teacher Challenges 12
1.4.3 Part 3: Researchers’ Experiences and Challenges 13
References 14
Part I Global System Level and Policy Issues 19
2 The Long March towards School Improvement in France:

Paradoxes, Tensions and Adjustments between Bottom-up
Innovations and Top-down Policies 21
Romuald Normand
xvii
xviii Contents
2.1 Introduction 21
2.2 The French Basic Skills Framework and its
Implementation: Transmitting Knowledge and
Supporting Student Guidance 23
2.3 “Monitoring the French Accountability Policy”:
Towards Evidence-based National Assessments? 25
2.4 Links Between Research, Policy and Practice: Serving
Politics First and Foremost 27
2.5 School Improvement for Whom? Challenges in
Territorial Anchorage and Scaling-up of Innovative
Programs 29
2.6 Top-down Policies and School Improvement
Initiatives to Foster Local Choice and Diversification 33
2.7 Conclusion 35
References 37
3 The Unintended Impact of Regulatory Compliance: The

Case of Pre-service Teacher Preparation to Teach Integrated
Math-science Education under No Child Left Behind 41
Fernando F. Padró, Marlene M. Hurley, Karen Trimmer, and
Jennifer Donovan
3.1 Introduction 41
3.2 Lack of Progress for IMS by 2012 51
3.3 The Question: Why has There Not Been Greater
Adoption of IMS in Schools and in Colleges/Schools
of Education? 53
3.4 Methodological Considerations 54
3.5 The Logical Model Lens 55
3.6 Policy Steering 56
3.7 Institutional Commitment, Adaptation or Resistance
to External Environmental Expectations 59
3.8 The Minimaxing End of the Continuum 61
3.9 Governmentality as the Other End of the Model’s
Continuum 62
3.10 Lessons Learned: Discussion and Conclusion 63
References 66
Contents xix
4 An Educated Nation: Governmental Policy and Early

Childhood Education in America 77
Jannah Nerren
4.1 Poverty and Our Youngest Schoolchildren 79
4.2 How Did We Get Here? A Timeline of Trouble 80
4.3 Head Start (1965) and Early Head Start (1995): A
Federal Initiative 81
4.4 No Child Left Behind (2002–2015): National Reform
Effort 85
4.5 Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge (2009): A
Federal Competition 87
4.6 Common Core State Standards (2009) 88
4.7 Universal Pre-Kindergarten: A Decision for the States 91
4.8 Do We Listen to the Teachers? 93
4.9 Assessment: Not a Means to an End 94
4.10 Perspectives 94
4.10.1 NAEYC 94
4.10.2 Defending the Early Years 95
4.11 Positive Steps 96
4.11.1 How Early Childhood Education Advocates
Can Affect Change 97
References 97
5 Innovation and Research in the Danish Public School103

Palle Rasmussen and Karen E. Andreasen
5.1 Understanding Innovation in Schooling 104
5.2 Schooling and Society in Denmark 106
5.3 School Innovation and Research in the Welfare State 108
5.4 School Innovation and Research in the Competition
State110
5.5 Tensions in School Innovation Research: An Example 113
5.6 Linking Research, Innovation and Practice 115
References117
xx Contents
Part II School and Teacher Challenges 119
6 Teacher Perceptions of Daily Physical Activity and

Perceived Contextual Barriers to the Implementation of
Daily Physical Activity121
Natasha Williams and Harsha N. Perera
6.1 Introduction 121
6.2 Benefits of Daily Physical Activity 123
6.2.1 Government Initiatives 124
6.3 Teacher Perceptions of Physical Activity 125
6.4 Perceived Contextual Barriers to the Implementation
of Daily Physical Activity 126
6.5 Method 129
6.5.1 Participants and Procedure 129
6.5.2 Measures 129
6.5.3 Statistical Analysis 130
6.6 Results 131
6.7 Discussion 134
References138
7 Children Versus Curriculum: Who Wins?143

Carole Haeusler, Jennifer Donovan, and Grady Venville
7.2 Literature Review 144
7.3 Conceptual Framework and Methods 146
7.4 Findings 148
7.4.1 Snapshot 1, 2004, Year 2 (Interviewer:
Jenny) Living, Non-living and Once-living
Things148
7.4.2 Snapshot 2, 2006, Year 5 (Interviewer:
Jenny) Living Things and a Wool Model
for DNA 149
7.4.3 Snapshot 3, 2009–2011, Years 5–7
(Interviewer: Jenny) Genetics Knowledge
and the Mass Media 151
Contents xxi
7.4.4 Snapshot 4, 2013, Year 4 (Interviewers:

Carole and Jenny) Atomic Theory and
Attitudes Towards Science 152
7.4.5 Snapshot 5, 2015–2016, Years 3/4
(Interviewer: Carole) Professional
Development for Teachers 155
7.5 Discussion 157
7.6 Conclusion 161
References162
8 HPE: Navigating the Chasm of Policy, Practice and

Management to Enact the Intended Curriculum and Meet
the Needs of the Twenty-First Century Learners165
Susan Wilson-Gahan
8.2 Literature Review and Discussion 166
8.3 The Australian Curriculum HPE: Curriculum Intent 167
8.4 Perceived Status of HPE Globally 169
8.5 Lack of Physical Activity a Global Health Problem 170
8.6 The Preparation of HPE Teachers 171
8.7 Research Methodology 172
8.8 Findings 174
8.9 Discussion 176
8.10 Negative Perceptions of Health and Physical
Education179
8.11 Curriculum and Pedagogy 185
8.12 Meeting the Needs of Twenty-First Century Children 186
8.13 Conclusion 189
Appendix190
Entitlement 190
References190
xxii Contents
Part III Researchers’ Experiences and Challenges 195
9 Challenging the Seductive Promise of Positivist Research

in Schools: A Case for Classroom-based Critical Theory
Research197
Clayton Barry and Michael Christie
9.1.1 The Positivist Paradigm as an Ontological
and Epistemological Problem 202
9.1.2 The Positivist Paradigm as a Problem
of Power 206
9.2 An Alternative Research Paradigm: Critical Theory
Research209
9.2.1 Teacher Agency 211
9.2.2 Student Agency 212
9.2.3 Research as Politics and Power 214
References215
10 Developing Dialogue between a School Subject

Department Head and a University Education Researcher:
Convergences and Divergences in Experiencing
Educational Change and Complexity221
Don Harris and Patrick A. Danaher
10.2 Literature Review and Conceptual Framework 223
10.3 Research Design 226
10.4 Data Analysis 227
10.4.1 Research Question One: “What were Some
of the First-named Author’s Reflections on
his Experiences as a Subject Department
Head in a Number of Queensland
Government Secondary Schools?” 227
10.4.2 Research Question Two: “How Do those
Reflections Help to Inform Successful
School–University Partnerships?” 230
Contents xxiii
10.5 Conclusion 231

References232
11 The “Wicked Problem” of Implementing Evidence based

Practice in Special and Inclusive Education: A
Sociocultural Analysis237
Roselyn M. Dixon and Irina Verenikina
11.2 What are Evidence Based Practices? 238
11.3 The Factors Contributing to the Tensions between
Research and its Implementation by Special
Education Teachers 240
11.4 Sociocultural Theoretical Framings 243
11.5 Teacher Professional Learning 246
11.6 Realising the Promise of EBP through the Use of
Communities of Practice 249
11.7 Development of a New Model of EPB and
Professional Learning Incorporating Sociocultural
Precepts250
11.8 Conclusion 251
References252
12 Afterword: Innovating and Researching in Schools257

Judith MacCallum
12.2 Curriculum, Schooling and Applied Research 260
12.3 Tensions and Challenges 262
12.4 Researching in Schools 263
12.5 Innovating in Schools 266
12.6 Ways Forward for Innovating and Researching in
Schools268
References271
Index273
List of Contributors
Karen E. Andreasen Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark

Clayton Barry University of the Sunshine Coast, Sippy Downs, QLD,
Australia
Michael Christie University of the Sunshine Coast, Sippy Downs,
QLD, Australia
Patrick A. Danaher University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba,
QLD, Australia
Roselyn M. Dixon University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW,
Australia
Jennifer Donovan University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba,
QLD, Australia
Nicholas Flegg University of Southern Queensland, Springfield, QLD,
Australia
Carole Haeusler University of Southern Queensland, Springfield,
QLD, Australia
Don Harris Queensland Department of Natural Resources, Mines and
Energy, Dalby, QLD, Australia
xxv
xxvi List of Contributors
Marlene M. Hurley Monmouth University, West Long Branch, NJ, USA

Judith MacCallum Murdoch University, Murdoch, WA, Australia
Jannah Nerren Stephen F. Austin State University, Nacogdoches,TX, USA
Romuald Normand University of Strasbourg, Villeurbanne, France
Fernando F. Padró University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba,
QLD, Australia
Harsha N. Perera University of Nevada, Reno, NV, USA
Palle Rasmussen Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark
David Treagust Curtin University, Bentley, WA, Australia
Karen Trimmer University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba,
QLD, Australia
Grady Venville Australian National University, Canberra, ACT,
Australia
Irina Verenikina University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW,
Australia
Natasha Williams Fairholme College, Toowoomba, QLD, Australia
Susan Wilson-Gahan University of Southern Queensland, Springfield,
QLD, Australia
List of Figures
Fig. 3.1 Institutional preference for either commitment or resistance

to external environment expectations. Source: adapted from
Padró (2013) 60
Fig. 6.1 Retained structural model solution with standardised
parameter estimates. *p <.05 134
Fig. 7.1 Initial understandings about atoms, molecules, and the
elements in the class of 27, which included 7 students with
special learning needs and 3 with exceptional pre-knowledge 154
Fig. 7.2 Gains in understandings about atoms, molecules, and
elements after the teaching 154
Fig. 7.3 Engaged student posing science questions (permission
granted for this photograph) 157
Fig. 7.4 One student’s symbolic representation of the internal
structure of an oxygen atom (permission granted for this
photograph)158
Fig. 8.1 Health Care and Social Assistance, Australian Bureau of
Statistics, Jobs by Industry, Nov. 2018 182
Fig. 11.1 Growth in Practice Model of Professional Learning in Special
and Inclusive Education 251
xxvii
List of Tables
Table 6.1 Polychoric and polyserial correlations among the 11 manifest

indicators of the three latent constructs 132
Table 6.2 Factor loadings for the manifest indicators 133
Table 6.3 Factor correlations and construct reliability coefficients 133
Table 7.1 Relationship of School Years (Grades) with Chronological
ages in Australia 146
Table 7.2 Students’ response about liking/disliking science before and
after the teaching about atomic theory 153
Table 8.1 Advice on time allocations 190
xxix
1
Educational Innovation: Challenges
of Conducting and Applying Research
in Schools
Karen Trimmer, Jennifer Donovan, and Nicholas Flegg
1.1 Introduction
Our school students’ world is constantly changing, driven from both
inside and outside the educational arena. Although teachers in schools
are accustomed to having to accommodate such change, however diffi-
cult it might be for them to resolve it within the classroom context,
researchers within this field are required to search for ways to minimise
the impact whilst maximising the effectiveness of educational change so
that they add meaning and provide specific assistance for teachers. Rather
than standing still, this challenges us to be innovative and to make learn-
ing ever more relevant, challenging, inclusive, and rewarding. In this con-
text, educational innovation refers to application of contemporary
educational research to classroom curriculum and pedagogical practice.
At the same time, it is appropriate to acknowledge that often teachers are
not the researcher as their own school world provides little breathing
K. Trimmer (*) • J. Donovan • N. Flegg

University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, QLD, Australia
e-mail: karen.trimmer@usq.edu.au; jennifer.donovan@usq.edu.au
© The Author(s) 2020 1

J. Donovan et al. (eds.), Curriculum, Schooling and Applied Research, Palgrave Studies
in Education Research Methods, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48822-2_1
2 K. Trimmer et al.
space for the academic challenge needed, even though they are always at
the forefront of any data collection and of putting ideas into practice.
Hence researchers may be formulating information without being at the
cutting edge of where their work will be utilised; that creates many issues
of its own. Educational researchers within the school context, whether
teachers or not, are required to have data-driven and evidence-informed
solutions to resolve the issues so that teachers can get on with the job of
leading learning. The challenge is how to continue to encourage and sup-
port teachers, who are at the heart of the educational system, to be
responsive to the needs and demands of their multiple stakeholders.
In researching and applying educational innovation, both researchers
and teachers additionally encounter influence from policy makers and
educational systems in the conduct of their work with and in schools that
creates a source of tension between parties. Such influence may be felt
during the design stage in formulating questions and methodology that
will have relevance and value to researchers, educational systems, schools
and classroom teachers. It may be in the ethics process as anonymity can
be complex when research is being conducted and then implemented
within a classroom context. It can occur when system level priorities limit
access to schools for the purpose of research or how the findings may be
implemented. Researchers are approaching their work from the perspec-
tive of contributing to knowledge and generally are seeking ethical, objec-
tive and rigorous approaches to their study. Teachers and schools are
looking for innovative evidence-based practices that they can apply in the
school or classroom to enhance academic or social outcomes for students.
Whilst these are by no means mutually exclusive, there are disconnects
that create challenges for both researcher and schools as each has vested
interests in the conduct and outcomes of the research. The power and
control that is held by the various stakeholders throughout the research
process impact the decisions made about what to research, how to research
and what outcomes may be achieved as a consequence in practice.
Against this backdrop, this book presents a careful selection of con-
temporary research into different ways in which researchers go about
both helping teachers navigate the complex process of managing change
within the classroom and suggesting possible new approaches to current
practices based on educational research fully based within the school
1 Educational Innovation: Challenges of Conducting… 3
system itself. The book traverses a wide range of conceptual, disciplinary,

methodological, national and sectoral boundaries with a focus on inves-
tigating the tensions that impinge on research-based change and how to
integrate innovative changes into the education system and individual
classrooms. The aim is to promote understanding of the possible effects
of educational change on curriculum and pedagogy within the classroom,
how teachers might know whether their innovations are effective, and
what broader stakeholders may perceive to have been the impacts of the
applied research.
1.2 Literature Review

Agendas, scope and purpose for research vary considerably and whilst
traditionally may have been based on development of knowledge and
theoretical contribution to academe, globally there is increasing consider-
ation of the application of contemporary educational research in schools
and also the conduct of action research within schools by teacher research-
ers. The conduct and implementation of the research in both cases is
impacted by systemic policy and decision-making processes. On the one
hand, schools are under pressure to implement curriculum improvements
to demonstrate improvement in student outcomes, but they are often not
consulted or involved in the decision-making processes that determine
what research is conducted or what initiatives will be promoted for inclu-
sion across schools at a systemic level. In the United Kingdom national
reports have recommended “that research be made more relevant for the
members of the education community, to better disseminate good qual-
ity results towards users and the public, to contribute to solidify the exist-
ing body of knowledge, to strengthen links between research, policy and
practice” (Normand, 2016). Similar concerns are raised in Part 1 of this
volume in relation to France, Denmark, and the United States of America.
Researchers themselves also want to have a positive impact on practice
(Buxton, 2011; Meagher, Lyall, & Nutley, 2008), but the application of
research findings to policy and then to practice is complex, involving
challenges and tensions for researchers and schools (Bastow, Dunleavy, &
Tinkler, 2014), and is difficult to measure (Doyle & McDonald, 2016;
4 K. Trimmer et al.
Marginson, 2014; Spaapen & van Drooge, 2011; Timmer, 2004; Wolf,
Lindenthal, Szerencsits, Holbrook, & Heß, 2013).
One significant challenge is the involvement of schools in decision-
making regarding what is researched and how the results should be imple-
mented in schools. Whilst teachers and teaching receive close scrutiny by
government agencies and the media (Trimmer, Donovan, Findlay, &
Mohamed, 2017), the conduct of educational research in classrooms is
primarily still undertaken externally to schools and decisions regarding
development of curricula and implementation of new initiatives often
occur at a systemic level. In addition, much of the research funded by the
public sector is focused primarily on demonstrating outcomes of previ-
ously implemented programs to justify and account for public expendi-
ture (Brennan & Clarke, 2011; Gorard, 2010) and not necessarily looking
to determine innovations that will enhance practice, curriculum innova-
tion or the experience and outcomes of students in classrooms. These
dilemmas and the tensions they create are being felt globally and are dis-
cussed in detail in the first part of this volume.
Research conducted around successful school improvement has shown
that the involvement of teachers and educational leaders in schools is
critical in implementing educational reform and facilitating innovative
educational practice (Anderson, Leithwood, Louis, & Wahlstrom, 2010;
Drysdale & Gurr, 2012; Hargreaves, 2003). This can occur with research
teams including teacher researchers or working collaboratively with
schools, as opposed to conducting their research in schools. The Australian
Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group (TEMAG) report (2014)
acknowledged the need to promote stronger links between research
informed theory and practice in schools (Trimmer et al., 2017). Another
approach that is demonstrating some success is Action research being
conducted by teachers in their classrooms for their own students (Sagor,
2000; Timperley, Parr, & Bertannes, 2009). Whilst there is currently no
requirement for Australian teachers to engage in research as part of their
professional development (AITSL, 2014; Beaulieu, 2013), global trends
to employ Master teachers are encouraging teachers to take a more active
role in research within schools (DeBruyn & DeBruyn, 2009; Department
of Education, Training and Employment [DETE], 2016a, 2016b, 2016c,
2016d; Doyle, 1985; Education Labour Relations Council [ELRC],
South Africa, 2008; Johnson, 2011; Sanders, Wright, & Horn, 1997;
State Board of Education, Ohio, 2007; Trimmer et al., 2017). Trimmer
et al. (2017) found the strength of such action research to be threefold:
firstly, it promoted professional learning and reflective practice through
design and conduct of the research; secondly, akin to all research, it cre-
ated new knowledge, in this case through a collaborative partnership with
teacher colleagues; and thirdly, it changed and developed the roles of the
teachers and their relationship to higher education, assisting capacity
building in schools through the purposeful collection and use of data for
evidence based decision making. Both approaches to research being con-
ducted within schools by academic and teacher researchers are considered
by authors in the following chapters, with a focus on schools and teachers
in Part 2 and the focus on researchers in Part 3 of the book.
Each of the editors have also undertaken roles as teacher and researcher,
encountering these tensions personally. To demonstrate how these chal-
lenges can play out in practice, the examples below provides personal
reflections from each editor about their own encounters with such ten-
sions and problems whilst carrying out their own research, including eth-
ics, processes for gaining permissions from school systems and access to
students/classrooms.
1.3 Examples from the Editors’

Own Research
Karen: Prior to working as an academic researcher, Karen was a classroom
teacher and then worked within the State government education system
as a researcher/evaluator and policy advisor. In the latter role she worked
at the intersect between researchers, schools, and the government educa-
tion system. In her current role, she works with practicing teachers
undertaking research as part of their higher research degree studies. An
example of tensions from both of these perspectives will be discussed below.
In planning and conducting their research, academic researchers take
an ethical stance that reflects a high level of independence and objectivity
with the aim of producing credible and unbiased results (Chelimsky,
6 K. Trimmer et al.
2008; Trimmer, 2016). However, where funding to conduct the research

is provided by the system with an overarching intent of assessing the
effectiveness of an educational initiative that has been part of an approved
policy implementation, there can be conflicts that arise and pressures
upon the researchers with regard to methodology, conduct and interpre-
tation of findings of research (Markiewicz, 2008). This can be particu-
larly problematic where the educational initiative being researched is of
key strategic import for the current government or where significant
funds and infrastructure have been invested over a number years to sup-
port the initiative (Trimmer, 2016). For example, in regard to partici-
pants, the author has experienced cases where there has been pressure to
select a specific sample of schools, or requests to provide participant
details post-publication, and is aware of many projects that have experi-
enced significant delays due to systemic processes that incur lengthy delay
and sometimes refusal to provide access to schools to collect data
(Trimmer, 2015, 2016).
Interestingly this can also occur when the researchers are practicing
teachers within the system who are wanting to collect data within their
own schools and classrooms. As supervisors supporting higher degree
research, Karen and Jenny have had the experience of liaising between
system requirements and classroom teachers researching their own prac-
tice through action research and their right to publish the results without
vetting of the methodology or results. The teachers involved were keen to
share the results of their action research and innovative practice with their
peers but also understandably reluctant to do so without the imprimatur
of their employer. In this instance, a collaborative approach between all
stakeholders ensured that the insights and reflections on the provision of
evidence based curriculum and pedagogy in participating teachers’
schools was shared with teachers locally and nationally, providing inspira-
tion and incentive for other teachers to undertake similar initiatives in
their own classrooms (Trimmer et al., 2017).
Jenny: One of the enduring tensions for a researcher wishing to work
in schools is accessing appropriate schools for the research project. When
I began my research journey as a research assistant, at first the principal
researcher had obtained all the necessary ethics permissions and simply
told me which schools were part of the project. They arranged a meeting
at each school to introduce me as ‘the person on the ground’ who would

be interacting with students and all was well. At that point I was ‘just
another teacher who was doing something a bit different’ so had no dif-
ficulty interacting with teachers in the schools.
However, when I started on my doctoral research, I was travelling
across different states, partly for pleasure, and partly to give me access to
schools in different geographical areas with different access to particular
TV channels (a key part of my work on the influence of mass media on
children’s understandings of genes and DNA). My only option was cold
canvassing, not an easy prospect. I read into the literature on cold can-
vassing and that assisted me to write an effective opening email (not the
long spiel I originally came up with). I looked at the options for incorpo-
rating government schools into the research and was forced to dismiss
this. Each state had different forms, different hoops to jump through,
different costs … the only similarity was that they would all take at least
six months, valuable time I could not spare as I was studying full time on
a scholarship. So, here was the first tension. Instead, Catholic schools
could be approached by diocese and generally, if you’d already won over
the Principal, a quick positive decision was likely. Independent schools
only required the go-ahead from the Principal. I was careful to include
schools across the SES levels to reduce any ‘privilege bias’ potentially
introduced by only using private schools.
I did very well with my cold canvassing, with refusals from schools
based only on internal school issues such as already being part of a research
project, principal leaving suddenly, and the school closing (that was sad,
the staff were so distressed). No one commented unfavorably about the
research I proposed, all thought it was interesting and would have liked
to have said yes in different circumstances. So, these are some of the ten-
sions within the schools that determined their capacity to participate.
However, one case stands out, where the relationship I created with the
Principal meant everything. I was heading through South Australia to
Western Australia and was looking for a small remote school, which I
found on the edge of the desert. I wrote to the Principal, she replied
expressing interest, and I said I could call in at the school in a couple of
days to discuss it further. I called in, we had such a positive meeting, and
she was overjoyed to be part of the research, saying ‘Nobody comes out
8 K. Trimmer et al.
here. These kids’ voices are never heard!’ Somewhere during that conver-
sation, my love of music and singing songs in different languages arose,
and I agreed that as an added benefit to the school for taking part, I
would do a short concert of such songs! She could already see many ben-
efits—the children (and teachers) would have direct experience of what
research is, what a researcher does, what will be the product of the research
process. So, I would be coming back in about a month but would contact
her to set precise dates. I left a bundle of information and informed con-
sent sheets with her. Frowning at the formal language that has to go into
these documents as being beyond some of her parents, she wrote a sim-
pler version for the school newsletter.
When I next contacted her, she was distraught. Despite her best efforts,
only two signed consent forms had been returned. I assured her I under-
stood, and would still come to the school for the concert. However, when
I mentioned we were arriving in town Friday morning, she said, ‘Can you
come to the school in the afternoon? If we set up a way for the kids to
meet YOU and research YOU, perhaps they will be less nervous.’ So we
did that. The children were characteristically blunt with their questions
about age and where did I come from, how much would I write (about
half the New Testament!) and was I really still studying at my age? A great
segue into lifelong learning. It was fun, and the children visibly
warmed to me.
Monday morning she phoned, excited: ‘I have eight! Is that enough?’
Yes, out of 12 of appropriate age eight was fine, so the research got under-
way. We administered the questionnaire together so some words could be
explained. Also the children asked about their spelling—it seemed they
wanted to make the best impression. Next day came the interviews, and
they were very rich and revealing. Day 3 the concert, which the children
loved, finding the countries on the globe. All in all, a disaster turned into
a success thanks to a tenacious principal who so strongly believed in the
value of research. She also had a new lead for me of a new school ‘down
the Peninsula’ whose principal was very keen to be involved. Excellent
outcomes all round.
From this example, it is clear that tensions are experienced by the
Principals and the potential participants as well as the researcher, but
with some quick and creative thinking, and goodwill on all sides, they
may be overcome.
Nick: Whilst working within a school as a head teacher, I undertook a
study for my doctoral thesis that looked at issues outside of the classroom
itself that might be causing maths anxiety in primary aged children. This
childhood anxiety was thought to be a major factor in the continuing
high level of maths anxiety in the overall adult population, as this early
anxiety level seemed likely to be maintained into adulthood (Flegg,
2007). This issue had been addressed within the classroom in a number
of ways over many years, with little documented change to anxiety levels
reported. Changes to the way maths was taught, including hands-on and
group approaches, and the order in which various topics were addressed
failed to shift the overall anxiety figures recorded in the adult population
in later years despite often seeming to address the needs of some of the
individual students at the time. Hence, I decided that other aspects of a
child’s life needed to be explored as the cause of the continuing problem
if educational changes seemed unable to provide the answer.
Questionnaires were used as the initial thrust. It was felt to be impor-
tant that the views of students in both state and private schools should be
canvassed and from both city and country areas if possible. This would
include both the cold-canvassing of schools and the informed consent of
the parents on behalf of their children, both items over which no
researcher has much control on the outcomes. I tried to minimise prob-
lems with getting schools involved by initially selecting schools to
approach that I had some connection with. Education Department per-
mission needed to be obtained before any state school could be approached
and this required a detailed methodology to be submitted and the require-
ment for school and Department to receive a summary of the findings.
The Department’s permission was only to allow a researcher to approach
schools and did not prevent the individual schools from rejecting the
request to take part in the research.
Schools are busy places and there are often many reasons why such
requests might take a low priority. Suffice to say that some state schools
said up front that they didn’t want to take part, some accepted and then
changed their minds when the questionnaires were actually received at
the school and some, having been agreed to by the principal, were acted
10 K. Trimmer et al.
upon by only some of the teachers indicating that they may not have
been individually approached beforehand. In addition, some teachers
were more diligent than others in the collection of the data. The combi-
nation of all these items indicates some of the problems inherent in this
type of wide ranging, general research. Never the less, enough schools did
follow through and provided sufficient data to compare state and private,
but unfortunately not enough for a statistically valid comparison between
city and country areas.
The second issue was that of informed consent. Private schools only
officially needed the principal’s consent as long as parents were notified
that the study was to take place and been given the opportunity to object
and withdraw their children from the study at any time whilst there was
any connection left between the data collected and the individual stu-
dent. Teachers in the private schools were consulted about their willing-
ness to take part before the formal consent was given; this eliminated that
particular problem in advance. The collection itself depended fully upon
the individual student’s willingness to take part when asked to fill in the
questionnaire. Very few withdrawals were recorded and no student
refused to take part, so the data collection from the private school stu-
dents was relatively easy to obtain. State schools are different in that,
besides the principal’s consent to allow his school to take part, each indi-
vidual teacher must consent to involve their own class, which can be
withdrawn due to circumstances at any time, and each child has to have
their own parents provide a signed consent form. This took time and
effort on the part of the teacher, leading to the cancellations men-
tioned before.
Overall, both issues were worked through rather than solved. Whilst
consent is likely to always prove difficult, access requirements change all
the time and must be checked before commencement of any school proj-
ect. Besides the need for the researcher to make individual visits to all
schools taking part, cold-canvassing for replacement schools added to the
extended time frame needed. Most teachers would find the time frames
involved difficult to include in their heavy schedule, making teacher
researchers acting individually few in number.
1.4 Book Outline

The book is divided into parts specifically to highlight the three main
critical areas.
1.4.1 Part 1: System Level and Policy Issues
Part 1 takes a global focus to consider the influence of policy, regulations

and system level issues. Contemporary educational issues can reflect dif-
ferent and sometimes contradictory expectations by students, educators,
administrators, policy-makers, and other stakeholders. It can therefore be
the case that “that sounds great in theory but in practice ...” creating ten-
sions between those who do the research and those who are expected to
implement the findings. Conversely, contemporary educational research
can generate innovations that are different from previous educational
practices and promote development of curriculum and pedagogy that
supports teachers’ classroom practice. The chapters in this part will pro-
vide insight into the regulatory and system level complexities of policy
direction and decision-making regarding implementation of educational
practices that highlight the current approaches and the disconnects that
can occur between policies and practicalities of innovative change to cur-
riculum in schools in Australia, France, Denmark and the USA.
This part commences with a review by Normand of the paradoxes, ten-
sions and adjustments between bottom-up innovations and top-down
policies impacting on school improvement in France. Whilst the French
Ministry of Education has developed an innovation policy for promoting
school improvement strategies at local level that develops links between
research, innovation and practice, there is still a gap between decision-
making and implementation that limits the success of innovations for
teachers and students in classrooms. In the second chapter Padró,
Trimmer and Hurley consider unintended impacts of regulatory compli-
ance that may arise when regulations and policy based on positivistic
paradigms are enforced within a progressive education context where aca-
demics and school teachers are seeking to enhance curriculum and peda-
gogy. The case discussed impacted pedagogical reform for the teaching of
math-science education in the USA. Nerren in the next chapter looks at

American Early Childhood Education and how policy seems to prevent
best practice taking place. Both the federal and state governments have
been attempting to address educational concerns, but policies put in
place are often found lacking despite the clear intention to help. This
chapter uses the specific concerns for under-privileged children to high-
light some of the problems. In the final chapter in this part, Rasmussen
and Andreasen discuss the conflicting demands of centralised evidence-
based systems for research and evaluation and the informal implementa-
tion of innovative curriculum and pedagogical reforms in local classrooms
by teachers in Denmark.
1.4.2 Part 2: School and Teacher Challenges
Part 2 considers different ways of conceptualising, identifying, and evalu-

ating educational innovations in relation to schools and individuals. This
part looks at Australian examples of what effective and sustainable inno-
vations look like in different educational settings and sites and the diffi-
culties teachers as individuals can have dealing with issues around
decision-making and implementation in their classrooms.
In the first chapter, Williams and Perera look at the concept of Daily
Physical Exercise and the perceived contextual barriers to its implementa-
tion. One difficulty explored is the failure to properly distinguish it from
the Health and Physical Education key learning area. Another aspect dis-
cussed is that, if the school fails to achieve their goal, are families and
communities picking up the responsibility? The chapter then details a
study of practising teachers in Queensland, Australia which investigates
their thoughts and actions in this area. Haeusler, Donovan and Venville
in the second chapter in this part provide details of snapshots from an
extensive research effort which has convinced the authors that the new
Australian Curriculum in science may be constraining the learning of sci-
ence rather than promoting it. They demonstrate that children are able to
learn about complex topics at an early age and that this ability should be
recognised and used. Young children delight in what they are seeing,
especially in the media and on-line. The curriculum details what should
be taught at each level and the authors believe that this takes little account
of students’ wishes and hence misses out on great opportunities for learn-
ing and tends to kill student interest in science. In the last chapter in this
part, Wilson-Gahan looks at the difficulties with implementing the
Health and Physical Education (HPE) syllabus in Australian schools. It
details various reasons for this, including such aspects as the low numbers
of HPE specialists employed, misconceptions, the lack of professional
respect and a misguided pedagogy. It then examines the disconnect
between the implementation and enactment of the curriculum in schools
with the intended curriculum and education authority directives identi-
fying HPE as a learning entitlement for all Australian children.
1.4.3 Part 3: Researchers’ Experiences and Challenges
Part 3 places the focus on researchers’ experiences and challenges. It pro-

vides discussion of ways universities and schools can reconcile their dif-
fering requirements so that researchers can provide the most useful
information to the schools themselves whilst adhering to the very differ-
ent paradigm required for publishing research projects. The book con-
cludes with an afterword from an Australian expert in the field to draw
together the themes covered across the three parts in the book, reflect on
issues raised and discuss these in relation to effective approaches for con-
ducting and implementing contemporary educational innovations to
have impact for educational practice into the future.
The first two chapters in this part explore challenges and opportunities
for enhancing teacher and academic researcher relationships to enhance
professional collaboration and curriculum innovation in schools. In the
first, Christie and Barry adopt a critical theory research paradigm to focus
on Australian teachers as researchers. Consideration of practitioner driven
action research in history education highlights how student voice and
experience can be privileged and encourages a meeting point for teacher
researchers and academic researchers interested in authentic school
improvement. Harris and Danaher, in the second chapter, explore some
challenges and opportunities for enhancing teacher–researcher relation-
ships by developing dialogue between a teacher and a university researcher
in Queensland, Australia where they discuss the issues surrounding their

different contexts for achieving similar outcomes in response to educa-
tional change and complexity. Analysis of the work activities and envi-
ronments of the authors focuses on the school teacher’s strategies for
engaging with educational change within a complex school environment
and investigates ways in which cooperation between schools and univer-
sities could be enhanced to help improve outcomes for students. In the
final chapter of this part, Dixon and Verenikina consider the wicked
problem of implementing evidence based practice in special and inclusive
education. In this complex human service setting, contextual factors
including social, organisational and environmental conditions operate
that shape workplace learning and practice, and subsequently impact the
way that practitioners interpret and respond to contemporary educa-
tional research innovations. The chapter outlines current research and
discusses the tensions between research and practice in special and inclu-
sive education in Australia and proposes a model where teachers negoti-
ate decisions regarding evidence based practice and workplace learning as
part of a broader social process that takes account of the contextual fac-
tors and the organisational conditions in which they work.
In the final afterword chapter, MacCallum draws together the themes
covered across the three parts to reflect on issues raised and discuss these
in relation to effective approaches for conducting and implementing con-
temporary educational innovations to have impact for educational prac-
tice into the future. This chapter also provides an overview and comment
on what has been contributed to the field reflecting on effective and sus-
tainable educational innovations that are able to be implemented by
teachers in schools and how contemporary educational issues reflect dif-
ferent and sometimes contradictory expectations by researchers, educa-
tors, policy-makers and other stakeholders.
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Part I
Global System Level and Policy
Issues
2
The Long March towards School
Improvement in France: Paradoxes,
Tensions and Adjustments between
Bottom-up Innovations and Top-down
Policies
Romuald Normand
2.1 Introduction
The French education system has entered a period of modernisation and
has tried to exit from the comprehensive school model (collège unique)
which was based on the democratisation of access to secondary education
for working class students (Derouet, 1991, 2003). Until now, it has been
the backbone of successive governments. Today, things are changing. For
policymakers, the weakness of PISA scores has confirmed the failure of
students to master basic skills, particularly in reading (Normand, 2014).
The dropout rate of pupils without qualification is worrying them in a
system which maintains high and elitist requirements. The French school
system as a Republican institution faces a double crisis (Mattei, 2012): a
R. Normand (*)
University of Strasbourg, Villeurbanne, France
e-mail: rnormand@unistra.fr

22 R. Normand
crisis of values because it is not more recognised for its economic and
social progress with a strong unemployment of young people; a crisis of
meaning because knowledge and teaching practices in classrooms meet
less and less expectations from the youth generation.
France is behind other countries and discovers that its comprehensive
school system has failed and that major changes must be undertaken to
join ranks of countries such as Finland and Singapore, which have
improved pupils’ scores in international surveys (Sellar & Lingard, 2013).
But the French system is embedded in a tradition and legacy which, since
the French Revolution, maintains a Republican vision in education and
strong beliefs about equality of opportunities and a national community
of citizens despite widening social inequalities and differences (Normand,
2009, 2016b).
Furthermore, autocracy, technocracy and effervescence are three main
causes which delay any project of school improvement (Hargreaves &
Shirley, 2009). Autocracy, or a centralised conception of governance,
strengthened by a hierarchical and top-down organisation, limits the
development of transversal relationships and local autonomy. Technocracy,
or the standardisation of school provision and the mimetic application of
rules and official instructions, make schools adopt the same development
plan without considering diversified contexts and capabilities. At least,
schools are themselves considered as a sanctuary to be protected from the
rest of the society, particularly at distance from parents, associations and
local authorities and even more from business and private (including
religious) organisations because of the fear of marketisation and
communitarianism. Effervescence, refers to the sense that the education
system is full of local initiatives (Hargreaves & Shirley, 2009), but they
are loosely coupled, not well coordinated and supported, and often not
really focused on student basic learning and skills (Muller, 2012).
Thus, one of the most challenges is to enable changes to this central-
ised system and professional bureaucracy by using some levers already
active in other education systems. France suffers from a lack of school
improvement and support. For several years, some reforms have been
enacted to restructure the education system. But they have been
implemented whilst silencing the voice of practitioners. Despite some
bottom-up initiatives there are few opportunities for dissemination and
2 The Long March towards School Improvement in France… 23
scaling-up. In this step-by-step “technocratic” building of the French

“Third Way”, transforming teaching practices and school organisations
remain a big challenge (Derouet & Normand, 2011; Normand, Liu,
Carvalho, Oliveira, & LeVasseur, 2018).
2.2 T
he French Basic Skills Framework and its
Implementation: Transmitting
Knowledge and Supporting
Student Guidance
The development of the basic skills and knowledge framework is a major
statement of the 2005 School Act. It prescribes that students must master
basic skills, particularly in French language and mathematics, at the end
of compulsory schooling. Even if it copies “back to basics” policies
implemented in Anglo-Saxon countries, it is not advocated as a way out
from the comprehensive school and “raising standards”. Experts and
policymakers consider it as a mean of improving equality of opportunities
through guidance mechanisms (Dubet, 2004; Duru-Bellat, 2006). In
fact, the basic skills framework corresponds to a biased translation of the
European framework of key-competencies. It has been redesigned by the
High Council of Education with some variations (Nordmann, 2016;
Pepper, 2011). The item “learning to learn” has been translated as
“humanistic culture” linking basic skills to the national curriculum in
history, geography and literature. The item “sense of entrepreneurship”
disappeared and was replaced by “the conception of a personal project in
pupils’ guidance”. It shows the importance of the national curriculum
which has been structured into skills without much concern about
student learning. The French school system tries to articulate mainly the
basic skills framework with student guidance. It can be explained by the
“struggles for the curriculum” in the French context which oppose
regularly different interest groups for controlling contents taught to
students (bodies of inspection, trade-unions, educative associations,
experts in school subjects and didactics, philosophers, representatives of
different elitist institutions) (Goodson, 2013). There is also a strong
24 R. Normand
internal lobbying for maintaining the legacy of student guidance policy

viewed as the driver for democratisation and equality of opportunities.
This reformist vision has direct consequences on the way the “back-to-
basics” reform is implemented. It maintains teachers in their professional
ethics focused primarily on the transmission of content knowledge
instead of considering the issue of learning and pedagogical knowledge
(Harlé, 2009). Consequently, it does not help much to transform teaching
practices. The reform links narrowly the acquisition of knowledge and
skills and student guidance at different stages along their schooling. In
doing so, professionals focus on students’ careers and this vision overhangs
alternative interests for authentic teaching situations and students’
cognitive learning based on solving problems. This stance is strengthened
by a disciplinary conception of school subjects among teachers and the
very prescriptive supervision of the inspectorate. The design of a “booklet
of skills”, which had to familiarise teachers with the use of basic skills,
became a mechanistic tool for reporting pupils’ scores and it served more
to judge about student careers than to support student learning (Hazard
et al., 2012). This policy completely failed. What is at stake is that
teaching could be better focused on learning whereas pedagogical
strategies could be designed by teams of teachers according to students’
potential at different learning and cognitive stages. However, this kind of
reflection is lacking in French education as such as some thoughts about
formative assessment (which is very often reduced to marking or to an
approximate use of standardised grids). Educators and experts face
difficulties to get out from a recurrent debate about assessments with
“marks” or “without marks” and they ignore international research in this
area (Gardner, 2012). The current minister of education has himself
proclaimed his hostility to “pedagogist visions”, creating strong reactions
and criticism from pedagogical movements, but he assumes his
“traditional” vision defending the transmission of knowledge with a
particular prism for teaching history as the way to maintain the Republican
and European humanist heritage (Blanquer & Morin, 2020; Boissinot &
Ferry, 2017).
2.3 “ Monitoring the French Accountability

Policy”: Towards Evidence-based
National Assessments?
Through its participation in the conception and improvement of interna-
tional surveys, since the First International Mathematics Study (FIMS),
the French ministry of education has designed regular and national
assessments in primary education and value-added indicators for second-
ary schools (Broadfoot, 1985; Émin, 2012; Normand, 2012). In 1986,
the creation of the Direction de l’Evaluation et de la Prospective
(Directorate of Assessment and Forecast) was an unprecedented effort to
improve the statistical knowledge on the education system and to
disseminate a “culture of evaluation” among educators. More recently,
the implementation of a new law of regulation of public finances has
emphasised soft accountability mechanisms for the education system
(Maroy & Pons, 2019). However, they are not so well implemented in
schools because indicators are external and mainly focused on financial
and administrative issues rather than on teaching and learning. Similarly,
these indicators and national assessments have been designed according
to a centralised and top-down approach without considering local
contexts. Consequently, their implementation has created some tensions
with the teaching force because teachers think these tools are not fitted to
their teaching while principals consider they are far from being helpful to
support teamwork.
While assessment for learning is largely ignored by policy makers,
researchers, and educators, the ministry has recently attempted to
re-actualise national assessments with some recommendations inspired
by neurosciences (Black, Harrison, & Lee, 2003). The Minister of
Education, close to Stanilas Dehaene, an eminent scholar in this research
field, is persuaded that the direct application of neurosciences to
assessment practices will improve student outcomes (Dehaene, Cohen,
Morais, & Kolinsky, 2015). According to this vision, the ministry of
education has written a 120 pages booklet to explain how primary
education teachers could change their teaching in reading and writing
(MEN, 2019). It claims that teachers could be informed by the last
26 R. Normand
outstanding research on neurosciences and cognitive sciences. Despite of

these efforts, primary education teachers feel that these national
assessments based on neurosciences are far removed from their daily
teaching. Consequently, they discard these data to maintain a certain
distance from testing while trade unions support this resistance.
Another important change concerns the role devolved to the inspec-
torate. While previously they supervised teachers in their classroom to
control pedagogical practices and the application of standards related to
the national curriculum, inspectors are today required additionally to
assess teachers to meet some requirements in Human Resources
Management (Hazard et al., 2019). For this, they share evaluative
responsibilities and tasks with principals in secondary education.
Inspectors evaluate teachers on the pedagogical dimension and the
mastery of their disciplinary expertise, while the principal must evaluate
teachers’ participation in school projects and teamwork. Systematic
interviews must be regularly carried out, which increase the administrative
burden for inspectors to the detriment of tasks of support and pedagogical
advice. For their part, school principals ultimately have little weight in
making teachers work in teams and in developing collaborative practices,
while teaching remains highly individualised with few incentives for
participating in school projects.
Considerations about internal school evaluation hardly emerge from
the inspectorate inspired by some self-evaluation frameworks circulating
within the Standing International Conference of Inspectorates of
Education (SICI) (Goyheneix et al., 2017). Some tools exist to implement
that type of approach, but they are not largely used. Each principal must
diagnose the strengths and weaknesses of the school in order to develop a
plan, and define a strategy of improvement according to a contract of
objectives signed and agreed with the state local authority. But, very
often, this diagnosis is not shared with teaching teams, or only in some
limited dimensions and with reluctance, so it impedes the setting-up of
an authentic evaluation of the school situation. On the other hand, the
law has created a “pedagogical board” which allows the principal to
appoint representatives among the teaching force to talk about means
related to school improvement. Here again, this board is not very effective
in capacity building, in the improvement of teaching and learning, in
facilitating teamwork and in defining training needs (Barrère, 2006).

More often, it remains embedded in a kind of bureaucratic formalism
and it is contested by teachers (through trade unions) because they
consider it challenges their “pedagogical freedom”.
2.4 L inks Between Research, Policy

and Practice: Serving Politics First
and Foremost
How to develop a more coherent policy for the French education system?
This is at stake for French policymakers who have tried to find solutions
for decades. At global level, there are numerous examples of countries
which have implemented national strategies for literacy and numeracy
such as England or New Zealand, or large programs to support schools
such as Ontario and Finland (Sahlberg, 2016). They inspired French
policymakers who remain however reluctant to try any neoliberal
solutions. In France, contrary to these other countries, links between
research, policymaking and practice to support reforms are loose coupled.
Educational sciences are not much recognised among Humanities and
Social Sciences research programs. There are weakly internationalised,
not much considered by policy makers and executives, quite fragmented
in their theoretical and methodological background, and not much
visible in the training contents of teachers. At the level of State local
authorities and schools, practitioners lack resources, methodologies and
tools to develop innovations and transform their practices to implement
changes.
The challenge for the ministry of education is to pass from a research
in education to a research for education, more useful and more effective
for policymakers and practitioners. This new policy research agenda
wants to reconsider the production of scientific knowledge, but also its
mediation, its transfer and translation from the top to the bottom (Ozga,
2007). A lot of knowledge is today produced outside the French academic
field, by other institutions (agencies, think tanks, international
organisations) at European and global levels. One of the main challenges
28 R. Normand
for French policy makers is to be able to map and to compile these

research findings, particularly on teaching and learning. This orientation
of research is also used to justify and legitimise current political choices.
This explains the creation of the CNESCO (Conseil National de
l’Evaluation du Système Scolaire) in 2013 by the previous Minister of
Education, Vincent Peillon, in order to ensure a mediation of knowledge
and to gather different stakeholders (trade unions, associations,
independent local authorities but also scientific communities, networks
of experts) into procedures of discussion and deliberation (through
conferences, forums, etc.). The idea was to obtain a national agreement
on research findings and strategy, and to transfer this knowledge to
schools and practitioners. The CNESCO, chaired by Nathalie Mons, a
sociologist politically close to the minister, gathered and synthesised
research knowledge for the conduct of the education policy in different
areas: numeracy and literacy, early school leaving, school inclusion, social
diversity, school climate, through different conferences and reports; then
it produced recommendations to justify the Minister’s policy and choices.
With the change of minister, the links between research and policy
have been maintained even though the role of the CNESCO has gradually
diminished in favor of the creation of the National Scientific Council for
Education. Beyond ideological divides, this relative continuity in the
mobilisation of some research findings to justify political choices can be
explained by a reformist consensus among policymakers on both the Left
and the Right (van Zanten, 2013). France has also gradually adopted the
European recommendations and principles of the Open Method of
Coordination to guide its education policy on key points related to the
European strategy (Lange & Alexiadou, 2007; Normand, 2010):
numeracy and literacy, school drop-out, digital technologies, and school
inclusion. The political opposition mainly concerns the diversification of
school provision and school choice, the managerial dimension of reforms,
decentralisation and local autonomy, rather than the implementation of
national assessments, the student guidance policy, or the maintenance of
a national curriculum.
Stanilas Dehaene, politically close to the current minister, has been
appointed at the head of a National Scientific Council for Education to
guide education policy making according to new “scientific” laws inspired
by neurosciences. Created on the 10th of January 2018, the scientific

committee is composed mainly of neuroscientists and cognitive scientists
with some experimental economists, such as the French Nobel prize
Esther Duflo. The Council monitors national workshops for better
linking research, training and practice. Under the control of the ministry
of education, the objectives are to promote a “culture of innovation and
experimentation” as well as digital technologies within the French
education system. These initiatives have generated a huge criticism among
educators, particularly educational scientists, trade-unions, and
pedagogical associations. But the Minister is personally hostile to teacher
trade-unions, and educational sciences. In doing so, he is taking the PISA
survey as a benchmark and he is relying on evidence-based education that
“works” to conduct and implement reforms (Biesta, 2007; Normand,
2016a). One of the project’s objectives is to create an “Evidence-based
Tool-Kit” inspired by the UK Education Endowment Foundation, to
disseminate evidence-based research findings to teachers to improve their
practices in numeracy and literacy (Higgins et al., 2016). On the ground,
teachers are largely disoriented by these top-down directives and orienta-
tions. The minister claims at the same time, through media and nation-
ally disseminated video-tape records, that “he is trusting teachers” on
behalf of his “Trusting school system” (Blanquer, 2018). But this motto
used for legitimising his policy has been recently undermined by teachers’
strikes and protests.
2.5 S
chool Improvement for Whom?
Challenges in Territorial Anchorage
and Scaling-up of Innovative Programs
In France, further teacher training remains relatively traditional. It cor-
responds to an annual training scheme and gathers only the most willing
teachers. Schools have little influence on content and this is often far
from teachers’ practical concerns. The format of a conference followed by
a few thematic workshops remains dominant to the detriment of other
devices which would give place to innovation and creativity. Discourse
30 R. Normand
and analyses lack reflexivity and are relatively enclosed in a kind of

declarative justification of practices linked to a professional ethos: this
rhetoric does not question situations through problem solving but
emerges through claims and recriminations especially when the training
content is provided by an inspector. On the other side, researchers and
trainers do not easily accept the loss of their position of expert to build
another approach closer to the practitioner needs and concerns. These
training sessions are very short and relatively loosely coupled: with the
lack of evaluation, they are not really focused on the transformation of
practices directed to student learning.
However, policy for school improvement has been enacted through
the “right to experiment” endorsed by the 2005 Act in its article 34. It
allows principals and their teaching teams to use a part of the school
budget (teaching hours) to implement innovations labeled by state local
authorities (their local centre for R&D). A lot of schools have seized this
opportunity to transform part of their pedagogical organisation, to
facilitate teamwork, to diversify teaching practices, to build partnerships,
and to manage time schedules differently (Robert & Teillard, 2012).
Some outstanding projects have been implemented by innovative schools
in terms of the learning of basic skills, collaborative work, conditions of
assessments for learning, ambitious cultural and scientific programs.
However, problems remain in the implementation. A lot of actions are
not focused on teaching and learning issues in the classroom and they
have little impact on the transformation of practices (Muller & Normand,
2015). Some of them are only reproducing previous devices in the context
of national directives and programs, as in the teaching of sciences, without
taking any risk or even developing creativity. Creative innovations remain
a minority and they depend on the interest and support of local policy
makers, which varies from one place to another. So, they are not always
well promoted by the inspectorate and they are suffering from a lack of
local support harmful to their effectiveness and school improvement.
Other programs are dependent on interest groups linking with the
ministry and trying to capture some public funds to promote their ideas
according to current policy orientations It explains why some efforts have
been made during several years to promote “school climate” and the
“well-being of students” through top-down directive programs
(Debarbieux, 2015). Now, with the change of minister, these public

funds are directed to a national program focused on developing
neurosciences within schools and classrooms (Berthier & Borst, 2018).
Some institutions already exist at local level and they provide informa-
tion and resources according to some policy guidance by the ministry of
education. The CANOPE centres (centres of resources and pedagogical
documentation) provide editorial services and training sessions allowing
practitioners to exchange about their practices and to implement change.
They have recently been restructured and modernised to introduce more
digitalisation and interactive training sessions for practitioners inspired
by professional development models. The CARDIE (local centres of
R&D) are taking over the action of the ministry’s department of R&D to
promote innovations, and to support change at school level. But these
organisations are far from being at the centre of local education policies
and they are linked mainly with innovative and motivated practitioners
and schools. The lack of systematic relationships between state local
authorities, schools and higher education institutions is also at stake.
Practitioners and executives have few means to access relevant resources
and data produced by research findings. At least, opportunities to valorise
and generalise achieved experiences are very limited while innovations are
weakly promoted.
The ministry has therefore decided to strengthen this previous infra-
structure to make innovation a strong policy at national level. Under the
supervision of Lab 110bis (110 is the address of the Ministry in the
Grenelle street, Paris) some actions have been developed to promote
experiments and innovations at local level, particularly in using digital
technologies. This lab, located within the ministry or education, is also a
centre of resources for schools who wish to be involved in innovative
approaches and who can benefit from a local support of R&D centers at
local level. Some resources for innovation have been designed (heuristic
maps, self-assessment framework, on-line editorial series) to help local
people to implement digital tools and to reinforce support and assessment
of their actions. National seminars are recurrently organised to develop
and implement this national policy. At least, this Lab has created a website
to mobilise professional networks and to allow practitioners to exchange
practices and knowledge about bottom-up innovations and experiments.
32 R. Normand
At local level, each innovative team can build a professional group, post
some blogs and share experience and knowledge with members of a
national professional community. The culture of creativity and the sense
of initiative are enhanced on this collaborative web-platform. The action
of this lab is extended by a national network of “educative digital third-
places” funded by the ministry of education to develop collaborative
spaces with schools for developing digital libraries, fab-lab, and open
badge technologies (Minichiello, 2019). ArchiLab is a tool to help to
co-design these educative spaces. In the form of manipulating parts on a
tray, it makes it possible to materialise concepts of new pedagogical
organisations. It is part of the Archiclasse approach, which encourages all
school stakeholders to invent their new educational spaces. Archiclasse
and ArchiLab support educators in defining the renovation or building
projects of schools with the ambition to facilitate the use of digital
technologies in school life. But the funding of equipment and architecture
remains in the hands of independent local authorities. They are quite
reluctant to increase their public expenditures in a time of governmental
cuts and tension between independent local authorities and the
government about sharing responsibilities and related funds. So, even if
the idea that digital technologies can solve educative problems is largely
shared by national policymakers and intermediary executives, an
implementation gap remains beyond some prestigious and media covered
operations and the daily experiences of practitioners.
In addition, some high expectations are placed on teacher education
reform (Filâtre, 2016). For decades, successive reforms have failed to
move away from a disciplinary approach in teacher training to promote
learning-centered practices and to better include educational research
findings (Normand, 2012). The weight of disciplinary lobbies, as well as
the resistance of inspection bodies, have also limited developments and
changes in teachers’ selection and recruitment. The reform of teacher
training institutions has always been a political issue because of their
importance in the transmission of national curriculum, which is itself
heavily invested by ideological visions and divides. This time, the reform
is under the scrutiny of the Ministry of Education, while the head of
these training institutes is recruited directly by the Minister, from advice
given by the State Local Authority superintendent and the chancellor
from the local university after a hearing process. The objective is to

provide a training provision “free of ideology”, based on “experimentation
and evidence”, i.e. directly linked to the National Scientific Council
created by the Ministry of Education. While the reform aims to give
more weight to educational research findings, it is far from endorsing a
pluralistic and open vision of what is important for teacher training. On
the other hand, it conceals the Ministry’s desire to make budgetary savings
by allowing the pre-recruitment of teachers in subjects where the deficit
is at stake, particularly mathematics and sciences, while new recruitments
no longer ensure the renewal of the teaching staff in the most disadvantaged
areas. This reform is strongly criticised by representatives of educational
sciences, teachers’ unions, and the Higher Council of Education, a
national consultative body, but those opinions have not been heard by
the current Minister.
2.6 T
op-down Policies and School
Improvement Initiatives to Foster Local
Choice and Diversification
French schools are loose-coupled organisations. In primary education,
the principal is appointed by State local authorities, after recommendations
from the inspectorate, but he/she has no power over colleagues and the
school project depends on collaboration between peers. In secondary
education, administration is separated from school life and teachers work
individualistically in their classrooms. In middle and high schools,
principals have been recognised by the law as responsible for “educative
and pedagogical” monitoring. “Educative” corresponds to the
management of school life, and “pedagogical” to the management of
teachers. Principals must share their power with inspectors in charge of
controlling teaching within classrooms. So, the legitimacy of the former
is contested by teachers. School life is supervised by a special officer who
manages problems of attendance and discipline and who is also in charge
of all aspects related to citizenship (elections, training of students’
representatives, etc.) and other educative activities within the school.
34 R. Normand
Secondary education teachers are mainly focused on classroom

management: they work sometimes by affinities with one or two fellows,
but teamwork remains very limited and it is rarely for sharing teaching
strategies. Each teacher claims his/her “pedagogical freedom” and
considers the classroom and relationships with pupils as a protected area.
Trade unions control the respect of these different roles in a
conservative way.
Functions and tasks of critical friends, facilitators, leaders, mentors,
coaches for school improvement do not formally exist. A lot of teachers
are taking some responsibilities at school level, but without much
recognition for them at institutional level and without being paid
according to their true merit and commitment. There is a waste of skills
and expertise to the detriment of school improvement which illustrates
the lack of reflections about supportive mechanisms in the implementation
of reforms, beyond the role of inspection. Changes would be required to
develop some intermediary functions, but the maintenance of a strong
corporatism among inspectors and the reluctance of trade unions impede
them. Each profession, largely trade-unionised, defends its values, its
missions and its interests, and it considers that each proposal for reform
is a threat to its future. The weight of hierarchy strengthens this tension
between professional identities and a bureaucratic regulation which
undermines any initiatives and risk taking on behalf of the “sense of
authority”. The word “management” is connoted to a neoliberal ideology
while the notion of leadership is largely ignored or misunderstood.
Among executives, the rhetoric around the word “monitoring” serves to
describe different activities in a relative lack of knowledge about local
contexts and challenges met by school teams. If some principals innovate,
or if inspectors try to promote local initiatives, they must do it very often
against their hierarchy and with the fear of being uncomfortable in their
professional career. There is a complete lack of recognition of innovation
and inventiveness while the management of “proximal” human resources
remains a big challenge for the whole system according to the general
inspectorate itself (as has been written in its national report). The
challenge is to develop exchanges of knowledge and practices at the core
of school administration, to make it more sensitive to flexibility and less
to bureaucracy, and to recognise varied forms of expertise and research

findings for school improvement.
The maintenance of the bureaucratic nature of the French education
system can be illustrated by the recent reform of high schools. This reform
was decided unilaterally by the Minister and his team after a flawed
consultation with unions and other representative bodies. It strongly
imitates the English reform of the GSCE to give more flexibility and
choice to students in school subjects by abolishing guidance tracks in
high schools. The reform has been implemented in a very top-down way,
through diverse regulations and the Ministry’s hierarchy, and by putting
principals and inspectors in tension with grassroot teachers and their
representatives. Poorly prepared, understood and supported, it has created
a great deal of dissatisfaction and loss of meaning for professionals and
students, while generating a strong feeling of anxiety. The evaluation
contents of the baccalaureate, now passed in several stages, were still not
known two months before the deadline, while the choice between
disciplines to be part of the common core was subject to the influence of
disciplinary interest groups. Many observers fear that the possibility of
choice between options may mask widening inequalities between
students, while this school consumerism may be detrimental to
mathematics and sciences, which are considered more difficult by
students. However, this freedom of choice is fully assumed by the current
Minister who, proclaiming this ideological vision, wishes also to
differentiate school provision, particularly by developing “boarding
schools of excellence” (internats d’excellence) in rural areas, and
“educational cities” (cités éducatives), making it possible to combine the
efforts of the State, local authorities and associations to open most
disadvantaged establishments to civil society (but also undoubtedly to
private actors) while granting them a label of excellence.
2.7 Conclusion
This overview of French education policy illustrates how school improve-
ment is far from being the quotidian life of schools and classrooms. The
pedagogical function of school, which could normally emerge as a new
36 R. Normand
relationship between teaching and learning, is not much impacted except

through technocratic procedures. The latter do little to question the con-
ditions of school improvement and transformation of practices. However,
under the action of the ministry, bottom-up innovations have been
recently developed, teams have been better recognised for their sense of
initiative and creativity, and digital local networks are implemented at
national and local levels. The idea of the minister is to move towards a
systematic reform, even if it is currently difficult to see coherent actions
along a national strategy targeting the achievement of all pupils, as it has
been observed in other countries. But the reduction of class size, the
changes in the national curriculum, the implementation of national
assessments, the dissemination of evidence-based research findings, and
the reform of teacher training are certainly drivers of change. On the
opposite side, the creation of national commission on the neutrality of
the school system, the setting of choirs and national flags in schools, and
the focus on teaching national history and humanistic values in the
national curriculum demonstrate a kind of Republican conservatism. It is
a stance assumed by the current minister who always speaks about a “bal-
ance between tradition and modernity”. While his current policy is par-
ticularly hostile to the establishment and trade unions, major challenges
and uncertainties remain: the revision of the teachers’ training, the accep-
tance of assessments in schools, the true support of local teams, and the
development of local collaborative practices. The French state is also
changing progressively through a conversion to new principles of Public
Management (Derouet & Normand, 2016): Economy, Efficiency, and
Effectiveness. It impacts also on policy decisions searching for cost sav-
ings at the expense of ambitious school improvement and professional
development programs. If Finland is taken as an example, or French
speaking Canada, to think about possible transformations of the French
school system, the “French Third Way” is limited by budgetary con-
straints. Nevertheless, even if is not politically correct to talk about the
“privatization of education”, it seems that the door is opened now to
“private interests” (social entrepreneurship, foundations, philanthropy)
who could be allowed to invest in disadvantaged schools and be sup-
ported by some parts of top-down policy programs. The digitalisation of
French education corresponds also to a move towards a shadow and silent
privatisation. This shift is not completely visible because of the image of

the French republican education system with its ideals of democratisation
and equality, which predominates in public discourses and prevents situ-
ating this attempt of modernisation in a broader and global landscape.
But often the devil is in the details.
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3
The Unintended Impact of Regulatory
Compliance: The Case of Pre-service
Teacher Preparation to Teach Integrated
Math-science Education under No Child
Left Behind
Fernando F. Padró, Marlene M. Hurley, Karen Trimmer,
and Jennifer Donovan
3.1 Introduction
When the Report of the Committee of Ten on Secondary School Studies was
released (1893), it advocated secondary education that emphasised sepa-
rate disciplines (DeBoer, 1991). This decision predicted the philosophy
and direction of the USA’s education system into the future. The political
interplay and struggles between competing interests represented by the
F. F. Padró (*) • K. Trimmer • J. Donovan

e-mail: fernando.padro@usq.edu.au; karen.trimmer@usq.edu.au;
jennifer.donovan@usq.edu.au
M. M. Hurley
Monmouth University, West Long Branch, NJ, USA

42 F. F. Padró et al.
demands of interest groups such as education administrators (administra-

tive progressives) and the advocates of progressive education was disad-
vantaged from a lack of systematic inquiry to implement ideas being
proposed (Labaree, 2010; Mershon & Schlossman, 2008). The Dewey-
Thorndike divide of the 1920s saw a debate between the student-centred
approach to learning versus a positivist educational research paradigm
signified the two major views on how the art of teaching could be trans-
formed into a science prevailing to this day, even though the tug of war
between which prevails remains much alive (Soltis, 1988; Tomlinson,
1997). Since that time, education in the USA reflects Labaree’s
(2005) view:
The administrative progressives won this struggle, and they reconstructed the
organization and curriculum of American schools in a form that has lasted to
the present day… [while] the pedagogical progressives… did at least succeed in
shaping how we talk about schools. (p. 276)
What can still be seen is a fundamental political issue rather than a

practical one reflecting its awkward position between political ideas, eco-
nomic realities, and educational practices (Labaree, 1997). This is most
notable in policy formation and the legislation and regulation passed to
enact and enforce policy. Also noticeable has been how academics teach-
ing in schools and colleges of education are caught in the middle of this
dispute; on the one hand, they perform research to make the system more
efficient, often using positivistic paradigms, while on the other hand
believing in and representing pedagogical progressivism (Labaree, 2005).
Combine all of these elements and the result highlights Luhmann’s
(1993) warning of the boundary that exists between risk and danger from
judgements made by educators. The competing commitment identified by
Kegan and Lahey (2001) makes decisions by educators difficult because
of assumptions of self, context, beliefs and ethics.
Calls for integrated/interdisciplinary instruction were part of the
Progressive Education Association’s (PEA) Eight Year Study conducted in
the 1930s (Aiken, 1942; Chamberlain, Chamberline, Drought, & Scott,
1942). Working with the PEA in their move toward interdisciplinarity
was a group of progressives in mathematics and science, the Central
Association of Mathematics and Science Teachers. Known today as the
3 The Unintended Impact of Regulatory Compliance: The Case… 43
School Science and Mathematics Association (SSMA), their integrated

mathematics and science (IMS) activities were also centred at the
University of Chicago.
Integrated/interdisciplinary education fell under the term core curricu-
lum.1 This type of curriculum referred to “the type of which center on
some broad problems or concepts and draw together from any field what-
ever knowledge or ideas that seem pertinent” (Taba, 1962, p. 300). When
all aspects of success in college were measured, “[i]t is quite obvious from
these data that the Thirty Schools graduates, as a group, have done a
somewhat better job than the comparison group whether success is
judged by college standards, by the students’ contemporaries, or by the
individual students (Chamberlain et al., 1942, p. 208). The success of the
Thirty Schools’ was deemed to be their educational programs consisted of
bringing together the teaching of different subjects under one guiding
purpose, and teacher effort based on collaboration that breaks down
“artificial barriers which have separated teacher from teacher and subject
from subject” (Aiken, 1942, p. 137).
While World War II ended the Eight Year Study, a survey of 13,816
high schools across the U.S. was conducted during the spring of 1949 to
see if core curricula were still in place. Based on the findings, by 1949,
545 schools out of the 11,069 that returned the survey had integrated
English and social studies core curricula, 219 schools reported integrated
curricula with math and/or science integrated with English and/or social
studies, and 31 schools indicated that only math and science were inte-
grated (Wright, 1950). An increase was noted in the number of schools
reporting the provision of a core program during the 1950s, increasing
from 3.5% of schools in 1949 to 6.6% in 1954 (Bossing, 1955; Wright,
1950). No interdisciplinarity-seeking national surveys aimed at schools
or districts are known to have been conducted from 1955.
In the background, Eisenhower’s election in 1952 saw a return of busi-
ness back in power after twenty years of progressive ideas (Schlesinger Jr.,
1
Conant’s (1959) third recommendation The American high school today: a first report to interested
citizens was for high schools to provide a general education. His definition of general education was
analogous to what is typically known as core curriculum in that subject matter was based on broad,
core ‘requirements’ taught in different courses as framed by specific learning objectives and age
appropriate expectations.
1952). “Cries of protest against the slackness of American education,

hitherto raised only by a small number of educational critics, were now
taken up by television, mass magazines, businessmen, scientists, politi-
cians, admirals, and university presidents, and soon swelled into a national
chorus of self-reproach” (Hofstadter, 1963, p. 5).2 Tempting as it may be
to consider, the return to a more corporate perspective per sé did not
equate with the rise of neoliberalism, especially in the USA (Padró &
Green, 2018).3 The popular view of neoliberalism did not take off until
the economic crises of the 1970s (e.g. García, 2019). Instead, this was a
period that saw the development of a modified form of corporatism or
what later became (especially in Europe) neocorporatism (Baccaro, 2003;
Padró, 1988; Phelps, 2010).4
From the above comments, it can be seen that teaching integrated
math and science (IMS) has been researched since before World War II
and interest in this practice as part of pre-service teacher education
emerged in the 1990s (Berlin & Lee, 2003, 2005; Hurley, 2001).
However, Czerniak, Weber, Sandmann, and Ahern (1999) noted how
teaching an integrated curriculum could be challenged by a regime
imposing proficiency and standardised testing. As Taba (1962) noted,
“[t]he problem of specialization and integration of knowledge has pre-
sented a continued dilemma of education, as it has for research” (p. 298).
Among the USA’s responses to the launching of the Sputnik satellite in
1957 was the passing of the National Defense Education Act
(Pub.L. 85–864) in 1958 (https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/
STATUTE-72/pdf/STATUTE-72-Pg1580.pdf ). The Act provided addi-
tional support for various aspects and programs at higher education
2
Herold (1974) noted that Conant’s (1959) report subsided many of the critics and continued
arguments about proposed school reforms became confined within the education profession itself.
3
Most of the literature discussing neoliberalism in the 1950s most often associated neoliberalism
with Germany, particularly with the Freiberg School (Boas & Gans-Moore, 2009).
4
Baccaro (2003) clarified how neocorporatism represents the notions of corporatism—as an intere-
set representational system—and concentration or social partnership—policymaking process.
Lehmbruch (1977) saw corporatism as “an institutionalized pattern of policy-formation in which
large interest organizations cooperate with each other and with public authorities not only in the
articulation (or even “intermediation”) of interests, but-in its developed forms-in the “authoritative
allocation of values” and in the implementation of such policies” (p. 94). Schmitter (1982) argued
that neocorporatism differed from corporatism in its focus on policy-making and
implementation.
institutions (HEIs) and provided a basis for student loans as a means of

encouraging student enrolment and participation. Title III specifically
provided $70 million in funds to acquire “equipment (suitable for use in
providing education in science, mathematics, or modern foreign lan-
guage”—Title 3, §301). States had to provide plans on how they were to
allocate funds to “be expended solely for… expansion or improvement of
supervisory or related services in public elementary and secondary schools
in the fields of science, mathematics, and modern foreign languages…”
(Title III, §303(a)(4)). In mathematics and science, emphasis was on
general maths and science education rather than more in-depth topics
such as calculus and physics to meet concerns surrounding American
education in general and job shortages in sectors needing more people
with these backgrounds (Mirel & Vinovskis, 2009). Nonetheless, NDEA
has been linked to interest in what is now termed STEM (science, tech-
nology, engineering and mathematics) Hegji, 2018; Jolly, 2009). The Act
also defines the relationship between the federal and state governments in
regards to education, with the federal government providing funds and
guidance and the states maintaining control (Flemming, 1960). It also set
the precedent for increased federal government involvement in the edu-
cation sectors (Steeves, Bernhardt, Burns, & Lombard, 2009;
Twight, 1996).
Kaestle (2016) indicated that NDEA became less important as policy
steering interests changed between 1958 and 1964, as reflected by the
passing of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965
(Pub.L. 89–10) or ESEA and the Higher Education Act of 1965
(Pub.L. 89–329) or HEA. The shift, especially under the Johnson
Administration laid the foundation for the expansion of the USA’s social
safety net, with these two acts featuring prominently (Padró, 2004,
Table 1.3). HEA’s (https://legcounsel.house.gov/Comps/Higher%20
Education%20Act%20Of%201965.pdf ) focus was the provision of stu-
dent aid allowing college-age students to engage with HEIs, increasing
the capacity of the federal government to oversee and control the activi-
ties of the higher education sector through the provision of financial aid
to new and existing students through Title IV. Another target for HEA
was the enhancement of teacher education programs. Changes in these
areas through the different reauthorisations of HEA authorise
competitive grants for teacher training programs under Title II that meet
specific needs; however, these have never been funded (Hegji, 2018).
Amendments to HEA in 1992 established the National Advisory
Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity (NACIQI), an agency
replacing the original National Advisory Council on Extension and
Continuing Education (Title I, §109(a)—https://www.govinfo.gov/con-
tent/pkg/STATUTE-79/pdf/STATUTE-79-Pg1219.pdf#page=37). Its
role was to “advise the Commissioner in the preparation of general regu-
lations and with respect to policy matters arising in the administration of
this title” (Title I, §109(b). NACIQI’s creation has meant more capacity
for federal oversight in the accreditation of HEIs and their program
because their current role is to provide “recommendations regarding
accrediting agencies that monitor the academic quality of postsecondary
institutions and educational programs for federal purposes” (https://sites.
ed.gov/naciqi/). More specifically, “NACIQI has been advising the
U.S. Secretary of Education on matters concerning accreditation, the
Secretary’s recognition process for accrediting agencies, and institutional
eligibility for federal student aid…” Effectively, the formation of this
body formalised the recognition of a standards-based approach to educa-
tional performance by students, administrators, and schools.
ESEA has undergone numerous changes through its reauthorisations
since 1965 (Gamson, McDermott, & Reed, 2015), with these changes
becoming more contentious in Congress after the passage of the 2001
reauthorisation, then named No Child Left Behind Act of 2001
(Pub.L.107–110) or NCLB. The increased focus of NCLB on account-
ability for student achievement and school reform was outlined in the
Improving America’s Schools Act of 1994 (Pub.L. 103–382), one of the
reauthorisation acts for ESEA (McGuinn, 2015). The Act held “individ-
ual schools, school districts, and states accountable for improvements in
student achievement, with particular emphasis on closing the achieve-
ment gap between high- and low-performing students and children and
youth from disadvantaged groups and minority populations” (Simpson,
LaCava, & Graner, 2004, p. 68). This movement toward accountability
was a policy response to the publication of A Nation at Risk: The Imperative
for Educational Reform in 1983—a scathing report on the state of schools
in the USA reflecting a political ‘right wing’ perspective reminiscent of
the educational critics of the 1950s. This report provoked the writing of
more than 300 documents (Bybee, 1993), some of which addressed a
perceived need for national benchmarks, national standards, and national
assessment for mathematics and science “literacy” that not only improved
student achievement scores, but also increased the level of student under-
standings (DeBoer, 1991).
NCLB required all states put in place school accountability systems
focusing on institutional and individual student performance (Dee &
Jacob, 2010). A key measure was adequate yearly progress (AYP) based on
high stakes testing of students in English language arts (ELA) and math-
ematics. Testing in science and social sciences occurred in the Spring of
2007 (Milner, Sondergeld, Demir, Johnson, & Czerniak, 2012). Overall,
under NCLB students were assessed in mathematics, reading/language
arts, social sciences and science, but state report cards reported on math-
ematics and reading arts (Hurley, Padró, & Hawke, 2013). Adverse
results could lead to reduced funding and other potential consequences
for the districts. Student performance of low SES, racial minority and
special education students were expressly monitored under AYP.5 There
were additional stipulations for parent participation and input and for
requiring ‘highly qualified teachers’, i.e. teachers needing to have a bach-
elor’s degree in the subject area taught.
Controversies based on increased federal intrusion into school systems
and the effects the requirements had on schools, curricular programs,
students, and to teacher preparation programs at HEIs meant that reau-
thorisation did not occur when it should have in 2010. It took until 2016
when NCLB was replaced by the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015
(Pub.L. 114–95) or ESSA (for a quick summary please look at https://
www.nassp.org/policy-advocacy-center/resources/essa-toolkit/essa-fact-
sheets/every-student-succeeds-act-essa-overview/). In 2009, NCLB was
partially modified by the passage of the American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Pub.L. 111–5) or ARRA. ARRA funded the
Race to the Top (RTTT) grants program meant to somewhat mitigate
the effects of NCLB mandates. RTTT may have represented a change in
5
Hanushek and Raymond (2005) classified state AYPs into two categories: ‘report card’—simply
providing a public report—or ‘consequential’—attaching consequences to school performance.
strategy in fostering a national agenda, but it still avoids crossing the line
between federal mandates and state discretion regarding educational mat-
ters (McGuinn, 2012). One major change was in distributing funds via
categorical grant programs rather than districts using needs-based formu-
lae, with states and districts rewarded only for developing effective
reforms aligned to federal goals and approaches (McGuinn, 2010).
Controversy remained about the implementation of Common Core state
standards and its potential infringement of state control and oversight of
primary and secondary education, which also fuelled the controversy
over the reauthorisation of ESEA from 2010 through 2016. Priorities
under RTTT were:
1. Absolute Priority: Comprehensive Approach to Education Reform

2. Competitive Priority: Emphasis on Science, Technology, Engineering,
and Mathematics (STEM)6
3. Invitational Priority: Innovations for Improving Early
Learning Outcomes
4. Invitational Priority: Expansion and Adaptation of Statewide
Longitudinal Data Systems
5. Invitational Priority: P-20 Coordination, Vertical and
Horizontal Alignment
6. Invitational Priority: School-Level Conditions for Reform, Innovation,
and Learning (U.S. Department of Education, 2009)
ESSA did not replace accountability plans or testing requirements put

in place by NCLB. What it did was to curb federal encroachment into
state educational sectors by allowing schools and districts to pick their
own short- and long-term goals addressing testing proficiency, English
6
This Priority is of particular interest to this discussion. According to the U.S. Department of
Education (2009), “To meet this priority, the State’s application must have a high-quality plan to
address the need to (i) offer a rigorous course of study in mathematics, the sciences, technology, and
engineering; (ii) cooperate with industry experts, museums, universities, research centers, or other
STEM-capable community partners to prepare and assist teachers in integrating STEM content
across grades and disciplines, in promoting effective and relevant instruction, and in offering
applied learning opportunities for students; and (iii) prepare more students for advanced study and
careers in the sciences, technology, engineering, and mathematics, including by addressing the
needs of underrepresented groups and of women and girls in the areas of science, technology, engi-
neering, and mathematics” (p. 4).
proficiency and metrics such as graduation rates. These goals have to set
expectations for underperforming groups in order to close achievement
and graduation rates. Fewer students with disability are now eligible to
take alternative standardised tests, making states to pay attention and
take a compliance stance, with states being asked to be more active part-
ners with districts (Edgerton, 2019). The controversy surrounding fed-
eral encroachment of state rights through the imposition of a common
core is mitigated in the sense that states are required to adopt ‘challeng-
ing’ academic standards separate from Common Core State Standards
(Klein, 2016).
NCLB had mixed results, with both desirable and undesirable effects
(Dee & Jacob, 2011). For example, a desirable and intendent effect of
NCLB was that more rigorous reporting combined with sanctions/
rewards seemed to be more effective (Dee & Jacob, 2011; Hanushek &
Raymond, 2005). In addition, there were statistically significant increases
in mathematics achievement of fourth graders, although the benefits
were mitigated because there was no consistent or reliable evidence of
improved reading achievement of fourth graders (Dee & Jacob, 2011).
Part of the reason for improvement in mathematics was that between
2001–2002 and 2007, most districts changed their curricula to place
greater emphasis on content and skills covered by the state tests
(McMurrer, 2007). The data did not always reflect intended results. For
example, a study by Carnoy and Loeb (2002) found that within-state
growth in mathematics performance was higher between 1996 and
2000 in states that had a higher accountability index.
On the other hand, the Act had the unintended consequence of
increasing time for ELA and mathematics at the expense of teaching time
in other subjects. According to McMurrer (2007), 62% of school dis-
tricts reported a 47% increase in minutes per week of instruction in ELA,
37% for mathematics instruction, and 43% when both subjects received
more teaching time while 44% of districts reported a 32% reduction of
total instructional time devoted to other subjects. Griffith and Scharmann
(2008) and Milner et al. (2012) specifically reported cuts to time teach-
ing science. This has meant that the teaching of science has been neglected
or, as stated by Johnson (2007), “kept on the back burner and, in many
cases, ignored by schools” (p. 134). Furthermore, Anderson’s (2012)
synthesis of empirical research in science teachers showed teachers

reported that accountability-focused testing discouraged the use of
inquiry-based approaches to teaching science.
Returning to the narrative on IMS before and during NCLB, school
teachers teaching science and mathematics subjects reported not being
well qualified to teach into the other subject, creating a challenge for
teaching IMS and pre-service teacher preparation programs (Furner &
Kumar, 2007). Frykholm and Glasson (2005) found that IMS provides
teachers a learning environment that embraces connections between sci-
ence and mathematics in an authentic context. Hurley (1999) reached
back nearly 70 years to locate studies for her meta-analysis of student
achievement through integrations of mathematics and science to deter-
mine approaches and types of IMS used. One of her findings was that
classroom teachers of integrated math and science classes (K-16) were
usually the treatment teacher and often designed the integrated curricu-
lum. She also found a lack of attention paid to affective outcomes and
societal needs in the 1990s documents when compared to earlier studies.
Overall, she was able to identify five major forms of integration prac-
ticed over the years:
1. Sequenced (mathematics and science are planned together and taught

sequentially);
2. Parallel (mathematics and science are planned and taught simultane-
ously through parallel concepts;
3. Partial (mathematics and science are taught partially together and par-
tially separate;
4. Enhanced (either mathematics or science is the major discipline of
instruction and the other discipline is apparent throughout instruc-
tion); and,
5. Total (mathematics and science are taught together in intended
equality).
Hurley (2001) established a cautionary note that integrated curricu-

lum designed by researchers or commercially-designed resulted in statisti-
cally significantly higher effect sizes than teacher-designed for both
mathematics and science. Reasons for this could have been the
inadequate preparation of preservice teachers for integrating disciplines

along with inadequate perceptions held by HEI academics on the nature
of disciplines beyond their own (Pang & Good, 2000). Czerniak, et al.
(1999, pp. 427–428), in particular, expressed the need for more models
of teacher preparation and greater preservice teacher familiarity with state
and national reform recommendations.
Berlin and Lee (2003) examined the integrated mathematics and sci-
ence literature from 1990 through 2001 and found an increase of publi-
cations related to courses offered in schools of education. Based on this
approach, a review of 16 studies from the 1990s to 2011 (pre-NCLB and
into the implementation of RTTT) showed that IMS had successes as
well as challenges (Hurley et al., 2013).7 Most of the IMS literature is
laden with obstacles or barriers ranging from philosophical and episte-
mological differences to school administrative structures to assessment
practices and instructional resources (Berlin & White, 2010). Although
not reported by Hurley, Padró and Hawke, eight of the 16 studies
reported an interest in continuing the pursuit of IMS research and/or
teaching IMS courses for pre-service teacher preparation purposes; none
of the studies indicating they would not continue. The 16 studies reviewed
also revealed that the rationale for teaching IMS in pre-service teacher
programs fell into three broad categories: national, state or NCATE stan-
dards, school or program reform, and philosophical ideals of
Constructivism (Hurley et al., 2013).
3.2 Lack of Progress for IMS by 2012

Findings in Berlin and Lee (2003), Hurley (1999, 2001) and Hurley
et al. (2013) illustrate Tytler, Williams, Hobbs, and Anderson’s (2019)
perspective that “[h]istorically, integrated curriculum advocacy has never
prevailed against disciplinary interests” (p. 77). Hurley et al.’s (2013)
7
Evidence regarding the effects of NCLB tends to be limited because its national scope makes it
difficult to find an adequate control group to assess against (Dee & Jacob, 2010); variable local
contexts (McLaughlin, 1990); individual beliefs, incentives, and capacity (McLaughlin, 1987); and
different motivators embedded within state accountability systems (Carnoy & Loeb, 2002).
study shows the extent to which interdisciplinary education is under-

represented in schools and pre-service teacher preparation programs,
lending support to Berlin and White’s (2012) observation that account-
ability and state testing issues make content integration more challeng-
ing. This reticence or reluctance to pursue IMS is of interest given the rise
of STEM and interest in the developing integrated STEM strategies and
practices in schools (and schools of education) and the development of
problem-based learning (PBM—e.g. Doig & Jobling, 2019; Weinberg &
Meeking, 2017). There are differences between colleges/schools of educa-
tion pre-service programs and how subjects are taught in schools
(Frykholm, 1999), and there are also similarities/synergies between pre-
service teacher preparation programs, and actual school curricular and
pedagogical practices (An, 2017). Which situation exists is probably
underscored in times of change, particularly when change is couched as
reform and legitimised by where similarities and differences fall within
policy steering preferences. As previously stated, Wright (1950) reported
that 3.5% of schools in 1949 indicated use of a form IMS as part of their
core curriculum. The number of schools reporting the inclusion of IMS-
type courses in their curriculum, according to Bossing (1955), increased
to 6.6% by 1954. Given the reality that no subsequent interdisciplinarity-
focused national surveys have been conducted since the mid-1950s, the
most current analog of interdisciplinarity-based courses within a curricu-
lum is Hurley et al.’s (2013) national study on IMS courses within col-
leges/schools of education in the USA.8 This study found that in in survey
consisting of 347 colleges/schools of education, only a small percentage
of programs—between 5% and 7.3%—were persevering in teaching
IMS methods courses.
At the time of the study, there were 557 colleges/schools of education in the USA.
8
3.3 T
he Question: Why has There Not Been
Greater Adoption of IMS in Schools
and in Colleges/Schools of Education?
The range of percentages of colleges/schools of education in the Hurley
et al. (2013) focus on colleges/schools of educations reflect the earlier
national survey of schools performed by Wright (1950) and Bossing
(1955). In terms of scope, the answer is yes, as the three studies were
nation-wide. In terms of colleges/schools of education mirroring the per-
centage of schools interested in IMS, the answer is a qualified yes. No
statistical analysis can be done because there have been no national level
surveys on IMS practice since 1954. However, two lines of reasoning sup-
port the mirroring. The first line of reasoning is the role colleges/schools
of educations play in establishing the teaching identity of pre-service
teachers that reflects what is taught and how it is taught (Walkington,
2005). Pre-service teacher programs provide the professional knowledge
of teachers and educational leadership programs provide the professional
knowledge for school administrators, and this knowledge reflects accepted
standards of practice recognised, encouraged and/or required by profes-
sional associations and or regulatory bodies reflective of a symbiotic rela-
tionship (cf. Padró & Hawke, 2003). The second line of reasoning is the
prevalent nexus between degree programs and licensure, staffing require-
ments and state and national mandates and standards compliance for
school teachers and administrators. From a comparative perspective, this
connection tends to overcome the presence of an internecine divide
between academic researchers in colleges/schools of education and school
administrators and teachers (cf. Vanderlinde & van Braak, 2010) that is
possibly based on differences of rewards and vocabulary (de Vries &
Pieters, 2007).9
9
Even though not discussed in the dissertation, this argument is supported by the analysis of the
survey responses in Padró’s (1988) study on the presence of quality circles in schools.
3.4 Methodological Considerations

Looking for reasons why IMS practice has not risen in about 50 years is
an indirect look at the legitimacy of the practice. In this particular
instance, it is legitimacy of practice and legitimacy of appropriateness of
implementation from policy steering and regulatory compliance perspec-
tives. The Introduction section above illustrates the legitimacy of IMS as
a valid pedagogical practice. Attention therefore falls on policy steering
and regulatory compliance. Legitimacy is a normative concept concern-
ing the rational aspects of political argumentation (Eriksen, 1987). In
this analysis, attention falls on the potential dissonance between IMS
practice and the values espoused by policy and regulation. In this regard,
legitimacy is a variable affecting the success of policy (Matti, 2009), and
practice as well. Thus, the analysis concentrates on the potential role
NCLB acted as an inhibitor to broader adoption of IMS.
One standard approach to evaluate the effects of NCLB on IMS is
regulatory impact analysis (RIA). RIA is a systematic process of identify-
ing and assessing the expected effects of a policy using a consistent ana-
lytical method (OECD, 2008).10 Evaluation of policies are designed to
answer three basic questions:
1. How was the policy delivered?

2. What difference did the policy make?
3. Did the benefits of the policy justify the costs? (H.M. Treasury,
2011, p. 17)
At the crux of RIA is a preference is for objective evidence criteria,

which is why RIA is often associated with monetary-based techniques
The components of RIA are:

10
1. Problem definition
2. Elaboration of different options
3. Consultation
4. Choice of a method to analyse options
5. Analysis of options
6. Special tests
7. Criteria of choice among options and regulatory choice suggested to the policymaker
8. Monitoring regulation and reporting (Radaelli, 2005, p. 926)
such as cost benefit analysis, cost-effectiveness analysis or alternative

approaches to defining monetary values (Dodgson, 2009; H.M. Treasury,
2011; Productivity Commission, 2012). The challenge is to account for
qualitative effects that involve judgemental or subjective evaluation
(Kirkpatrick & Parker, 2004) when these objective criteria are either
insufficient or not possible. Regulatory research needs to consider both,
objective and subjective evidence (Losoncz, 2017). Developing a struc-
tured ‘logical model’ identifying assumptions, contextual factors and
possible causal pathways provides a means to proceed with an impact
evaluation, especially when looking at the effects of unintended conse-
quences (H.M. Treasury, 2011).
In policy analysis, interest rests in the analysis of the legitimacy of the
policy and/or the agency enacting policy (and its rules). According to
Hanberger (2003), “[o]ne way to explore at the interplay of public policy
and legitimacy is to take a historical perspective” (p. 258). A historical
perspective provides an avenue for contextualising the effects of policies,
intended or unintended using different sources of evidence (primary
studies or secondary sources). A key point in using the historical perspec-
tive is to establish the longevity and multifaceted characters within the
framework of policy to identify a variety of relevant implications
(Sharkansky, 1995).
3.5 The Logical Model Lens

Many policies embedded in laws like NCLB are seen from opposite and
oppositional perspectives creating an environment where individual
choice is fraught with risk. This is partly due to the extent ‘public value’
of government action is accepted (Dahl & Soss, 2014). This analysis cen-
tres on individual and collective choice in selecting and/or maintaining
particular course offerings within programs impacting pre-service teacher
preparation and the lens used to look at the historical data. A framework
developed by Padró (2013) that places choices in a continuum that has
minimaxing (the embodiment of risk, regret and disappointment—
Finucane, 2012) at one end and Foucault’s (1994) concept of govern-
mentality on the other is used.
3.6 Policy Steering

Public policy is more than regulatory compliance in the name of the
public good. Policy expresses a clear rule of law that sets public morality
upon some action hitherto considered private (Lowi, 1972). The vehicles
of public policy are legislation and/or regulatory dicta as a means of fos-
tering or discouraging innovation (Herzlinger, 2006; Senyshyn, 2005) by
setting outcomes and/or standards that have to be followed or adopted by
organisations and institutions. The complexity of social structures means
that policy steering mechanisms can fail to motivate compliance or
achieve desired outcomes (Boswell, 2011) highlighting the possibility of
a capability for institutions and/or individuals to reject the premises
behind policy steering to the degree allowable under law.
Policy steering provides “the externally derived instruments and insti-
tutional arrangements which seek to govern organisational and academic
behaviours within higher education institutions” (Ferley, Musselin, &
Andresani, 2008, p. 326). These instruments suggest universities should
focus on practices that are deemed to be aligned to standards—which
denotes quality practice. Policy steering is a combination of ex ante and
ex post mechanisms (Marginson, 1997) that shape the broad or at times
more detailed expectations and requirements to meet the intent set up
through legislation or regulations. It can take the shape of ‘soft power’11
(through guidelines, recommendations or other forms of governing with-
out governing—Ozga, 2008) or through the command, police or ‘hard’
power of mandates (cf. Nye Jr., 1990). NCLB is a clear case of the latter.
Policy articulates principles of action taken by government and organ-
isations (Padró & Green, 2018). These normative principles articulate
how actions of individuals and groups may be regulated (Raz, 1999).
Policy formation can be described as a double contingency, when two
actors make their own behaviour contingent upon the behaviour of the
other (Luhmann, 1995). Per Luhmann (1995), both parties experience
this double contingency and the resulting interaction begins to form
social structures. Strydom (1999) proposed a variation of this model by
11
Soft power is the ability to shape the preferences of others to achieve one’s outcomes through
attraction rather than coercion or payment (Nye Jr., 2008).
indicating that, instead, there is a triple contingency based on the role of

an observer representing society defining the social reality and its out-
come on the actors. The third point of view represented by the public has
a constitutive impact on the social situation (Strydom, 1999):
The inclusion of the third point of view means that the social situation in the
case of triple contingency is very different and more complicated… [Society]
embodies the societal power of definition. C has a constitutive social role in that
[the third party] has the power to define the situation. Whatever A and B say
and do, therefore, must in principle make sense to C. From the start and
throughout, A and B are subject in their interrelations to meaning as defined
by society and represented by the observer. (p. 11)
Strydom’s addendum is particularly useful because the perception of

legitimacy of mandates and of choices made by educators at HEIs and
schools are in some ways mediated through the function integration
claims from educators and how that shapes the perception of the general
public as to which action is deemed more legitimate (Landecker, 1952).
More to the point, policy formation and policy steering looks like a fun-
nel as different stakeholder interests coalesce and converge to determine
which normative elements become law (Padró & Green, 2018). Laws
provide the rationale for rulemaking that is nested within regulatory
mechanisms and the resulting regulations represent one way to control
individual and societal behaviour (Lowi, 1972). Strydom’s triple contin-
gency allows for a better accounting of third party normative definitions
of acceptable actions.
Policy (as a more informal form of governing) is the reality of bureau-
cracy in action while law is formal governing that acts desired norms (cf.
Lowi, 2002). Law and regulation are two levers used to steer the admin-
istrative state’s policy direction when it comes to guiding desired behav-
iours in different social arenas, particularly under the umbrella of ensuring
the common good. Education and healthcare are two areas where the
steering is most palpable, even if the approach taken reflects different
directions as evinced in the USA.
Raz (2019) described law as “a structure of rules, institutions, practices
and the common understandings that unite them, which normally are an
aspect of some social organisation: state, city, university, corporation”

(p. 1). Hart (1997) saw law as a family of rules of behaviour shaped by
three issues: (1) certain human behaviours become obligatory, ceasing to
be optional; (2) moral requirements embedded within the rules; and (3)
contrasts between formal and informal rules, i.e. differences between
habitual behaviour and purposed, mandated behaviour. Law therefore
represents a virtue or ideal to which institutional and personal behaviours
should conform—as a form of control or ‘soft power’. Extent of discre-
tion is a bounding question in the shaping of law based on Raz’s (2019)
view that law also provides a framework of agreement between disparate
social elements that otherwise differ, although compliance may not be
complete.
Regulation imposes rules backed by sanction to modify institutional
and personal behaviours designed to reduce uncertainty and promote
efficiency (Khemani & Shapiro, 1993; Kirkpatrick, 2014). Hart (1997)
stated that there are two types of rules undergirding laws and regulation.
Primary rules define conduct, set obligations and defines consequences
from action or inaction. Secondary rules are procedural in nature, and are
of three types: rules of recognition, change and adjudication. These sec-
ondary rules focus on mitigating uncertainty of the law (by identifying
who is affected/to whom it applies), ensuring efficiency in/of enactment
(determining whether a primary rule has been broken in a particular situ-
ation) and minimising the static quality of law (empowering groups or
individuals with the ability to create new primary rules or to eliminate
old rules). The role of secondary rules within regulatory processes bring
to play the notion of ‘regulatory capture’, when “regulation is acquired by
the industry and is designed and operated primarily for its benefit”
(Stigler, 1971, p. 3). In other words, in this instance, the extent to which
dissent or non-compliance deemed acceptable that avoids the perception
of special treatment or gain.
3.7 Institutional Commitment, Adaptation or

Resistance to External
Environmental Expectations
Lasswell (1971) pointed out that policy provides procedural and substan-
tive knowledge of what is desired or intended that frames the effects of a
policy under examination. This being the case, there is a degree of respon-
sibility for educators at HEI college/schools of education and administra-
tors and teachers to attempt to understand how legislation and regulations
impact their ability to determine how their choices under academic free-
dom on how and what to teach. Institutional and personal choice this
type of situation can reflect Williams, Gore, Broches, and Lostoski’s
(1987) model of faculty involvement in governance issues that ranges
from strong support of institutional administration to rejection of strong
administration and/or Boiral and Roy’s (2007) model of support for
quality standards that identifies groups or individuals as either enthusi-
asts, initiative integrators or dissidents. Figure 3.1 provides a third model
that helps identify factors leading to decisions regarding acceptance,
rejection or modification to regulatory mandates such as those found
in NCLB.
The model proposed by Padró (2013) places institutional and/or indi-
vidual choices as either defensive in character or highly supportive and
willing to adopt new socially constructed perspectives from outside the
institution. One key determinant is the extent to which institutions and
individuals are risk tolerant to different circumstances. The second key
factor is comfort in government-based exhortations or promulgations.
Miles and Snow’s (1978) typology of strategic types helps explain the
dichotomy. The point is the approach institutions and/or individuals take
in regards to adaptation:12
12
These categories help illustrate the perspective of those making decisions. There has been criti-
cism of treating these categories as distinctive categories when organisations can exhibit a combina-
tion of these strategic types (Andrews, Boyne, Law, & Walker, 2009).
Governmentality Minimaxing
outlook: comfort with behaviour:
external demands compliance to
(supportive/committed) minimize regret
Risk (reluctant/
Risk tolerance exposure uncommitted)
capacity (internal and
external)
Scanning
capabilites
and accuracy
Extent of institutional
defensiveness or openness to
meeting external demands
Scope of central
administration focus in
• Alignment, understanding and relation to faculty input,
acceptance of HEI language collaboration, and • Confirmation/disconfirmation of
(mission, vision, philosophy, participation perceptions
processes) Type of autopoiesis sought; • Driving “fact-finding” through
• Recognition and understanding capacity (limitations and the lens of either accuracy or
of paradoxical nature of learning emphasis) plausibility
and institutional performance
• HEI organizational environment
Factors framing
Natural of HEI • Degree of faculty interactions
organizational within HEI (collegial, perceptions:
environment bureaucratic, political, Purpose
Degree of faculty anarchical) Structure
interactions Governance
(governance and other Policies
venues of participation) Processes
Information
Infrastructure
Culture
Fig. 3.1 Institutional preference for either commitment or resistance to external

environment expectations. Source: adapted from Padró (2013)
Defenders do not look far from their domains for opportunities, narrowing
their focus and choices regarding what they are willing to do.
Prospectors always looking for new opportunities and regularly experiment
with emerging trends, creating and comfortable with change and
uncertainty.
Analysers exist in either stable or changing environments, relying on stable
formalised structures and processes; looking for new ideas when
in a turbulent environment and rapidly adopting those ideas that
look most promising.
Reactors seeing change and uncertainty occurring in their institution, but

unable to respond effectively, making adjustments only when
forced by environmental pressures because of a lack of a
consistent strategy-structure relationship.
3.8 The Minimaxing End of the Continuum

This side of the model reflects decisions made based on ultra-pessimism
founded on the belief that choice is made under the worst possible situa-
tion (Savage, 1951; Taylor, 2013/1965). The approach behind decisions
is a minimising regret strategy allowing the institution or individual to
minimise the maximum potential loss accruing from the arrived at judge-
ment (Bloomfield, 1976; Danan, Gajdos, & Tallon, 2013). In this regard,
minimaxing places compliance as a zero-sum situation, where “interac-
tions are based on strategies that identify an institution’s maximum loss
and minimise policy-maker/regulator potential gain” (Padró, 2013,
p. 261).
Risk is an important aspect within minimaxing because acts have con-
sequences, the consequences depend on facts known to the decision-
maker and not all facts are always available to the decisionmaker (Näslund,
1966; Savage, 1951). Decisions are based on maintaining a preferred
level of security (cf. Luce & Raiffa, 1985/1957). Conversely, when maxi-
mising utility (achieving desirable ends—Briggs, 2019) a decision gener-
ates choices to achieve this benefit for the decisionmaker (Friedman &
Savage, 1948).
A question arises similar to one posed by Wildavsky and Dake (1990):
what is more important in predicting perceptions of danger and prefer-
ences for risk taking, personality or political culture? Risk is about impact
as much as it is about likelihood of perception becoming reality. It reflects
double-loop learning proposition framed by individual needs, audiences,
perceptions and criteria from a sector context (ISO, 2009; Padró, 2014).
“Choosing which strategic opportunities to pursue involves considering
relative risk, financial and otherwise, and then making intelligent choices
(“intelligent risks”)” (Baldrige Performance Excellence Program,

2013, p. 11).
3.9 G
overnmentality as the Other End
of the Model’s Continuum
One way of looking at the impact of choice found in this study is to look
at the nature of what is behind the politics and what makes compliance
attractive and not attractive. ‘Governmentality’ was a term created by
Foucault representing the “ensemble formed by the institutions, proce-
dures, analyses, and reflections, the calculations and tactics that allow the
exercise of this very specific albeit complex form of power, which has as
its target population, as its principal form of knowledge political econ-
omy, and as its essential technical means apparatuses of security”
(pp. 219–220). Its basis is founded on neoliberal thinking (Hamann,
2009). At its core, governmentality refers to the practice of governing
enabled by a specific rationality (Gordon, 1994). It is the management
and control of individuals, goods and wealth, with instruments of gov-
ernments through tactics and not laws ostensibly for the purpose of
ensuring and improving the welfare of the populace (Foucault, 1994). In
other words, regulation, but regulation conducted from a social point
of view.13
This side of the continuum indicates a degree of comfort with govern-
ment or government-led proposals. These institutions and/or individuals
generally trust government agency officials (regulators), perceiving their
actions, motives and rules as fair. In turn, these are the individuals that
more often than not provide voluntary compliance to mandates.
13
Rose, O’Malley and Valverde’s (2006) analysis of governmentality puts forth the view that
“[g]overnment is not assumed to be a by-product or necessary effect of immanent social or eco-
nomic forces or structures. Rather, it is seen as an attempt by those confronting certain social
conditions to make sense of their environment, to imagine ways of improving the state of affairs,
and to devise ways of achieving these ends” (p. 99).
3.10 L essons Learned: Discussion

and Conclusion
Applying policy analysis to NCLB in regards to IMS practice did not
provide a clear-cut answer, not because of the methodology, but simply
because of the lack of available useful information. The presence of
numerous components in the methodology used to pursue this analysis
meant the need for varied types and amount of information that could be
turned into usable and useful evidence in order to compensate for a lack
of monetary-based quantifiable data. Nevertheless, there was just enough
information to conjure up some plausible explanations.
There was a benefit of looking at what is now an old data set because it
was set in the timeframe of when the policy was making the greatest
impact. The data from the Padró and Hawke (2003) study coincided
with the beginning of NCLB (ca. 2002) and pursued a focused review of
the literature until the first major modifications of NCLB were enacted
(ca. 2009–2010). The study, as the historical narrative in the Introduction
section showed, also captured the transition of pre-NCLB studies relat-
ing to science and maths standards formation and some of the effects the
standards movement was having on school curricula (mainly) before the
high-stakes testing and AYP requirements shifted emphasis and attention
of teaching in these subject areas. Overall, there was sufficient secondary
material to complement regulatory documentation (which, unfortu-
nately, was not followed up to the extent it probably should have been)
that allowed for a historical approach toward policy analysis.
Unfortunately, the lack of national surveys on integration of teaching
subjects between 1954 and 2002 was a gap too wide to bridge. Moreover,
these surveys were not sufficiently comprehensive in scope to capture
rationale for decisions. In this regard, the gap went all the way back to the
reports emanating from the Eight Year Study, a gap of over 60 years. Many
studies were conducted in the area of curriculum, pedagogy, specific sub-
ject content areas and the like, but the studies did not provide a suffi-
ciently broad approach to meet the needs of the researchers.
Going back to the results reported by Bossing (1955), Wright (1950),
and Padró and Hawke (2003), one item that comes across is that
integration of the curriculum (inclusive of interdisciplinarity) and IMS

in particular have been minority practices, with relatively few takers. As
indicated earlier in the chapter, the traditional approach to instruction
has not yielded to newer, evidence-based changes in practice—and this
includes IMS. There is no discernible evidence that IMS (or the inte-
grated/interdisciplinary curriculum) could be labelled what Mintzberg
and Waters (1985) called an emergent strategy, i.e. not formally intended
but developing through new practices and findings (Chen, Chen, &
Padró, in press). Consequently, it would be difficult to argue that IMS
could have a countervailing effect on NCLB.
On the other hand, the Padró and Hawke (2003) study did provide a
clue when one it its findings showed that the rationale for teaching IMS
in pre-service teacher programs fell into the three broad categories of
standards compliance, school/program reform, and the philosophical
ideals of Constructivism. Table 1 in Hurley, Padró and Hawke (p. 22)
reported the breakdown of the reasons why some universities offered IMS
courses. Seven universities identified standards compliance as the reason
for offering these programs, while five indicated their IMS offerings were
part of their reform programs and four taught IMS as a reflection of their
constructivistic philosophy. Not reported in the 2012 study was that
twenty schools, responding to the survey given them as part of Stage 3,
provided reasons for the presence of the courses. These responses included
six that emanated from standards-based policies and five that were based
in elements of Constructivism. The other nine responses varied, but were
all purely practical in nature. In all, there seemed to be similarities
between the reviewed studies and colleges/schools of education respond-
ing to the Stage 3 survey. These cases reflected decisions made resulting
from deliberations of internal processes that confirmed their preferences
as highlighted in the scanning part of the Padró (2013) model. Reading
the responses suggests that governmentality was not a strongly held view.
What seemed to prevail was a guarded partially risk averse environment,
but not simply in terms of external pressure brought on by NCLB. Instead,
what seemed to be happening was a concern over the results of navigating
through the institutional climate more than unease with external regula-
tory compliance issues.
Performing this type of analysis has the downside of not providing

much evidence to make claims regarding the benefits or demerits of any
one policy when the information is not sufficiently broad and available.
The authors can make a statement that IMS was not able to make a claim
of being an emergent practice worth noticing by regulatory officials and
higher level policymakers. Given the growing interest during the 1990s
and early 2000s and more recently with the advent of STEM from 2001
onwards and the current increased call for integrated STEM, there may
be an unintended consequence of stifling a practice that could be of inter-
est to government officials. What Chen et al. (in press) found in their
study was a reverse situation; with the regulatory body becoming aware
of a practice (creativity education) that could enhance a flagging strategy
to make university graduates more attractive to employers. Creativity
education had received enough attention for a sufficiently long period of
time to achieve the perception of emergent strategy.
To conclude, there was no definitive answer to the research question
posed, due to lack of information. However, much of the analysis pro-
vided here has opened up important aspects for discussion in the USA
and further afield. Much of this account resonates strongly with Australian
science and mathematics educator and teacher educator colleagues. The
timelines might be different from those in the USA but the effects are
similar. Since 2008, in Australia, the standardised testing (NAPLAN) of
literacy and numeracy of children in school years 3, 5, 7, and 9 has
increased the teaching time allocated to these (Thompson, 2013).
Thompson also notes that the pressure on teachers for accountability has
increased and consequently also on other stakeholders from Ministers of
Education to parents, even to children, some of whom get very stressed
about their ability and performance in NAPLAN.
The change to STEM appears to be helping IMS here—over the past
five years or so, the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting
Authority has implemented a new Integrated STEM curriculum
(ACARA, 2015), and the National STEM School Education Strategy
was developed in 2015 by the Education Council for implementation
from 2016 to 2026. Individual Australian states are producing their own
versions and courses. The Office of the Chief Scientist of Australia, has
been very supportive of the development of STEM and appropriately
qualified teachers (for example, OCS, 2012, 2013), the latter of which
suggests almost doubling the time allocated to teach primary science and
including integration. Challenges have certainly been raised and noted,
but there are also active moves afoot to try to resolve these. Perhaps IMS
has a brighter future in Australia in the coming years through the banner
of STEM.
Finally, an important benefit of this analysis was the creation of the
methodology used. The methodology seemed to provide alternative
points of reference to perform a historical-policy analysis either comple-
menting or substituting for the more traditional monetary-based policy
analysis. The use of primary and secondary sources require a lens through
which the analysis of these documents can be done and the lens created
by the authors has the potential to be beneficial; however, it is a method-
ology that requires extensive information directly linked to the key points
making up this type of evaluative exercise. Additional use and refinement
is needed, but this was a good beginning point.
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4
An Educated Nation: Governmental
Policy and Early Childhood Education
in America
Jannah Nerren
In the January 28, 2014 State of the Union address by American President
Barack Obama, access to high quality early education was highlighted as a
key national investment priority (U.S. White House, 2014). In anticipa-
tion of the address, the National Association for the Education of Young
Children (NAEYC), a leading national organisation in the field of early
childhood education, published a statement that exuded expectancy for the
anticipated actions of the Obama administration, and hope in the ability of
the federal government to make positive strides towards appropriate and
equitable early education. As a representative organisation of the nation’s
early childhood educators, NAEYC espoused great hope in the future of
early childhood programs in the United States of American, and evidenced
this hope through the organisation’s published statement: “Our nation is
poised through a trifecta of federal, state and local investments and policies
to create the world-class education system we have talked about for
J. Nerren (*)
Sam Houston State University, Huntsville, TX, USA
e-mail: jannahnerren@shsu.edu

78 J. Nerren
many years” (National Association for the Education of Young Children

(NAEYC), 2014).
While NAEYC, amongst other early childhood education advocates,
voiced confidence that America could achieve a world-class educational
system, the group continually advocates that there is a shared responsibil-
ity between federal, state and local government, combined with commu-
nities, parents, and the private sector to take the necessary actions needed
to ensure quality early education experiences for all.
In the midst of the planning and policymaking intended to create
optimal early childhood learning, the hindsight of history demonstrates
that there are a variety of obstacles. Inconsistent or inconclusive data on
program efficacy can confound decision-making. Political agendas can
influence policymaking. Failure to reach consensus on best courses of
action can deter or derail progress. In the midst of these complications,
two prevailing concerns are consistently present: the absence of input
from early childhood teachers and the extreme focus on assessment.
Currently, there is increased attention focused upon the diverse needs
of children living in families below the poverty line, as well as a growing
body of research adding to our existing understanding of the unique
needs of these children. A growing concern has surfaced regarding a
divide between best practices and policy for the sound education of these
young children from low socio-economic backgrounds, and the govern-
mental policies that steer early childhood education are not always in
sync. It is important for early childhood stakeholders to explore these
divisions between the policy adopted by the US government, and sound,
research-based practices for young learners. This chapter explores state
and federal policies affecting early childhood education over the last sev-
eral decades, from the federal implementation of Head Start in 1965
through the standards-based curricula of the 2010s, to the policies of
2020, and examines concerns around each.
4 An Educated Nation: Governmental Policy and Early… 79
4.1 Poverty and Our Youngest Schoolchildren

The United States of America is currently one of the ten wealthiest nations
in the world, based on the GDP per capita (Burton, 2020), and yet has
one of the highest child poverty rates among industrialised nations, with
almost one quarter of American children growing up in homes character-
ised by poverty (UNICEF, 2017). Poverty, in this instance, is defined as
living in a household in which disposable income, when adjusted for
family size and composition, is less than 50% of their nation’s median
income. In a 2017 UNICEF report identifying the percentage of chil-
dren living in relative poverty, America and the United Kingdom were
cited as two notably wealthy countries out of 35 reporting that had a
child poverty rate above 20%.
The annual report of the Children’s Defense Fund, entitled The State of
America’s Children® 2017, provides current information regarding the sta-
tus of America’s children. The data underscore the impact that poverty
has on the youngest Americans. According to the 2017 report, more than
13.2 million children in the United States are living in poverty. That rate
is nearly 1 in 5. Children from poverty are incredibly diverse (Gorski,
2013). Of these 13.2 million children, approximately 70 percent of them
are children of color, who, in the report were correctly predicted to be a
majority of the nation’s children by the current year, 2020. The report
states that while there are millions of young American children needing
quality early childhood programs, only 5 percent of eligible infants and
toddlers were enrolled in Early Head Start in 2017, and only 54 percent
of eligible 3- and 4-year-olds were being served by Head Start.
Poverty, homelessness, and lack of enrollment in early childhood ser-
vices has a tremendous impact on American public schools, as these chil-
dren enter their first required school grades with educational needs that
are unique, given the lack of resources in their homes and the experiences
they have encountered, prior to entering formal education (Jensen,
2009). Currently, only 17 of the 50 states require that children enroll in
kindergarten (Diffey, 2018), so for many of these children, their first days
of school may not occur until they are 6 years old, bypassing the majority
of the early childhood years.
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This problem of poverty is persistent; in fact, America’s oldest, most

well-known early childhood education program, Head Start, was created
in 1965 in an effort to combat the effects of poverty on young children
and to provide support to these children and their families. But while the
state and federal governments are aware of the problems, the solutions
have not yet been realised. Varying opinions on the benefits of early edu-
cation, conflicting research results, and political agendas all plague the
supposed solutions.
4.2 H
ow Did We Get Here? A Timeline
of Trouble
Historically, government sponsored programs and interventions at both
the federal and state levels have been beset with problems. In recent years
there have been a number of initiatives and mandates that have raised
concerns amongst early childhood specialists across the nation. The
national push for standards and accountability that began to pervade
early childhood education in the 1990’s is thought by some early child-
hood scholars to have led to the development of academic curriculum
and assessment practices that were more focused on standards alignment
than on the young child (Mueller & File, 2020).
Standardised instruments are often used for the assessment process,
and early childhood development experts cite young children’s inability
to comprehend assessment cues as only one of the reasons why stan-
dardised assessment is inappropriate for young children (Strauss, 2011).
The high-stakes world of governmentally mandated accountability has
led schools to turn their focus on accountability issues rather than on
authentic, meaningful, and developmentally appropriate learning experi-
ences. (Noddings, 2007). This focus on accountability creates the percep-
tion of a nation damagint its educational system while simultaneously
failing to help to schools in need (The National Center for Fair and Open
Testing, n.d.).
The bustle and excitement about learning and playing has been
replaced by curriculum that has many primary grade expectations
seeping down into preschool. The math and literacy skills once associated
with entering formal education are now finding their way into preschool
settings. This is work that is tedious and often meaningless, and therefore
not retained, by young children. Rather than a love of learning, today’s
classroom, with the constant shadow of assessment and accountability,
can instill fear and a sense of dread and incompetence in the children, as
well as their teachers.
4.3 H
ead Start (1965) and Early Head Start
(1995): A Federal Initiative
Historically, American legislation has led to the investment of vast
amounts of funding allocated to the remediation of problems created by
poverty, through the implementation of early education programs such as
Head Start and eventually Early Head Start. These programs have the
mission of closing the gap in children’s knowledge and skills. To meet the
mission of addressing and reducing knowledge and skill deficits in chil-
dren from low socio-economic backgrounds, Head Start programs work
to promote future school success by enhancing the social and cognitive
development of children. This is attempted through the provision of edu-
cational, health, nutritional, social and other services. Additionally, Head
Start engages parents in their children's learning and helps parents in
making progress toward their own educational, literacy and employment
goals (Office of Head Start, 2014). It has been said that Head Start is the
most important educational program for 3 and 4-year old children in the
country (Strauss, 2013), however, there are several studies that indicate a
lack of effectiveness in Head Start and Early Head Start. These findings
lead to a conflict in modern thinking about the continuation of the pro-
gram, and questions about the value of investing money in programs that
have questionable benefit.
Head Start programs are located across all 50 states, as well as locations in
the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. territories. These pro-
grams are designed to meet the needs of diverse learners across all of these
locales, including American Indian, Alaskan Native and M igrant/Seasonal
82 J. Nerren
communities (Office of Head Start, 2014). The intentions of Head Start,

and subsequently Early Head Start once seemed inarguably beneficial from
a broad perspective, but public trust is waning. And although significant
funding is dedicated to researching the impact of these programs in order to
determine their usefulness, there are conflicting interpretations of the data,
and varying perspectives on the actual long-term benefits on educational
outcomes. In 2003, the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Study
(FACES) looked at a random sample of Head Start children and found
minimal increases in standard scores for literacy and math from fall to spring
(OPRE, 2006). Additionally, two detailed reports, the 2005 and 2010 Head
Start Impact Studies conducted by the U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services (Puma et al., 2005, 2010; U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, 2010), found
only minor impacts on children’s language development at the end of a year
in Head Start, and found virtually no overall cognitive, social, or emotional
impacts in Head Start attendees at the completion of their first grade year.
In assessing the information from the reports, it appears that Head Start is
not fulfilling its promise (Haskins & Barnett, 2010).
From the start of Head Start in 1965 to today, the influence of policy-
makers is interwoven throughout the history of the policies, procedures,
and funding that support its operation. The original Head Start program
was formed as a response to the War on Poverty declared by United States
President Lyndon B. Johnson and was developed with the input from a
panel of experts that included a pediatrician, a psychology professor and
director of the Child Study Center at Yale University. In the historical
information included on the official Head Start website, there is no men-
tion of an early childhood practitioner. This pattern of omitting the voice
of the practitioner has continued over time, even as accountability mea-
sures have increased.
In 2011, the Obama administration developed policy to require Head
Start and Early Head Start programs to meet seven performance criteria,
such as having the correct licensing and being financially solvent.
Additionally, providers became required to set goals for kindergarten
preparation and to demonstrate that steps had been taken to ensure that
children achieved them. Lastly, programs became responsible for meeting
minimum thresholds on the Classroom Assessment Scoring System
(CLASS), a privately developed tool that assesses how teachers and staff
interact with children in the program. This step toward accountability of
Head Start programs was the first of its sort since the implantation of the
program (Quinton, 2014).
Currently, the biggest impact of Trump administration on Head Start
has been what is perceived by some as an agenda that is undermining the
well-being and development of America’s most vulnerable children
(Mead, 2019). According the U.S. Health and Human Services website
for Head Start Early Learning and Knowledge Center Policy and
Regulations (2019), as well as the U.S. Federal Register (2019), President
Trump has proposed a change in the Obama-era regulations that length-
ened the minimum Head Start day from 3.5 hours to six. This was a
research-supported change, based on the knowledge that a longer school
day leads to greater learning. The new proposed rule, set to go into effect
by 2021 if adopted, removes this requirement. Some proponents of the
rule see it as giving programs more autonomy and flexibility. However,
some see it as a backward move in ensuring that children get the most
benefit from their school day.
Throughout the years of Head Start’s existence, systematic research
and data gathering has taken place. The Head Start Impact Study began
in 2005 (Puma et al., 2005) and was mandated to continuously measure
the effects of Head Start programs on the educational outcomes of the
children who participated. The 2010 report (Puma et al., 2010) report
received mixed reactions. Some stakeholders feel that the data clearly
indicates that Head Start makes no lasting impact and that those report-
ing positive outcomes from the data have a vested interest in the pro-
gram. Another report from the Promising Practices Network (Mattox,
2010) analysed the program and gave it a rating of “Promising.” However,
many naysayers feel that the research does not substantially support the
long-lasting benefits of Head Start interventions. Multiple analysis of the
study, including a report from the National Forum on Early Childhood
Policy and Programs (2010), state that there were no significant benefits
for children attending Head Start, and that there was clear indication
that children who had not attended Head Start were able to catch up to
their peers who had attended Head Start during the first two years
of school.
84 J. Nerren
In contrast, a 2013 report of the Office of Planning, Research, and

Evaluation Administration for Children and Families, an office of the
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, stated key findings that
while children assessed in English score below norms across language,
literacy, and math measures at both Head Start entry and exit, they still
exhibit progress toward norms across these areas, and they score at the
norm on letter–word knowledge at program exit. Additionally, it was
reported that children show growth in the area of social skills from pro-
gram entry to exit, and they also rate children as having fewer behavioral
problems by program exit. Another positive finding in this report is that
children exhibited more positive approaches to learning and stronger
executive functioning skills by program exit (Aikens, Kopack Klein,
Tarullo, & West, 2013).
Despite the varied analysis, provisions were put into place with the
intention of ensuring benefit from Head Start. In 2007, the Improving
Head Start for School Readiness Act was enacted, requiring the governor of
each state to designate or establish a council to serve as the State Advisory
Council on Early Childhood Education and Care (SACs) for children
from birth to school entry. These were entitled Advisory Councils and the
practice is still alive today (Texas Early Learning Council, n.d.). Other
provisions include alignment of Head Start school readiness goals with
state early learning standards, higher qualifications for the Head Start
teaching workforce, continuation of SACs in every state, and increased
program monitoring, including a review of outcomes and annual finan-
cial audits. Additionally, the Head Start training and technical assistance
system was redesigned to support programs through six National Centers
and a state-based system to ensure success (Office of Head Start, 2014).
A notable aspect of the most current statute on Head Start programs
was the inclusion of a provision that moves programs from an indefinite
project period to a five-year grant cycle. At each cycle, Head Start pro-
grams are now required to demonstrate that they provide high quality
programming for the children they serve. The Obama administration’s
quality control initiative to remediate or eliminate ineffective Head Start
providers, resulted in the notification of 254 of the 1600 providers,
informing them that they were “deficient” in terms of quality and would
have to compete for funding based on outcomes, rather than the previous
automatic renewals (Layton & Svlurga, 2013).
Early Head Start was added as a supplemental program to specifically
meet the needs of the youngest children from backgrounds of poverty.
Originally added in September of 1995, under the Clinton administra-
tion, the first Early Head Start grants were given to meet the needs of
infants and toddlers, and then in 2009, under the Obama administra-
tion, the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act added more than
64,000 slots for Early Head Start and Head Start programs. This move-
ment to address the needs of very young children underscored the nation’s
value of children and recognised that the early years are indeed critical in
establishing a foundation for learning. Early Head Start continues along-
side Head Start as an effort to provide all children in the US with as equal
a footing as possible upon entering formal schooling.
4.4 N
o Child Left Behind (2002–2015):
National Reform Effort
Since the 1980s, the focus on early childhood education began a slow
creeping away of research supported developmentally appropriate prac-
tices for early childhood education. The increasing emphasis on standards
and accountability has slowly but continuously moved early education,
and American education in general, in another direction. The relentless
push for performance standards and accountability measures for meeting
those standards was first legislated by the No Child Left Behind Act of
2002 (NCLB), which was signed into law in January 2002 by President
George W. Bush. Standardised tests were a major component of this
accountability-based initiative. However, there were many educators who
initially supported NCLB. Diane Ravitch, American education historian
and author of numerous texts on the subject, including The Death and
Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are
Undermining Education (2011), states “I was initially supportive of
NCLB. Who could object to ensuring that children mastered the basic
skills of reading and mathematics? Who could object to an annual test of
86 J. Nerren
those skills? Certainly not I” (Ravitch, 2011). While accountability is not

an evil within itself, the predominant criticism is that the mandate was
enforced without attention to curriculum and standards. Many Americans
believed NCLB to be an outgrowth of the standards movement, but it
was not (Ravitch, 2011, p. 31). What began as a movement to set high
standards to raise the quality of American education morphed into a sys-
tem of extreme, high-stakes testing. This serves as another example of
negative outcomes from educational policy gone awry at
implementation.
Head Start became a key focus for assessment efforts when the Bush
administration announced that it would implement an unprecedented
annual assessment of the 908,000 4-year-olds in Head Start programs
across America in an effort to determine how much the children were
learning. There was much criticism. Government officials said the system
would provide standardised data that would allow evaluation of local
Head Start programs and would help determine where to target resources
(Strauss, 2003), but experts and leaders of local Head Start programs
criticised the government's plan, saying it amounted to a high-stakes test
for preschoolers that would yield little useful information because pre-
school children are too young to be evaluated with a standardised exam.
Experts in early childhood education know that young children are lim-
ited in their ability to perform well on standardised tests. It is not devel-
opmentally appropriate to expect young children to attend to extensive
assessment, and even when they do, the results are not reliable. The results
are dependent upon many factors beyond what the child actually knows.
Factor in the large number of children in Head Start whose first language
is other than English, as well as those with special needs, and the reliabil-
ity of the assessment declines even further. In conjunction with this
national reporting system, President Bush emphasised a shift in Head
Start's focus from development of children's social and emotional skills,
to emphasising early literacy. In an effort to do this, the administration
began the early-childhood initiative by promoting literacy seminars for
local Head Start officials. Many of these Head Start employees were
opposed to this initiative, reporting that they felt pressured to learn and
use techniques that they didn't want or need (Strauss, 2003). Other crit-
ics of this initiative felt strongly that promoting literacy over services that
develop a child's social and emotional well-being is counterproductive

with Head Start children. Because those enrolled in Head Start enter the
programs from backgrounds of poverty, they are not developmentally or
cognitively ready to focus on learning literacy skills over social and emo-
tional development. In 2015, President Obama and a bipartisan US
Congress, did away with NCLB, enacting the Every Child Succeeds Act,
its replacement, which ended the heavy federal oversight and instead,
turned over increased responsibility to the states (Layton, 2015).
4.5 R
ace to the Top Early Learning Challenge
(2009): A Federal Competition
Following on the heels of NCLB and the George W. Bush era, President
Barack Obama’s administration began the movement of furthering the
accountability emphasis into the earlier years of preschool, allowing
standards-based curriculum to gain traction with the new Race to the Top
Early Learning Challenge (U.S. White House, 2009). This $4.35 billion
fund is the largest-ever federal competitive investment in school reform,
and was focused on the improvement of early learning by increasing the
number of low-income children in high-quality programs, creating an
integrated system of high quality early learning programs and services,
and finally, to “ensure that any use of assessments conforms with the rec-
ommendations of the National Research council’s reports on early child-
hood (U.S. Department of Education Race to the Top—Early Learning
Challenge (RTT-ELC) Program (n.d.) ). It was the assessment piece that
caused angst among early childhood professionals.
Many were dismayed that the policies around the Race to the Top
Early Education fund and other such initiatives were not heavily enough
influenced or informed with the input of those with actual experience in
early education. Decision-making and the creation of policy such as this
one, has been criticised as being oft led by legislators in offices that are far
removed from classrooms. In a white paper presented by the National
Network of State Teachers of the Year, this group makes the point that
“education policy results are better for students when policies are informed
88 J. Nerren
and shaped by highly effective educators who know firsthand what it

takes to deliver excellent teaching and learning” (p. 5, 2015).
4.6 Common Core State Standards (2009)

The Common Core State Standards, developed in 2009 by state lead-
ers (Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2009), have been a polaris-
ing topic in American education since inception. In 1994, Linda
Darling-Hammond, a leading voice in American education, published an
article entitled National Standards and Assessments: Will They Improve
Education? in which she questioned the practice of beginning with con-
tent and performance standards, rather than with policies to create a sys-
tem aimed at improving teacher knowledge and equalising school
capacity. Despite this idea, with its numerous proponents, the standards-
based improvement movement has persisted.
State education standards have been in place in the United States since
the early 1990s, and by the early 2000s, every state had developed and
adopted its own set of learning standards and proficiency levels to clearly
delineate the learning expectations for students in grades 3–12. The
Common Core State Standards were developed as a response to the variance
between the standards and proficiency levels between the states. The state
leaders, including governors and state commissioners of education from 48
states, two territories and the District of Columbia, through their member-
ship in the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA
Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) deter-
mined that a consistent set of standards would be beneficial (http://www.
corestandards.org/) and set to the task of a more standardised set of expecta-
tions. In 2020, forty-one states, the District of Columbia, four territories,
and the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) have all
adopted the Common Core State Standards (corestandards.org).
At the forefront of the controversy in the area of the Common Core
Standards and early childhood education, is the glaring lack of input
from early childhood experts in the development of the standards, and
the hurried way in which they were implemented (Ravitch, 2014).
According to Miller and Carlsson-Paige (2013) the Common Core
Standards for kindergarten through third grade were created by commit-

tees without one single K-3 classroom teacher or early childhood profes-
sional. Miller and Paige, in a scathing analysis of the standards creation,
state that of the 135 people responsible for the writing and review of
these mandated standards, there was no one brought to the table who
could contribute the hands-on knowledge and expertise that early child-
hood teachers and child development experts could have lent to the
development of the K-3 standards. In argument, those involved in the
development of the standards, two groups made up of governors and
school officials, are adamant in their stance that the development of the
standards was state-led and was inclusive of insight from educators at all
levels and experts in the field. Because of the omission of actual early
childhood educators at the table, early childhood experts are even more
reluctant to embrace a set of standards of which they have no ownership,
and of which they cannot support because of expectations that are com-
monly believed by early childhood educators to be developmentally inap-
propriate for the proper education of young children. Specific examples
of this were detailed in the Joint Statement of Early Childhood Health and
Education Professionals on the Common Core Standards Initiative issued by
the issued by the Alliance for Childhood made up of over 500 early child-
hood professions on March 2, 2010. These are:
1. The K-3 standards will lead to long hours of direct instruction in lit-
eracy and math, pushing active, play-based learning out.
2. The standards will intensify the push for more standardised testing,
which is highly unreliable for children under age eight.
3. Didactic instruction and testing will crowd out other crucial areas of
young children’s learning: active, hands-on exploration, and develop-
ing social, emotional, problem-solving, and self-regulation skills—all
of which are difficult to standardise or measure but are the essential
building blocks for academic and social accomplishment and respon-
sible citizenship.
Others believe that the Common Core State Standards are not only
unhelpful; they are detrimental to the education of young children,
and are developmentally inappropriate (McLaughlin, Levin, &
90 J. Nerren
Carlsson-Paige, 2014). Many of those with complaints about the state-

led policy of Common Core State Standards say that it is specifically the
math and English standards that are developmentally inappropriate for
younger children (Khrais, 2014). This is still a concern being addressed
by many states, as they convene panels to look closely at these two areas
to make strides toward refining the expectations of children. In April
2015, the NAEYC published a paper with the position that “while the
common standards are generally consistent with developmentally
appropriate practice, they run the risk of restricting the early-childhood
curriculum and leading to assessment methods that are inappropriate
for young children. This is consistent with the joint statement pub-
lished by NAEYC and National Association of Early childhood
Specialists in the State Department of Education (NAECS-SDE) on
the Common Core Standards Initiative Related to Kindergarten
through Third Grade (National Association for the Education of Young
Children (NAEYC) and The National Association of Early Childhood
Specialists in State Departments of Education (NAECS-SDE), 2009),
which stated that while the two groups supported the development of
the standards as whole, that there was concern over the emphasis on
two content areas of mathematics and English Language Arts (ELA),
and a lack of inclusion of social and emotional development.
States continue to debate the efficacy of the Common Core Standards.
As recently as January 2020, the State Board of Education in Idaho is
reportedly engaged in a state-wide debate with stakeholders, largely par-
ents, over continuance or repeal of the Common Core. In an article writ-
ten by state representative Dorothy Moon, she states that Idaho adopted
Common Core standards in hopes of improving student performance.
However, according to Moon, student test scores are either flat or drop-
ping, with the reading scores of the state’s fourth-graders’ remaining stag-
nant, according to 2019 NAEP Mathematics and Reading Results.
Members of the Idaho Senate and House education committees are
expected to review the Common Core standards during their 2020 legis-
lative session. The citizens of Idaho are not alone in their desire to repeal
their states’ adoption of the Common Core. There are currently at least 16
states have begun or passed legislation to repeal the standards, perhaps an
indication of the dissatisfaction with implementation and the actual out-
comes for student achievement (Common Core States Population, 2020).
4.7 U
niversal Pre-Kindergarten: A Decision
for the States
A nation is only as strong as the educated public that it produces, and
early childhood professionals know that this education begins in the for-
mative years; birth through eight years of age (UNESCO, 2020). Early
childhood experts can agree that the early years are critical years and can
point to brain development research to support the importance of early
influences (Shonkoff, 2004). However, early education advocates do not
all agree on the effectiveness of the early education systems in place in
America. As discussed earlier in the chapter, there are conflicting views on
the research on Head Start and Early Head Start, and some believe that
the most positive interpretations of the research supporting these pro-
grams is biased in that it comes from those who stand in strong support
of these programs.
The conflicting analysis colored the debates over early education pro-
grams that were centered around President Barack Obama’s plan for
Universal Pre-Kindergarten introduced in his 2013 State of the Union
address. The term “Universal Pre-K” itself is not clearly defined. It is gen-
erally thought of us meaning government-funded pre-kindergarten pro-
gram. However, it is defined by NAEYC as pre-kindergarten programs
that are available for any child in any state, regardless of the child’s abili-
ties and family income (NAEYC). At this point in the US, Universal
Pre-K is a decision that is made at the state level. Currently, there are
thirty-nine states plus the District of Columbia offering some form of
voluntary Universal Pre-K, but it is not available for every child; there are
needs-based eligibility requirements. There are only three states that offer
Universal Pre-K for all 4-year-old children as of 2020. These are Florida,
Georgia, and Oklahoma (Rock, 2020).
This program, much like Head Start, is widely supported by some
early education advocates, but there are still issues with properly funding
the programs and ensuring that a high-quality educational experience is
provided. There are many critics of expansion of the governmental role in
preschool, and these critics hold up Head Start as an argument against
the strength of such programs. These critics believe that America’s history
92 J. Nerren
of early education programs does not support federally funded early edu-
cation as the answer to the achievement gap. These critics indicate that
the Head Start program is an example of federal dollars invested in early
childhood initiatives that have not had significant returns. In a commen-
tary entitled: Head Start: A Tragic Waste of Money (2010), Andrew
J. Coulson of the Cato Institute indicated that while the US has had
Head Start in place for 50 years, we still have an achievement gap, and
that the program has not accomplished its original goal.
In opposition to this stance, the National institute for Early Education
Research (NIEER) released this statement: “Public policy is best advanced
based on impartial analysis of all the available evidence. The Obama
administration’s new Universal Pre-K proposal comports favorably with
our full review of the evidence. Opponents’ attacks have been based on
selected studies considered in isolation and even then, misinterpreted’
(Barnett, 2013).
NIEER examined four key issues in order to set the record straight.
• Do the effects of high-quality preschool programs persist or fade out

by third grade?
• Does high-quality pre-K benefit most children or only disadvantaged
children, and which is more effective, targeted or Universal Pre-K?
• Can large-scale public programs produce substantive long-term gains
for children, and how effective are current programs including
Head Start?
• What is the benefit-cost ratio of large-scale preschool programs?
Additionally, The National Early Literacy Panel (NELP) has weighed

in with research that identifies pre-kindergarten as a critical intervention
to help young children develop as readers and is in support of the
Universal Pre-K plan (NELP, 2008). Universal Pre-K is a widely debated
topic, with opposing thoughts on how to fund Universal Pre-K, and there
are mixed reviews on outcomes to date (Alic & Shepherd, 2019).
It appears that the American government has worked at creating and
sustaining early childhood education, and this is particularly true for pro-
grams designed to meet the needs of children from low socio-economic
backgrounds. From the previous administrations of the past, to the
candidate hopefuls of the future, policymakers frequently speak to the

importance of early education and have created a national debate about
its value. What is the root of the disconnection between the intentions
behind the mandates of these governmental policies and the barriers to
achieving their intentions?
4.8 Do We Listen to the Teachers?

Advocacy and a voice in policy is important. Several leading organisa-
tions provide training and a platform for educators to have their voices
heard. The American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education
(AACTE) is committed to equipping educator preparation programs to
advocate for the profession, and to train future teachers in the role of
advocacy (https://aacte.org/policy-and-advocacy/, 2020). Additionally,
advocacy is included as a standard for early educators by the NAEYC
(NAEYC, 2010), with the expectation that early childhood teachers
would “engage in informed advocacy for young children and the early
childhood profession” (NAEYC Standards for Initial Early Childhood
Educator Preparation Programs, Standard 6, 2010).
Despite this, one of the greatest amongst the concerns around govern-
mental mandates, and one of the most troubling aspects of the education
system, is the absence of the voice of the front-line early childhood pro-
fessional: the early learning experts who are in classrooms and learning
centers with the first-hand knowledge of what it takes to facilitate effec-
tive early childhood learning. This is a disturbing pattern seen repeatedly,
and a source of the conflict that is interwoven throughout the most con-
troversial policies. Unfortunately, not allowing all stakeholders a seat at
the table when it comes to creating policy to steer the movement toward
a more beneficial and equitable early education experience has been a
source of contention, creating a resistance to even the most well-
intentioned policies. The voices of the front-line experts are often not
being heard. Many, if not most, of the current policies in place have been
created without input from the front-line stakeholders: the teachers and
administrators of early childhood programs. This lack of consultation
and collaboration with early childhood experts contributes to concern,
94 J. Nerren
lack of trust, and a sense of exclusion in the process. It is difficult at best,

for early childhood educators to implement practices in which they have
had no voice, feel no sense of representation, and which, given their
expertise, they are more than capable of measuring as appropriate or in
many cases, inappropriate for young children.
4.9 Assessment: Not a Means to an End

As the debate continues over America’s approach to address issues in edu-
cation, the question remains: is governmental policy hindering rather
than helping schools? Are the nation’s children at educational risk through
the ever-increasing emphasis on accountability? The high stakes testing
currently in place has not been proven to improve education, but instead
to put narrow, flawed instruments at the center of education. High stakes
testing often leads to intensive “teaching to the test” and creativity has
taken a backseat in order to prepare students for exams that do not indi-
cate true learning gains. Research has shown that many children are less
motivated and become more likely to leave school before graduating (The
National Center for Fair and Open Testing, n.d.). Testing does not equal
learning. Fear negates a love of learning. Assessment has its place, but we
have allowed those places to grossly expand.
4.10 Perspectives
4.10.1 NAEYC
NAEYC, the National Association for the Education of Young Children

was founded in 1926, and currently exceeds 80,000 members from more
than 300 Affiliates in more than 120 countries. NAEYC plays an active
role in advocating for public policy that is in the best interest of young
children and works to garner support from early childhood stakeholders
to allow the voices of those most involved and knowledgeable about the
educational needs and best interests of young children to be heard. They
are a broad-based organisation and a premier leader in researching and

publishing best practices, supporting and advocating for governmental
policy, educating and supporting early childhood professionals, and over-
seeing quality preschool programs through their accreditation process.
The organisation is comprehensive in its inclusion of early childhood
stakeholders, and through its various programs, initiatives, and publica-
tions, NAEYC gives voice and collaborative opportunity to these con-
stituents. Early childhood teachers and administrators, caregivers,
parents, higher education leaders, physical and mental health care profes-
sionals and legislators can all contribute to the unified voice of NAEYC.
One recent piece of legislation is the Strong Start for America’s Children
Bill (Congress. Gov., 2013), which sparked the creation of NAEYC’s
Strong Start for Children—Building America’s Future coalition. The bill is
a collaborative effort; a piece of bipartisan-sponsored legislation and was
written to increase the nation’s existing commitment of federal, state and
local programs for young children’s early development and learning from
birth to kindergarten. The coalition is a legislative advocacy group that
supports the significant expansion of high- quality early learning oppor-
tunities for children ages birth to five, with an emphasis on providing
these opportunities for children who come from low-income families.
The coalition was formed to support the increase in learning opportuni-
ties that increase positive outcomes for all children in the areas of educa-
tion, health, social and economic well-being (NAEYC, 2013).
4.10.2 Defending the Early Years
Defending the Early Years (DEY), a group dedicated to speaking out

against the current direction of early education in the United States, cites
stories from teachers struggling to balance education reform mandates
with what they know to be best practices for educating young children.
In an open letter published in 2013 on their website, the group spoke
strongly to NAEYC, the nation’s largest leading organisation in early
childhood education, about what they perceived to be a softened stance
on developmentally appropriate practice in favor of standardised educa-
tion and increased assessment. DEY criticised the NAEYC, as a leader in
96 J. Nerren
early childhood education, for failing to protest the excess of standards

and assessments, and for not for offering meaningful alternatives to them.
Additionally, DEY encouraged NAEYC to take more of a stand on for
developmentally appropriate early education in the country. The organ-
isation called for a revision of early childhood standards to better reflect
brain development science and early childhood pedagogy and to partici-
pate in the development of curricula and assessments more appropriate
for young children (DEY, 2013).
In the published Vision for 2015 NAEYC Board Priorities, the con-
cerns of DEY seem to be addressed. Of the six priorities, the first two
priorities are:
NAEYC’s influence is evident in local, state, and national early childhood

public policy and early childhood professional practice.
NAEYC has aligned its standards for early childhood programs, practices,
and professional preparation with its policy stances. NAEYC has made
significant progress toward evaluating the extent to which its aligned
standards lead to improvements in children’s development and learning.
Whether these priorities are a response to the standards-based move-

ment, a response to the open letter from the Defending the Early Years
organisation, or a response from its own members, it is important to note
that this leader in early childhood education is set on influencing future
policy and practice.
4.11 Positive Steps

Not all is dire. Progress has been made for young children. According to
the Children’s Defense Organization “Total state funding for preschool
has increased and 80 percent of 5-year-olds in kindergarten are now
enrolled in full-day programs ensuring they do not miss a half step as they
start school” (2017). The current administration has had little to no
impact on early childhood education, and the educational agenda of
President Trump seems largely focused on other areas. The educational
policies on which he has been focused, have been largely related to higher
education and school safety.
4.11.1 H
ow Early Childhood Education Advocates
Can Affect Change
So, what can advocates and stakeholders of early childhood education

do? Is the current climate of governmental policy and its far-reaching
effects equal to a federal takeover of education? Can early childhood pro-
fessionals make a difference? Do the voices of the front-line experts count?
We need to build on any gains that have been made, while continu-
ously remembering that there is always room to improve. Advocacy is a
must for those dedicated to the best interests of America’s early learners.
A resurgence in the value placed on developmentally appropriate prac-
tice, and a unified and vocal effort by those who employ developmentally
appropriate practice in their preschools, kindergartens, and primary
classrooms is essential. Leaders in higher education, who stand before
classrooms of future early childhood educators should push for and
encourage these future leaders to speak out for what is right for children.
Unifying with professional organisations and alliances in the field to
bring voices together is a start. Working together and not apart, recognis-
ing the uniqueness of every child, and persistently clamoring—insist-
ing—that the voices of the front-line experts are heard is a path to
reconciling this unnecessary divide.
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5
Innovation and Research in the Danish
Public School
Palle Rasmussen and Karen E. Andreasen
The Danish ‘folkeskole’, the national system of public comprehensive

schools covering primary and lower secondary education, has a long tra-
dition of educational innovation projects, meant to support innovation
and introduce and try out new pedagogical ideas. In this chapter, we trace
the evaluation of such projects and discuss current trends and challenges.
During the twentieth century, school innovation evolved from being a
local responsibility to being more formal projects governed by the Danish
Ministry of Education through commissions of officials and profession-
als. The projects still had close links to schools and teachers, but this has
changed significantly during the last two decades. Innovation initiatives
are now often more centralised and concepts of evidence-based practice
have strongly influenced public authorities and other stakeholders. This
has increased the volume and the quality of documentation and educa-
tional research related to innovation, but it has also weakened the interac-
tion between this research and teacher practice. Re-establishing
P. Rasmussen (*) • K. E. Andreasen

Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark
e-mail: palleras@hum.aau.dk; karena@hum.aau.dk

104 P. Rasmussen and K. E. Andreasen
constructive links between innovation projects, educational research and

everyday practices in schooling and teaching is an urgent matter for
Danish education.
5.1 Understanding Innovation in Schooling

Schools are institutions established and run as part of public education
systems. At primary and secondary levels, education systems most often
target all children and young people in the relevant age groups, and the
features and activities of schools are regulated by state policy on curricu-
lum and teaching, children and parent rights, school funding and organ-
isation, teacher education and other aspects. In principle, schools have
been designed for the educational tasks they fulfil. So is innovation really
necessary? This is a question often raised among teachers and education-
alists. However, it is evident that innovation does take place in schooling,
in many different forms (European Commission, 2018). What are the
reasons and drivers for this?
One important driver is social and cultural change. New ideas and
norms may emerge that challenge the institutional ‘grammar’ built into
schools. An important example is the recognition of children as individu-
als, which has led to legal restrictions on physical punishment of students
in schools. Another example is the growing recognition of gender equal-
ity, which has made boys’ or girls’ schools exceptions and co-education
schools the dominant model.
Another driver is the growth of recognised knowledge. Research produces
new knowledge on nature, man and society, and as new insights gain
recognition (often in the form of scientific disciplines) authorities and
other actors may want to have them represented in the curricula and
teaching of schools. Of course this mechanism is also influenced by the
priorities perceived by governments and stakeholders. The emergence of
the ‘new mathematics’ curriculum in the wake of the Sputnik chock is a
well-known example (Phillips, 2015); another is the current increasing
focus on climate change in school curricula.
The emergence of new technologies may also drive innovation in school-
ing. The most obvious example is digital technology, which over the last
5 Innovation and Research in the Danish Public School 105
decades has changed the character of teaching and learning materials, of

teaching instruments and (perhaps most importantly) of students’ own
access to finding knowledge. But technologies are not necessarily based
on hardware. In the Danish context, an important innovation was the
‘organised classroom dialogue’ introduced by Ernst Kaper. Instead of the
teacher posing questions to individual students in class, the questions
were posed to the class as a whole, and students could volunteer answers
by raising their hands (Haue & Coninck-Smith, 2016). The purpose was
to support student independence and open discussion.
Innovation can also be driven by concerns for cost/effectiveness. The
schooling is a significant line in national or local public budgets and also
(in school systems with tuition) on family budgets. Innovations may help
with keeping costs down without undermining the quality of schooling.
Such innovations most often occur on the organisational level, for
instance through merging schools in order to save costs on management
and support units, or through devising flexible school buildings that may
be adjusted to different groups of students and forms of teaching.
Finally innovation may be undertaken in order to foster better and/or
new skills and competencies in students. This is related to the growth of
knowledge mentioned above, but here there is a stronger focus on perfor-
mativity and often a link to broader societal concerns for national com-
petitiveness or global sustainability. An example is the concept of deeper
learning skills (such as critical thinking, problem solving and collabora-
tion) which is most often presented as necessary in order to cope with the
challenges of the twenty-first century (Kereluik, Mishra, Fahnoe, &
Terry, 2013). Another example is the policy discussions sparked by the
OECD PISA surveys, which constituted an arena for achievement-based
competition between nations and led to and widespread introduction of
new accountability systems.
As shown by the examples above, innovation may target or concern
different elements of schooling. It can be useful to distinguish between
the following main domains for innovation: the curriculum; the teaching
methods and technologies; the school organisation and management and
the relationships between schools and their environments such as par-
ents, local communities and stakeholders. However, the domains are
interlinked, and even changes targeted clearly at one domain will often
have impacts in other domains as well.
General changes in society, culture, recognised knowledge, technology
and economic conditions will always lead to changes in schooling.
However, such changes may happen in many and very different ways
(Mitra, 2018). Simplifying for the sake of clarity, it is possible to distin-
guish between two ideal types of change: tradition-based incremental
change and purposive innovation. In tradition-based incremental change,
new norms, knowledge and technology will gradually be accepted and
practices by the actors of schooling, especially the teachers, and formal
frameworks such as curricula and school equipment will eventually be
updated to conform with practices. Purposive innovation means that
important actors—most often national or local authorities, but some-
times schools or other stakeholders—develop explicit plans for change
and invest authority and resources in pursuing them. While tradition-
based change may not disrupt well established educational practices, it
does not give education any active role and it makes change very much
dependant on local contexts, which may differ widely in a given society.
Purposive innovation explicitly connects schooling to ongoing changes
and may even give it an active role; but it runs the risk of undermining
rather than developing educational practices if it is based on insufficient
links to the field.
5.2 Schooling and Society in Denmark

Denmark has a political culture and tradition with an emphasis on col-
laboration and pluralism, both in national and local matters. The fact
that Denmark managed during the nineteenth century to complete the
transformation from absolutism to representative democracy without
major conflicts is no doubt part of the background for this. During the
twentieth century, coalition government was the rule rather than the
exception, and in the post-war period most governments have been
formed by the Social Democratic party in combination with different
liberal partners (Kaspersen, 2013). In recent coalition governments, a
new style has emerged, where coalitions are based on comprehensive
platforms with political objectives and plans, and where the government’s
credibility towards voters is based on its ability to follow up these objec-
tives and plans.
As with all Scandinavian countries, both the length and scope of insti-
tutionalised education developed after the Second World War. Already in
1903, the state had begun replacing the multitrack school system with a
more integrated system, and now it is further developed to a comprehen-
sive school model (Hermann, 2007). Based on the experience of the war,
special value was given to strengthening democracy through school edu-
cation. In addition, cooperation between parents and school was
improved and preschool care established.
In Denmark primary and lower secondary education is organised in
the form of a comprehensive public school system—the ‘Folkeskole’
(Rasmussen & Werler, 2015). There is 10 years of mandatory schooling,
starting at the age of 6 and ending at the age of 16 with school-leaving
examinations. Schooling is coeducational and free of charge. The curricu-
lum covers the basic subjects known from other school systems, such as
national language and culture, mathematics and science, foreign lan-
guages, history and geography. The legislative framework is decided by
the state, but schools are run and funded by the municipalities. The fol-
keskole is the public school.
No marks are given between Year 1 and Year 7. Schools are obliged to
report to parents on the pupil’s progress at least twice a year. Since 2008,
tests are carried out across the country each year in selected subjects and
for selected school years. The tests are prepared and organised centrally by
the Ministry of Education. Teachers receive information on the results
for individual pupils and are supposed to inform pupils and parents
of this.
Marks are given from Year 8 to Year 10 through final exams (bevis for
folkeskolens afgangsprøve) in Danish, English, religious education
(Christianity studies), history, social studies, mathematics, geography,
biology, physics/chemistry, German, French, art, handiwork, domestic
science and home economics, and woodwork. Written tests are the same
for all schools and are centrally organised by the educational department
as are the criteria required for assessing the work. Oral exams are held by
the teachers in the presence of a teacher of another school (censor).
The folkeskole is funded by the municipalities through local taxes.

However, the use of resources for the basic school is regulated and con-
trolled by the state which effectively restricts the financial leeway of the
municipalities. Alongside the Folkeskole, there is a sector of private
schools (Free schools) that parents and children can choose. The private
schools have the same structure and objectives as the folkeskole, and
pupils have to take the same examinations. The private schools are small,
with numbers varying between 28 and 450, and in 2019 they are attended
by around 17 % of an age cohort. The state supports private schools by
covering 85% of the costs, while the rest is covered by tuition fees.
5.3 S
chool Innovation and Research
in the Welfare State
The Danish ‘folkeskole’ has a long tradition of educational innovation
projects, meant to support innovation and to introduce and try out new
pedagogical ideas, and often done in preparation for smaller or larger
reforms (Illeris, Moos, Kryger, & Thomassen, 1989; Spelling, 1973).
Earlier, such innovation projects were approved and funded by local
authorities, but from the middle of twentieth century these processes
became more formal and administered by commissions of officials and
professionals established by the Ministry of Education—for instance
‘Folkeskolens forsøgsråd’ [Council of Public School Innovation]. Projects
were closely linked to schools and teachers while demands for systematic
research and evaluation were limited. These projects and their results
were reported to authorities, but they often did not reflect more system-
atic approaches as to the research design and analysis or reporting, there
were of course exceptions and the results sometimes were also published
for a wider audience and in books,
An interesting characteristic of educational innovation work in
Denmark during the time up to approximately the middle of the twenti-
eth century, before its more legal framing, is that it was characterised by
being largely what one might term as ‘bottom-up’ initiated (Andreasen &
Ydesen, 2019). The initiatives were in general not governed by the state,
but came from ‘below’, from actors with personal involvement and
engagement in school practice and education. The ideas and initiatives
often came from teachers and school leaders at the local schools, but also
from others associated with and with commitment to pedagogy and
school. During this early period of the construction of the welfare state in
Denmark, experimental activities were dominated by inspiration from
the reform pedagogy and its proponents, as seen in the so-called Vanløse
experiments, the Emdrupborg experimental school and other examples
(Gjerløff, Jacobsen, Nørgaard, & Ydesen, 2015). Initiatives such as these
were driven by a fundamental interest in improving pedagogy, with a
particular focus on how to create for instance higher levels of student
activity, more inclusive practice, integration of ideals of democracy and
the like.
The so-called ‘experimental clause’ (‘forsøgsparagraf ’), which, as men-
tioned, was added to the Public Schools Act in the 1950s, made it possi-
ble to carry out teaching that deviated from the law, but if this was
approved by the Minister of Education and was otherwise ‘compatible
with the maintenance of the goals of the public school’. Such a section
also meant that the state gained more formal control over the experimen-
tal activities that took place in the schools by both setting a legal frame-
work and also having to approve the activities formally.
As mentioned, the assessment of applications was carried out by chang-
ing councils, who could also decide on any funding. Members of these
councils were selected by the governments. The councils could—and
should—prioritise between the various applications for experimental
work and decide which could be financially supported (Skov, 2005).
Such financial support was—and still is—most often decisive for whether
there are sufficient hours for projects to be realised in schools. The coun-
cil’s choices and priorities thus had a controlling influence on the direc-
tions educational development work should and could take, and also
reflected the compositions of the councils due to the preferences of the
selected members.
During this period, the first state experimental centre for primary
school teaching in Denmark, ‘Statens Pædagogiske Forsøgscenter’ [State
Center for School Experiments] was also established 1964 (Andreasen &
Ydesen, 2019). The centre was established and fully funded by the state
with the mission of ‘testing’ the ideas of the legislation that was adopted
a few years before for the Danish Folkeskole. This centre can be seen as a
good example of the state using experimental work for political pur-
poses—here in connection with the development and structure of the
welfare state, which was the spirit of the new law.
5.4 S
chool Innovation and Research
in the Competition State
During the last two decades, innovation initiatives in Danish education
have become more centralised and innovation has become a process often
based on relatively detailed templates from the Ministry of Education,
involving either researchers or consultancies in the implementation and
evaluation. This is due to a number of changes in the societal and institu-
tional context of education, the most important of which are (1) globali-
sation and national responses to it, (2) the ‘knowledge society’ discourse
and (3) widespread adoption of the concept of evidence-based practice.
The worldwide economic and social changes often called globalisation
have been changing the conditions of national policy and Danish govern-
ments have been trying to tune welfare policy to face this challenge. An
important initiative was the so-called Globalisation Council, convened
by the liberal-conservative Fogh Rasmussen government in 2005–2006
and including key decision-makers from government, business and the
social partners. The task force argued that
“We run the risk that in the tougher competition we may not be able
to uphold our position among the richest countries in the world, because
other countries will overtake us. And we run the risk that globalisation
may split up Danish society, because not everyone has the education and
the flexibility to do well in the labour market (…).For these reasons we
should strengthen our competitive power and our cohesion” (Danish
Globalisation Council, 2005, p. 5).
This represents what political scientists have called ‘the competition
state’ (Cerny, 2010), and this has been strongly present in the mainstream
of Danish politics. It calls for the state to focus on the development of the
political, economic, and cultural institutions that give a country the

capacity to achieve socioeconomic success. In pursuing institutional
competitiveness, a state will strive to coordinate policies and actors in
different areas by the framework of national strategies, increasing the
ability and motivation of individuals to work and undertake continuous
change and improvement through benchmarking and diffusion of best
practise from international organisations.
The concept of the knowledge society emerged during the 1990’s,
replacing such concepts as post-industrial society and information soci-
ety. From around the year 2000, the concept was used in education policy
development in Denmark as well as in many other countries. An impor-
tant inspiration for this was no doubt the Lisbon process in the European
Union, which proclaimed the ambition to transform the EU to the stron-
gest knowledge economy in the world (Lawn & Grek, 2012). This
strongly signalled the importance of education for institutional
competiveness.
The principle of evidence-based practice is that professional practice
should rely on scientific evidence for guidance and decision-making. The
concept was introduced in the health sector during the 1990’s, and rela-
tively quickly it spread to other fields such as social work, education and
public policy in general (Rasmussen, 2014). For administrative and polit-
ical decision-makers, evidence-based practice promises a reliable knowl-
edge base for decisions as well as the legitimacy emerging from science.
The evidence-based approach does not completely dominate education
policy, but it has had strong influence on the way implementation is
handled.
The years just before and after 2000 saw a number of policy initiatives,
conceived and launched by a core group of officials in the Ministry of
Education, reflecting the new approaches. A big grant to establish a
national centre for the study of learning; reshaping the higher education
institution for continuing teacher education into a modern research uni-
versity (with the Danish acronym DPU); merging teacher education col-
leges into larger regional university colleges; and establishing a national
clearing house for educational research. Some of these initiatives drew on
inputs from the OECD, called on to evaluate both the school system,
higher education and educational research in Denmark (Rasmussen,
2009). The evaluation of the school system emphasised the importance of

an ‘evaluation culture’, and this contributed to reforms introducing more
exams and a system of national tests. The evaluation of educational
research called for centralisation in order to achieve ‘critical mass’ and for
more use of quantitative methods.
These initiatives did not always work as intended, but together they
significantly changed the landscape of educational policy, debate and
practice in Denmark, and consequently the contexts for and character of
innovation in school innovation. Local teacher training colleges had had
responsibility for many school development projects, but with institu-
tional centralisation these links to teacher education weakened.
Educational innovation projects were gradually linked closer to policy
development, often focused on testing out principles or methods envis-
aged for general reforms, or on following up innovations introduced in
reforms. An example of this was the ‘New Nordic School’ innovation
programme established in preparation for the 2013 school reform
(Andreasen, Rasmussen, & Rasmussen, 2013). While this involved a
fairly open call for projects from schools, most innovation projects are
based on relatively detailed templates from the Ministry. In most cases—
but not always—the emphasis is not on development through collabora-
tion between teachers and researchers, but rather on evaluation of
outcomes, provided by either education researchers or private consul-
tants. There is a demand for evidence, and often a preference for quanti-
tative methods and designs.
The contributions of private foundations to educational innovation
reinforces this trend. Traditionally private foundations have played a very
limited role in education and social work in Denmark; but this has
changed in recent years. A major example is the massive development
programme launched and funded by the Mærsk Foundation to support
the implementation of the 2013 school reform. Under the programme,
municipalities could apply for support of different activities, for instance
development of teacher competencies to meet the new demands of the
reform, and impacts were to be evaluated. The private foundations also
have a preference for quantitative evaluation of effects.
The changing framework for educational evaluation has increased not
only the volume but also the quality of required documentation and
research related to educational innovation. Earlier the activities and

results of local innovation projects tended to be presented in meagre
reports in limited circulation. The projects could have had positive and
interesting results, but they were not made available to other schools or
educationalists. In principle, the more systematic documentation pro-
vided today makes innovation projects more useful for educational prac-
tice as well as for research. But the projects and results are often less
interesting because they adhere to the Ministry templates and because
educational researchers are positioned as evaluators rather than as dia-
logue partners. The interaction between teacher practice, innovation and
research has been weakened. Research results tend to be aimed at authori-
ties and stakeholders, providing them basis for decision-making, rather
than at schools and teachers.
5.5 T
ensions in School Innovation Research:
An Example
An illustrating example of these recent and current developments is a
development project we are currently contributing to, involving transfor-
mation of teaching and school environment in a small number of model
schools. We are doing dialogue and evaluation research on the project,
but have had to negotiate some very specific demands on research meth-
odology from the private foundations sponsoring the development
project.
The main research question of the project aimed at clarifying student
development of motivation and interest in specific academic areas. In
particular, the role of the initiated innovative activities of the project in
this regard and its corresponding processes should be researched, and the
research should inform the practice in the model schools. As experienced
researchers who have spent many years researching learning-related issues
and been responsible for the dialogue research on several similar projects,
we suggested a research design with a mainly qualitative approach, using
interviews and observation as well as a smaller quantitative part based on
questionnaires to the students. We saw this as the best and most
interesting design, which would allow us to get insight into the processes
and how the different activities worked for which students and why. In
this way, we thought that it could make an optimal contribution to sup-
port the intended development process, as it was precisely the purpose of
the dialogue research. Further, it was our opinion (and experience) that
without substantial qualitative data processes, such as those in our focus,
are very difficult to investigate and that quantitative methods in them-
selves would only give limited opportunities to provide data of high
validity. Thus our first proposed research design included both a qualita-
tive and a quantitative part, but the qualitative part took the most impor-
tant role in investigating and understanding the processes of teaching and
learning, while the cross-sectional questionnaire data could supplement
and support generalisation.
However, during the work on the research design, it emerged that the
project owner expected to be able to report the results of the effort in the
form of ‘effects’ measured in quantitative terms. The main reason for this
was demands from the private foundations funding the innovation proj-
ects. They wanted to be able to see if their investment in the innovative
pedagogies of the model schools produced results, both as regards the
new and deep learning, that the project pursued, and as regards student
achievement. To measure effect a level of quantitative analysis was needed,
so a quasi-experimental design was introduced, drawing on the question-
naire data as well as on data from public registers, containing information
on student background and examination results. Consequently, the proj-
ect design came to include three elements, a qualitative part, a descriptive
quantitative part and a quasi-experimental part. This meant that the col-
lection of data for quantitative analysis became a much more important
element in the project. Analysis of the qualitative data and the question-
naire data are carried out and reported (to the innovation teams, the
schools and the public) while the innovation project is running, whilst
the quasi-experimental study can only be carried out after the project has
finished.
In other words, the donors wanted a predominantly quantitative
assessment of the ‘impact’ of the effort. Since the project depended on
their agreement and funding, the project owner, in turn, had to align
with this requirement, and therefore made the same demands on the
research team. While the merit of the quasi-experimental impact assess-

ment can be debated, there is no doubt that it has moved attention and
resources away from the other parts of the research and that it cannot be
used to inform the practices at the model schools. It is an example of
problems created for educational innovation by the exaggerated emphasis
on demonstrating impact.
5.6 Linking Research, Innovation and Practice

The institutional and political framework for school innovation in
Denmark has undergone important changes during the last two decades.
The focus has moved from teaching methods and curriculum (under-
stood in terms of school subjects) to teaching methods, especially the use
of information technologies, and school organisation. Innovation work is
more centralised, being based on pre-defined templates and targeted
grants from the Ministry of Education or from private foundations.
Evaluating the outcomes of innovation projects is emphasised, and it is
expected that such projects will give evidence-based contributions to a
‘best practice’ repertoire. The broader political framework for school pol-
icy is strongly influenced by the competition state approach which tends
to define educational innovation as a means to improve the achievement
of students, based on the assumption that achievement is the main con-
tribution of the school system to national competitiveness. This also
reflects that contemporary change in the public school system is purpo-
sive and plans-driven rather than tradition-based and incremental.
We see these developments as progressive in some ways. The purposive
character of educational change provides a context where the aims of
innovation projects can be clarified. The emphasis on evaluation means
that results of innovation projects are investigated, documented and
made available to schools and teachers on a national basis. In many ear-
lier situations, the work and results of innovation projects were only doc-
umented in brief activity reports circulated locally; better documentation
and broader circulation means that there are better chances of innovation
projects contributing to national debate and inspiring other
practitioners. This also provides a better basis for interaction between

educational practice and educational research.
However, we also see regressive elements. Through the centralisation of
frameworks and funds, innovation projects are tied too closely to a
national education policy focused on student achievement as a contribu-
tion to national competitiveness, and on evidence-based practice as con-
tribution to achievement. Increased interaction between practice and
research is positive; but it is undermined when the role of researchers is
defined as assessing the impact of innovation (not least the impact on
student achievement) through sophisticated evaluation methodologies.
While such assessments may be found useful by policy-makers and may
also contribute to educational research, the kind of knowledge they com-
municate seldom speaks to and inspires teachers and other practitioners.
The implicit basis for this kind of knowledge production is that innova-
tion in school education is the business of national policy-makers.
This also has consequences for educational research. The focus on
effect evaluation leads to a call for quantitative methodologies, not least
methodologies involving experimental or quasi-experimental design.
Over the years, Danish educational research has primarily drawn on
qualitative empirical methods such as interviews, observation and dis-
course analysis. The use of quantitative methods has been limited, maybe
too limited, and a broader awareness and use of such methods is relevant.
However, using experimental and quasi-experimental in the study of edu-
cation and learning involves many unsolved problems, for instance in
data validity, and too much reliance on these methods may distort the
field of educational research. These methods also come with a certain
theory of knowledge, implying for instance that true knowledge has a
very general character and that knowledge generated and used in local
contexts has little relevance. To be sure, neither this theory of knowledge
nor quantitative methodologies have yet come to dominate Danish edu-
cational research, but they represent a strong trend, promoted by current
frameworks for educational innovation and policy.
There is an urgent need to change the frameworks for innovation in
the Danish school system and establish constructive links between inno-
vation projects, educational research and everyday practices in schooling
and teaching. Important preconditions for such links are recognition of
the differences between the school field and the research field, mutual
respect and stable communication between actors in the two fields and
unburdening innovation projects from demonstrating ‘effects’ in the
short run. An important step would be to establish forums for profes-
sional dialogue on educational innovation and priorities for it. At pres-
ent, the field is disorganised. Politicians and the Ministry of Education
define some innovation priorities and offer funding, but implementation
is based on competing tenders, and this naturally limits open dialogue.
Private foundations use more or less the same procedures in initiating
and funding innovation projects. The municipalities fund some innova-
tion projects, but without much coordination with the state or other
municipalities, and with limited involvement of educational research.
This disorganisation makes it easier for policy-initiated models like those
mentioned above to influence educational innovation and limits the pos-
sibilities for dialogue between policy-makers, researchers and educational
practitioners. A dedicated national forum for such dialogue is a needed
and necessary step forward.
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research and development]. Uddannelse, 6(10).
Part II
School and Teacher Challenges
6
Teacher Perceptions of Daily Physical
Activity and Perceived Contextual
Barriers to the Implementation of Daily
Physical Activity
Natasha Williams and Harsha N. Perera
6.1 Introduction
Physical activity can be very broadly defined as “any bodily movement
produced by skeletal muscles that results in energy expenditure” (Miller,
Wilson-Gahan, & Garrett, 2018, p. 5). It is generally agreed that, for
children aged between 5 and 17 years of age, the ideal scenario includes
the accumulation of at least 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous intensity
activity on a daily basis (Australian Government Australian Institute of
N. Williams (*)
Fairholme College, Toowoomba, QLD, Australia
e-mail: natasha.williams@fairholme.qld.edu.au
H. N. Perera
University of Nevada Las Vegas, Las Vegas, NV, USA
e-mail: Harsha.Perera@unlv.edu

122 N. Williams and H. N. Perera
Health and Welfare, 2019; Australian Government Department of

Health, 2019; Australian Medical Association, 2014; World Health
Organisation, 2018). The concept of daily physical activity is distinctive
to the Health and Physical Education Key Learning Area. The Movement
and Physical Activity strand in the Health and Physical Education
curriculum aims to educate students of the physical, through the physical,
in a socially constructed course of developmentally appropriate
opportunities (Miller et al., 2018, p. 5). The development and
implementation of a daily physical activity program is not aligned to, nor
has any bearing upon, the Health and Physical Education curriculum.
These are two separate entities with notable differences in foundations
and implementation.
The implementation of a daily physical activity program is facilitated
by the classroom teacher and, for a myriad of reasons including the
proliferation of technology usage, fears for the safety of children and the
cost of coordinated sporting opportunities, the onus to provide
opportunities for children to engage in daily physical activity has been
increasingly placed on the education system in structured and non-
structured ways. This includes opportunities via the curriculum, daily
physical activity programs, organised activities through recess breaks and
the provision of opportunities in outside school hours care facilities. The
school environment, whilst not solely responsible for fulfilling all physical
activity requirements, does play an integral role in the provision of
physical activity programs. These opportunities make a unique
contribution to the educational experience of students through the
teaching and learning of movement skills, and a commitment to
developing positive, lifelong, health and well-being choices (Morgan &
Bourke, 2008). Schools are able to provide an environment where all
children, regardless of gender, families’ socioeconomic status, or cultural
background, can engage in physical activity. Cowley, Hamlin and Grimley
suggest if schools do not, or cannot, provide these opportunities, the
responsibility falls back on families and communities to do so. This does
have the potential to result in children losing the opportunity to engage
in physical activity (Cowley, Hamlin, & Grimley, 2011).
6 Teacher Perceptions of Daily Physical Activity and Perceived… 123
6.2 Benefits of Daily Physical Activity

There are multiple, holistic, health benefits associated with engaging in
daily physical activity. The physiological benefits of daily physical activity
for young people are widely documented and include assisting in the
development of healthy musculoskeletal tissues (bones, muscles and
joints), assisting in the development of a healthy cardiovascular system
(heart and lungs), assisting in the development of neuromuscular
awareness (co-ordination and movement control), maintaining a healthy
body weight, improving balance, maintaining and developing flexibility,
assisting relaxation and improvement of posture (Australian Government
Department of Health, 2019; Pica, 2003; World Health Organisation,
2018). Engaging in physical activity also promotes the development of
gross-motor skills and enhances the development of strength, agility and
co-ordination (Crawford, 2009).
The research supporting the physiological benefits of daily physical
activity for children is also substantiated by vast amounts of research
pertaining to the psychological advantages of physical activity. These
include assisting in improving symptoms of anxiety and depression,
assisting in social development by providing opportunities for self-
expression, building self-confidence, social interaction and integration
(Tremblay, Inman, & Willms, 2000; World Health Organisation, 2018).
Crawford acknowledges the critical role physical activity can play in
the development of a child’s intellectual, social, emotional, physical and
linguistic skills, with noted improvements in self-esteem, mental health
and the creation of a sense of inclusion (Crawford, 2009). This is
supported by the findings of Dwyer, Sallis, Blizzard, Lazarus, and Dean
(2001) supporting the notion that students who participate in regular
physical activity demonstrate higher academic performance at school
(Dwyer et al., 2001).
Engaging in daily physical activity in childhood can also have long
term health and well-being benefits, with research suggesting physically
active children are more likely to adopt other healthy behaviours, for
example, avoidance of tobacco, alcohol and drug use, into their adult
lives (Pica, 2003; World Health Organisation, 2018). Crawford also
suggests that children who learn hand eye co-ordination from an early
age are more inclined to participate in sporting activities as they get older
(Crawford, 2009).
6.2.1 Government Initiatives
Daily physical activity is an important component when considering the

holistic development of children and the debate surrounding how to
integrate a daily physical activity program in Queensland primary school
has continued to play a part in curriculum and programming development
since the termination of the Daily 15/30 Physical Education program in
the 1980’s. A 2006 Ministerial Review of physical activity in schools led
to the development of the Smart Moves daily physical activity program.
Changes in government have seen various initiatives removed from
school programming, including the specific reference to Smart Moves,
however, the importance of daily physical activity remains, and in fact,
may even be more important. The holistic benefits of daily physical
activity, and the multitude of reasons children are not accumulating
sufficient activity, suggests that teachers recognise the need to provide
students with opportunities to engage in daily physical activity. Given
that it is the responsibility of the classroom teacher to implement daily
physical activity programs raises a number of significant issues in the
provision of these opportunities. These issues include teacher perceptions
towards physical activity encompassing personal values pertaining to the
importance of physical activity and the confidence to implement a
physical activity session. These perceptions do arise as a result of
biographical experiences which involve preservice training and experiences
of HPE and physical activity as school students. The perception of
contextual barriers including the availability of time to plan, and
implement, a daily physical activity program also contribute to the
provision of opportunities for students to engage in daily physical activity.
6.3 Teacher Perceptions of Physical Activity

Many preservice teachers complete their teacher training without having
taught physical activity in any capacity (Morgan & Bourke, 2008), the
time dedicated to preservice education in the area of Physical Education
in Queensland is not explicitly stated. However, as a guide to requirements,
primary and early childhood programs approved by the Queensland
College of Teachers (QCT) are designed to ensure teachers are able to
teach Health and Physical Education (Queensland College of Teachers,
2020). It is stated that undergraduate primary programs “must include at
least one-quarter of a year of full-time equivalent study of discipline and
discipline-specific curriculum and pedagogical studies in each of English/
literacy, mathematics/numeracy, and at one-eighth of a year of full-time
equivalent study of discipline and discipline-specific curriculum and
pedagogical studies in science. The remainder of the program may be
structured to include extension or specialist studies in priority areas or
related curriculum areas” (Australian Institute for Teaching and School
Leadership, 2019).
This indicates an obvious lack of attention to preservice education in
the area of Physical Education. This does mean that, for some teachers,
the only source of information to draw upon for the inclusion of physical
activity in their teaching program is personal experiences in Physical
Education in their schooling years. A link has been established between
the personal backgrounds and experiences of teachers and how these
perceptions of prior experiences affect teaching ideologies (Miller et al.,
2018; Morgan & Bourke, 2008). It is suggested that an overwhelming
number of primary school generalist teachers report having negative
school-based physical education experiences, with most negative
experiences traced back to poor teaching practices or poor content
development (Hastie & Martin, 2006; Miller et al., 2018). Morgan and
Hansen (as cited in Miller et al., 2018) suggest that teachers are inclined
to recall their personal involvement with physical activity and repeat their
experiences with little or no recognition or interrogation of those events.
Morgan (2008) cites the research of Brumbaugh, 1987; Downey, 1979;
Faucette & Hilledge, 1989, who assert that non-specialist teachers do not
consider daily physical education to be of any value for children. It is

widely noted that classroom teachers would prefer to teach other subjects
and are reluctant to include physical activity in their daily program
(Crawford, 2009; Curry, 2011; Morgan, 2008; Morgan & Bourke,
2008;), and with programming decisions often left to the discretion of
the classroom teacher (Crawford, 2009), there is a recognition that this
can lead to the omission of daily physical activity.
The arguments made by Morgan and Bourke (2008) suggest the need
for further teaching training and education, and professional development,
particularly in the preservice stage of teacher education. This should
involve a more detailed examination of teacher’s personal biographies
with a focus on addressing the perceptions of negativity towards physical
education and activity (Miller et al., 2018). The National Preventative
Health Taskforce support this view and have called for further training
and support for teachers in this area of the curriculum (Crawford, 2009).
6.4 P
erceived Contextual Barriers
to the Implementation of Daily
Physical Activity
There are several contextual barriers to the implementation of daily phys-
ical activity. Cowley et al. (2011) cited a list of major issues for teachers
when planning for physical activity. These included equipment, funding,
presence of suitable teaching spaces, timetabling, teachers’ understanding
of the requirements of physical activity programs and their competence
to implement the programs (Cowley et al., 2011). As mentioned, the 60
minutes of physical activity should ideally be moderate to rigorous in
nature, and not be limited to incidental activity (Queensland Government
Department of Education, 2019). This research undertaken suggested
that the main issue for schools was that of competition for time with
other curriculum areas with over half of the N participants identifying
this as a major barrier. (Cowley et al., 2011). This leads to generalist
teacher’s prioritising the curriculum areas for which they have the
resources and support, and feel most confident, teaching.
The Australian Government Primary Principals Association (AGGPA,

2011) has consistently expressed concerns about the ‘crowded curriculum’
with primary school teachers experiencing difficulties overcoming this
issue. Curry reiterates these sentiments with the suggestion that the
introduction of the My School Website has seen an increased emphasis
placed on improving numeracy and literacy and acknowledges that these
pressures will continue to intensify as the demands of the National
Curriculum become known, and teacher’s strive to meet these demands
(Curry, 2011). Teachers are being asked to do more in a set timeframe
and as a consequence, physical activity is not given the same level of
exposure as in the past (Crawford, 2009).
The implementation of physical activity programs is frequently per-
ceived as being too difficult and complicated (Morgan & Bourke, 2008).
Given the outdoor and physical nature of the activity, preparation time
pressures, shortage of equipment, or fears of accident and injury, and the
legal risks associated with accidents and injuries, teachers are reluctant to
include physical activity in their daily program (Crawford, 2009). It is
also noted that the educational outcomes of physical activity are not as
obvious, or as easily assessed, as other curriculum areas, and as such are
often easy targets for removal (Morgan, 2008).
In previous studies of curriculum policy implementation, a number of
areas have been recognised as limiting factors in the successful delivery of
policy. This traverses all Key Learning Areas, with physical activity
programs not the sole area identified as being challenging to implement.
Alter, Hays, and O’Hara (2009) conducted research into the
implementation of the Arts Curriculum in an effort to determine how
teachers managed to include Arts in the ‘crowded curriculum’ (Alter
et al., 2009). The areas identified in this research relate to the level of
accountability to which teachers are held in other Key Learning Areas
and the perceptions of value and status given to each Key Learning Area,
as well as the concerns regarding time allocations and teacher confidence
(Alter et al., 2009). In a study relating to the implementation of a Science
Curriculum Innovation, the recurring issues of low teacher confidence,
inadequate resourcing and professional development programs were
significant barriers in the implementation of Science innovations (Peers,
Diezmann, & Watters, 2003).
Macdonald (2004) makes an alarming observation with regards to the

introduction of curriculum changes in schools. “When education
authorities and bureaucrats attempt to introduce change, teachers often
experience periods of engagement before frequently returning to
entrenched practices and resolutely awaiting the next innovation”
(Macdonald, 2004, p. 70). AGGPA adds to this by suggesting that
curriculum reforms have often faltered due to political interference,
inadequate resourcing and ill-conceived implementation plans (AGGPA,
2011). Tinning and Kirk found the same issues in their research of the
Daily 15/30 Physical Education program indicating the limitations
associated with attempting to implement another new program into a
teachers’ over-crowded schedule (Tinning & Kirk, 1991). Research of the
original Daily 15/30 Physical Education program suggested that no matter
how enthusiastic and competent teachers were, not a single class had
come close to fulfilling the recommended time requirements suggesting
that the “innovation never matched its own ideals” (Tinning & Kirk,
1991, p. 61).
The dramatic increase in school curriculum change since 1960 has led
to unwillingness from some teachers to incorporate the reforms into their
programming (Smith & Lovat, 2003, as cited in Smeed & Bourke, 2012).
Teachers are finding the continual changes difficult to comprehend, and
lacking in contextual alignment (Malen & Rice, 2009, as cited in Smeed
& Bourke, 2012). It is suggested that few teachers have the skills to
facilitate a change process and the determination of ‘policy’ is insufficient
to the practical implications of the implementation of the curriculum
and other reform (Abbott, Macdonald, Hay, & McCuaig, 2011, p. 617).
Given that the generalist primary school teacher will prioritise the areas
of the curriculum in which they feel most confident teaching, and the
areas in which they feel they have resources and support (Cowley et al.,
2011), there is a substantial argument to be made for studying teachers
thoughts about their work and their reasons for thinking in those ways
(Trumbull, 1990).
It can be surmised from the literature reviewed that teachers’ positive
perceptions of physical activity will positively associate with the
implementation daily physical activity, operationalised by the number of
sessions and the length of these sessions (H1). Further, on the basis of the
reviewed literature, it is surmised that perceptions of contextual barriers

will negatively associate with the implementation daily physical activity,
operationalised by the number of sessions and the length of these
sessions (H2).
6.5 Method
6.5.1 Participants and Procedure
Participants were 54 teachers employed at four Queensland state primary

schools in the South-East Queensland Region. The years of teaching
experience for the participants constituting the sample ranged from
beginning teachers to those with over 25 years experience. Following
approval to conduct this research in Queensland state primary schools
obtained from the Queensland Department of Education, teachers were
recruited by approaching school principals to determine initial interest in
participating in the research. Teachers were advised that participation
required the provision of consent to partake in the research as well as
completion of an anonymous survey seeking to measure perceptions of
daily physical activity, perceived barriers to the implementation of
physical activity programs, and implementation behaviours.
6.5.2 Measures
The constructs in this study were modeled as latent variables with mul-
tiple item-level indicators. These manifest indicators are described below
as a function of construct.
Perceptions of Physical Activity. A four-item index was used to measure
teachers’ perceptions of the importance and value of physical activity as
well as their perceived confidence in implementing daily physical activity
programs. The items were responded to on a five-point Likert-type scale,
ranging from 1 (negative) to 5 (positive) with higher scores indicating
more positive perceptions. Cronbach’s alpha for the four-item index was
acceptable (α = .754). All four items were used as manifest indicators of

latent perceptions of physical activity in the present study.
Perceived Contextual Barriers. A five-item index was used to measure
teachers’ perceptions of contextual barriers to the implementation of
daily physical activity programs in schools. The items were responded to
on a five-point Likert-type scale, ranging from 1 (enabler) to 5 (barrier)
with higher scores suggestive of greater perceived barriers. Cronbach’s
alpha for the five-item composite was acceptable (α = .660) given the
finite length of the index (Carmines & Zeller, 1979). In the present study,
all five items were used as observed indicators of latent perceived
contextual barriers.
Implementation Behaviours. Teachers’ implementation of physical
activity was measured by two items tapping the number of physical
activity sessions conducted per week and the approximate length of
sessions. The length of sessions was measured on an ordered scale with
finite intervals of increasing session length. Cronbach’s alpha for the two-
item composite was acceptable ((α = .615). Both items were used as
manifest indicators of latent implementation behaviours in the
current study.
6.5.3 Statistical Analysis
The main analyses in this study comprised confirmatory factor analysis

(CFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM) conducted in line with
the two-step modeling methodology recommended by Anderson and
Gerbing (1988). First, a three-factor CFA model was specified to test the
proposed measurement structure underlying the sample data. For the
indicators of perceptions of physical activity, a correlated residual was
specified between Item 1 and Item 4 to account for the assumed
intradimensional local dependence generated by highly similar item
wordings. Second, the target structural model with paths from perceptions
of physical activity and perceived contextual barriers to implementation
behaviours was tested. The CFA and SEM analyses were performed using
Mplus 7.3 (Muthén & Muthén, 1998–2012). All models were estimated
using diagonal weighted least squares with a mean-and-covariance
adjusted test statistic, operationalised as the WLSMV estimator in Mplus,

under theta parameterisation.
A holistic approach to model fit assessment was used in the current
study. This incorporated an evaluation of model fit indices and parameter
estimates. As the χ2 contains a very restrictive hypothesis test (i.e., exact
fit), three approximate fit indices were considered in the assessment of
model fit: Comparative fit index (CFI) and Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI), >
.90 and .95 for acceptable and excellent fit, respectively (Marsh, Hau, &
Wen, 2004); and weighted root mean residual (WRMR) < 1.00 for good
fit (Yu, 2002). We do not report the typically-used root mean square
error of approximation as it has recently been shown to produce inflated
type 1 error rates in small samples (Kenny, Kaniskan, & McCoach, 2014).
6.6 Results
Estimates of the polychoric and polyserial correlations among the 11
manifest indicators of the three latent variables are given in Table 6.1.
The indicators of perceptions of physical activity were consistently
positively associated with the indicators of implementation behaviours.
On the contrary, indicators of perceived contextual barriers were largely
negatively associated with the indicators of implementation. The
indicators of perceptions of physical activity and perceived contextual
barriers were consistently negatively associated.
A three-factor CFA was conducted to test the postulated measurement
structure underlying the manifest indicators. The model converged to an
admissible solution and provided an acceptable fit to the data. χ2 (40) =
66.290, p < .001, CFI = .959, TLI = .943, WRMR = 0.760 (independence
model χ2 (55) = 692.315). As given in Table 6.2, all 11 factor loading
estimates were uniformly moderate to high and statistically significant. In
addition, construct reliability coefficients were uniformly high across the
latent variable (see Table 6.3). Taken together, these results indicate that
the latent variables have been adequately operationalised by their
respective indicators. As given in Table 6.3, all three unique correlations
among the latent constructs were statistically significant and in the
expected directions. Perceptions of physical activity and perceived
132
Table 6.1 Polychoric and polyserial correlations among the 11 manifest indicators of the three latent constructs
Variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
1. PPA-1 —
2. PPA-2 .534 —
3. PPA-3 .889 .555 —
4. PPA-4 .337 .413 .353 —
5. PCB-1 —
N. Williams and H. N. Perera
−.205 −.369 −.379 −.167

6. PCB-2 −.170 −.420 −.131 −.499 .282 —
7. PCB-3 −.166 −.306 −.165 −.594 −.016 .762 —
8. PCB-4 −.260 −.265 −.238 −.225 .310 .173 .197 —
9. PCB-5 −.062 −.381 −.061 −.389 .244 .506 .595 .428 —
10. No. Sessions .353 .177 .337 .301 −.349 −.215 −.339 −.573 −.199 —
11. Length Sessions −.345 .319 .377 .184 .170 −.076 −.179 −.243 −.105 .467 —
Note: PPA = perceptions of physical activity; PCB = perceived contextual barriers; No. Sessions = number of session; Length
Sessions = length of sessions
Table 6.2 Factor loadings for the manifest indicators

Latent variable and indicators λcs SE Z
Perceptions of physical activity
PPA-1 .592 .081 7.318
PPA-2 .784 .099 7.936
PPA-3 .612 .118 5.167
PPA-4 .636 .103 6.203
Perceived contextual barriers
PCB-1 .402 .146 2.750
PCB-2 .801 .072 11.161
PCB-3 .890 .081 10.927
PCB-4 .520 .149 3.484
PCB-5 .641 .092 6.998
Implementation behaviours
No. Sessions .774 .132 5.863
Length of Sessions .603 .115 5.262
Note: λcs = completely standardised factor loadings; SE = standard error; Z =
parameter estimate divided by standard error. All factor loadings are statistically
significant at p < .01 or better
Table 6.3 Factor correlations and construct reliability coefficients

Variable 1 2 3
1. Perceptions of Physical Activity .773
2. Perceived Contextual Barriers −.643 .871
3. Implementation Behaviours .665 −.446 .674
Note: All factor correlations are significant at the p < .01 level of better. Construct
reliability coefficients are shown on the diagonal of the matrix
contextual barriers were positively and negative associated with physical

activity implementation behaviours, respectively. In addition, perceived
contextual barriers was negatively associated with perceptions of physical
activity. Finally, the a priori specified covariance between the residual
terms of Item 1 and Item 2 of the perceptions scale was statistically
significant and of an appreciable magnitude to warrant inclusion in the
final measurement structure (θ1,2 = .826, p < .001).
Next, we tested the postulated structural model with paths from per-
ceptions of physical activity and perceived contextual barriers to imple-
mentation behaviours. The test of this model provided an identical fit to
the data as the measurement solution, which should be expected as the
model is structurally saturated. On the basis of reasonable fit to the
sample data, this structural model was retained for interpretation and is
shown in Fig. 6.1. Consistent with H1, perceptions of physical activity
significantly and positively predicted implementation behaviours,
controlling for the concomitant effects of perceived contextual barriers.
However, inconsistent with H2, perceived contextual barriers did not
significantly predict implementation behaviours, controlling for
perception of physical activity, with the corresponding structural
regression parameter close to zero. The retained structural model
accounted for 44% of the variation in implementation behaviours.
6.7 Discussion
Until 2012, Queensland state schools have worked from a mandated
daily physical activity program named Smart Moves. This program
mandated the implementation of 30 minutes of moderate to vigorous
intensity physical activity every school day. With a change of government
in 2012, this program is no longer a mandated component of Queensland
state schools programming; however, there remains an expectation that
teachers will provide opportunities for students to engage in a range of
Fig. 6.1 Retained structural model solution with standardised parameter esti-
mates. *p <.05
physical activities, including spontaneous games and play as well as

structured activities (Queensland Government Department of Education,
2019). As such, it is important to delineate the factors that may contribute
to positive implementation behaviours. The present research was centrally
concerned with examining two of these factors: perceptions of physical
activity and perceived contextual barriers.
The current study found that positive perceptions of physical activity
and perceived contextual barriers to the implementation of physical
activity events were negatively linked. Teachers who recognise the value
of physical activity and feel confident in providing opportunities for
students to engage in daily physical activity are less likely to perceive
contextual barriers than those who have negative perceptions of physical
activity. This is consistent with the extant literature, which suggests that
the value teachers place on the importance of physical activity can have a
bearing on their perceptions of barriers when required to implement
physical activity programs (Crawford, 2009; Curry, 2011;Morgan, 2008
; Morgan & Bourke, 2008). Specifically, the findings of this research
provide support for the notion that teachers who value the importance of
daily physical activity are less likely to perceive barriers which could
contribute to the exclusion of daily physical activity (Cowley et al., 2011;
Crawford, 2009; Curry, 2011). Conversely, there is a clear indication that
teachers with negative perceptions of physical activity will perceive more
barriers that lead to the implementation of fewer sessions, of less time
(Hastie & Martin, 2006; Miller et al., 2018; Morgan & Bourke, 2008).
These perceived barriers include the ‘crowded curriculum’, fears regarding
accident and injury, a lack of equipment and/or space for physical activity
and personal confidence.
The research also found that teachers’ perceptions of physical activity,
comprising their value of physical activity and perceived confidence in
implementation, contributes positively and significantly to
implementations behaviours. This findings is also consistent with the
extant literature. Two significant components identified by the literature
which impact teachers’ decisions regarding the implementation of daily
physical activity programs are personal values regarding the importance
of daily physical activity and the confidence of the teacher in their ability
to implement such programs (Morgan, 2008; Morgan & Bourke, 2008).
In cases where teachers have a negative perception of physical activity,

several researchers attribute these values and perceptions to negative
school-based physical education experiences (Hastie & Martin, 2006;
Miller et al., 2018; Morgan & Bourke, 2008).
With regard to implementation behaviours, it is noted that teachers
who implemented a greater number of sessions of physical activity each
week also provided students with more time for these sessions. This could
well be as a result of the individual value placed on the importance of
ensuring students do engage in daily physical activity and consequently
the perception of fewer contextual barriers.
The findings of this study also suggest that, absent of positive percep-
tions towards physical activity, perceived contextual barriers may nega-
tively predict implementation behaviours. The most significant perceived
contextual barrier identified was the availability of time in the curriculum
to devote to daily physical activity, and the predominant factor identified
as impacting on the time available for daily physical activity was concen-
trated on issues surrounding the ‘crowded curriculum’ and the imple-
mentation of the National Curriculum. With the increasing pressures to
improve literacy and numeracy standards, implement the National
Curriculum, address issues of the crowded curriculum, as well as increased
accountability through schemes, such as the My School Website (Curry,
2011), teachers are finding it progressively more difficult to implement
reform programs. Teachers are being asked to do more in a set timeframe
(Crawford, 2009) and with recent changes in government there contin-
ues to be elements ‘added’ to the curriculum which compels teachers to
prioritise. Changes in government also impact on the facilitation of edu-
cational reforms with the Australian Primary Principals Association
(APPA) outlining the difficulties primary schools are facing in the facili-
tation of the national curriculum suggesting that “other time” be made
available for the delivery of daily physical activity programs (Chilcott,
2013, p. 18). In this context of overcrowding in the curriculum, the pres-
ent findings suggest that it integral teachers develop and maintain posi-
tive perceptions of physical activity to foster positive implementation
behaviours. A number of enabling factors may be important in this
regard, including (a) access to well-maintained space conducive to the
implementation of physical activity in a safe environment, (b) access to
useful equipment, and (c) access to a Health and Physical Education

specialist teacher to assist in the production of ideas and resources.
On the basis of the reviewed literature and data obtained in the present
study, there are a number of recommendations suggested to improve the
implementation behaviours of primary school teachers in facilitating
daily physical activity. The continued promotion of the study of Health
and Physical Education in preservice education should be considered an
essential component in the delivery of daily physical education
opportunities (Miller et al., 2018). The study of Health and Physical
Education in preservice education would allow individuals to examine
their biographical experiences, analyse these experiences in terms of
perceptions towards the implementation of physical activity, and then
aim to reshape any negative perspectives (Meldrum, 2011). The provision
of knowledge and skills in a preservice setting should enable teachers to
safely and effectively implement a daily physical activity program (Miller
et al., 2018).
As an extension of the support preservice educators should receive in
the preservice setting, the support from the administrative structures also
contribute to the successful implementation of daily physical activity
programs. There is a reduction in the perception of barriers in the
implementation of such programs when the administration (Principal) is
seen as supportive, and actively promotes the inclusion of physical
activity. It is noted that the greater the support, the lower the perception
of barriers, which indicates that daily physical activity programs have a
higher chance of being implemented if the school has developed systems,
and a support structure, to assist in the facilitation and implementation
of the program (Lambert, 2000). This also includes the provision of
opportunities for ongoing professional development and discussion and
the provision of common planning time (Lambert, 2000).
A greater impetus on the role of the Health and Physical Education
specialist teacher in the facilitation of daily physical activity needs to be
established in order to assist the generalist teacher in the implementation
of physical activities. Health and Physical Education specialist teachers
could be assigned a more proactive role in providing physical and
professional support to generalist classroom teachers. This could include
the instigation of professional development sessions and the provision of
ideas and/or resources for daily physical activity. It is important to

promote the specialist teacher as a proactive resource in the facilitation of
physical activity. McKenzie et al (1997, as cited in Morgan & Hansen,
2007) found that the quality of classroom teacher’s physical activity
sessions were improved when they liaised regularly with the specialist
teacher. This is supported by Crawford (2009) who asserts the need for
Physical Education specialist teachers to be employed in all primary
schools (Crawford, 2009).
In summary, the present study has been centrally concerned with
examining the associations of perceptions of physical activity and
perceived contextual barriers with the implementation of daily physical
activity in primary school classrooms. The findings indicate that positive
perceptions of physical activity are associated with better implementation
behaviours, whereas perceived contextual barriers exerted no effect on
implementation behaviours, when holding positive perceptions constant.
The results suggest that school administrators should work with teachers
to increase their value placed on physical activity and their efficacy in
implementing programs.
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7
Children Versus Curriculum: Who Wins?
Carole Haeusler, Jennifer Donovan,
and Grady Venville
7.1 Introduction
Today’s children live in a world surrounded by the mass media, encoun-
tering scientific words and ideas early in life. Jakab (2013) found 8 year
olds had everyday understandings of molecules, and that some of this
knowledge came from the mass media. Recent research involving Jenny
Donovan and Grady Venville, using samples located in three Australian
states, further highlighted this. The 141 children who completed a survey
on their use of mass media were found to spend an average of 5 hours 10
minutes with the mass media daily, of which just over 2 hours was with
television (TV). Despite being aged 10–12 years, 79% of the children
C. Haeusler • J. Donovan (*)

e-mail: carole.haeusler@usq.edu.au; jennifer.donovan@usq.edu.au
G. Venville
Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia
e-mail: grady.venville@anu.edu.au

144 C. Haeusler et al.
watched crime shows rated for ages 15+, particularly NCIS, Bones, Law
& Order, The Mentalist and CSI. Of the 62 interviewees, 89% knew of
DNA, 60% knew of genes, and 97% knew or surmised that humans have
DNA. Although the interviewees had minimal knowledge of the biologi-
cal nature and function of DNA, 77% related DNA to solving crime,
65% related it to identification and family relationships (e.g. adoption,
unknown soldiers, paternity) and 31% related it (particularly genes) to
disease. The interviewees recognised TV as the source of their knowledge,
citing particular TV shows.
Similarly, in an ongoing research project by Carole Haeusler and Jenny
Donovan, concerning teaching atomic-molecular theory to primary stu-
dents, in their pre-interviews some 9 year olds mentioned words such as
atoms, elements, and even the Periodic Table. When asked where they
had gained the pre-knowledge they had displayed in the pre-interview,
the mass media, especially TV, was the third most common source after
school and parents.
This acquisition of words and ideas from the mass media spark chil-
dren’s curiosity. Some 27% of the 62 interviewees (10–12 years old) in
the mass media and genetics study (Donovan & Venville, 2012, 2014)
had researched genes and DNA for themselves. This indicates children’s
readiness to learn complex science ideas that is not recognised or sup-
ported by current primary school curricula.

Inhelder and Piaget (1958) were noted for proposing that children pass
through four stages of cognitive development. This work has been nar-
rowly interpreted to mean that children are unable to grasp abstract con-
cepts before they reach 14 years of age. Curricula from many jurisdictions
around the world have been written to correspond with this narrow inter-
pretation; so many abstract concepts are deliberately not introduced to
children until they reach 14 years of age.
The Australian Curriculum: Science (Australian Curriculum,
Assessment and Reporting Authority [ACARA], version 6, 2014) focuses
almost exclusively on the ‘what’ of science in primary school, without
7 Children Versus Curriculum: Who Wins? 145
exploring the ‘why’ and the ‘how’. For example, in Year 3, the curriculum
prescribes the introduction of solids and liquids to 8 year olds, along with
the idea that heat causes a solid to change into a liquid. How is a teacher
to explain why or how this happens as particle theory is not introduced
until Year 8 (13 years of age) with atoms and molecules following in Year
9 (the ‘magic’ 14 years of age). This makes the familiar ‘dot/particle dia-
grams’ that typically show the difference between solids and liquids off
limits, along with discussions of heat as energy and changes to the move-
ment of particles within these different phases. If teachers introduce such
concepts only at the macroscopic level, that is, by distinguishing solids
and liquids on the sole basis of their observed appearance, they risk intro-
ducing misconceptions. Students could easily come to believe that solids
and liquids such as ice and water are different things, rather than a change
of state of one substance. Similarly, 10–12 year old children interested in
genes and DNA will have to wait until they are 15 years old to find out
more about these topics in school, as this is when DNA first appears in
the Australian Curriculum: Science.
The new USA framework (National Research Council [NRC], 2012)
describes science education from K-12. Students are first introduced to
particles in Grade 5, and then elaborated as atoms in Grade 6. By the end
of Grade 8, students should know there are approximately 100 different
types of atoms, but even in this bold new curriculum, which aims to
introduce core ideas in science, technology, and engineering from stu-
dents’ earliest schooldays, the details of atomic-molecular structure and
the Periodic Table are still not tackled until Grade 9.
Yet there is evidence that children are most interested in science in
primary school. Tytler and Osborne (2012) report research that indicates
that children’s interest in science peaks when they are 10 years old, and
they form their career aspirations by age 13 or 14. Leaving the exciting
aspects of science (the ‘how’ and the ‘why’ that explains how the world
works) until they are 14 years and older risks losing them from the pipe-
line to higher education and careers in science. Several studies have shown
the importance of early engagement with science (Maltese & Tai, 2010;
Tai, Liu, Maltese, & Fan, 2006; Venville, Rennie, Hanbury, & Longnecker,
2013). The need for both scientists and a scientifically literate populace is
indicated by the plethora of reports released in many different countries
(e.g. Bull, Gilbert, Barwick, Hipkins, & Baker, 2010; European

Commission, 2004; Fensham, 2008; Goodrum, Hackling, & Rennie,
2001; Millar & Osborne, 2001; OECD Global Science Forum, 2006).
7.3 Conceptual Framework and Methods

This chapter is not reporting a single piece of research. Rather, this is a
retrospective look across a decade of different research projects to draw
out any common threads that inform us about the desire and capacity of
young children to engage with and learn complex science. Each project
will be briefly introduced with referral to where more detailed accounts
of the conceptual frameworks, methods, and findings are published.
To facilitate international comparison, Table 7.1 shows the relation-
ship of school years to ages of children in Australia. From Term 1 2022,
all Year 7 students in government schools will be catered for in high
school, not primary school as has been the case.
Snapshots 1 and 2 are from the project by Jenny Donovan and Grady
Venville, aiming to extend children’s understandings of living things and
inheritance. Snapshot 3 is from Jenny Donovan’s doctoral project, super-
vised by Grady Venville, which continued from Snapshots 1 and 2 in
considering how the mass media influences children’s understandings of
genes and DNA. Snapshots 4 and 5 are new research by Carole Haeusler
and Jenny Donovan, aiming to verify the efficacy of a program designed
by a specialist teacher, Ian Stuart, to teach atomic-molecular theory to
primary students. The focus is on the attitudes and responses of the chil-
dren to the new learning. All of the projects depicted here as snapshots
received human ethics clearance, the informed consent of parents, and
informed assent of the participants.
Table 7.1 Relationship of School Years (Grades) with Chronological ages in

Australia
School Years 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Ages (years) 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Snapshot 1, 2004: A class of 16 Year 2 students (including a pair of

identical twins) in a religious independent school in metropolitan Perth,
Western Australia. English was a second language for all children and the
class was considered remedial according to results in Year 1. Jenny had
worked with their teacher before, so we collaborated to design two inter-
ventions for her class, one designed to expand their knowledge of the
characteristics of living things, and the other to extend that to inheri-
tance. See also Donovan and Venville (2005), Venville and
Donovan (2007).
Snapshot 2, 2006: A group of 12 Year 5 students in a class of 30 from
a state primary school in metropolitan Perth, Western Australia. We were
not made aware of any of the children having particular learning difficul-
ties. The whole class received a first intervention about living things, but
only the 12 interviewees received a second intervention about DNA. See
also Venville and Donovan (2008).
Snapshot 3, 2009–2011: A total of 141 students from Years 5, 6 and 7
from four samples in a range of locations (outback to the coast) in three
Australian states were surveyed about their mass media use. Semi-
structured interviews about genetics were conducted with 62 of these
students. See also Donovan and Venville (2012, 2014).
Snapshot 4, 2013: A class of 26 Year 4 students (and one Year 1 by
parental request) from an independent primary school in metropolitan
Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. This was the first school in which we
researched this program, and was a highly diverse class, with seven chil-
dren diagnosed with various learning difficulties. See also Donovan and
Haeusler (2015), Haeusler and Donovan (2017).
Snapshot 5, 2015–2016: After verification of our findings from
Snapshot 4 in several other schools, we focused on whether an enthusias-
tic generalist primary teacher could implement this program successfully.
This work is being prepared for publication.
7.4 Findings
7.4.1 S
napshot 1, 2004, Year 2 (Interviewer: Jenny)
Living, Non-living and Once-living Things
Intervention 1: Pre-interviews showed these children were quite knowl-

edgeable about living things, but offered only one or two characteristics
as scientific reasons for thinking they were alive. More than half knew
dinosaurs were once living, with three students using the word “extinct”
and another four saying they had all died. They had difficulties with natu-
ral non-living things such as clouds and the Sun, and with foodstuffs
such as carrots.
The intervention involved group work to ascribe up to six characteris-
tics of living things to pictures of different things as if they were real.
Field notes recorded that “the children set to with a will and completed
the activity more rapidly than expected. There was some very productive
discussion occurring with students giving good reasons why they thought
something was appropriate. Reaching consensus whether each was
LIVING, ONCE LIVING or NON-LIVING brought forth more valu-
able discussion and remarkably only one error resulted and that had been
the subject of dispute within the group. Once the activity was completed,
the results for the same picture (generally appearing in at least two groups)
was compared, and discussed. Students were enthusiastic and happy that
they had “answered so well”.
The post-interview showed they were now very aware of the six char-
acteristics of living things to which they had been introduced, and cor-
rectly applied them to new pictures of living things. All but two students
could now explain once living, which had previously been difficult. They
were overall more accurate with non-living things, but had not trans-
ferred what they now knew about the Sun to the Moon.
Intervention 2: Pre-interviews showed that most children understood
that offspring are similar to their birth parents. None spontaneously
mentioned DNA, genes or chromosomes as the means for this related-
ness, and only a few children recognised the word DNA, none recognised
genes (when clarified it wasn’t the same as jeans).
After recapping the previous lesson, we were ready to move on to the

crux of the lesson, how is it that babies look like their parents. Field notes
recorded: “I told them that’s what I was going to explain to them now.
They seemed very attentive at this point, as if I was going to unveil a great
mystery! I said they all contain a special chemical called DNA which is
passed on from parents to babies. All living things have DNA and pass it
on to their babies. Then I asked a few questions. Do people contain
DNA? Yes. Do cats and dogs contain DNA? Yes. Do your bean plants
contain DNA? Yes. The trees outside? Yes. What about the concrete floor?
NO! The desks? NO! They’re not living (explained to me with a degree of
patience). What about once living things? Much thought for a bit, then
the answer, ‘well they must do when they just die cause they were once
alive!’ This excellent answer was much praised. What will happen to the
DNA? ‘It will rot like the body does’. I was impressed!”
In the post-interview two weeks later, all but one child knew that liv-
ing things have DNA, and four remembered that once living things may
have DNA. All but one knew that no one would have exactly the same
DNA as them, except the identical twins. They also clearly related DNA
to traits in cats.
7.4.2 S
napshot 2, 2006, Year 5 (Interviewer: Jenny)
Living Things and a Wool Model for DNA
Intervention 1: In the whole class brainstorm of the characteristics of liv-

ing things, field notes recorded, “They did quite well, coming up with
most of the criteria fairly readily, though no one knew the word excrete
(but had a range of colourful alternatives!). There were some spurious
ideas, such as dies, sleeps, has blood etc. The idea that tree sap is equiva-
lent to blood is well established in this group, and apparently is the result
of teaching the previous year. However, eventually we weeded those false
criteria out, and had a full set of correct criteria (even including ‘contains
DNA’—this came from one of the interviewees).
The post-it note activity was well done, the students took it very seri-
ously and really enjoyed working with the pictures and the notes. The
groups worked well together, if somewhat noisily, and there was much
serious discussion about the difficult ones. The students felt free to voice
their opinions and also to challenge and correct each other, generally in a
polite way. Overall the results were good, with many of the misconcep-
tions e.g. about the Sun, being corrected within the group before consen-
sus was reached. The discussion following the activity was opportunity to
challenge the interesting answers that had been arrived at by consensus in
groups 4 and 5. It was good to hear some students actually saying ‘yeah,
well I thought that too, but x says that a cloud is just made of water and
it doesn’t need food so it can’t be alive’ and other such statements, show-
ing they had taken on board the ideas of others when found to be supe-
rior to their own”.
Intervention 2: Given the range of abilities diagnosed during interven-
tion 1, the second lesson was given to the interviewees only. Field notes
recorded, “These students were very excited about this lesson and asked a
phenomenal number of questions. We reviewed the characteristics of life,
recalled that they understood that offspring resemble parents, and that
some of them had heard of genes and DNA but didn’t know much about
them. They were well behaved with their wool models, treating the pro-
cess of assembling their ‘DNA’ very seriously, though some had trouble
with tying the knots. Once shown, they were quick to learn. They readily
saw that no one had the same DNA, and found it easy to identify the
genes and the number of different alleles for the genes. The four terms
presented seemed to be well understood. They even noticed that people
were homozygous and heterozygous for certain traits, although they
didn’t know the terms. I mentioned them in passing, but pointed out that
this was significant in terms of inheritance, as some alleles would show up
in the offspring, whereas others wouldn’t”.
Their interest was such that that one child followed me out to the car-
park still asking questions. The level of interest and excitement was amaz-
ing and they raised ideas and issues that I would have been excited to see
in a Year 11 class. Post-interviews showed uptake of all required knowl-
edge in all but two students. These two had partial uptake, but did not
spontaneously mention genes/DNA as the means by which offspring
resemble parents.
7.4.3 S
napshot 3, 2009–2011, Years 5–7 (Interviewer:
Jenny) Genetics Knowledge
and the Mass Media
Students readily acknowledged mass media, particularly TV, as the source

of their genetics knowledge. However, I was surprised to learn that 27%
had become so interested in the topic that they had done their own
research, resulting in highly detailed understandings. Only a few excerpts
of some children’s own words are quoted here. All names are culturally
appropriate aliases.
Tobias, Year 5: I know that they’re doing research with DNA, taking
DNA out of dinosaur bones and putting it in like rats and mice. Because
then, hopefully when they breed them, that dinosaur DNA will pass on
and will probably start getting the effects that the dinosaurs would look
like, to find out more about them. I know that they can use it … there’s
technology now, you can get the bones, get the DNA, do a special scan
and actually find out what the person looks like.
Prasai, Year 6: I learned about DNA in my school in Malaysia in Years
1 and 2. I’ve also done my own research into it; I got interested, and used
the Internet. Well, you can take fingerprints; that’s a DNA sample. You
can use genes to find the family. To identify people, scientists could use a
very technical, advanced computer, and get samples of DNA that might
be on fingerprints, and use the computer to find out how the person looks.
Willis, Year 6, from a long and highly detailed interview, including an
accurate description of taking a biopsy for cancer: I learned about DNA
from books, programs, and just from going on the Internet, from DNA
books, there are books about DNA. Also from DVDs … I know Catalyst1
has some things on DNA and all that. And like if I was on Google, I just
type like DNA or genes into the search box and it comes up with loads of
sites, full of lots of words that I cannot pronounce. Like what DNA
stands for, I still cannot pronounce. (He could by the end of the inter-
view and was most pleased).
Anton, Year 6: They use DNA for forensics. But is there dead DNA?
I’m not sure what happens to DNA when they die. DNA keeps us alive.
Catalyst is an Australian TV show that focuses on science concepts and innovations.

1
We use DNA to identify ourselves. Can also use DNA to clone dogs, you
use the DNA of the one you want to clone.
Brian, Year 6: If you don’t have any DNA you’d be under a gravestone.
But when you’re dead you still have some DNA in your bones. I’ve seen
DNA on science shows and crime shows on TV, and then I looked DNA
up on the Internet and read it in books.
Annette, Year 7: The chromosomes and the DNA I heard about in
health, also some of it I learned from my parents, like if I watched a cer-
tain TV show and it might have spoken about some things I don’t under-
stand, like genes, or something, I might have asked them and they
explained it all to me.
Saul, Year 7: Like we can do DNA fingerprints to solve crime. We can
cross two animals’ DNA to make another type of animal—like elephants
and mammoths—can take mammoth DNA and put it into elephants.
And in China, they’re putting human DNA into robots. I don’t really pay
attention to TV though, it depends on what it is.
The last word goes to Paul, Year 5, from the most remote sample: Yes, I’ve
heard of DNA, genes and chromosomes. Can use DNA to track soldiers
who died in Gallipoli to see who they’re related to. Can use DNA to
make clones. DNA is in hair, blood, fingernails and in skin maybe. DNA
is like a twisty ladder. DNA and genes are similar but their shape and the
way they work is different. Can use DNA from healthy people for sick
people, like blood transfers. It’s in your fingerprints to solve crime, track
guns or weapons. I like that TV science like crime shows, teaches kids about
stuff they’d only learn in college or high school. Then I looked it up in an
encyclopedia.
7.4.4 S
napshot 4, 2013, Year 4 (Interviewers: Carole
and Jenny) Atomic Theory and Attitudes
Towards Science
In this research, we directly asked students about their like/dislike of sci-

ence. Table 7.2 shows their responses pre and post the teaching about
atomic theory.
Table 7.2 Students’ response about liking/disliking science before and after the
teaching about atomic theory
Number of
Pre-interview students Post-interview Number of students
Do you like science? 24/27 yes Do you like science? 26 Yes (7 now love it/
favourite)
Why? Fun (14) Why? Learning about
atoms & molecules
(16), fun (7)
Science is about …
Experiments/data 7 Periodic Table/ 22
elements/atoms
Mixing chemicals/ 7 Finding out new 10
explosions things/ how world
works
Earth/volcanoes/ 5 Experiments/data 7
rocks
Finding out new 4 Mixing chemicals/ 1
things/ how world explosions
works
Periodic Table/ 4
elements/atoms
The data in Table 7.2 show that science was well liked by these children
before the teaching and even more so after it. This was expressed verbally
in interviews in several ways, perhaps the most passionate being from an
8-year-old girl, “I LOVE the Periodic Table, I love it, I love it, I love it”.
However, loving it is great but were they able to learn and understand
the taught concepts? Figures 7.1 and 7.2 show the pre and post results of
their understandings about atoms, molecules, and the elements (Donovan
& Haeusler, 2015). The same legend applies for Fig. 7.2 as for Fig. 7.1.
In Fig. 7.1, the exceptional pre-knowledge is explainable as child 9 is
the Year 4 brother of child 27, the Year 1 girl, present by her parent’s
request, as she is ‘even more into science than her brother!’ Child 8 is a
friend of child 9 with some mutual interest and probable exposure to sci-
ence. The speech and language impaired (SLI) children are numbers 15
and 23, with child 15 also struggling with intellectual impairment and
child 23 also being ESL. It was expected that few children would score
well as few were thought to have been exposed to these ideas yet, and it
Pre-interview scores
50
Exceptional pre-knowledge
45
English second-language (ESL) On Autism spectrum (ASD)
Pre-interview scores out of 50
40
Speech/language impaired Hearing impaired
35
30
25
20
15
10
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27
Fig. 7.1 Initial understandings about atoms, molecules, and the elements in the
class of 27, which included 7 students with special learning needs and 3 with
exceptional pre-knowledge
Post-interview scores
50
45
Post-interview scores out of 50
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27
Fig. 7.2 Gains in understandings about atoms, molecules, and elements after the
teaching
was carefully explained to the children that it was OK not to know, we

just wanted to hear their ideas. Children often express this as ‘I don’t
know, but I think …’.
Figure 7.2 shows that all children gained knowledge and understand-
ing including all with learning difficulties. Child 15 now knew 10 times
as much as he started with and the classroom teacher suggested this was
outstanding for him. His response was that he was so happy he could
now tell the nice lady (Carole) what ‘a natom is!’ He really did know. Also
of interest is how well child 17, who has ASD, did. The hands-on teach-
ing using lots of models plus individual time to reflect and work things
out really suited his style of learning. Child 9 was determined not to be
outdone by his sister again and gained the highest mark, whereas his
friend, child 8, was less motivated and did not build effectively on his
pre-knowledge. However, for a 6-year-old (child 27) to score 39/50 on
questions on Year 9 chemistry, is exceptional. Ian obtained special per-
mission from her and her mother to film her for use in open-source vid-
eos to inspire others. One such video is available from https://youtu.
be/2LfhSk5IJqM and others are available. Note her depth of understand-
ing in her last statement about this being a real molecule, not hers. Similar
philosophical depths were attained by children in schools next researched,
including ‘The Periodic Table is like … the alphabet of the Universe’.
7.4.5 S
napshot 5, 2015–2016, Years 3/4 (Interviewer:
Carole) Professional Development for Teachers
A criticism raised in response to the atomic theory work (Snapshot 4 and

subsequent verification data) was that this was fine with a specialist sci-
ence teacher, but could it be done by a generalist primary teacher? We
were fortunate in that a school near Carole’s campus had heard about the
program and were interested. Both Carole and Jenny spent an initial day
in the school providing professional development for every staff member,
including the principal. We had them use some of the hands on models
to complete some of the activities the children would do and they found
these challenging but interesting. By the end of the day, the Years 3/4
teacher was enthusiastic to take it on. With the support of the whole
school, it was agreed that she (M) would do so. Carole, being nearby, was
ideally positioned to offer support (although this was much less than
anticipated) and to transfer sets of models between her and the specialist
science teacher.
There were two obvious differences between her approach and that of
the specialist science teacher. 1) M employed much more ‘primary-style’
pedagogy to great effect, including devising alternative forms of the mod-
els and allowing more consolidation time; however, 2) this resulted in less
coverage, particularly of molecules. This was evident in the interviews,
although some children had grasped the idea of how atoms bonded
together to make molecules, not all had. However, in the bulk of the
interview, where the same material had been covered, M’s children scored
on par with children of the same age range taught by the specialist. This
was a particularly exciting finding for us as it indicated the program could
be transferable to generalist teachers.
M’s further reflections also provide insight to the children’s responses:
• The children were very excited and enthusiastic to learn about atoms,
molecules, and the Periodic Table [reflected in questions we asked
them, they loved it]
• I was astonished they had no great difficulty with particulate nature of
matter [so in later iterations the school is tackling this in Year 2 to help
explain states of matter as a precursor to atoms in Year 3]
• I feel I will do much better next time around—I’m keen to repeat it
[and she has done so, twice]
The children worked at their own pace to achieve the success criteria
for each lesson so there was no piece of work that was the same for every
child. Nonetheless, a look through the children’s’ workbooks showed
their level of learning was consistent with that seen in children from other
schools and with what they demonstrated to us in the interviews.
Figure 7.3 shows one student posing questions to be answered by inves-
tigation on the whiteboard, where Fig. 7.4 demonstrates one student’s
understanding of an oxygen atom. Note the inclusion of labels of ‘noth-
ingness’ between electrons. Following a lesson on covalent bonding,
where the teacher explained how atoms can share outer electrons, one
Fig. 7.3 Engaged student posing science questions (permission granted for this
photograph)
boy excitedly showed the teacher how he had worked out that sodium
could give an electron to a chlorine atom so that both atoms would have
full outer shells, thus extending to ionic bonding.
7.5 Discussion
Collectively, these snapshots yield considerable evidence of the interest
young children have shown for more than a decade in learning advanced
science subject matter and how quickly they were able to take up the
ideas. Common threads include:
Fig. 7.4 One student’s symbolic representation of the internal structure of an

oxygen atom (permission granted for this photograph)
1. The excitement and engagement levels of the children are very high
when presented with ‘real science’. Teachers commented that they had
rarely seen the whole class so engaged.
2. Children love learning high school science and several in Snapshot 4
reported their pleasure at being able to help their 14-year-old siblings
with their chemistry homework. Some in Snapshot 3 had researched
high school level science (genetics) for themselves, indicating their
strong desire to learn at a higher level.
3. Many reported wanting to know ‘how the world works’, indicating a
desire for an explanatory framework for how and why. This is more
than the ‘what’ aspect of science offered by the Australian Curriculum:
Science (ACARA, 2014). This desire for explanation of how and why
was also a key factor in why scientists became scientists, who mostly
reported their passion for science starting at primary school age

(Venville et al., 2013).
4. Beyond a desire to know, children showed remarkable capacity to
know and understand the content presented, which far exceeded our
initial expectations. We believe that the use of age-appropriate hands
on activities and models greatly facilitated this, and children were able
to draw and manipulate the models during the interviews to help
explain what they meant. Here, they were at an advantage over their
older siblings, for whom the topic was reported as being taught in a
theoretical style focusing on symbology.
Our work covers half of the science curriculum, biology and chemis-
try. There are others working in these areas such as Kelemen’s group in
natural selection (2014) and Jakab in molecules, and many more.
Bordering chemistry and physics, Weiner’s team (2017) has exposed
12-year-olds to quarks and elementary particles. Blair (2012) has success-
fully taken Einsteinian concepts to primary school, citing the need to
expose children’s minds to spacetime and relativity before they become
‘Newtonised’.
This latter approach to physics shows there can be two ways of imple-
menting this revolution. Those in biology and chemistry are following
Bruner’s (1960) belief in a spiral curriculum: Break the big idea of science
down into useful chunks, sequence the chunks, then teach them so each
is reviewed and built upon to achieve the whole idea by end of school.
This may involve teaching at macroscopic, microscopic, atomic, and
symbolic levels at the same time. The children in our studies demon-
strated a remarkable capacity to grasp these different levels, given that
teachers explicitly showed these levels and the nature of the information
gained from each one. By contrast, Blair’s approach is to jump in at the
deep end, plant that seed very firmly, and then go back and show how
scientists reached similar understandings. See also Foppoli et al. (2018)
for teacher and public responses to the Einstein-First program.
What is the value of such interventions? How do they influence stu-
dents? Can they solve our national problems with STEM? We could write
another chapter on the links between STEM in schools, reasons why
Australia is not meeting targets for STEM in higher education and
careers, and the putative value of such interventions. There is research

evidence that more young people, exposed to quality teaching of science,
would go on to become scientists or work in STEM-related fields,
although this is scattered and localised. There is a pressing need for such
research to be more clearly reported and widely disseminated to teachers
as well as to policy-makers. We need more schools to adopt these inter-
ventions to collect meaningful longitudinal data regarding their longterm
influence on students’ choices. To provide a succinct overview of the
challenges Australian schools face, we abstracted the following comments
from the comprehensive report that Timms and colleagues wrote for the
Australian Council for Educational Research [ACER] (Timms, Moyle,
Weldon, & Mitchell, 2018).
• Australia is one of many countries seeking to improve STEM literacy,

subject uptake, and transfer to careers.
• Improving STEM comes from survival need (for STEM workers who
can solve complex real-world problems) and for the economy (nations
without such workers face huge financial challenges)
• Yet enrolment in senior science subjects has been declining since at
least the early 1990s and is continuing
• Scores on national and international tests in science and mathematics
are falling (despite the introduction of many initiatives and the
NAPLAN testing for mathematics)
• Socioeconomic status, closely linked with location, is a major factor in
determining how well students achieve in science. Children in low
socioeconomic areas (including many rural and remote areas) can be as
much as three years of schooling behind their high socioeconomic
counterparts
• Early intervention is necessary. Knowledge gaps that exist when chil-
dren first step into school persist
• The gender gap has long been recognised, with fewer female students
opting for science subjects. Many interventions have been introduced
although until recently, most of these were aimed solely at high school
students. There is growing recognition that science education must
occur from pre-school onwards, and this seems particularly important
for girls [we noted in our studies that girls were just as excited and
capable as the boys, and very little evidence of science anxiety in

either gender]
• The report calls for improved assessments in science skills (including
practical or digital assessments), and improved monitoring and
research of the results
• There also needs to be improved monitoring and dissemination of
results of interventions, successful or not. [In this, we have been pub-
lishing our research for some years].
A look at the Australian Government’s response to these issues is very

telling (see https://www.education.gov.au/support-science-technology-
engineering-and-mathematics). There are some useful initiatives here and
some funding provided, but there is an elephant in the room. No where
do they mention closing the 3-year gap for all students in low socioeco-
nomic circumstances.
7.6 Conclusion
In Foppoli et al. (2018) one public comment from an Australian reader
expresses the central tension presented in this chapter succinctly:
Given the discovery of gravitational waves only happened this year, the reason
we don’t teach Einstein’s theories in our schools is because of the exorbitant
amount of time it takes to develop and approve curriculum in this country.
Exactly. All the research in Australia and overseas, indicating the need
to smash the ceiling on children’s learning imposed by the curriculum
comes to naught if the curriculum itself is unchanged. Yes, teachers can
teach beyond the curriculum, but radical reorganisations of sequence
would have to be agreed upon by a whole school and mapped so that
ultimately the school can sign off that what is mandated has been taught.
This takes a great deal of curriculum understanding and confidence. The
Review of the Australian Curriculum (2014) was quite scathing about
aspects of the curriculum and the way in which it was developed (justifi-
ably, based on thousands of submissions received). However, sadly, the
need to take note of current research in subject areas does not seem to be
part of the new review/rewrite agenda. At present, and for the foreseeable
future, the ancient juggernaut that is the curriculum is still winning.
Children are not being given the appropriate opportunities to demon-
strate their full capacity when the curriculum imposes any ceiling, let
alone a ceiling as low as in Australia’s current science curriculum.
With a rewritten science curriculum that takes into account what
research has demonstrated children can do, they could
• Have a far better grasp of the big ideas of science,

• Be more able to relate the science they are learning with what is hap-
pening and what they are seeing in everyday life, and
• Possess a love for science having been powerfully engaged with science.
It is acknowledged that the national trends will be extremely difficult

to reverse. However, for a step in the right direction, we need to put the
children first. Let them drive their capacity to learn by offering them the
opportunity to tackle exciting and real science ideas such as atoms, genet-
ics, and spacetime, with the knowledge that this has been successfully
done in real Australian primary classrooms.
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8
HPE: Navigating the Chasm of Policy,
Practice and Management to Enact
the Intended Curriculum and Meet
the Needs of the Twenty-First Century
Learners
Susan Wilson-Gahan
8.1 Introduction
The Australian Curriculum and Reporting Authority (ACARA) has set
an ‘entitlement’ which values learning in Health and Physical Education,
with educational authorities and governments of all persuasions seeming
to understand the potential positive impacts of raising healthy, active citi-
zens who can contribute productively to the economy for the expected
working life of an Australian.
HPE is one of five curriculum areas which Australian schoolchildren
must have the opportunity to experience learning of during every year of
their primary and secondary education, from Foundation to Year 10. The
imperative to provide learning opportunities in HPE is termed a ‘learn-
ing entitlement’ and places HPE in the mainstream of curriculum
S. Wilson-Gahan (*)
University of Southern Queensland, Springfield, QLD, Australia
e-mail: susan.wilson-gahan@usq.edu.au

166 S. Wilson-Gahan
delivery “learning areas taught to all students in each year of Foundation—

Year 10 are: English, mathematics, science, history, health and physical edu-
cation” (the Australian Curriculum and Reporting Authority
(Wilson-Gahan, 2015).
Suggested timetabled hours for HPE (Table 8.1, p. 27) allocate the
HPE learning area the third highest number of hours after English and
Maths in Years F—6. In Years 7–8, HPE ranks equal fourth with The
Arts, Technologies and Languages. HPE is also a learning area that stu-
dents in Years 9 and 10 must have the opportunity to experience, in the
same way that students must experience learning in English, Maths,
Science, and Humanities and Social Sciences (ACARA, 2020).
The HPE curriculum suggests that the learning area teaches students
‘how to enhance their own and others’ health, safety, wellbeing and phys-
ical activity participation in varied and changing contexts’ (ACARA,
2020, n.p).
This research discusses how the reputation of HPE has been shaped
and to some extent, undermined, and examine factors that prevent the
intended valuing of HPE in individual school curriculum and timeta-
bling decisions. Recommendations for countering the barriers and build-
ing on the enablers to implement effective HPE learning that encompasses
curriculum intent and delivers learning appropriate to twenty-first cen-
tury learners, are suggested.
8.2 Literature Review and Discussion

The Literature Review examines the Australian Curriculum intent and
the perceived status of HPE in schools from a global perspective. This
research uncovered the significant gap in current research examining the
efficacy of HPE programs in schools and into the effective implementa-
tion of the HPE curriculum. The lack of research in itself is indicative of
the low value placed on the HPE learning area. There is also a distinct
and evident lack of current research related to HPE, in particular, since
the final release of the Australian Curriculum HPE in November 2016
(ACARA, 2016). Despite the introduction of an Australian Curriculum,
8 HPE: Navigating the Chasm of Policy, Practice… 167
we still witness the states and territories in Australia not offering a consis-
tent approach to teaching HPE. This is especially evident in primary
school settings. For example, in NSW, the classroom generalist is expected
to teach HPE (Morgan, 2008), whereas, in Queensland, Universities still
prepare teachers to specialise in HPE teaching (USQ, 2020).
The Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians
(Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth
Affairs (MCEETYA), 2008) in the commitment to action promoting
world-class curriculum and assessment, states that the curriculum will
‘enable students to build social and emotional intelligence and nurture
student wellbeing through HPE in particular’. However, ACARA, and
State and Territory education authorities recognise that the responsibility
for how the curriculum is enacted in schools is ultimately decided by the
schools, acting within jurisdictional requirements.
8.3 T
he Australian Curriculum HPE:
Curriculum Intent
The Australian Curriculum: HPE (F–10) is informed by the sciences of
physiology, nutrition, biomechanics and psychology. These sciences
underpin the HPE learning area and inform what students will know and
understand about healthy, safe and active choices. The Australian curricu-
lum also purports to “offer students an experiential curriculum that is
contemporary, relevant, challenging, enjoyable and physically active”
(ACARA, 2020, n.p).
The curriculum further states that in Health and Physical Education,
students will develop the knowledge, understanding and skills to enable
them to “strengthen their sense of self, and build and manage satisfying
relationships” (ACARA, 2020, n.p). The curriculum encourages teachers
to provide learning experiences that help students to develop resilience,
how to make informed decisions and take informed actions to promote
their health, safety and physical activity participation. A further intent is
that as students mature they will develop their capacities for critical
inquiry in order to be empowered to research and analyse relevant and
168 S. Wilson-Gahan
correct health and wellbeing and movement and physical activity knowl-
edge in order to better understand the influences on their own and oth-
ers’ health, safety and wellbeing. They also learn to use resources for the
benefit of themselves and for the communities with which they identify
and to which they belong.
The Australian curriculum HPE acknowledges that the acquisition of
movement skills, concepts and strategies is integral to HPE learning and
that this learning will equip students with the competencies to confi-
dently participate in a range of physical activities. HPE learning is seen as
a foundation for lifelong physical activity participation but also for
enhanced performance in all activities, therefore, students are expected to
develop proficiency in movement skills, physical activities and movement
concepts and acquire an understanding of the science behind how the
body moves. The aspirational aspect of this curriculum intent is that “stu-
dents develop an appreciation of the significance of physical activity, out-
door recreation and sport both in Australian society and globally”
(ACARA, 2020, n.p). Through enacting the curriculum, HPE teachers
are advised to use movement as a powerful medium for learning. The cur-
riculum writers further claim that through this learning students can
acquire, practice and refine personal, behavioural, social and cognitive
skills. There is a big onus on HPE specialist teachers and teachers of the
HPE curriculum to deliver these aspirations as outcomes for students,
but the policies are often a barrier and do not facilitate the delivery of
quality HPE learning.
Given these aspirations, the Australian Curriculum: HPE was shaped
by five interrelated propositions that are informed by a strong and diverse
research base for a futures-oriented curriculum:
The prime responsibility of the HPE curriculum is to describe the progression

and development of the disciplinary knowledge, understanding and skills
underpinning HPE and how students will make meaning of and apply them in
contemporary health and movement contexts. Although the curriculum may
contribute to a range of goals that sit beyond its educative purposes, the priority
for the HPE curriculum is to provide ongoing, developmentally appropriate
and explicit learning about health and movement. The HPE curriculum draws
on its multidisciplinary evidence base to ensure that students are provided with
learning opportunities to practise, create, apply and evaluate the knowledge,

understanding and skills of the learning area. (ACARA, 2020, n.p)
This all sounds credible, noble and well intentioned and so it is. What
happens when the curriculum is implemented in schools and enacted by
teachers and students, often fails to measure up to the intent of these cur-
riculum documents, despite the fact that they are well constructed,
informed by research, and written by experts, in wide consultation with
HPE specialists and other major stakeholders.
8.4 Perceived Status of HPE Globally

Health and physical education or physical education specialists from
across the globe know anecdotally that the subject is being eroded and
often not valued in the school curriculum. In conjunction with this trend
of disenchantment with the learning area, there has been a significant
decrease in activity levels of children and adolescents reported in all
regions of the world. In light of these worrying developments, both the
International Olympic Committee and the World Health Organisation
have mobilised to address the issue of inactivity. Firstly, the International
Olympic Committee funded an investigative worldwide survey into the
situation of physical education in schools. The investigation took place in
1998–99 (more than 20 years ago). Data was collated from a globally
administered semi-structured questionnaire and an extensive literature
survey (Marshall & Hardman, 2000). Results of the survey revealed that
school physical education is in a perilous position in all continental regions of

the world”. Issues of legal status and actual implementation, restricted or
decreasing curriculum time allocation, subject status and attitudes of head
teachers, other teachers and parents, inadequacies in financial, material and
human resources and teacher preparation, curriculum trends, as well as scepti-
cism about the subject’s future. (Marshall & Hardman, 2000)
170 S. Wilson-Gahan
8.5 L ack of Physical Activity a Global

Health Problem
Increasing rates of physical inactivity reported around the world, led to
the World Health Organization (WHO) developing and publishing the
“Global action plan on physical activity 2018–2030: more active people
for a healthier world” (World Health Organization, 2018, n.p.). The
global action plan sites improved physical education programs and expe-
riences as part of the solution to an epidemic of inactivity. The process
undertaken was wide ranging and engaged with 83 Member States. A
variety of stakeholders including health and sport sectors, public health,
international sports associations, and professional organisations across
health, and sports, the research and academic community, as well as the
private sector took part. They joined “representatives from ministries of
health, education, sports, transport and planning from around the globe”
(WHO, 2018, n.p.). Several of the proposed and aspirational actions
revolved around physical education, sport, and education more broadly.
For example, Action 3.1 suggests that global action is needed to…
Strengthen provision of good-quality physical education and more positive expe-

riences and opportunities for active recreation, sports and play for girls and
boys.” Apply “the principles of the whole-of-school approach in all pre-primary,
primary, secondary and tertiary educational institutions, to establish and rein-
force lifelong health and physical literacy, and promote the enjoyment of, and
participation in, physical activity, according to capacity and ability. (WHO,
2018, p. 36)
The WHO action plan also encourages the introduction or mainte-

nance of “quality physical education and physical activity opportunities
in schools” (WHO, 2018, p. 53) as a way to “contribute to increased
physical activity participation” (WHO, 2018, p. 53). The action plan
acknowledges that increased physical activity participation for all school
students results in improved concentration and cognitive function, which
in turn results in better academic outcomes (WHO, 2018, p. 53). It fur-
ther states that physical activity programs in schools help all children to
develop physical and “health literacy, motor skills, and positive attitudes
and habits” (WHO, 2018, p. 53) which in combination can potentially

enhance “children’s overall enjoyment of physical activity” (WHO, 2018,
p. 53). The action plan suggests supporting provision of inclusive and
developmentally appropriate play, physical activity and exploration, that
caters to diverse student populations in schools while at the same time
limiting sedentary behaviours (WHO, 2018).
The recommendations for action extend to building or upgrading
facilities and equipment that are child, disability and gender sensitive and
provide safe, nonviolent, inclusive and accessible indoor and outdoor
learning environments to enable all children to be physically active,
resulting in less sedentary time and enhanced learning environments
(WHO, 2018).
Another important and significant action that impacts on the future of
physical education, is the proposal to “partner with the education sector
to strengthen formal preservice and in-service training for preschool, pri-
mary and secondary school teaching staff and administrators to strengthen
knowledge and teaching skills about the value of active play, physical
education, adaptive physical activity, fundamental movement skills and
physical literacy, and about how to include people with disabilities and
the least active” (WHO, 2018, p. 67).
8.6 The Preparation of HPE Teachers

The HPE curriculum expects that teachers will provide opportunities to
learn in areas related to personal development and health education, in
addition to physical activity and movement. For teachers who are inter-
ested primarily in teaching about sport and physical activity, the discov-
ery that they are also expected to teach health education appears as a
challenge that not all are willing to embrace. Some HPE teachers and
student teachers resist both the underlying principles of the HPE curricu-
lum and the pedagogical practices it advocates. Glover and Macdonald
(1997) found that most prospective HPE teachers were primarily inter-
ested in physical activity, with some pre-service teachers resisting the
combination of health and physical education into one subject. They sug-
gest that this might be explained by the pre-service teachers’ “relative lack
172 S. Wilson-Gahan
of knowledge and understanding of the content, concepts and underpin-

ning principles of the KLA content, in particular, those related to per-
sonal development, a social view of health, and a critical orientation
towards physical education” (Glover & Macdonald, 1997, p. 22). They
recommend that tertiary programs consider the expectation that gradu-
ates have knowledge of and expertise in addressing “broader health and
social concerns of young people such as drug use, harmful drinking, child
abuse, youth suicide and traffic safety” (p. 24). Glover and Macdonald
further suggest that post-modern young people will need to acquire the
knowledge, skills and attitudes to become healthy citizens in a globalised
context and that their teachers will need to have the competencies to help
their students acquire these knowledges, skills and attitudes (p. 24).
Tinning (2004) vocalised concern that the traditional HPE pre-service
teacher program does not prepare the students for teaching the social
view of health or thinking about the body in unscientific ways. He con-
tends that “it is the way of thinking about education, health, physical
education and the work of contemporary schooling that is the most
important graduate attribute we can give our students” (Tinning, 2004,
p. 250). A change in thinking and a change in pedagogical approach may
well be necessary if HPE teachers are to embrace the new world
order of HPE.
An examination of the findings of this research and the discussion that
follows may serve to illuminate the beginnings of the way forward.
8.7 Research Methodology

The main technique used in this research was anonymous surveys distrib-
uted to and completed by practising teachers in a variety of educational
settings and semi-structured interviews conducted with a cross section of
the practicing teachers, and with pre-service education students at a rural
University in Queensland Australia.
The research was qualitative in intent, with data being collected
through anonymous and voluntary surveys then analysed to support
what is essentially an autoethnographic study. Autoethnography is an
approach to research and writing that seeks to describe and systematically
analyse personal experience in order to understand cultural experience

(Ellis, Adams, & Bochner, 2011).
As the researcher, I was able to draw on my own extensive and authen-
tic experience as a teacher of Health and Physical Education, a curricu-
lum leader, curriculum writer and pre-service teacher educator in the
specialist area of HPE curriculum, pedagogy and assessment, to design
the survey questions and to determine the focus of the interview ques-
tions and discussions. The surveys were distributed to a number of cur-
rent teachers of HPE in a cross section of primary and secondary schools
from the three sectors of Queensland education—Education Queensland,
Independent Schools Queensland and Catholic Education Queensland.
In addition, two primary school classroom teachers from NSW, one sec-
ondary Personal Development, Health and Physical Education (PDHPE)
teacher from NSW, and one secondary HPE teacher from the Northern
Territory, responded to the survey. A cross section of the participants
were subsequently interviewed for clarification purposes and to expand
the information gathered.
Data was also gathered from second year preservice teacher education
students undertaking the Bachelor of Education specialising in HPE
(Primary and Secondary) at a Queensland University. The students com-
pleted a simple questionnaire reflecting on their Professional Experience
placements in schools. Preservice teacher educators were asked about the
types of programs they had to teach into in both the movement and
physical activity and the personal, social and community health areas of
the curriculum. The questions included, who taught HPE, how many
lessons per week, how much health education did they experience or
observe, and which instructional strategies and pedagogies were evident
from mentor teachers and their colleagues? The students were also asked
to identify the most valuable thing they learned on practicum and what
they would like to learn more about.
From the teacher educator group, a total of eight interviews were con-
ducted. The data was analysed using simple numeric calculations.
Through the survey responses and interviews, themes emerged that per-
mitted examination of the situation through a number of lenses identi-
fied in the abstract of this chapter—do policies and practices marginalise
HPE and result in low numbers of HPE specialists being employed in
schools, particularly primary schools; are there negative perceptions and
174 S. Wilson-Gahan
misconceptions about the learning area; is there a lack of professional

respect for HPE teachers; do HPE teachers have the opportunity to access
quality and specifically targeted professional development, and is mis-
guided and out of date pedagogy failing to engage the Twenty-First
Century learner? The findings of this research are outlined and discussed
in the following sections of the chapter.
8.8 Findings
The findings of the research paint a picture of a learning area compro-
mised through policies, practices and management that has negative
impacts on the enactment of the intended curriculum. The decisions
made at an administrative level in schools can result in low numbers of
HPE specialists being employed in schools, particularly primary schools,
with other learning areas being prioritised, especially since the publica-
tion of NAPLAN results in electronic and print media has increased pres-
sure on teachers to produce demonstrable improvements in the results of
their classes.
Negative perceptions of the learning area can result from poor teacher
practice and/or management decisions at the HPE teacher or faculty
level. Misconceptions about the curriculum intent of HPE can result
from negative experiences or ignorance or the practices of HPE teachers
themselves. A lack of professional respect for HPE teachers can also result
from negative experiences the ‘perpetrators’ had at school or in sport
themselves, ignorance of what HPE teachers actually do and the behav-
iours of HPE teachers themselves. All participants report a lack of profes-
sional development opportunity and priority in HPE, and PDHPE for
specialist and primary classroom teachers.
Participants all report experiencing or witnessing incidences of mis-
guided or poor pedagogy that fails to engage the twenty-first century
learner. This mainly occurs through focusing heavily on competitive team
sports in an era where many more interesting and engaging alternatives
are available and desired by students. Participants report that schools
with HPE programs that adopt a traditional competitive team sports
approach to physical activity and movement and a ‘text book’ style
knowledge thick, statistical and ‘negative long term health impacts’

approach to personal, social and community health, are failing to engage
a majority of students in both primary and secondary schools. Primary
schools have more success with a traditional approach to physical activity
and movement until approximately Year 4 when students start to cement
their own values about HPE and many decide to withdraw their support
for participation in this learning (Miller, Wilson-Gahan, & Garrett, 2018).
According to participants in this study, specialist HPE teachers in
Queensland primary schools spend 30 minutes per week with each class
and during this time, overwhelmingly focus on the movement and physi-
cal activity strand of the curriculum. This results in the personal, social
and community health strand being relegated to the domain of wet
weather activity, with ineffective handouts and videos being the default
pedagogical approach (Miller et al., 2018), or health education is left to
the classroom generalist and as a consequence, is not experienced by all
students.
In secondary schools, the situation can be more encouraging, with spe-
cialist teachers providing learning to classes comprised of students who
elected to study HPE subjects. However, the commitment to the recom-
mended timetabled hours suggested by education authorities is often
made up through compulsory or ‘Core Physical Education’, where classes
are taken by non-specialists, some of whom are reluctant conscripts. In
these situations, Health Education is again, relegated to wet weather days
and ‘learning’ opportunities presented through video, with little to no
lead in information, debrief or follow up. The quality of learning is ques-
tionable at best, with disengagement from HPE inevitably being the
most damaging outcome for the health and wellbeing of young
Australians.
The secondary HPE specialist research participants also reported
knowledge that schools outside the government sector are more likely to
employ adequate numbers of HPE specialists in primary schools and
were more likely to take the commitment to movement and physical
activity seriously. Unfortunately, they all similarly reported the percep-
tion that the movement and physical activity provision was likely to be
about positive marketing opportunities and victories in prestigious sport-
ing competitions than about the lifelong values and health and wellbeing
of the students.
176 S. Wilson-Gahan
8.9 Discussion
Despite the strong rationale for HPE to be included in the school cur-
riculum (Sallis & McKenzie, 1991), the quality of primary school HPE
teaching and learning has been widely condemned globally (Hardman &
Marshall, 2001). Inadequate pre-service teacher education and underem-
ployment of specialist HPE teachers results in compromises to the enact-
ment of the intended curriculum. In most school systems in Australia,
the teaching of the HPE curriculum in primary schools is the domain of
the classroom teacher, non-specialists or outside providers such as
Austswim and Blue Earth. Since the 1990’s (Hardman & Marshall,
2001), researchers have been highlighting the difficulties primary school
classroom generalists find in delivering HPE learning to their classes. A
Senate Inquiry into Physical and Sport Education (Commonwealth of
Australia, 1992) in Australia, recommended that more HPE specialists be
employed and /or classroom generalists expected to teach HPE be pro-
vided with more significant professional development opportunities
(Morgan & Hansen, 2008). The barriers identified as being the most
likely to be responsive to change were “attitudinal disposition and confi-
dence in teaching PE” (Morgan & Hansen, 2008, p. 506).
External providers come at a cost that can deprive those students from
geographically and economically challenging circumstances of participa-
tion. It is no exaggeration to say that many, if not most, of the non-
specialist classroom teachers are ill prepared through their undergraduate
studies to teach the HPE curriculum (Calcott, Miller, & Wilson-Gahan,
2012, 2015; Miller et al., 2018). In undergraduate education degrees,
preservice educators are required to complete one or perhaps two, courses
in HPE curriculum and pedagogy to gain teacher registration. Teachers
therefore rely on their own historical experiences in school and in sport-
ing organisations, (which often occurred when they were children). They
may further depend on popular media, as sources of information in these
important areas of learning. The inadequate preparation for teaching
HPE results in cohorts of children that have very little and sometimes no
HPE learning, or classes that experience lessons that are poorer in quality
than they need to be to achieve the curriculum intent.
Reliance on popular media to inform HPE teaching can result in les-

sons that are akin to personal trainers running a boot camp for adults and
a tendency to focus on the body and physical health while ignoring the
important areas of social, emotional, mental or cognitive health and spir-
itual health. It is little wonder that both students and teachers become
disengaged. The fact that most teachers are time poor and feel pressured
to achieve in other areas of the curriculum can also result in some school
cohorts that have little to no experiences in HPE learning in a year of
schooling. It can also mean that the classroom teacher has inadequate
time to plan for effective delivery of the HPE curriculum.
In addition, primary school classroom teachers are enormously under-
resourced in respect to their own capacities and knowledge because of
inadequate preservice teacher preparation in the HPE learning area. In
2015, the Accreditation of Initial Teacher Education programs in
Australia: Standards and Procedures, published by the Australian Institute
for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL), 2015, indicated that initial
teacher education programs had to include a minimum of one course in
HPE. Subsequent updates to the program requirements through the
years 2018–2019, have witnessed a change to the requirements and the
specificity of the dialogue. The standards now state that, “All primary
programs must include study in each of the learning areas of the primary
school curriculum sufficient to equip teachers to teach across the years of
primary schooling” (AITSL, 2019, p. 14.). The number of courses/units
are stipulated for English (including early reading instruction), Maths
and Science, but the remaining learning areas are lumped together in a
vague requirement “The remainder of the program may be structured to
include extension or specialist studies in priority areas or related curricu-
lum areas” (AITSL, 2019, p. 14.). In secondary education, only those
students who undertake Major or Minor studies in HPE discipline are
required to complete any learning in HPE (AITSL, 2019). This despite
the fact that many teachers in secondary schools are required to teach
Core PE, Sport and elements of the Health Education curriculum,
including sensitive areas like mental health, relationships, sexuality and
safety. The teachers and pre-service teachers surveyed for this research
identified this inadequacy in their initial teacher education programs.
178 S. Wilson-Gahan
Participants identified that many tertiary preparation programs include

only one course or unit in HPE.
Education Queensland is one of the few state or territory education
authorities to employ specialist HPE teachers in primary schools (Lynch,
2013). According to survey respondents, Independent and Catholic
schools have a better record in this respect and students in these schools
might enjoy the benefits of more time spent in HPE learning. The situa-
tion with learning in the health strand is worse, with the need for
researched based pedagogies being ignored in favour of quick fix lesson
and unit plans devised by companies or sporting organisations with com-
mercial agendas and often provided free of charge (Miller et al., 2018).
These lesson and unit plans are written by employees without specialist
pedagogical, educational or developmental learning theory expertise and
little connection to curriculum, especially curriculum intent, is evident
(Miller et al., 2018).
Tinning, Kirk and Evans (1993, pp. 143–144) examine what a special-
ist HPE teacher is, asking the question, “is a ‘specialist’ someone who
completed a four-year degree in health and physical education’ or ‘Is it
someone who is appointed to the position of HPE coordinator at a school
regardless of his or her qualification?” They suggest there is a difference
between the teacher with expertise for the learning area such as a special-
ist, and the teacher who has taken responsibility for the subject, reflecting
the possibility of contextual and standards-based elements in concepts of
the specialist teacher. One contextual element in the use of specialist
teachers can be found in Queensland where specialist teachers are system-
atically allocated to permit non-contact time for the classroom teacher.
The specialists deliver curriculum content in learning areas such as HPE
and are qualified to do so, (DinanThompson, 2009). Unfortunately, the
specialist knowledge and experiences provided are not valued for the
learning they facilitate but rather because they provide the opportunity
for the classroom teacher to have non-contact time.
One popular response to classroom teachers feeling underprepared,
lacking in expertise and being too time poor to plan for HPE learning, is
outsourcing of the curriculum area to external providers. According to
Williams, Hay, and Macdonald (2011), this practice is widespread in
Queensland schools. In NSW, the “Healthy Harold’ life education mobile
van can be hired to provide health education to primary school students.

According to the primary school classroom teachers surveyed (2012,
2015).and interviewed, this visit accounts for the entire health strand
learning for the year for some classes.
As the data presented in Williams et al. (2011) demonstrates, the
external providers are numerous and varied, including sporting organisa-
tions, health agencies, commercial and non-commercial fitness, dance
and swimming instructors and outdoor education centres (Calcott et al.,
2012, 2015). In this way, outsourcing Sport and HPE ‘re-agents’ (Jones,
2003) education or inserts ‘new players into the field of … education
service delivery’ (Ball, 2007, p. 16). The serious implication of outsourc-
ing is the social justice implication for students who live in areas where
the outsourcing cannot be accessed, and for those students who do not
have the financial resources to pay for the learning entitlement that
should be provided by the school free of charge.
If governments were committed to ensuring all children receive ade-
quate quality tuition in the HPE curriculum, more money would be allo-
cated to employment of HPE specialists and more courses in HPE
learning would be mandated in pre-service teacher education. The impact
of this initiative would be that less schools, if any, would need to utilise
external providers. The lack of will to instigate these measures is indica-
tive of the lack of value placed on HPE when the ‘rubber hits the road’
and money needs to be spent to improve the quality of programs and the
opportunities provided for Australian children. Which brings us nicely to
the next point—that of negative perceptions.
8.10 N
egative Perceptions of Health
and Physical Education
In the survey conducted for this research, the participants responded to a
number of statements relating to the value placed on HPE by the school
management, by the parents and by other staff members. None of the
participants responded with an unequivocal yes to any of the statements
which they rated on a five point scale from ‘Strongly Agree’ to ‘Strongly
180 S. Wilson-Gahan
Disagree’. A sample of responses paints the picture. “HPE learning is not

valued in my school. For example: HPE classes are often disrupted or omitted
and students are permitted to miss HPE classes to complete other work and
activities” (R#5, survey response, December 28, 2014). “Often we lose our
classes when the hall is used for school functions. We lost court space in our
most recent renovations and in the future we will lose more. This will impact
on our already limited facilities” (R#6, survey response December
31, 2014).
“ESL teachers use fitness/HPE classes as "non-important time" and use our
classes…… Annoying” (R#2, survey response, 23 December 2014). When
asked if the non-HPE staff members at the school are supportive of the
students engaging in HPE learning, less than one third of participants
answered “agree”, with only one participant responding with a ‘strongly
agree’ to any statement. It is worth noting that this participant is the sole
HPE teacher in a regional primary school and highly regarded. He is
often ‘promoted’ to the roles of Acting Deputy Principal or Acting
Principal. One of the shortcomings of this research, which was identified
in hindsight, is that the teacher participants, whilst randomly selected,
are all well respected and well liked teachers, which may have skewed the
survey responses.
Anecdotally, there are negative perceptions about the worth of HPE as
a learning area. One hundred percent of the teachers interviewed and the
author had experienced conversations at parent teacher interviews with
parents who do not value HPE learning for their child or children. The
participants also report, that these parents are a small minority. “98%
supportive—there is always the odd one!” (R#1, survey response, 23
December 2014). “Some parents do not support their child’s participation
for a number of reasons” (R#5, survey response, 28 December 2014).
These parents do not seem to understand the benefits of regular participa-
tion in movement and physical activity, with teachers reporting that they
have been asked why the children are ‘wasting time’ participating in
HPE. They report that these parents see movement, physical activity and
health learning as wasting valuable learning time, time that is taken away
from other key learning areas. They would rather their children com-
pleted more Maths, English, Science or the ‘three r’s’. “NAPLAN results
have caused a definite focus on literacy / numeracy within my school and
basically if an activity does not support improvement in this area then it is not
supported by parents or admin” (R#5, survey response, 28 December
2014). It does appear that few parents understand that health, sport and
movement contexts, whilst important for lifelong healthy active living,
can also lead to a valid career and that a large number of people through-
out the world have lifelong, productive employment in health, move-
ment and or sporting contexts.
In Australia, in 2017, the health care and social assistance industry was
the largest and fastest growing industry. In 2017, there were 216,000
university enrolments in Health (almost doubling over the past decade)
and 221,000 in the Vocational Educational and Training sector. The
Health Care and Social Assistance industry “is projected to have the
strongest employment growth of any industry over the five years to May
2023” (Australian Bureau of Statistics [ABS], 2018) (Fig. 8.1).
Coaches, sports administrators and officials, associated health workers
and the small number of people who reach professional or elite funded
athlete status, can make a living and pay the mortgage doing something
related to HPE learning. Whilst the Arts and Recreation Services Industry
was a relatively small industry in November 2018 (ABS), the industry
witnessed a 17.7% growth from November, 2013 (ABS, 2018) and is
predicted to have a strong employment growth in the five years leading to
May 2023, mainly driven by growth in the Sports and Recreation
Activities sector (ABS, 2018). Four of the top six occupations listed in
this industry are involved in sport and active recreation—Sports Coaches,
Instructors and Officials; Fitness Instructors; Sportspersons; and Fitness
and Sports Centre Managers. In addition, many people who work in the
health, movement, sport, and associated fields have the opportunity to
travel extensively and experience enormously exciting events as part of
their career, for example, World Cups, World Championships and the
Olympic Games.
Evidence suggests that young people have modern ideas about the
types of careers they are interested in, while parents may still envisage
medicine, law and engineering as the prestigious, generously incomed,
professions. In the top ten ranked occupation categories of boys and girls
who stated a desired occupation, by child's educational expectations,
‘Sports’ ranked in the top ten in each of the three categories of
182 S. Wilson-Gahan
Fig. 8.1 Health Care and Social Assistance, Australian Bureau of Statistics, Jobs by
Industry, Nov. 2018
education—1. “up to secondary education; 2. Trade/vocational qualifica-

tion; 3. university or post-graduate qualification” (Homel & Warren,
2016). In a table coding desired jobs in Longitudinal Study of Australian
Children [LSAC], in the education professional group, the top sample
responses were listed as: teacher; primary school teacher; dance teacher;
PE teacher; and music teacher (Homel & Warren, 2016).
The parents who have negative ideas about the HPE learning may not
have been exposed to advocacy that highlights the many benefits of par-
ticipation in HPE learning for all dimensions of health—social, emo-
tional, cognitive, physical and spiritual health. They may also have had a
negative experience of HPE learning during their own schooling. The
advocacy for HPE learning falls to the HPE teacher/s and often, in pri-
mary schools especially, they are a lone voice. Professional associations
such as the Australian Council of Health, Physical Education and
Recreation (ACHPER) do advocate but frequently the most likely people
to hear this advocacy are the members themselves and the authorities
who have already bought into the importance of the learning area being
included in the whole school curriculum.
Principals have a significant role to play in advocacy for HPE learning
and should actively support the need for and inclusion of HPE learning
in the curriculum of their school, especially given that HPE is a learning
entitlement. As happened with daily physical activity mandates, Principals
were willing to sign a document advising regional offices of education
that this mandate was happening in their schools even when it was not
(Williams & Wilson-Gahan, 2013). Only three of the HPE teachers who
participated in Williams’ research had been actively involved in advocat-
ing for the learning area with parents or executive staff in schools. Much
of that advocacy was done at subject selection time, thus the advocacy
was marketed at the students who like Health and Physical Education,
and are probably good at it, rather than for the learning area as a whole
and for the benefits for all dimensions of health for all school students.
Five of the participants reported that their role in advocacy was achieved
through ‘students experiencing their lessons and their own friendly,
approachable, good natured personalities’. Of course, this is admirable, if
somewhat inadequate. If.the HPE educators themselves do not advocate
for their own learning area, who will the strong voices belong to?
The negative perception of HPE also comes from what can be observed
of the lessons themselves. HPE lessons are on public view and people
think they can judge what is happening or not happening as being valu-
able or, valueless and pointless, because they do not understand, or they
are unable to see the context or the connection to curriculum. On the
surface, it can seem that the children are just having fun and playing. As
with the need for Early Childhood educators to justify play based cur-
riculum practices, people judging the HPE learning as valueless, do not
know enough to understand how the curriculum is being implemented
or to know that higher order levels of thinking and problem solving are
taking place.
HPE is laden with opportunities for higher order thinking and prob-
lem solving. In physical activity contexts, developing and implementing
team strategies or tactics, creation or modification of games, and tech-
nique refinement all require higher order thinking. Outdoor education
and the whole focus area of “challenge and adventure activities” (ACARA,
2020, n.p), present multiple exposures to working out solutions. Creating
dance or gymnastics routines or movement sequences similarly presents a
creative thinking challenge, while providing peer feedback and complet-
ing self-evaluations requires critical evaluation. Two of the five proposi-
tions of the Australian Curriculum HPE are to “develop health literacy
and include a critical inquiry approach” (Miller et al., 2018, p. 9.).
According to the Australian Curriculum: HPE, “students develop their
ability to think logically, critically and creatively in response to a range of
health and physical education issues, ideas and challenges” (ACARA,
2020, n.p.). Students have the opportunity to develop critical and cre-
ative thinking skills through learning experiences that encourage them to
184 S. Wilson-Gahan
pose questions and seek solutions and explore and suggest strategies to
promote and advocate for personal, social and community health and
wellbeing. Students also use critical thinking to examine their own beliefs
and evaluate and challenge negative societal influences such as social
media, and messages perpetrated through television and magazines, on
their own and others’ identity and health and wellbeing (ACARA,
2020, n.p.)
There is a lack of acknowledgement that during HPE learning, relationships

are being established and children are learning self-management and social
management as well as cooperation, peer support and resilience, to name a few
of the desirable characteristics that parents wish for in their children. “Physical
education should be on equal footing with academic classes. It teaches kids
persistence, resilience, positive thinking and how to stay healthy”. (Simon Jnr,
2018, n.p.)
Observers and parents do not analyse or acknowledge the need for

competent movement in everyday life, nor do they comprehend that
HPE lessons is where fine and gross motor, locomotor and non-locomotor,
manipulative and specialised skills, are being further developed. Parents
are ignorant about what HPE learning entails, as are many members of
the population. I could not count how many times in my career I have
had to explain that HPE is about more than sport. Other teachers often
comment that HPE lessons consist of just throwing the ball out and sit-
ting back relaxing. “I believe that some people do not see PE as equal to other
subjects. Similarly, I have even been asked by some teachers is there theory in
senior PE! (R#4, survey response, 25 December 2014). How often do
HPE teachers heard comments such as this comment reported by one
participant “must be nice sitting out there in the sun just watching the
kids kick a ball around—not having to teach”? (R#11, survey response,
22 January, 2015). In academic HPE classes the teacher is often busy
making notes for assessment and it can appear as though no teaching is
actually happening. It has been my observation that lessons that happen
in classrooms do not suffer the same level of scrutiny nor negative judg-
ment, simply because they happen behind closed doors. Throughout my
career, I have been both questioned and had jokes made about what my
classes were doing on the oval, by teachers and administrators who were
observing the lessons through the windows in their rooms!
The health strand of HPE is rarely mentioned in primary school set-
tings and professional development in the area of health education is not
prioritised. If a school is to spend money on professionally developing
staff it is unlikely to be the HPE teacher, especially if that teacher is itiner-
ant and the professional development will not benefit one school specifi-
cally. I presented at a conference on the Gold Coast in 2019, to a venue
packed with HPE teachers from both primary and secondary schools.
Several of the teachers who had been teaching HPE for anywhere from
five years to decades, told me that this was the first ever HPE conference
that any school had given them permission to attend and the funding to
do so (personal communications, 25 October, 2019). The perception
about health education and the health strand of HPE is one of a deficit
model of health that teaches about illness and practices and behaviours
for avoiding or preventing so called ‘lifestyle’ diseases such as heart dis-
ease, some cancers and obesity. The reality of health education is very
different. The Australian curriculum HPE includes explicit information
about basing learning on a strengths-based approach and positivity, so
that HPE becomes more about promoting health than about avoiding ill
health; more about promoting safe behaviours and developing the capac-
ity for informed decision making that results from developing health lit-
eracies (ACARA, 2013).
8.11 Curriculum and Pedagogy

The process and timelines of curriculum development and implementa-
tion of the Australian curriculum has seen HPE further disadvantaged
through ranking HPE at the third phase of importance and then further
delaying the ratification of the curriculum and thus the introduction and
implementation of the curriculum, based on right wing, conservative
Federal Government and Ministerial decisions. While the Australian
Curriculum HPE was written by experts, in wide consultation with
researchers, teachers and other stakeholder groups, it was reviewed by
people with no expertise in HPE or any of the associated disciplines,
186 S. Wilson-Gahan
before it was changed, then ratified and finally adopted by schools. One
possible result is that people with knowledge gleaned from religious doc-
trines, popular magazines, reality television and casual conversation,
decided what is and is not worthy of inclusion in the HPE curriculum
and what aspects of HPE learning are relevant for twenty-first century
children.
8.12 M
eeting the Needs of Twenty-First
Century Children
HPE lessons and programs can lack imagination. In some schools, little
effort is made to engage the disengaged students. One hundred percent
of the preservice teacher educators surveyed listed help with inclusion
and catering to diversity as the areas of most concern and need for them
as developing educators. People who become HPE teachers are often
people who achieved success in some form of sport or competitive move-
ment activity, which means they themselves relish these sporting and
movement activities and, in many cases, the competitive nature of them
(Calcott et al., 2015). A percentage of HPE teachers seem unable to
empathise with the disengaged or with students who are not competent
in movement and physical activity and thus do not cater for the disen-
gaged or challenging students in the programs they develop. Of those
teachers who were interviewed, 90% had witnessed students with physi-
cal and learning disabilities being sent to special education units, with-
drawal rooms or school nurses instead of being catered for in the
HPE class.
Many competent sports people and students who are successful ath-
letes concur that they do not like HPE at school because it is boring or
because they have to play with all the kids who can’t catch! One young
gentleman that I interviewed spoke of his best HPE experiences being
when he was on exchange in New Zealand. When asked what he liked
about it, he listed these three things; no shoes, free dress (mufti) and no
girls to consider when playing games—they could really get into it, be
rough and not have to worry about hurting the girls AND they did activ-
ities not normally in their program in a coeducational school.
The question must be asked and answered: are HPE programs and les-
sons too structured and too safe? Are HPE programs too repetitious?
Should HPE teachers segregate the genders for HPE classes? Thirty per-
cent of the teachers surveyed and this author have tried running segre-
gated HPE classes in coeducational schools and found it to be very
successful and the preferred option for future programs. Participants in
single gender schools generally reported greater engagement in HPE
classes. This structure is very possible in schools with more than one class
in a year level but requires some planning and cooperation from others
such as the classroom teachers in primary schools. Any change that may
result in primary teacher losing or having reduced non-contact time
should be resoundingly shouted down.
In Health Education, students quickly tire of repetition and irrele-
vance and can suffer ‘death by The Five Food Groups’ because this is as
far as classes ever explore the focus area of “Food and Nutrition” (ACARA,
2020, n.p.) in health education. According to the Australian Institute of
Health and Welfare (2018), major health concerns for Australian chil-
dren and adolescents are safety in road and water environments and at
home; sexually transmitted infections, especially chlamydia; relation-
ships; environments and risky behaviours associated with alcohol con-
sumption; lack of physical activity and poor nutrition. The Australian
Curriculum HPE includes these focus areas. Many aspects of the per-
sonal, social and community health strand of HPE are societal concerns
that pundits often call for inclusion of in the school curriculum. Upon
closer inspection, these same social commentators would find that the
concerns are already included in the curriculum documents and learning
is scheduled to be delivered in these areas of social concern.
One problem is that the Australian Curriculum HPE is not being
implemented in the way it was intended. This can largely be attributed to
a lack of knowledge, professional development and resources and the
focus on first phase curriculum areas, in particular those curriculum areas
that will be included in NAPLAN testing such as Maths, English and
Science. Financial priorities of school leaders are also a mitigating factor.
188 S. Wilson-Gahan
School leaders are unlikely to spend money on areas of curriculum that

are not prioritised for scrutiny by education authorities and parents.
If the Australian Curriculum is permitted to become a mouthpiece for
conservative values and traditional pedagogies, it will not engage Twenty-
First Century learners nor will it address the major health concerns for
children and adolescents. The underlying social and environmental deter-
minants of health cannot be ignored if we are to develop health literacies
and encourage health behaviours that are achievable. The underpinning
aims and objectives and the philosophy of the Australian curriculum
HPE are worthy and should not be ignored when teaching programs are
being developed. The strengths-based approach is an admirable inclusion
and aspirational but unless the implementation and continued enact-
ment of the Australian Curriculum HPE is accompanied by adequate
Professional Development opportunities for all educators who will share
responsibility for implementing the curriculum, teachers will not know
how to enact this approach and little will change.
Student voice is seen as imperative in valuing what the student has to
say. As a pedagogical tool, pupil voice can be a very useful teaching tool.
Penney (2006) calls for “a radical refocus, and for a more flexible, inter-
connected and inclusive curriculum which is geared to children’s current
and future lives with greater opportunities for choice given to schools and
pupils”. These views sit comfortably with those advocated by White
(2012) in terms of making the curriculum relevant to young people in
the twenty-first century, and by bringing it up to date. What better way
to find out what works, what does not and to invite suggestions from the
key stakeholders in the overall process, than to ask the children?
As part of making this process possible, Penney (2011) argues that
health and physical educational professionals may need to consider a
radical re-orientation and re-structuring of their subject and in that pro-
cess embark on a possibly uncomfortable view of their own professional
identities. We need to move away from the notion that activities or sports
are ends in themselves, and that performance or sport performers are
justifiable aims alone. A shift in thinking is necessary so that activities or
sports are seen as vehicles for facilitating and providing the contexts for a
rich array of learning and where teaching and learning will extend beyond
out-dated boundaries and connect with the needs, interests, and lives of
all children.
8.13 Conclusion
Data gathered in the survey and interviews conducted in this research
support the key findings of Lynch’s, 2013 research—How are Primary
Education Health & Physical Education (HPE) teachers’ best prepared?’
reported on by AITSL.
The participants all felt similarly positive about the future. Each par-
ticipant realises that HPE teachers as a community of practice, can
address shortfalls in staffing and preservice teacher education through
advocacy and policy change. HPE programs that are out of touch and do
not engage Twenty-First Century learners must be updated through
teachers being provided with appropriate professional development and
time to produce innovative and engaging, inclusive learning experiences.
Policy needs to be clear and firm in the area of outsourcing responsibil-
ity for learning to ensure equity of access to the HPE learning entitle-
ment, yet there is a distinct lack of interest from policy makers and even
parent bodies in schools of interrogating this outsourcing phenomena.
Imagine the reaction of policy makers and parents if this same situation
arose with learning in Maths or English (Calcott et al., 2012, 2015;
Miller et al., 2018).
Negative perceptions of HPE should be addressed through the profes-
sional behaviours of HPE specialist teachers, and the development of
innovative programs and effective pedagogical approaches. HPE special-
ists can address misconceptions about the focus of HPE learning through
advocacy and sharing of the Australian Curriculum HPE. They can also
highlight the curriculum focus areas as valuable opportunities to improve
self and social management and productivity through enacting the
intended curriculum even when this necessitates professional learning
and research. Finally, each specialist can play a part in increasing the pro-
file and value of HPE in the curriculum through show-casing success in
student learning outcomes.
If the only outcome of HPE learnings were to produce future genera-
tions of young people who are caring, empathetic, active, health literate
citizens who take their responsibilities and contribution to community
health and wellbeing seriously, it would be a win/win for Australia.
190 S. Wilson-Gahan
Appendix
Table 8.1 Advice on time allocations
Adapted from the QSA (2013)
Entitlement
Table 8.1 includes the learning areas described in the Melbourne

Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians (2008).*
• The shaded areas indicate the learning areas and year levels where the
learning is an entitlement.
• The unshaded areas indicate the year levels when the learning area
is optional.
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Part III
Researchers’ Experiences and
Challenges
9
Challenging the Seductive Promise
of Positivist Research in Schools: A Case
for Classroom-based Critical Theory
Research
Clayton Barry and Michael Christie
All educational acts become problematic to the teacher as researcher.

(Kincheloe, 1991, p. 38)
9.1 Introduction
Both academics and school teachers struggle to understand the role each
other play in improving learning outcomes for history students studying
the junior and secondary Australian History Curriculum (AHC). The
first author of this chapter, a full time teacher about to complete a PhD
focussing on history curriculum, tutors at University with the second
author, an academic who runs history curriculum courses. Both have
been involved in debates with colleagues about the nature of history,
A critique of positivist research and an argument for critical theory research as a meeting point for
teacher researchers and academic researchers interested in authentic school improvement.
C. Barry (*) • M. Christie

University of the Sunshine Coast, Sippy Downs, QLD, Australia
e-mail: michael.christie@usc.edu.au; cbarry@usc.edu.au

198 C. Barry and M. Christie
history teaching and the role that educational research plays, not only in
improving the teaching of history but more generally improving educa-
tion in schools.
In the west, at least since Herodotus, historical research, has under-
gone major paradigmatic shifts. Those shifts parallel shifts in other
research areas. For example, education. Herodotus wrote history that was
a narrative based on primary sources. Edward Gibbon’s history of the
Roman Empire also emphasised the importance of primary sources but
introduced the notion that history was an argument. His central argu-
ment was that the decline and fall of the Roman Empire was connected
to its adoption of Christianity as an imperial religion. Positivist history, a
much later development, insisted that if the primary sources are allowed
to speak for themselves empirical conclusions can be drawn. Post-
positivists, such as Karl Popper, insisted that the bias of historians has to
be considered no matter how extensive the primary sources may be. More
recently constructivist and critical theory accept that all history research
is contestable. Foucault, who failed to defend his PhD at Uppsala
University, while working under a “dyed-in-the wool positivist” (Eribon,
1991, p. 84), challenged the underlying assumptions of history research.
There has been a similar ongoing debate about the research methods used
to inform authentic school improvement, which is the main focus of this
chapter.
The problem with defining education research is that we have moved
from earlier generations of scholars who researched the history, psychol-
ogy, philosophy, sociology and economics of education to a current set of
educational researchers who no longer wish to be confined by such fields.
Cohen et al. (2018, p. 3) argue, that research, in general, is concerned
with nothing less than “understanding the world”. Social researchers,
including educational researchers, see research as a “social scientific way of
telling about society” (Ragin, 1994, p. 6). For Burns (2000, p. 3), this
‘way of telling’ includes a systematic investigation to find answers to a
problem. Stenhouse (1981, p. 103) supports Burns’ definition but adds
that such systematic inquiry must also be self-critical. In other words,
researchers need to rely on a disciplined process of inquiry (Bouma, 2000,
p. 5) by adopting “specific techniques and principles” (Neuman, 2009,
p. 3). Kerlinger, whose Foundations of Behavioural Research (Kerlinger,
9 Challenging the Seductive Promise of Positivist Research… 199
1964, p. 11) influenced generations of education graduates, synthesises

these views when he defines research as the “Systematic, controlled,
empirical, and critical investigation of hypothetical prepositions about
the presumed relations among natural phenomena.”
It is perhaps little wonder, given the scholarly penchant for impressive
adjectives, that research is considered “an especially privileged form of
public discourse” that often dominates other ways of knowing, such as
“folk wisdom, custom, insight, intuition, and dogma” (Freebody, 2003,
p. 17). Indeed, it is true that research of a certain type and suggesting a
specific paradigm, is often delivered to the knowledge consumer as privi-
leged information containing categorical truths.
Empirical research, premised on positivist claims of truth and objectiv-
ity, tends to gain the respect of schools beset by social, racial, and eco-
nomic disadvantage. In these schools, the overworked principal in
desperate search for ‘the magic bullet’ may adopt digestible empirical
research findings that are presented by an outside expert. In the short
term, the principal’s embracing of these findings might very well allay his
or her increasingly alarmed supervisors whose own contracts hinge on
each of the schools under their purview reaching key government indica-
tors. Unfortunately, much of the empirical research adopted by schools
and promulgated by department administrators ignores the broader soci-
ological contexts that affect how schools function. The school principals
who implement these findings, will most likely witness their leadership
team engaged in considerable “thrashing about” (Stoll & Fink, 1996)
while their teachers engage in frantic “classroom tinkering” (Hyslop-
Margison & Naseem, 2007, p. 99). Given the vigour of their input, it
may come as a surprise to all involved that their heroic efforts meet with
little demonstrable improvement in student outcomes (Hyslop-Margison
& Naseem, 2007, p. 5). Long term change in all schools that rely on the
quick promise of empirical research proves despairingly elusive, as will be
discussed below.
The type of research that generally reaches the busy educator working
in schools, or the consultant looking to parse the latest findings for school
consumption, is that type of research—empirical research—which con-
forms most closely to society’s view of the scientific research endeavour.
Empirical research falls within the paradigm of positivism—a term first
used by nineteenth century French philosopher Auguste Comte to

advance the empirical methods of his forebears, such as David Hume and
Francis Bacon (Hyslop-Margison & Naseem, 2007, p. 13–14). In
explaining his ‘Positive Philosophy’, Comte developed his ‘Law of Three
Stages’ where knowledge develops from a dependence on theological
explanations of phenomena, to a reliance on metaphysical explanations
of phenomena and finally to, a positivity or scientific stage, where our
understanding of phenomena or nature is based only on data observed
with the senses (1855/2003, p. 25). For the positivists, empirical knowl-
edge, or rather, knowledge derived only from observation by the senses,
is the only verifiable knowledge and therefore the sole path to certitude
(Kincheloe, 1991, p. 72); all other forms of knowledge (e.g. a priori,
common sense or metaphysical) are considered suspect. Research which
subscribes to the positivist paradigm is underscored by a realist ontology.
To the positivist researcher ‘reality’ is thought to exist and this reality is
driven by immutable natural laws (Guba, 1990, p. 20). For Comte, per-
haps emboldened by the empirical successes of his predecessors like
Galilei, experimental research had determined that incontrovertible laws
existed in nature; therefore, why should the same types of law not also
exist in human societies? Discovering the ‘truth’ of this social reality is the
basic goal of the positivist researcher. According to the positivist, the
researcher’s biases, values, and underlying ideologies, in short, their epis-
temological relationship with the knowledge they generate, does not
interfere with their findings (Guba, 1990, p. 20).
The positivist paradigm and its empirical research methods have main-
tained their privileged status now for some three or four hundred years.
It is reasonable for the reader to assume, given its fossilised ontological
notions of truth which seem naively archaic in the postmodern world,
that positivism was a conservative force upon the world it sought to
explain. However, a brief exploration of the history of the positivist para-
digm reveals in fact a much different story. The scientific method was a
thoroughly modern and revolutionary idea, and its emergence in the late
medieval period transformed almost all aspects of how humans saw the
world. The case of Galileo Galilei best exemplifies the revolutionary spirit
of those using the newly-minted scientific method and the reactionary
consequences they faced by making their work public.
In the early Seventeenth Century, Italian scientist Galileo Galilei was

brought before Rome’s Holy Office of the Inquisition because of his sup-
port for the Copernican theory of heliocentrism. Heliocentrism is the
belief that the Earth and other planets revolve around the Sun (Olsen,
2004, p. 7), a view which Galilei (1967/1632) advanced in his Dialogues
Concerning the Two Chief World Systems. Galilei’s work crashed on the
rocks of the established Ptolemaic view which held that the earth was the
centre of the universe and that the sun, moon and stars revolved around
it. Under the looming shadow of Pope Urban II and the threats of his
inquisitors, Galilei was ordered to recant his position on heliocentrism
and was placed under house arrest for the remainder of his life. Galilei’s
experience best exemplifies the tumultuous period of time when centu-
ries of Christian dogma were being challenged by new and surprisingly
liberatory ideas which were to percolate and eventually coalesce under
the banner of the so-called Age of Enlightenment in the early eighteenth
century. As Lather (1991, p. 104) states, the intention of science was to
“liberate reason from the dictates of kings and priests.” She continues:
Legitimating itself in opposition to theology and aristocracy, science’s
claim to authority has been premised on its appeal to experience medi-
ated by a purportedly value-neutral, logical-empirical method that prom-
ised the growth of rational control over ourselves and our worlds.
As Pring (2000, p. 91) puts it, “the positivist spirit seemed to offer greater
chance of progress.” For Comte, who now turned his attentions to forming
a Religion of Humanity, he saw his Positive Philosophy as a clearest way
forward to “end the intellectual anarchy of the present condition”
(1855/2003, p. 398) Indeed, the emerging sciences that gave the Age of
Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution their names were perhaps the
greatest emancipatory vehicle available at that time for the people to chal-
lenge not only the stranglehold of religious doctrine, but also their oppres-
sion by the ruling elite (Feyerabend, 1975, p. 5). To consider how
thoroughly modern positivism is as a paradigm, it is worth noting, that the
Catholic Church acquitted Galilei of his crime only 25 years ago, some 350
years after being first condemned (Hellman, 1998, p. 18). The investiga-
tion leading to his posthumous acquittal involved an expert panel of theo-
logians, scientists, and historians. And even then—after the Moon landings,
after Einstein’s theory of relativity, and after the launching of the Hubble
telescope—the panel took 13 years to reach their decision (Cowell, 1992).
9.1.1 T
he Positivist Paradigm as an Ontological
and Epistemological Problem
Sadly, the positivist paradigm, once lauded for its emancipatory poten-
tial, does not hold up to sustained scrutiny when it is applied as empirical
research in schools. The first problem with empirical research in schools
is an ontological and epistemological one. Firstly, Comte’s positive phi-
losophy is undermined by attempting to conflate natural laws with
human ones. Education is a human practice. As Hyslop-Margison &
Naseem (2007, p. 47) state:
Education…is far less governed by demonstrable causal regularity than by sur-

prises, disappointments, accidental encounters, contingencies, and everything
else to which human circumstance and history are subjected…To study human
beings under the illusion of achieving predictive validity is to remove human
experience from its personal, social, and historical context. It is to treat human
agents entirely as objects of analysis rather than understand them as subjects
capable of personal and social transformation.
In aiming for precision and control and in formulating causal hypoth-

eses, the empirical researcher imagines the unimaginable; the ability to
control for the thousands upon thousands of variables that constitute the
lived experience of people in schools. This leaves empirical researchers
with something that positivist critics call the generalisability problem
(Firestone, 1990, p. 117). The idea that an empirical researcher, casting
aside both her conscious and unconscious biases, can deduct from her
quantitative data and predict universal future outcomes for schools seems
utterly untenable given the typical complexity of the school—a behe-
mothic social institution which emerged so rapidly and quite improbably
out of the murk of often competing historical, social and economic forces
in the early nineteenth century. The idea that empirical research can cre-
ate “a model that would apply to all schools in all communities at all
times” (Willms, 1992, p. 65) is fundamentally unsound. As Nolan (2009,
p. 30) asserts, “classrooms (or a school office or hallway)” cannot be

“treated like a medical laboratory existing separately from the world out-
side its doors.”
Given such improbable chances of success it is worth questioning why
large education research grant bodies such as the American Educational
Research Association still encourage applicants to energetically adopt
“new quantitative measures…for addressing educational issues” (AERE,
2016). In Queensland at least, where the first author’s research was under-
taken, their education department makes no paradigmatic claims on the
researcher beyond the adoption of methodologies that are both “valid
and reliable” (State of Queensland, 2016). And yet, to borrow a phrase
from Carl Kaestle’s (1993) totemic oral history of US education officials,
education research has an ‘awful reputation’. McClintock (2007, p. 1)
lays this reputation squarely at the feet of positivist educational researchers:
Because educational researchers have proven unable to exercise rigorous control

and account for the relevant variables in carefully designed inquiries, their
studies had notoriously conflicting results. If researchers cannot master the vari-
ables in controlled settings, why expect practitioners, caught in institutional
cross-currents and daily coping with complexity, to be able to rationalise school
activities according to the prescripts of research findings?
Despite such biting criticism, authors like Reinhart et al. (2013,
p. 241) note the increasing popularity of “sophisticated statistical model-
ling data-analytic techniques in educational research” whose findings
often “overstep the warrants of…their techniques”. Or as Hattie bluntly
puts it, if research findings are to be believed, “everything seem(s) to
work” in education (in Evans, 2012). In such an environment, teachers
inevitably end up with a type of implementation whiplash (Kramer, in
von Bubnoff, 2007) as they swing from one positive research finding to
another in a desperate search for ‘what works’.
It is worth noting here the Queensland context in which the first
author’s research took place. Currently in Queensland, all state schools
are required to adopt a pedagogical framework to “ensure high quality,
evidence-based teaching strategies focussed on success for every student”
(Department of Education and Training, 2016). Seven pedagogical

‘approaches’ are endorsed by the Department of Education and Training
to help schools develop their frameworks (Education Queensland, 2015).
Of these seven, four are designed by external experts and are based almost
exclusively on empirical research findings or meta-analyses of such find-
ings (Art and Science of Teaching, Visible Learning, Direct Instruction,
Explicit Instruction). Two approaches were developed internally by
Education Queensland, the State Schooling arm of the Queensland’s
Department of Education and Training. At least one of these internally
developed approaches, Dimensions of Teaching and Learning, could
broadly be described as an amalgam of the above four approaches. Only
one approach, the ostensibly misnamed Productive Pedagogies, could be
said to view school effectiveness and pedagogy through a critical and
sociological lens (Lingard, Hayes, & Mills, 2003, p. 402). At this junc-
ture, it is worth pointing out the striking paradigmatic contrast between
two of the most robustly researched of approaches, namely Productive
Pedagogies, which grew out of the Queensland Schools Reform Longitudinal
Study (2001) commissioned by Education Queensland (and produced by
the University of Queensland’s School of Education) and John Hattie’s
Visible Learning.
While the Queensland Schools Reform Longitudinal Study (QSRLS)
made clear that at its heart it had a “pragmatic, state-funded, empirical
research agenda” (2001, p. 70), it also attempted to “hold state systems
and schools accountable for ‘making a difference’ with the most at-risk
and marginalised communities” (QSRLS, p. 71). Indeed, the QSRLS
shows no reluctance in drawing on “multiple, and apparently divergent”
views on school reform, including, for instance, the “radical sociology of
school knowledge” as well as critical ethnography research (QSRLS,
2001, p. 72). To meet its purpose, QSRLS employed a mixed methods
approach which included teacher observations, teacher interviews, key
personnel interviews, parent interviews, teacher surveys, student surveys
and quantitative measures of student performance (QSRLS, 2001, p. 99).
Contrast this approach to that taken by Hattie in his Visible Learning.
Hattie, an almost messianic figure to education policymakers (Evans,
2012), provides the following caveat at the beginning of his book Visible
Learning (2012, viii–ix):
1. It is not a book about classroom life, and does not speak to the nuances
and details of what happens within classrooms…
2. It is not a book about what cannot be influenced in schools—thus
critical discussions about class, poverty, resources in families, health in
families, and nutrition are not included…
3. It is not a book that includes qualitative studies. It only includes stud-
ies that have used basic statistics (means, variances, sample sizes) ...
4. It is not a book about criticism of research, and I have deliberately not
included much about moderators of research findings based on
research attributes (quality of study, nature of design) …
It is important at this stage to recognise that even Hattie cautions the

over-zealous education official against a holus bolus implementation of his
findings. Hattie (2009, p. xiii) recognises that while his book does not
address the social, economic or historical contexts, these may be more
important than many of the other factors discussed in his book. He also
claims that qualitative research is both important and powerful and
explains the temporal limitations of not including them in his orbit
(Hattie, 2009, ix). He claims, almost despairingly, that teachers waste too
much time searching for “magic bullets” (in Evans, 2012). Despite these
warnings, Visible Learning has been labelled “teaching’s holy grail”
(Mansell, 2009) by the influential Times Educational Supplement.
Marzano, whose Art and Science of Teaching (now the New Art and Science
of Teaching [2017]) relies on a less formal meta-analysis of available
empirical research, but which holds incredible sway in Queensland state
schools, also argues that his approach will most certainly not “provide an
airtight model of instruction” (Marzano, 2007, p. 4). Indeed, in a follow-
up article commenting on the frantic adoption of his own work, Marzano
saw that the negative outcomes of the prescriptive adoption of his work
“seem to be growing in scope and influence” (Marzano, 2009, p. 30). He
points to the checklist approach to teacher evaluation, the mindless sub-
scription to teaching strategies that may not suit the time or place of
instruction, and the corruption of peer-learning approaches such as walk-
throughs. He concludes that the prescriptive top-down approach to his
work found in many schools and regions is “profoundly anti-professional”
(Marzano, 2009, p. 37).
While it is up to individual Queensland state schools to decide which

approach to base their pedagogical framework on, interestingly, the first
author’s experience in various Queensland education regions shows either
explicit or tacit region-wide commitment to the adoption of a singular
approach. For instance, in the Central Queensland Region, where his
research was undertaken, the Explicit Instruction approach, based on the
work of Fleming and Kleinhenz (2007) reigns. In the North Coast
Region, there is a widespread adoption of the Art and Science of Teaching,
based on the work of Robert Marzano (2007). Anecdotally at least, it is
also hard to understate the impact of John Hattie’s (2009) Visible Learning
meta-analysis on the way that schools now consider and discuss so-called
evidence-based practice.
9.1.2 The Positivist Paradigm as a Problem of Power
To summarise the above, the slavish adoption of Hattie and Marzano’s

work, and the more mindless adoption of positivist research by schools in
general, reveals an ontological and epistemological faith in empirical
research methods. We argue that this faith is unwarranted. Perhaps more
worryingly, however, the adoption of such methods betrays how empiri-
cal research is used to maintain a neoliberal ideology that penetrates all
layers of Western education. To explore this, it is worth briefly exploring
the historical relationship between mass schooling and capitalist ideol-
ogy. It bears recalling that mass schooling emerged as the dominant social
force across all the Western world at the very time that the Industrial
Revolution shrugged off the shroud of feudalism to usher in the capitalist
era. On the one hand, mass public education emerged during the
Industrial Revolution as a way to give moral instruction to that particu-
larly persistent type of English street urchin who would, if left unchecked,
grow up to eventually clog the prison ships berthed on the Thames (Carl,
2009, p. 506). The irony of course is that this type of Dickensian urchin
did not exist en masse before the Industrial Revolution. Rather, as capital-
ism increasingly devalued the worth of human labour, so-called errant
social behaviour, or behaviour that weakened capitalism’s grip on the
working classes, became a hallmark of a life where wages had crashed to
subsistence levels. On the other hand, schools grew out of an instrumen-

tal and supposed technical need to meet the growing workforce chal-
lenges created by a market-driven and increasingly mechanised economy
(Hyslop-Margison & Naseem, 2007, p. 16). So, from its outset, educa-
tion “served as a state apparatus” (Apple, 1981, p. 38) to pursue largely
instrumental and sometimes utilitarian needs. Therefore, when the state
and other stakeholders sought to measure the success of schools, they
turned to the gold standard of research at that time—positivism.
Joe Kincheloe argues in his ground-breaking book Teachers as
Researchers (1991) that the positivist research agenda disempowers stu-
dents, teachers and the local schools they work in. To summarise his the-
sis, rather than using research to build democratic schools or to empower
individuals to change their communities, the positivist research agenda in
schools serves to remove the focus from the inherent inequities that lead
to failure (of students, of teachers, of schools) and to instead lay the prob-
lems of education squarely at the feet of those it seeks to serve. Research
then, becomes another form of control. This view is brilliantly illustrated
by Gunter (2009, p. 97) who states:
In the name of freedom, those who are not socially and economically powerful
need to be controlled in ways that help them to feel good about it. So, interven-
tions can be made for individuals (testing, training), for families (performance
data, parental training), for schools (inspection, targets), for services (outsourc-
ing, privatisation) in such a way as to enable all to see that they are responsible
for their lot and they too can be made over like the gardens, relationships, bod-
ies, and houses are on TV and in magazines.
The problem is not that Hattie’s (2009, p. viii) research ignores “criti-
cal discussions about class, poverty, resources in families, health in fami-
lies, and nutrition” so much as that teachers have now naturalised the
belief that these things are no longer central to their work. Education
research, therefore, becomes a series of technocentric fixes where top-
down bureaucrats informed by expert outsider researchers generate uni-
versal laws to tell teachers ‘what works’ (Opie, 2004, p. 8). ‘What works’
in education is then reduced to bite sized chunks to be hungrily con-
sumed by solutions-focused school administrators or adopted by
time-poor teachers. This empirical approach has reached hegemonic sta-

tus in education research (Hyslop-Margison & Naseem, 2007, p. 13)
despite the fact that this type of research “has contributed neither to the
clarification of educational problems nor to the formulation of solutions
to them” (Kincheloe, 1991, p. 129).
In the positivist model, teachers are not to be trusted. They can no
longer do “do good work” (Kincheloe, 1991, p. 25). Instead of designing
highly customised curriculum that suits the particular needs of their local
context and their individual students, teachers deliver pre-packaged cur-
riculum designed by outside experts. For instance, in Queensland state
schools, teachers are encouraged (or in some low performing schools,
told) to use pre-packaged Curriculum into Classroom unit plans, lesson
outlines, and resources. Teacher become the delivery workers. They are
interrogated by their supervisors if they want to ‘go it alone’. Primary
school students in Central Queensland, where the first author’s research
took place, learn of Sydney’s Eora Aboriginal people, but have not heard
of the Woppaburra people and their massacre at the hands of European
settlers. Instead of deciding what pedagogy is most relevant on this par-
ticular occasion, they are told by their regions or by their school which
pedagogy is best for all occasions. Teachers in rural schools are encour-
aged to use approaches like Direct Instruction, or as Chris Sarra (2011)
puts it, “pedagogy for the poor; good for making slaves, domestics and
farmhands” which scripts interactions between the teacher and student.
Instead of building a culture of action research, research becomes the
province of a “small, elite minority” (Kincheloe, 1991, p. 25) and teach-
ers are trained in ‘best practice’. Instead of voicing the concerns of stu-
dents and parents that schools are becoming “testing hubs
that…disempower students” (Giroux, 2013, p. 493), teachers are silenced
by test scores published on government websites and which are turned
into league tables published in national newspapers. In socially and eco-
nomically disadvantaged schools, teachers’ reputations become tarnished
in the very community they have chosen to serve. To Kincheloe (1991,
p. 35), “a vicious circle, a tornado of bad work thus develops.” He
continues:
…Teachers are excluded from inquiring into how those who employ, supervise,
judge, and administrate make their policies…Research loses a liberatory func-
tion as it is co-opted as a mechanism of domination, as a manifestation of the
low esteem in which teachers are held…Because of their low status, teachers are
excluded from research. Researchers ‘study down’ the teachers. Uninformed by
the valuable insights of teachers, the resulting research is abstracted from the
lived world of school. Outside reforms of education emerge from an ungrounded
knowledge base, and as such reforms are imposed teachers are further disenfran-
chised and alienated.
Schools, informed by the positivist paradigm, lose their democratic

and emancipatory possibility. Education becomes just another node in
the network of cultural sites that reproduce and legitimise the neolib-
eral agenda.
9.2 A
n Alternative Research Paradigm:
Critical Theory Research
The problems highlighted above—of what to research, how to research,
and which research to privilege or silence in schools and elsewhere—are
problems that interest those who subscribe to a paradigm of research
loosely called critical theory research. Critical theory research emerged
largely from the works of the Frankfurt School theorists who saw their
task to not only explain the world but to “realise a society based on equal-
ity and democracy for all its members” (Cohen et al., 2018, p. 51).
Within the critical theory research paradigm, knowledge is viewed for its
emancipatory or repressive potential (McLaren & Giarelli, 1995, p. 2). It
is this detail that sees the critical research paradigm advance the
Enlightenment agenda in ways that the positivists, with their claims of
truth and researcher objectivity, were never able to do (Giarelli,
1992, p. 3).
Guba (1990, p. 23) argues that a more appropriate label for the critical
theory research paradigm is “ideologically oriented inquiry” because, as
he states, these forms of inquiry “converge in rejecting the claim of value
freedom made by positivists.” Indeed, it is when we look at the
epistemological assumptions of both the positivist and critical paradigms

that we see their greatest divergence. Guba (1990, 23–24) continues:
Because they are human constructions, paradigms inevitably reflect the values
of their human constructors. They enter into inquiry at choice points such as the
problem selected for study, the paradigm within which to study it, the instru-
ments and the analytic modes used, and the interpretations, conclusions, and
recommendations made. Nature cannot be seen as it ‘really is’ or ‘really works’
except through a value window. If values do enter into every inquiry, then the
question immediately arises as to what values and whose values shall govern. If
the findings of studies can vary depending on the values chosen, then the choice
of a particular value system tends to empower and enfranchise certain persons
while disempowering and disenfranchising others. Inquiry therefore becomes a
political act.
At the heart of critical theory research in education is the conviction

that schools “…serve less as the engines of democracy and equality than
many of us would like” (Apple, 1981, p. 28). Critical theory research in
schools, therefore, has been described as emancipatory research (Robson,
2002, p. 28). This is because it situates its work firmly in the context of
schools being potential sites of either positive social change or sites that
safeguard the status quo. Almost 70 years ago, Abelson (1948, p. 454)
asserted that:
Education is a crucial weapon in the struggle toward democracy—but not just

any kind of education. The forces of education can be turned toward or away
from the goals of democracy. Which way these forces will go depends on a num-
ber of things, not least among which is the provision the educational system
makes for research and appraisal.
To that end, Apple (1981, p. 28) argues that, for the education
researcher, “understanding and acting on schools is not enough.” Rather,
critical education research should at its heart seek to transform some
aspect of the school so that all those within it—students as well as teach-
ers—achieve greater agency over their lives.
The first author’s research into the potential of critical history to engen-
der in students hope for the future is ultimately a project of critical
research. It disrupts the traditional positivist model of educational

research in a number of ways, which will be discussed in detail below.
First, this research attempts to restore some sense of agency to one’s work
as a teacher. Second, adopting a critical research paradigm rejects the
reification of students extant in much empirical research to instead con-
sider them as active agents in their own worlds. Third, the critical research
paradigm foregrounds the idea that curriculum choice, what is taught
and left out of schools, and how these things are researched, are political
choices. These choices expose both perceptible and subterranean power
relations which interrupt any attempts at emancipation. Finally, commit-
ment, as qualitative researchers, to an emic, idiographic case study
method brings teachers closer to their participants. The choice of qualita-
tive methods used in the research which privilege student voice should
help launch a dialectic, reflexive, and hopefully robust dialogue with the
participants in such research. Research informed by the critical theory
paradigm goes some way to rebalance the asymmetrical power relations
between the teacher and the student, and correspondingly the researcher
and the participant (Seidman, 2013, p. 107). The goal of this approach is
to ensure that interpretations of research findings by teacher-researchers,
are mediated, and indeed, contingent upon the participants’ input.
9.2.1 Teacher Agency
Critical theory, through its educational offspring, critical pedagogy, pro-

vides insights into the social, historical and economic forces that shaped
the schools. Twenty years ago, as a novice teacher, the first author was
able to look through a critical lens to witness first-hand some of the things
he had read about as a university student—institutional racism, igno-
rance of economic disadvantage, the privileging of certain discourses that
excluded others; the hidden curriculum that exists in all schools. As
Kincheloe (1991, p. 38) states, “critical consciousness sees all educational
activity as historically located.” And yet, in the classroom, the critical
approaches to history teaching that he adopted did not result in student
agency, student action, critical reflection, and a hopeful disposition that
the literature claimed would occur. He suffered two blows of
disillusionment. While a grounding in critical pedagogy certainly inocu-

lated him to some degree, as a beginning teacher he soon fell prey “to the
alienation and disillusionment of the bad teaching workplace” (Kincheloe,
1991, p. 37). Could it be that critical pedagogy with its inherent assump-
tions of power, voice, and agency, might have been the problem (Allen &
Rosatto, 2009, p. 163)? Becoming a teacher researcher restored his sense
of agency. Research findings, by practitioner researchers will almost cer-
tainly open up new ways of thinking about schools and the teacher’s place
in them. They may affirm good teaching practice or confirm suspicions
that some things weren’t working ‘on the ground’ despite assertions from
outsider researchers. In a way, action research conducted by teachers or
other school stakeholders that are mindful of academic research is an act
of self-care. After many years of having been made to feel delinquent by
a variety of outside experts, which was the case for the first author, the
teacher researcher can take back control, via data-driven investigations of
their own, of what truly works in their classrooms, and argue for their
actions. Because they are based on insider research.
9.2.2 Student Agency
Most education research, including the sort that informs Queensland

schools, treats students as “problems to be dealt with” (Gunter, 2009,
p. 97). A deficit model underscores much positivist educational research,
particularly in the field of history education. Empirical studies of the sort
promoted by Hattie reify students and, in the process, dehumanise them.
Students’ test scores are colour-coded (green is good, red is bad) and
placed on data walls to be pored over by anxious teachers. Amir doesn’t
know algebra. Katie can’t read. Schools and their students are patholo-
gised (Rasmussen, 2015, p. 1999). A narrative is constructed by research-
ers and perpetuated in communities infatuated with a type of scientism
that pervades the Western psyche that kids ‘these days’ are not taking
advantage of the education system funded by the hard-working tax payer.
The deficit model reigns supreme in history education research (Bain
& Harris, 2009, p. 34). History education research has been funded by
national governments who usually are responding to a public outcry of
some sort which makes clear that future generations do not know their
national (read triumphalist) history. Such reactionary research treats chil-
dren like hollow vessels waiting to be filled up with significant dates and
important people by the expert history teacher—Freire’s (1993/1970)
banking concept of education writ large. Not only does this type of research
betray a narrow and traditional notion of history education but it also
reveals something more sinister about education research. Haydn and
Harris (2010, p. 254) explain:
History education doesn’t include voices of young people. It seems possible that,
to at least some degree, there has been an extensive debate between ‘the grown-
ups’ about the purpose and nature of a historical education for young people,
which has been conducted largely over the heads of those for whom the curricu-
lum was designed.
The research on which this chapter is based adopted a critical theory

research paradigm by foregrounding students’ experiences to give them
voice to express, not only their hopes and concerns for the future, but
also a voice to critique the way they have been taught history. Apple
(2010, p. 152) argues that critical research should attempt to see the
world through the eyes of the dispossessed. Even the most economically
privileged student in a state school is dispossessed because they are silent
from almost all educational debates. In this instance, the first author’s
research study redistributes the usual power differential so that students
could ask if the way they were taught was best for them. At the same time,
there was the potential to expose students to the critical notion that, like
the past, the future can be colonised too. It may be that this acceptance
of a taken-for-granted future—the type of future that schools perpetuate
through career guidance, through the institutional acceptance of disad-
vantage—contributes to students’ despair as much as their exposure to
critical history. Kincheloe (1991, p. 60) states that one of the main goals
of critical teacher research is to “reveal the ways that dominant schooling
serves to perpetuate the hopelessness of the subjugated.” Through the
data collection techniques of focus group interviews and student reflec-
tive essays, participants in the research study may become conscious of
their ability to free themselves from overly technocratic, dystopian and
authoritarian views of the future and learn to see how neoliberal forces
project their contemporary agenda into an uncertain future (Postma,
2015, p. 6).
9.2.3 Research as Politics and Power
As we noted at the beginning of this chapter, history and historical

research is contentious today. The History Wars in Australia, as part of
the broader Culture Wars, make very clear that how Australian students
are to remember and interpret the past reveals how they should view the
present and the future. On the one hand, triumphalist, nationalistic
mono-narratives clamour for air while more critical interpretations of
Australia’s past seek to unearth themselves from the ground. Today the
History Wars are reigniting again with one Murdoch Press broadsheet,
the Daily Telegraph, declaring ‘Whitewash!’ over a recommendation made
by the University of New South Wales to use the word ‘invasion’ when
describing early European arrival in Australia (Fife-Yeomans, 2016). In
the latest volley, the left-leaning Guardian online newspaper has exca-
vated enough evidence, in their opinion, to justify the claims that one of
Australia’s ‘founding fathers’, Lachlan Macquarie, was “a terrorist” (Daley,
2016). The critical theory research paradigm “denies the split between
epistemology and politics (Denzin & Lincoln, 2003, p. 174). The research
on which this chapter is based, and teaching itself are undeniably political
acts. We have argued in favour of a critical theory research paradigm for
both academic and school based researchers precisely because it allows
them to emphasise notions of power, ideology, and student voice. These
aspects are central to any study of critical history and therefore should be
central to school focused research endeavours.
The adoption of a critical theory research paradigm overturns the neo-
liberal notion that schools “must be put to work” (Gunter, 2009, p. 95),
in the service of capitalism and the market economy. It also overturns the
notion that schools, through their history courses, must cultivate the
national sentiment in the service of the prevailing state apparatus. The
research study in which this chapter is grounded emphasises that critical
approaches to education are still problematic nearly a century after
Horkheimer (1982, p. 244) claimed that the purpose of critical theory

was to work towards the liberation of all human beings. Nevertheless, we
also want to show that teacher research informed by critical theory is
provides hope for both teachers and academics interested in using research
to make schools better. Weenvisage a future where small projects led by
critical teacher-researchers in partnership with the academy start to float
to the surface amongst the debris of failed, market-driven research proj-
ects. Kincheloe’s (1991) Teachers as Researchers sums this point up nicely:
But those of us committed to democratic education and democratic workplaces

for teachers can take heart. Hope rises from the ruins of mandated changes
imposed from above—reform coming from outside the school doesn’t work…The
plethora of small changes made by critical teacher researchers around the world
in individual classrooms may bring about far more authentic educational
reform than the grandiose policies formulated in state or national capitals”.
(Kincheloe, 1991, p. 36)
As Kress (2011, p. 261) argues, the critical researcher and the critical
pedagogue share a united aim—to help move the world a step closer
toward a utopia that we may never witness but would mark the end of
human suffering.” In this way, an adoption of a critical theory research
paradigm is an intuitive fit for bridging the gap between academic-based
and school-based research study.
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10
Developing Dialogue between a School
Subject Department Head
and a University Education Researcher:
Convergences and Divergences
in Experiencing Educational Change
and Complexity
Don Harris and Patrick A. Danaher
10.1 Introduction
Practice, policy and management constitute complex and interdepen-
dent domains of theory and action in contemporary educational settings.
This is certainly the case in schools, which are widely recognised as sites
of ongoing change (Connolly, James, & Beales, 2011; Holmes, Clement,
& Albright, 2013; Spiro & Crisfield, 2018), and as the intersection of
competing priorities and pressures (Hardy, 2013; Petriwskyj, 2013;
D. Harris
Queensland Department of Natural Resources, Mines and Energy,
Dalby, QLD, Australia
P. A. Danaher (*)
e-mail: patrick.danaher@usq.edu.au

222 D. Harris and P. A. Danaher
Pollock & Winton, 2012). Likewise, universities exhibit continuing

change (Christensen, Gornitzka, & Ramirez, 2019; Goedegebuure &
Schoen, 2014), and operate in environments of uncertainty (Gayle,
Tewarie, & White, 2003).
Similarly, the interplay among practice, policy and management in
these educational settings can be analysed from varied perspectives, and
as helping to fulfil the interests of multiple stakeholders. For instance,
this interplay might be portrayed as deductive and linear, with policy-
making being framed teleologically, being broken down into specific
management decisions and then being implemented by means of daily
practices. By contrast, an ateleological perspective would construct the
intersection as more emergent and inductive, with such practices build-
ing up to higher level management decisions that in turn would frame
the development of higher order policies. Yet another view would high-
light the interconnections among practice, policy and management as
being more holistic, interdependent and mutually constitutive—and also
as being inevitably and always fluid, messy and resisting the bo(u)nds of
predictability and rationality.
This chapter is designed to contribute to this continuing debate (with
which this book is also concerned) about the relationship between cur-
riculum and schooling (see also Burns, 2018), and about the character
and effects of practice, policy and management in relation to contempo-
rary schools, by presenting selected elements of a developing dialogue
between the chapter authors. The first-named author was for many years
a secondary school teacher and department head of mathematics and sci-
ence in a number of government schools in Queensland. The second-
named author was previously a secondary school teacher and has worked
subsequently as an academic in two Queensland universities. The inten-
tion is to use this dialogue about the first-named author’s work and iden-
tity in Queensland secondary schools to distil some broader lessons about
convergences and divergences between schools and universities as mani-
festations of current educational change and complexity.
The chapter has been divided into the following four sections:
• Literature review and conceptual framework

• Research design
10 Developing Dialogue between a School Subject Department… 223
• Data analysis
• Concluding implications.

and Conceptual Framework
Current scholarship abounds with regard to practice, policy and manage-
ment as they relate to contemporary schools. This is so whether the focus
is individual classrooms (Evertson & Weinstein, 2006) or schools as a
whole (Kimber & Ehrich, 2011) and/or in relation to particular teaching
areas (Rainer, Cropley, Jarvis, & Griffiths, 2012). Part of this scholarship
is attentive to the impact of broader influences. For example, Lawson and
Lawson (2013) posited the engagement of school students as being
“[g]uided in part by social-ecological analysis and social-cultural theory”,
and as being “conceptualized as a dynamic system of social and psycho-
logical constructs as well as a synergistic process” (p. 432)—in other
words, as bringing together macro and micro forces that impinge on the
practice, policy and management actions of indivdiual educational actors.
Another significant theme in this scholarship is the proposition that
separately and severally practice, policy and management are sites of con-
strained agency, where there is usually a high degree of room to manoeu-
vre and to exhibit varied interpretations of formal documents and official
plans. Braun, Maguire, and Ball (2010) contended that, as evidenced by
selected secondary schools in the United Kingdom, “…schools produce
their own ‘take’ on policy, drawing on aspects of their culture or ethos, as
well as on the situated necessities” (p. 547). Furthermore, Ball, Maguire,
and Braun (2012) asserted that “Policies are not simply ideational or
ideological, they are also very material. Policies rarely tell you exactly
what to do, they rarely dictate or determine practice, but some more than
others narrow the range of creative respones” (p. 3).
This recognition of the effects of the admixture of practice, policy and
management in and on schools has traversed several ‘critical issues’ and
‘hot topics’ in the educational literature. These issues and topics have
included the complexities of facilitating evidence-based educational
policy and practice (Scheerens, 2014), the continuing debate about stu-
dents’ ability streaming in schools (Liem, Marsh, Martin, McInerney, &
Yeung, 2013), and the stresses of and the stressors from excluding stu-
dents from schools (Gazeley, Marrable, Brown, & Boddy, 2013). Thus
interrogating the interplay among practice, policy and management in
schools highlights questions and answers of agency and power but also of
marginalisation and resistance.
The first element of the chapter’s conceptual framework is the notion
of dialogism, developed by the Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin
(1981) (see also Harrison, 2017). For Bakhtin, utterances are politically
valenced and reflect broader systems of power. Dialogical utterances
designed to co-construct meaning and to share understandings of the
world are not automatic; instead they have to be based consciously on a
set of principles of mutually respectful relationships. In this case, the two
communicators are not only friends of longstanding from their under-
graduate years but also representatives of and deeply embedded within
two long-established and extensive education systems that exhibit signifi-
cantly politicised relationships with each other as well as with other agen-
cies of government. The concept of dialogism helps to explain why
school–university partnerships are such complex phenomena (Chan,
2015; Cornelissen et al., 2014; Martin, Snow, & Franklin Torrez, 2011),
as well as why promoting effective and sustainable communication and
collaboration among teachers in schools is often challenging (Hargreaves
& Fullan, 2012; Moolenaar, 2012).
The second element of the chapter’s conceptual framework is the
French theorist Pierre Bourdieu’s (1993) notion of field (see also Albright,
Hartman, & Widin, 2018). Bourdieu articulated several domains of
human activity as constituting fields, including bureaucracy (Bourdieu,
1994), education (Bourdieu, 1996b), law (Bourdieu, 1987), literature
(Bourdieu, 1996a) and science (Bourdieu, 1975). Despite the diversity of
these identified fields, Bourdieu argued that they are all characterised by
competitive struggles to develop multiple forms of capital (cultural, eco-
nomic, linguistic, social and symbolic) (Jenkins, 2002), and also that,
while they can exhibit examples of resistance, they are more likely to
reproduce than to transform existing social structures (Swartz, 2013).
The concept of field highlights the politicised dimension of the
occupational environments that constitute schools and universities, and

that help to frame efforts to generate positive partnerships between
these sites.
The third element of the chapter’s conceptual framework is the notion
of axes of professional values (Hartle, Smith, Adkison, Williams, &
Beardsley, 2011). Hartle et al. explored the interactions between educa-
tors and science practitioners in a United States National Science
Foundation-funded program at Idaho State University to distil four axes
of professional practices:
• The task dictates the context versus the context dictates the task. (p. 245)
• Prior planning versus implementation flexibility. (p. 245)
• Flexible versus rigid time sense. (p. 246)
• Focused time versus multitasking. (p. 246)
In addition to illustrating definite differences in professional practices

between the educators and the science practitioners involved in the pro-
gram, the four continua were posited “…as continuous axes of profes-
sional values rather than binary stereotypes” (p. 242), and hence as
providing a foundation for effective longer-term partnerships between
occupationally distinct groups—in the cases of this chapter, between a
school subject department head and a university education researcher.
In combination, dialogism, field and axes of professional values consti-
tute this study’s conceptual framework. Each concept adds something
distinctive and significant to the task of extending current understand-
ings of the relationships and potential partnerships between schools and
universities. Each concept also contributes to analysing the empirical
data conducted for the study, partly by highlighting important conver-
gences and divergences between the two participants’ experiences of edu-
cational change and complexity.
10.3 Research Design

This study was enacted using as its research design the principles of an
exploratory, qualitative, education case study (Hartas, 2015; Silverman,
2013; Yin, 2014). These principles reflect a largely inductive, open-ended
approach to collecting and analysing data in order to address two research
questions: “What were some of the first-named author’s reflections on his
experiences as a subject department head in a number of Queensland
government secondary schools?”; and “How do those reflections help to
inform successful school–university partnerships?”.
The principal data source for the study was a single, extended, audio-
recorded conversation between the two authors on 31 May 2014 in the
second-named author’s home. The subject matter for the conversation
was the first-named author’s reflections on his experiences as a subject
department head, and the conversation was largely chronological in char-
acter, following his work in successive Queensland government second-
ary schools, although sometimes the dialogue returned to earlier positions
as head as specific themes emerged from the conversation that would
benefit from reflecting on those earlier positions.
Data analysis deployed the features of content and thematic analysis of
qualitative data (Elo et al., 2014; Grbich, 2013; Joffe, 2011; Vaismoradi,
Turunen, & Bondas, 2013). The audiorecording of the conversation was
listened to several times, with a view to developing an in-depth, collab-
orative understanding of the first-named author’s initial and prompted
reflections on his experiences of educational change and complexity, and
to using that understanding to frame both authors’ provisional responses
to the two research questions articulated above. The focus was on gener-
ating a credible narrative that made sense to both authors and that will
hopefully resonate with the readers of this book, rather than on present-
ing a linear, literal account of the conversation.
10.4 Data Analysis

The discussion of the selected data from the semi-structured interview
between the two authors has been clustered around the two research
questions identified above. Furthermore, owing to word count restric-
tions on this chapter, these data have been delimited to part of the first-
named author’s account of his work at the first school where he worked
as a head of department.
10.4.1 R
esearch Question One: “What were Some
of the First-named Author’s Reflections on his
Experiences as a Subject Department Head
in a Number of Queensland Government
Secondary Schools?”
As we noted above, the first-named author’s reflections on his school

leadership experiences as gleaned from the interview have been selected
thematically rather than in a linear, literal manner. More specifically,
these reflections as reported in this chapter refer to the third school in the
first-named author’s teaching career and to his first appointment as a
subject department head in a school located in the far north of the state
and in a large Indigeous Australian community, beginning in his seventh
year as a Queensland secondary teacher and after he had already worked
in two secondary schools, one in western Queensland and the other in
outer suburban Brisbane.
The beginning of this part of the interview focused on the first-named
author’s identification of some of the contexts and complexities framing
his work as a subject deparmtent head:
DON: Straight away I was hit with challenges of a lot of young staff,
first year teachers (there were about three in my department), plus…there
were some other people who had only been there for a year or so at that
school but were ready to leave already. It was an unusual combination. So
there were about nine…in the staff all up….Basically most of the people
there were new to the whole setup, including myself. So there was that
complexity. There was also the complexity of the cultural differences. [In
the town] itself there were…from memory about 3000 people, of [whom]
probably 2500 were [local Indigenous people], and there were other
white people who were very transient, mainly government workers. I
think there were 30 different government departments based [in the
town]. So people were coming and going…so having…[the local people]
who obviously have different cultural values to us, that was another com-
plexity, and also…supposedly different methods of learning—that’s what
was pushed to us, anyway. The other complexity was being a long way
away from mainstream Australia, and being away from resourcing, and
having different professional groups accessing us was always going to be
difficult and expensive….There was also complexity in the fact that the
climate was either wet or it was hot or it was windy…there was nothing
else…and sometimes it was hot, windy and wet. So that was also difficult
to deal with….They were the main complexities—having the whole
combination of that made it quite a challenge.
The first-named author also reflected on the avialability of local and
more centralised leadership and support to inform and assist his work as
a head of department:
DON: [In terms of community leadership,] There were some local
people—there was a couple in the school that were very, very well thought
of in the community, and they were [local Indigenous people them-
selves]—they were very, very good resources, because…they buddied up
with you and they…said, “Well, this is what our culture’s about”, and
they did spend a lot of time in the beginning with us saying, “Come up
and talk to us, and we’ll show you some of our values and what we do and
what we don’t [do], and how we communicate”—…what facial expres-
sions they use that were different to ours—some of the dos and don’ts. So
they spent a lot of time on that, which was good.
Moreover:
DON: [In terms of school leadership,]…there were a couple of teach-
ers [who] had been there for a long time—a couple of those were
very good.
Then the two authors engaged in a segment of dialogue pertaining to
available support from outside the school:
DON: As far as support from outside the area [where the school was
located was concerned], that was difficult because you had different
people coming up to try and give you support, but they were always dif-
ferent people. It was never the same people; it was always someone else,
and you never knew where they were, because they were spread basically
all around [the region where the school was located], so there was a lot of
travel involved, so it was hard to tap into those [people’s support]. Having
said that, because…there was very good funding, it was relatively easy for
us to…get professional devleopment from outside people to us. So a cou-
ple of times we got…a maths professor up talking on numeracy and how
to teach numeracy…particularly to kids who have difficulty with numer-
acy—…what methods do you use that should go into classrooms. And
we also had a lot on…how you do more interactive learning.
PATRICK: So did that work—those stratgies?
DON: [I was] Never there…long enough to really see it come…to
proper fruition. It was developing….The first couple of years you’re
always saying—the first brief I got when I got up there was, “The kids are
failing….How can we improve their literacy and numeracy?”. So what is
the first thing [that] teachers do? They…make the assessment easier….Of
course they’ll start to pass better, but…their literacy and numeracy’s not
improving. So then you say, “Well, no, that’s…not the way to go”. So
then you try to adapt how you’re teaching, so that’s when you got these
different people in….The locals are saying that kids learn by doing and
by being interactive. So we did a lot more interactive maths and a lot
more games, and less…just writing.
The two authors also reflected on the challenges and opportunities
related to teaching science in the school:
DON: The same with science. It was a lot more experimentation and
trying to adapt that to their local culture—…trying to bring in a lot more
about the marine…environment in that science....So that’s why we did
excursions out onto islands, and doing…traditional…science,
with…looking at all sorts of corals and fishes, but also looking at [the
local community’s] side…–…more about fishing and things like that.
PATRICK: So…those kinds of things…sound good, but as you say
there needs to be follow through, and…it does take time.
DON: So after I left—I know I started it off. We wanted to go more
towards…getting…clams…and trying to have…some clams, culturing
them….So…I got some funding there in about the third year [that I was
at the school], and that continued on from there on in. So they did get
an aquaculture centre…and that did develop quite well.
This section of the interview concluded with a focus on the sources
and foundations of the first-named author’s decision-making as subject
department head at the school:
PATRICK: …in your decision-making, in working through strategies
that suited that context, what…did you draw on, or what framed your
decision-making?...How did you go about this new task?
DON: Well, part of it was from—….I’d…been out at…[my first
appointment] in an isolated school….I could see the difficulties of being
in an isolated area, so I understood that. So I used some of the..informa-
tion I gained from there, plus I’d done a fair bit of marine [work from my
previous employment] on the coast, so I…just extended that….We’d
done boating and fishing and a few other things, so…I…had that base
there. It was just a matter of adapting that more to suit [the local com-
munity where I was first appointed as a head of department]. And then,
when I first got there, they were saying…, “We just need to make sure
that what we’re doing is more applicable to the local culture”. So that was
the brief right at the beginning.
DON: And the fact that…I knew….they didn’t learn well in [large]
groups—[in] maths they like the one on one, so how do you do that?....
So that’s where we tried to integrate the use of teacher aides more effec-
tively, so teach more like you would in primary school rather than in high
school. So have a lot of small groups rather than everyone just sitting
there doing the same thing at the same time. And that does work effectiv-
ley if you’ve got enough staffing….So we did do that, and when we had
the staffing it was good.
10.4.2 R
esearch Question Two: “How Do those
Reflections Help to Inform Successful School–
University Partnerships?”
The first-named author’s reflections on some of his experiences as a sub-

ject department head in a culturally rich yet physically isolated school
highlighted significant evidence of educational change and complexity.
He exercised considerable agency and confidence in assessing the avail-

able resources and support, both local and more physically distant, and in
mobilising collegial networks in ways designed to maximise students’
learning outcomes in the clearly defined contexts in which they learned.
In doing so, he drew on his prior formal and informal learning experi-
ences to craft responses to challenges and opportunities that were at once
locally manifested and nationally and globally relevant. He was largely
philosophical about the temporal and spatial dimensions of effective edu-
cational innovations, which he argued take time to develop and sustain,
and which do not always or automatically translate meaningfully to other
contexts.
These findings accord closely with the second-named author’s pub-
lished accounts of the complexities of engaging in and supporting educa-
tion research in contemporary universities (see for example Danaher,
2015; Matthews & Danaher, 2015). Clearly there are important differ-
ences between the two educational sectors and systems, and also between
the respective institutional sites, where the two authors have enacted their
professional responsibilities and roles. Yet there are also significant simi-
larities, which from some perspectives are growing in number and depth.
Certainly in terms of this book’s focus on putting research-based ideas
into practice, both authors have encountered tensions, even contradic-
tions, in what they have sought to achieve with multiple colleagues and
other stakeholders. At the same time, both authors have been able to
identify and mobilise potentially productive openings for engaging cre-
atively and innovatively with the stakeholders within and across the dif-
ferent educational sectors and systems in which they have worked.
10.5 Conclusion
Theoretically, we contend that the three elements of this study’s concep-
tual framework—dialogism (Bakhtin, 1981); field (Bourdieu, 1993); and
axes of professional values (Hartle et al., 2011)—combine to underpin a
positive agenda of educators and education researchers working together
collaboratively and respectfully, as we have sought to demonstrate in this
chapter. Dialogism has been helpful in distilling a set of mutually
respectful relationships that are crucial if school–university partnerships

and relationships are to thrive; field is invaluable in depicting the politi-
cised occupational environments in which schools and universities are
located; and contextually specific yet also occupationally mobile profes-
sional values assist in moving beyond unproductive work-related binaries.
More broadly, we have striven to contribute particular experiences and
understandings of the relationship between curriculum and schooling,
and of the interplay among the three domains of practice, policy and
management. The selected findings from our wider exploratory, qualita-
tive, education case study have highlighted the mutual benefits of educa-
tors and education researchers working together in this kind of
collaboration, while acknowledging that our pre-existing friendship dif-
fers from the usual situation of teachers and researchers often meeting for
the first time under the auspices of a research project. The analysis has
also underscored the different and sometimes contradictory expectations
of broader educational issues held by various professional stakeholders.
Certainly this example of a developing dialogue between a school subject
department head and a university education researcher has been intended
to move beyond a narrowly defined, even solipsistic, topic of interest only
to the authors to helping to illuminate some of the wider convergences
and divergences that emerge from educational change and complexity in
schools and universities alike.
Acknowledgments The authors acknowledge gratefully the constructive feed-

back about earlier versions of this chapter provided by the book’s editors, an
anonymous peer reviewer and participants in the writing workshops related to
the book’s development, which has enhanced the clarity and readability of
the text.
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11
The “Wicked Problem” of Implementing
Evidence based Practice in Special
and Inclusive Education: A Sociocultural
Analysis
Roselyn M. Dixon and Irina Verenikina
11.1 Introduction
In the field of special and inclusive education, using research to inform
decisions about practice and policy has been reflected in the field’s efforts
to identify and use evidence-based practices (EBP) as a gold standard for
the profession. However, there has been increasing acknowledgement of
the “wicked problem” of implementation. Fixsen and his colleagues
describe wicked problems as ‘those that are difficult to define and fight
back when you try to solve them’ (Fixsen, Blase, Metz, & Van Dyke,
2013, p. 218). Since the time of Marx (Bronfenbrenner, 1979) it has
been noted by ecological observers that powerful stakeholders and fea-
tures of the existing system will deter attempts to change the system. The
implication of this ecological view is the ‘wicked problem’ of
R. M. Dixon (*) • I. Verenikina

University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW, Australia
e-mail: roselyn@uow.edu.au; irina@uow.edu.au

238 R. M. Dixon and I. Verenikina
non- implementation of EBP may be seen more as a consequence of the

social, organisational and material conditions that operate in school set-
tings, rather than the existing research focus and dominant discourse
which tends to examine the deficits in skills and knowledge or lack of
commitment of special education practitioners to implement EBP in spe-
cial and inclusive settings.
This chapter will specifically examine how a combination of multilay-
ered contextual factors may impact the way that practitioners interpret
and respond to the contemporary demands for implementation of EBP
in special and inclusive education. It will outline recent research and
report on the tensions between research and practice in special and inclu-
sive education and the way that teachers utilise knowledge from research
in their decisions about practice. In line with this conceptual approach
the chapter will draw on the precepts of sociocultural theory as a general
framework to show ways that social and environmental conditions shape
professional learning (PL) and practice. Finally, the chapter will propose
a model of how EBP and PL can be viewed as part of a broader social
process, where practitioners need to negotiate decisions about practice in
the context of the social, cultural and organisational conditions in which
they work. For the purposes of this chapter special education will be
defined as the practice of educating students in a way that addresses their
individual differences and needs. Ideally, this process involves the indi-
vidually planned and systematically monitored arrangement of teaching
procedures, adapted equipment and materials, and accessible settings.
The mode of provision may be in a range of settings including the inclu-
sive classroom. The term special and inclusive education covers all models
of provision for students with extra support needs (Dixon, Woodcock,
Tanner, Woodley, & Webster, 2017).
11.2 What are Evidence Based Practices?

Evidence-based practices (EBP) are programs and practices that have
been shown by high quality research to have meaningful effects on stu-
dent outcomes (Cook & Odom, 2013). Evidence-based practices have
been gaining ground since the formal introduction of evidence-based
medicine in 1992, and have spread to the allied health professions,
11 The “Wicked Problem” of Implementing Evidence based… 239
education, management, law, public policy, and other fields. The move-
ment towards EBP attempts to encourage, and in some instances to force,
professionals and other decision-makers to pay more attention to evi-
dence to inform their decision-making. Over the last decade the con-
struct of EBP has become increasingly influential in deciding about the
value of interventions for policy makers and professionals in many areas,
but particularly in special and inclusive education. In the field of special
and inclusive education, there is a belief among researchers that imple-
mentation of EBP’s will increase student performance (Cook & Odom,
2013). However despite the increasing acceptance of the concept of EBP
there continue to be controversies in this field, for example, how many
studies must support an EBP? Can the findings of quantitative, qualita-
tive and mixed methods research be accepted as evidence? What are the
quality indicators necessary for a study to be accepted as an EBP? The
greatest controversy in inclusive and special education revolves around
the insistence that randomised controlled trials (RCT) provide the stron-
gest, perhaps the only, research evidence in this field (Forness, 2005).
The use of RCT has been subjected to sustained criticism from signifi-
cant sections of the education research community. Key criticisms have
included the claims that: “it is not possible to undertake formal RCT in
education; RCT are blunt research designs that ignore context and expe-
rience; RCT tend to generate simplistic universal laws of ‘cause and
effect’; and that they are inherently descriptive and contribute little to
theory” (Connolly, Keenan, & Urbanska, 2018, p. 276). Other concerns
include that once the RCT have deemed a program to be efficient and
effective, the program must be delivered in exactly the same way under
the same conditions regardless of the specificity of local contexts. This
leaves no flexibility for the individuality of the facilitator or participants
or societal influences such as culture, school systems and the broad spec-
trum of disability (Connolly, et al., 2018). It also leaves no room for the
creativity of individual teachers thus limiting the natural progressions
and refinement of EBP that would occur through their use in diverse
settings.
Another concern about the reliance on RCTs in special and inclusive
education research is the narrow definition of evidence, with no accep-
tance of qualitative results or process evaluation procedures in the
hierarchy of evidence. This effectively excludes the voice of teachers, par-

ents and students from the research base and may be a strong contribu-
tion to the research-practice gap and lack of implementation that has
been repeatedly reported in this field (Brock & Carter, 2015; Dixon &
Verenikina, 2007; Fixsen, Blase, Horner, & Sugai, 2009). While numer-
ous researchers have criticised the reliance on RCT’s particularly in
schools little has been offered in relation to a way of replacing it to explain
causality. The value of qualitative evidence should be considered here. It
might not be able to contribute directly to causality or to whether inter-
ventions or practices work across various contexts, but it can help
researchers and practitioners gain insight into why or why not interven-
tions do or do not work in their particular case. It can also help clarify the
impact of various contextual factors on the success of interventions and
can offer important contributions to social validity by capturing the per-
ceptions of participants who participate in new and different educational
interventions. Even strong advocates for the use of RCT, are acknowledg-
ing the need to increase an understanding of how researchers conducting
RCT have acknowledged and incorporated context within their analyses
(Connolly et al., 2018). If we are to have any chance of closing the
research-practice gap it is critical to move on from the notion of ‘what
works’ towards what works for whom, under what conditions and in
what circumstances (Connolly et al., 2018).
11.3 T
he Factors Contributing to the Tensions
between Research and its
Implementation by Special
Education Teachers
Despite numerous calls for special educators to adopt EBP, as a way of
closing the gap between research and practice, subsequent investigations
have demonstrated that this concerning gap is still present, with Cook
and Odom (2013) even referring to it as a ‘chasm’ (p. 136) The gap
between research and practice can be conceptualised as a wicked prob-
lem. Special educators report limited use of EBP or use ineffective
practices as frequently or more frequently than they use research sup-

ported practices (Burns & Ysseldyke, 2009). Following on from the
Burns and Ysseldyke (2009) study, Carter, Stephenson, and Strnadová
(2011) examined the reported level of implementation of eight practices
in a national sample of Australian special education teachers. The 194
respondents reported extensive use of a number of evidence-based prac-
tices, such as direct instruction and applied behaviour analysis. Conversely,
a number of practices that have very weak empirical foundations or can
be considered disproven, such as perceptual-motor training and modality
instruction, continued to be used at moderate-to-high levels. In addition,
compared to their North American counterparts, Australian special edu-
cation teachers used a number of evidence-based practices significantly
less frequently and used perceptual-motor programs more frequently.
These cross- cultural findings demonstrate that the problem of imple-
mentation of EBP is not specific to one particular culture or education
system and that teachers practice is being influenced by a range of factors,
with the evidence from research being just one of these, and evidently not
the most influential.
One of the important factors that might contribute to such varied use
of EBP mixed with the strategies unsupported by research, has been
teachers’ attitudes to adopting EBP identified in literature of the past two
decades. Boardman, Arguelles, Vaughn, Hughes, and Klingner (2005)
reported that teachers often felt that the research literature did not relate
to the particular type of students in their classrooms, and therefore relied
on colleagues for recommendations for successful practice. In a study of
10 novice special educators with less than three years experience in special
education teaching, Jones (2009) used interviews, observations and a rat-
ing scale to investigate attitudes to EBP. She purposefully selected partici-
pants across a range of special education settings and school systems.
Jones found that her participants fell into one of three groups: “definitive
supporters” (40%); “cautious consumers” (30%); and “the critics” (30%).
The teachers in the first group expressed generally positive attitudes to
EBP as they saw research evidence to be a useful way of boosting their
self-efficacy of successful practice. The second groups’ opinion was related
to their experiences within their own classrooms where the practices vali-
dated by the research were not successful with their students. While this
group felt that some research still might be useful they wanted more of it
to be focussed on the type of students that they were teaching. The “crit-
ics” were extremely sceptical about the value of research because most of
such research disregards individualisation that is the hallmark of quality
instruction in special and inclusive education. This study indicates that
teachers’ attitudes to research and consequent resistance to its implemen-
tation might be attributed to the lack of its applicability to the immediate
context of their work (Jones, 2009). More recently, Monahan, McDaniel,
George, and Weist (2014) conducted a pilot study where they examined
the attitudes of 49 special education high school teachers of emotionally
and behaviourally disturbed students towards adopting EBP. One of their
findings suggests that teachers with experience of over seven years are less
open to implementing EBP than those who had less experience in teach-
ing (up to five years) as measured by independent t-tests. The authors
suggest the while the teachers are major stakeholders in implementing
school mental health programs, their attitudes and willingness to adopt
EBP are under-researched (Monahan et al., 2014).
While teacher attitudes are indeed considered as a strong barrier
towards adopting EBP in special and inclusive education, it is only one
factor along with other key variables such as readiness, collaboration and
team functioning which have been associated with successful implemen-
tation in much of the Implementation Science literature. A recent
Australian study (McMillan et al., 2018) has found that many special
educators in special education settings are using outdated techniques and
relying on inappropriate curriculum rather than the Australian
Curriculum for planning for individualised instruction. In this study
50% of practitioners were using the Early Years Learning Framework
(EYLF) (Australian Government Department of Education and Training,
2009) in planning learning experiences in primary and secondary special
education settings (Walker et al., 2018). This is a concerning statistic
which indicates that teachers may still be lacking access to up to date PL
and tools and resources.
In spite of significant differences among special education practitio-
ners and programs reflected in the discussed studies, when considered
together these studies and their findings illuminate some of the issues
that are causing the research-practice gap and also the barriers to
implementation to EBP at an individual level. A strong contributing fac-

tor to the research- practice gap appears to be that teachers do not always
perceive the applicability of research results to their context and that
often teachers value the expertise of their colleagues more than they value
the input from researchers who are outside of their workplace milieu.
Additionally, if further research confirms the trend of the Monahan et al.
(2014) study that more experienced teachers are less likely to implement
EBPs, it might indicate that special education practitioners are maintain-
ing outdated practices with which they feel confident, rather than whether
their practice is supported by research and any improvement in their
students’ outcomes (McMillan et al., 2018). Other researchers have also
found that special education practitioners rather than lacking knowledge
and skills may be simply alienated from research and quite critical of its
relevance to their specific situation (Jones, 2009). It has to be acknowl-
edged, that the research discussed above related to the classroom teacher
individually and concentrated on personal variables such as practitioner
knowledge, prior training, length of teaching in special education and
attitudes and has rarely considered the impact of wider contextual vari-
ables. This is a common problem across much of the research that has
examined the implementation of EBP in other professions (Fenwick,
Nerland, & Jensen, 2012). This concentration on the individual charac-
teristics and capabilities of practitioners as the point of analysis in the
research literature has important implications for the nature of practice
but has contracted the variables investigated in studies of the wicked
problem of non-implementation. It has also narrowed the study of effec-
tive up to date professional learning programs and other strategies that
could be implemented to ameliorate this problem.
11.4 Sociocultural Theoretical Framings

Recently there have been calls for a more holistic and contextual approach
to understand how practitioners’ implementation of any research based
recommendations or innovative initiatives into their practices are shaped
by multiple layers of the contexts of their workplace. This is a promising
development and it may be fruitful in addressing the research-practice
gap and a slow implementation of EBP (Harn, Parisi, & Stoolmiller,

2013; Klingner, Boardman, & McMaster, 2013). The importance of
addressing the contexts conducive to successful implementation of EBP
is highlighted by Hudson et al.’s (2016) findings that teachers who felt
that EBP had been imposed by administrators or systems without consul-
tation were more concerned with their own lack of power and control
over these decisions than with their effort in implementing the EBP. This
is a real tension that is not often investigated in the existing special and
inclusive education literature.
These researchers recommended that the precepts of sociocultural the-
ory (Engeström, 2001) is a strong framework for investigating the ways
that PL might be implemented to address the research-practice gap in
special and inclusive education. Additionally, this framework has been
applied in other disciplines to analyse the complexity of persisting and
hard to resolve issues (“wicked” problems) where multiple stakeholders
from cross-disciplinary teams were involved (Kazlauskas & Hasan, 2009).
The key differences of this approach are firstly, that sociocultural theory
emphasises relationships between the individual and other dimensions of
social practice. In schools, this means that the emphasis on the individual
practitioner is replaced by recognising the importance of the relationship
between the practitioner and the organisation in which they have to
function (Engeström, 2001). Secondly, sociocultural theory assumes that
knowledge and attitudes are shaped by the activities which they have to
regularly engage and which meet their professional needs rather than
activities which have been imposed by administrators, or researchers.
Thirdly, that the participation in PL and implementation of EBP, for
example, are affected by the affordances and constraints of the materials
and tools that are available in the workplace. For example, the research of
Kervin, Verenikina, Jones, and Beath (2013) found that a slow uptake of
technological innovations in a number of primary schools was due to
poor maintenance of outdated technologies rather than the lack of moti-
vation or knowledge of the teachers who, in fact, were experienced users
of most modern technological devices, which they owned, at home.
Sociocultural perspectives provide a conceptual framework which
requires that the analysis of individual activities should be situated within
the personal, interpersonal and organisational contexts in which they are
embedded (Rogoff, 1995) but also supports the examination of the social
and organisational structures within which executives and practitioners
make the decisions about the implementation of EBP or any innovation
required by the workplace. Each of these contexts are not isolated but
rather interrelated and therefore can be only considered as an inextricable
part of a holistic analysis of an individual activity (Engeström, 2001). The
sociocultural framework is consistent with the ecological model of
Bronfenbrenner which has been successfully used in holistic analyses in
inclusive and special education (Strnadová & Cumming, 2016).
The Hudson et al.’s (2016) study used a qualitative methodology and
some precepts of sociocultural theory to examine some of the contextual
factors that influenced practitioners’ views of EBP. They conducted inter-
views with 27 special education professionals across a range of educa-
tional contexts. Their major findings, which differ from most of the
extant literature on implementation of EBP focused on individual prob-
lems of teachers, were that decisions about practice were made across
multiple participants and settings. This research clearly supports the
sociocultural contention that practice is social, relational and distribu-
tive. These researchers recommend that both individual and collective
dimensions of professional practice need to be the focus of future
investigations.
The use of sociocultural precepts may be a way forward which could
lead to more implementation of EBP and also the sustainability of the
implementation of EBP after initial professional PL has taken place
(Peck, Gallucci, Sloan, & Lippincott, 2009). Hudson et al.’s (2016) find-
ings with special educators agree with findings from the broader literature
(Trimmer, Dixon, & Guenther, 2019) where distributive leadership can
be seen as a positive model for enhancing curriculum change. The solu-
tion to the research- practice gap in special and inclusive education was
supposed to be solved by the introduction of EBP by enthusiastic and
eager practitioners, however this model has led to quite disappointing
outcomes. Evidently, this was due to a too simplistic model for the imple-
mentation and sustainability of EBP that didn’t account for the contex-
tual affordances and constraints of classrooms and schools.
A more complex model which includes the wider context is necessary
to ensure implementation and sustainability of EBP in special education
practice within schools. This model needs to be complex as it involves:

Initial strong ‘buyin’ by practitioners: knowledge and relevance of the
actual practice being implemented; characteristics of the practitioners
such as available time, knowledge of EBP skills, tension and attitudes
related to research; and the institutional context; such as available
resources, organisational structures and culture, staffing, mentoring, pro-
fessional learning, and administrative support (Fixsen et al., 2005;
Nelson, Leffler, & Hansen, 2009; Tseng & Kuo, 2014). All of these facets
need to be supported by a sustainability plan.
11.5 Teacher Professional Learning

Over the past decade the terms professional development and profes-
sional learning often being used interchangeably. However for the pur-
poses of this chapter the term the professional learning will be used and
defined as structured professional learning that aims to achieve changes
in teacher practices and improvement in student learning outcomes
(Dixon et al., 2017). Effective professional learning has been of increas-
ing interest to all teachers in the Twenty-First Century who have to deal
with rapidly expanding special and inclusive environments, and who
need to learn, refine and master the pedagogies required to teach the
increasingly diverse cohorts of students.
To date much of the research on PL has been aimed at teacher knowl-
edge, with some studies on teacher skills (Bissaker et al., 2013), Hattie
feels that there has been limited attention paid to student outcomes
(Hattie, 2012). Difficulties with implementation are not unique to edu-
cation but it is a critical concern as EBP cannot have an impact on stu-
dent outcomes unless they are implemented. Students with special needs
need the implementation of EBP by skilled practitioners in all settings as
they are more vulnerable to the impact of outdated and unsupported
teaching practices than other students (Jones, 2009)
Most of the recent research has identified the characteristics of high
quality PL particularly for special education professionals (Desimone,
2009; Hattie, 2012; Leko & Brownell, 2009; McLeskey & Waldron,
2004; Yoon, Duncan, Lee, Scarloss, & Shapley, 2007). These
characteristics have been summarised by Darling-Hammond, Hyler, and

Gardner (2017) as
1 . Learning for teachers occurs over extended periods of time (duration)

2. Specific and practical content
3. Involvement of experts in the learning process (Expertise and con-
tent clarity)
4. Sufficiently engages teachers in the learning process (active learning)
5. Links to curriculum and pedagogy
6. Teachers learning together (Communities of practice and collective
participation)
7. Support of school leadership for PL and access to relevant expertise.
(Darling-Hammond et al., 2017)
Whilst there are as yet no definitive outline of the recommended dura-

tion for PL it is clear that if the implementation of EBP into classroom
practice then one-off workshops and a fragmented approach does not
afford the time needed for the cumulative learning that is necessary for
change. The content must also be focussed on the activity that teachers
are engaging in their classrooms. However, in sociocultural terms it is
important the this activity is aligned with the whole-school priorities
which will provide coherence of implementation rather than teachers
having to waste time and energy having to compete with the’ push back’
from other contextual priorities. Also, the content should be taught by
acknowledged experts who have the expertise to choose the most effective
approach to PL.
All PL should be designed around adult learning and active learning
principles. Active learning moves away from the sit and listen approach
and engages teachers in using authentic artefacts, case studies and inter-
active activities. Active learning can also incorporate collaboration,
coaching, opportunities for feedback and the use of modelling. Finally, a
very important element is support at the school level. Buczynski and
Hansen (2010) rejected the findings of previous research that the effec-
tive implementation of PL was dependent on ‘buyin’ from teachers. Their
research found that teachers may face barriers that are beyond their con-
trol at the school and systems level. These barriers took many forms,
including lack to time allocated for teaching other staff. However, the
major barrier in their study was the lack of resources such as materials,
technology and equipment. The allocation of funding for resources is
rarely under the control of individual teachers and is further support for
the notion that the conditions for teaching and learning within schools
and systems can negatively impact on the effectiveness of PL.
McMillan et al. (2018) surveyed special educators across a range of
settings but the majority were from special schools or special education
units within schools and most of their students had intellectual disability
or global development delay often associated with other disabilities such
as autism or physical disabilities. Their participants engaged in a range of
professional learning from formal to informal engagement with col-
leagues. Many forms of PL were considered to be of value but these
researchers and others have acknowledged that PL might not lead to
change unless it is perceived as relevant to their settings and students
(Fishman et al., 2013). These researchers found that the most valuable to
very valuable PL activities were on site mentoring/ role modelling and
informal engagement with colleagues. These types of PL incorporate
principles of adult learning and support the points outlined above. It is
obvious from these studies that collaboration, active learning and collec-
tive participation are more effective ways of impacting practice. These are
the types of PL that are supported by sociocultural theory (e.g. Blitz,
2013; Hodgson & McConnell, 2019; McLean, Dixon, &
Verenikina, 2014).
However, despite the research findings and sociocultural theorists
emphasising the necessary interplay of professionals learning within their
teaching environments, the majority of PL still reflects an individual
approach. The research has clearly stated that individual and piecemeal
workshops and conference presentations outside of individual classroom
contexts are still the most common type of PL. These types of activities
have been shown to impact knowledge developments however without
in-school mentoring, coaching and sustainability strategies there is often
little cross over into practice (Yoon et al., 2007).
11.6 R
ealising the Promise of EBP through
the Use of Communities of Practice
If schools are being increasingly structured as a collaborative community
social system, it implies that well-designed PL must incorporate teacher
collaboration. Darling-Hammond et al. (2017) reviewed 35 studies of PL
that incorporated some element of collaboration in the models of PL and
found that when PL utilises effective collaborative structures for teachers
to problem-solve and learn together, it impacted positively on student
outcomes.
A breakthrough occurred with Lave and Wenger (1991) who insisted
that knowledge at work must be combined with activity, tools (materials)
and community. Wenger’s insight led to the development of Communities
of Practice (CoP). While many CoP have been poorly implemented there
is evidence that COP when implemented in the right way can support
improvements in practice and lead to improvement in student outcomes.
CoP when implemented well within schools provide ongoing, school-
embedded learning that emphasises active learning, collaboration between
teachers and reflection on teaching practice (Darling-Hammond et al.,
2017). CoP offer particular promise in the field of special and inclusive
education as they align closely with the principles of successful inclusive
schools. They allow special educators and classroom teachers to examine
students collaboratively and allow teachers to develop a combined under-
standing of what good student work looks like, what common misunder-
standings a range of students may have and what instructional strategies
are working or not working in particular contexts and for particular
students.
CoP that operate across school environments have also been researched.
These COP are often organised via networks that can connect special
educators around particular areas of expertise such as autism or shared
educational concerns such as behavioural difficulties. Recently, technol-
ogy focussed PL such as web-mediated coaching programs can also foster
cyber collaboration and have demonstrated the impact of on-line
communities of practice (Allen, Pianta, Gregory, Mikami, & Lun, 2011;

Landry, Anthony, Swank, & Monseque-Bailey, 2009; McLean et al.,
2014) on student outcomes.
11.7 D
evelopment of a New Model of EPB
and Professional Learning Incorporating
Sociocultural Precepts
The evidence presented above calls for an urgent reassessment of the
research- practice gap and offers sociocultural precepts and quality PL as
a way forward to closing this gap so that student outcomes can benefit
from EBP in the field of special and inclusive education. A new model of
implementation is needed that encompasses these key elements; recogni-
tion of the overall socio-cultural context at the three levels outlined by
Rogoff (1995). Within this context there are three focus areas, Firstly,
teachers values, beliefs, attitudes and experiences and their relationships
with their colleagues. Secondly, the tools that are necessary which can
include knowledge of new curriculum initiatives and material resources
such as access to technology and quality PL such as CoP. The final ele-
ment is the Organisation which includes the school and system level allo-
cation of resources, policies and priorities. Sociocultural theory requires
each of these three elements, not relying on one more than the other, but
each of them contributing equally. All three play a significant role in
determining whether EBP will be effectively implemented in special and
inclusive education.
Figure 11.1 encapsulates this Implementation of EBP through a
“Growth in Practice” model in Special and Inclusive Education. It is
based on sociocultural precepts that the Personal, Interpersonal and
Organisational contexts (Rogoff, must all be given equal priority. It also
highlights the need for quality PL occurring within school and cross
school COP.
The most effective implementation of EBP is best positioned within
the intersection of Personal, interpersonal and organisational contexts
(the middle of the diagram) where the needs and available resources of all
the stakeholders are accounted for.
Organisational
System and School Policies and Priorities
* Time allocated for implementation of
new pedagogies
* Sustainability processes
*Access to Tools such as
-Resources
-Support for quality PL
-Technology.
EB
Personal Interpersonal
*Values, beliefs and experiences *Relationships with skilled
of teachers colleagues
*Knowledge of new
curriculum *Effective PL based on Adult
*Ability and opportunities to Learning Principles
master new pedagogies *Development of in-school and
cross-school COP
Fig. 11.1 Growth in Practice Model of Professional Learning in Special and

Inclusive Education
11.8 Conclusion
As evidence based practice for practitioners in special and inclusive edu-
cation has become a very influential construct in the field then it is cru-
cial to address the research-practice gap and the wicked problem of the
lack of implementation. This chapter has discussed how changes must be
made in the areas of EBP research and teacher professional learning,
based on sociocultural precepts, before we can hope to close the identi-
fied research-practice gap.
The adoption of a sociocultural perspective has implications for

research and for the design and delivery of PL. For research studies that
are investigating the impact of EBP there should be a broadening of the
variables investigated, beyond the personal practitioner variables to the
interpersonal and organisational variables that have equal impact on
implementation. To extend the value of such research studies for guiding
and accessing effective practice mixed methodologies should be imple-
mented, rather than just relying on RCT. This will lead to a broadening
of the concept of ‘evidence’ to include the rich description of specific
workplace contexts relevant to the teachers across various types of educa-
tional settings. This will not only acknowledge the voices of teacher par-
ticipants in the research findings, but also may change practitioners’
views about the relevance of research to their particular students and
settings.
Professional Learning must be redesigned so that it becomes a ‘growth
in practice model’ that incorporates adult learning practices and encour-
ages teacher ownership over compliance. It has to value active engage-
ment, teacher voice, collaboration and reflection over the period of time
and have in-built sustainability. Well designed and implemented COP
can support this type of learning which is well embedded within specific
contexts of special and inclusive educators’ workplace.
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12
Afterword: Innovating and Researching
in Schools
Judith MacCallum
12.1 Introduction
In this chapter I bring together the different lines of research presented in
this volume to examine the tensions and challenges of innovating and
researching in schools and consider possible future directions. Three main
strands are woven through the chapters and form part of the title of the
volume: curriculum, schooling, and applied research. The sections group
the chapters into challenges and issues/tensions in three “main critical
areas”: global system and policy, school and teacher, and researcher. These
may be the principal focus of chapters in these sections, but every chapter
addresses some aspects of the other areas, revealing that even though
authors may foreground one area or plane for the purpose of analysis
(Rogoff, 2003) all areas are necessary to provide a holistic view.
J. MacCallum (*)
Murdoch University, Murdoch, WA, Australia
e-mail: j.maccallum@murdoch.edu.au

258 J. MacCallum
The overarching and “shared” focus of the volume is educational inno-

vation and change, and as pointed out by Trimmer, Donovan and Flegg
(Chap. 1), each chapter investigates some aspect of the “tensions that
impinge on research-based educational change and how to integrate
directed change into their education system and classroom”. For Trimmer
et al. a particular focus is the challenge of conducting and applying
research in schools, with researchers and teachers usually positioned dif-
ferently with respect to research, partly due to the differing needs and
demands of their work.
As I read through this volume, I can relate to many of the experiences
of teachers and researchers. Like many of the authors I have taught in
schools, conducted research in schools as an outside researcher and as a
co-researcher with a teacher practitioner, and supervise teachers as they
conduct research for higher degrees. In doing so I have experienced inno-
vation and research from different perspectives in trying to implement
the findings of research in my own classroom teaching, and negotiating
access to schools and classrooms to conduct research that I thought would
contribute to innovative practice in classrooms. One memorable moment
was during data collection in schools for my PhD study. On my first visit
to schools, I explained to the primary school students that I was inter-
ested in their perceptions of their classroom and what made them feel
successful, so that we could make school better for students. On my sec-
ond visit to one school (the study was longitudinal) a boy put up his hand
and said in a puzzled kind of voice, “I thought you were going to change
things … nothing has changed”. I muttered something about change tak-
ing time, but realised that the students (at least this student) had taken
me at my word, and expected that my research would result in change in
his classroom.
Educational change not only takes time, it is complex and shaped by
the differing and often changing demands of systems, policies and insti-
tutions and the activities of individuals and groups. In bringing together
the findings of the chapters in this volume, I looked for a framework that
would incorporate the three strands and the main critical areas relevant to
12 Afterword: Innovating and Researching in Schools 259
innovating and researching in schools. My aim was to present an overall

framework for discussing the complex multifaceted phenomenon which
is innovating and researching in schools. The framework I chose draws on
ideas from sociocultural (Rogoff, 2003), and cultural-historical
(Hedegaard, 2005, 2012, 2014) perspectives. Although these perspec-
tives have origins in child development, they provide ways to bring
together individuals and social and cultural environments, and the
dynamic nature of processes contributing to change. In particular
Hedegaard (2005, 2012) considers position conflicts across traditions
and activity settings and Rogoff (2003) stresses the holistic nature of
developmental processes.
At the level of society Hedegaard (2014) argues that the process
depends on societal traditions and value demands. The dynamic is soci-
etal conditions and we see this in the policies and political decisions based
on what is valued at particular times by particular groups with power.
The next level suggested by Hedegaard is institutional practice and this
focuses on particular ways of participating, and for the purposes of the
chapters in this volume, ways of enacting curriculum and research. The
dynamic is the particular value laden goals and objectives of institutions.
Hedegaard also includes an activity setting, in this situation the class-
room or the research program as it is enacted. For individuals there are
demands for how they act and their intentions in doing so. In addition,
Rogoff (2003) explains that individuals and groups “shape practices, tra-
ditions and institutions at the same time that they build on what they
inherit in their moment in history” (p. 62).
The bringing together of the diverse, yet connected, ideas in these
chapters in one volume is one of the key contributions of this work. In
order to provide some structure for this Afterword, I have divided the
discussion into parts, but there is considerable overlap. For example
aspects related to innovating in schools and researching in schools are in
the section of curriculum, schooling and applied research and vice versa,
further demonstrating the holistic nature of the ideas in this volume.
260 J. MacCallum
12.2 Curriculum, Schooling

and Applied Research
The three main strands, curriculum, schooling and applied educational
research are inextricably linked. We could argue that the ultimate aim of
each is to contribute positively to the education of students and this is
evident in the research documented in this volume. For example, curricu-
lum and teaching is to improve or maximise student outcomes (Padró,
Hurley & Trimmer, Chap. 3; Harris & Danaher, Chap. 10) and the edu-
cational experience of students (Williams & Perera, Chap. 6; Wilson-
Gahan, Chap. 8). Research (and teaching) is conducted to improve
student outcomes (Dixon & Verenikina, Chap. 11), and more specifically
to improve the learning and metacognitive capacity of students (Treagust,
Foreword), enhance academic or social outcomes for students (Trimmer
et al., Chap. 1), support students’ learning and understanding of abstract
concepts (Haeusler, Donovan & Venville, Chap. 7), support students’
development of motivation and interest (Rasmussen & Andreasen, Chap.
5), and support student agency (Christie & Barry, Chap. 9). In Australia,
the national agreed goals for education are set out in the Melbourne
Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians (Ministerial
Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs, 2008,
p. 6) with “improving educational outcomes” being central to the
“nation’s social and economic prosperity” as well as positioning “young
people to live fulfilling, productive and responsible lives”. Even in these
few words we see the political nature of education and the link to broader
societal issues.
While innovating in schools may have the goal of improving education
for students, innovations can target different, but interlinked, elements
of schooling from the curriculum to teaching methods and technologies,
the school organisation and relationships between schools and their envi-
ronments (Rasmussen & Andreasen, Chap. 5). These elements are repre-
sented in the chapters of this volume, for example, integrated curriculum
(Chap. 3), teaching practices (Chap. 11) and relationships between
school of community (Chap. 10). Rasmussen and Andreasen also iden-
tify five key drivers of innovation in schools: social and cultural change,
growth of recognised knowledge, emergence of new technologies, con-

cerns for cost/effectiveness, and to foster new skills and competencies in
students. Each of these drivers is also represented in the chapters.
Research interacts with curriculum and schooling in two key ways.
Curriculum and innovative approaches to schooling may be informed by
research, and applied research may investigate systems and policies, prac-
tices and outcomes of teaching and learning in schools, usually with the
aim of further improving practice. Nerren (Chap. 4) explains how the
initial Head Start program in the USA was informed by research on the
detrimental effects of poverty on educational outcomes. In Chap. 6,
Williams and Perera justify the benefits of 60 minutes of daily physical
exercise for students, citing higher academic performance, physiological
benefits and potentially improved health and wellbeing in the longer
term on the basis of research evidence from a range of sources. Similarly,
Wilson-Gahan (Chap. 8) argues for a prominent place for Health and
Physical Education (HPE) in the curriculum. Yet there are tensions and
challenges across these three strands.
Implementation of curriculum is not without tensions. As explained
by Haeusler et al. (Chap. 7) adherence to Piagetian ideas of the develop-
ment of logical reasoning has limited the primary school curriculum to
“what?” questions for development of macro concepts rather than intro-
ducing “how?” and “why?” questions for developing abstract concepts,
which their research demonstrates are possible for young children to
understand. They lament that their research program has not resulted in
curriculum change. Students will continue to find other means to learn
about these abstract concepts just as a previous generation of Australians
did by watching Why is it So? with Professor Julius Sumner Miller.
Different approaches to research often result in divergent research find-
ings as described by Nerren (Chap. 4) in relation to student outcomes
from participation in Head Start programs and these contradictions have
raised questions about the benefits of Head Start, its ongoing funding
with the erosion of public trust.
The tensions and challenges in interactions among curriculum, school-
ing and research are complex. Reading through the chapters, it is possible
262 J. MacCallum
to pull out many examples of the demands of systems, policies and insti-
tutions, groups and individuals and how these impact innovating and
researching in schools.
12.3 Tensions and Challenges

Tensions from changes in governments and policy are recurring themes
throughout the volume. In the countries represented in the chapters,
political agendas and apparent changes in values have resulted in changes
in innovating and researching in schools, and from the perspective of the
authors generally hampered these activities. For example, Rasmussen &
Andreasen (Chap. 5) describe how Denmark has changed from a collab-
orative local focus on innovation and teacher experimentation, to a more
centralised “template approach” to research dominated by evaluation of
outcomes. Instead of benefiting teachers, they argue decision making in
the centralised approach benefits authority. Likewise, French educational
policy (Normand, Chap. 2) changes with change in the Minister of
Education, thus becoming a political decision related to administration
and people management, rather than a focus on student learning and
teacher practice. Padró et al. (Chap. 3), Nerren (Chap. 4), Williams
(Chap. 6) and Wilson-Gahan (Chap. 8) raise similar tensions in the USA
and Australia. Further, Nerren argues that changing early childhood pol-
icy and programs in the USA hasn’t necessarily achieved the planned
aims, possibly, as explained by Wilson-Gahan because ministerial deci-
sions may rest on people without expertise.
A global focus on educational testing has played some part in these
policy changes, with competition and comparison between countries
becoming commonplace. In France, international student assessment
through PISA and the associated poor performance of students provide
evidence to policy makers of the failure of schools (Normand, Chap. 2).
Similarly in Australia, the focus on NAPLAN (National Assessment of
Literacy and Numeracy) (Chap. 8) and the comparative school perfor-
mance results published on the MySchool website (Williams, Chap. 6)
have focused attention on literacy and numeracy with less value placed
on other curriculum areas. These testing regimes have ripple effects,
changing practices in schools.
Political decisions also impact the funding sources for educational

research and how research is conducted. Research is often used to justify
political decisions, with public sector funding usually focused on demon-
strating outcomes of previously implemented programs (Trimmer et al.,
Chap. 1). Normand (Chap. 2) explains how a change in minister in
France directed public funds to a national program focused on develop-
ing neurosciences within schools and classrooms. This put demands on
researchers to conduct research in particular ways. Rasmussen and
Andreasen’s example from Denmark (Chap. 5), illustrates how the
demands of a funding body concerned with findings to measure impact
of an innovative program and provide evidence of the value of their
investment meant that researchers had to change to a quasi-experimental
design. This required changing the proposed methodology to incorporate
more quantitative methods and reducing the qualitative component that
the experienced researchers knew would have allowed them to gain
insight into how the different activities worked for which students and
why. Thus the focus changed from informing practices at the model
schools to demonstrating impact. Rasmussen and Andreasen make a crit-
ical point,
Using experimental and quasi-experimental in the study of education
and learning involves many unsolved problems, for instance in data valid-
ity, and too much reliance on these methods may distort the field of
educational research. These methods also come with a certain theory of
knowledge, implying for instance that true knowledge has a very general
character and that knowledge generated and used in local contexts has
little relevance.
The themes in this quote run through many of the chapters. Just as
schooling and curriculum are not value free, neither is research.
12.4 Researching in Schools

Different approaches and methods change the nature of the research, its
aims, how researchers and participants are positioned, and what we can
learn from it. Educational research is most often characterised by three
social science approaches: post/positivism, interpretivism/constructiv-
ism, and critical theory. Which research approaches are appropriate for
264 J. MacCallum
educational research, is not a new debate (see Chap. 3). With the current
global trends to testing and measuring the outcomes and impact of inno-
vations, the debate is even more necessary.
As well as pointing out the negatives of quasi-experimental and quan-
titative designs for educational research in terms of informing teachers of
innovative practice, Rasmussen and Andreasen (Chap. 5) suggest these
developments may be progressive in some ways. The emphasis on evalu-
ation means the aims of innovation are more likely to be clarified, inno-
vative projects are “investigated, documented and made available to
schools and teachers on a national basis”, providing a “better basis for
interaction between educational practice and educational research”.
However, there is another debate surrounding research and evaluation, as
they are often characterised as fulfilling different purposes (Mathison,
2008). Research being more oriented towards generating new knowledge
and evaluation more oriented to making decisions, it is almost inevitable
that researchers and policy makers or funding bodies will be at cross
purposes.
Taking a position similar to Rasmussen and Andreasen, Dixon and
Verenikina (Chap. 11) acknowledge that qualitative research can provide
insights into why an intervention may or may not work, but may not
provide evidence of causality. When considering research related to spe-
cial and inclusive education, they problematise Random Control Trials
(RCT) as not appropriate for educational research, but recognise
evidence-based practice. Their focus is on identifying the personal and
broader social processes that explain the “wicked problem” of the gap
between research evidence and implementation in practice.
Christie and Barry (Chap. 9) critique positivist approaches to educa-
tional research underpinning the evidence-based practice movement.
Although positivism was considered modern and revolutionary once,
Christie and Barry argue it is not appropriate for human research endeav-
ours in schools. They argue that teachers and students are positioned
differently by different research methods because of their different ideolo-
gies and power relations. From their perspective, critical theory research
can bridge the gap between academic research and practitioner research,
because it enables teacher agency and student agency. As evident
throughout this volume, positivism is still privileged by society and

research taking a positivist (or post-positivist approach) is lauded by pol-
icy makers.
Education Queensland has adopted a different position, by allowing
school districts to choose between different approaches to develop a
required pedagogical framework for ensuring quality teaching. Christie
and Barry point out the “striking paradigmatic contrast” between two of
the seven approaches endorsed: productive pedagogies (government
funded comprehensive research conducted in schools by Bob Lingard
and colleagues) which views school effectiveness through a critical socio-
logical lens, and Visible Learning (a synthesis of educational research by
John Hattie) which takes an evidence-based approach based only on sec-
ondary analysis of quantitative studies.
These examples show that there are different positions in the research
community as well as between policy makers and researchers, potentially
leading to confusion in school communities. Important questions relate
to the nature of evidence-based practice, what form the evidence takes,
whether it is always linked to post/positivist approaches to research and
the ways in which it positions teachers and students in schools.
For academic researchers, gaining access to schools can be a struggle
(see Chap. 1). Research procedures are often developed at a system level
and enacted a little differently at different sites. As the leader of several
national research projects, I have first-hand experience of the complexity
of meeting the ethical requirements of the university, gaining “working
with children” approvals in each jurisdiction, and meeting research
approval requirements of different school systems in each Australian
state. In addition, each controlling body has different proforma for infor-
mation and consent letters that must be negotiated. Over the years these
proforma have become more extensive. A recent PhD graduate with uni-
versity ethics approval was forced to limit the schools included in the
study because of incompatible advice from different school systems and
lengthy approval timeframes. When I conducted my PhD study nearly
30 years ago, the approval and informed consent processes were very dif-
ferent. Rather than active informed consent, parents needed to actively
withdraw their students from research, so all students not withdrawn by
parents were considered to be participants. I also provided students with
266 J. MacCallum
information about the research and asked students to sign a form to indi-
cate their active and voluntary consent. Only one student wanted to
withdraw. While changes to consent processes provide the necessary pro-
tection for participants these changes have consequences for researching
in schools in terms of where research is conducted and who participates.
This may distort research findings.
An alternative approach to researching in schools is research with a
close connection to practice, and in particular research conducted col-
laboratively and involving teacher researchers and academic researchers.
Christie and Barry (Chap. 9) argue that a culture of action research is
needed to support teacher research. In the mid 1990s one of the projects
funded through the National Professional Development Program
(NPDP) was a large national project called Innovative Links, exploring
the ways in which “university academics [academic associates] might
work in partnership with school teachers to support the professional
development of those teachers involved in the project and facilitate school
reform” (Grundy et al., 1999, p. 38). Each of the 14 participating univer-
sities hosted a Roundtable through which academic associates supported
action research projects. Although the project had successes, there were
also tensions and challenges. As explained by Grundy and colleagues
(Grundy et al., 1999; Grundy, Robison, & Tomazos, 2001), achieving
“parity of esteem” between academic associates and teacher researchers
wasn’t straight forward and in some schools the principal made unilateral
decisions about what would be researched. The project did enable teach-
ers to disseminate the findings of their action research to other partici-
pants through the Roundtables and in written reports.
12.5 Innovating in Schools

A continuing theme in the chapters is the lack of connection between
policy makers and teachers and students in local classrooms. Nerren
(Chap. 4) explains the token inclusion of early childhood practitioners in
providing input to policy decisions around the Head Start programs. To
combat this, NAEYC, the National Association for the Education of
Young Children is taking a stronger advocacy role to influence public
policy and give practitioners a voice. The disconnect is explained by

Normand (Chap. 2) as an apparent lack of autonomy and authority of
principals in France to innovate. However, innovation in French schools
continues through individual approaches by teachers that are not always
recognised.
Individual teachers can innovate and make a difference for their stu-
dents. Harris and Danaher (Chap. 10) explore the way Harris, as head of
department in a geographically isolated school, was able to connect with
local cultural groups to build a locally relevant curriculum in mathemat-
ics and sciences. His recognition is through dialogue and writing as a
teacher researcher with an academic researcher. A teacher colleague, and
co-researcher working with me, implemented a collaborative and inclu-
sive approach in her classroom with noticeable improvements in students’
participation and learning. She was able to sustain her motivation to
innovate with the support of the deputy principal and parents (Morcom
& MacCallum, 2009). This teacher researcher has published a number of
journal articles documenting her approach (Morcom, 2015, 2016), as
well as supporting colleagues to introduce some of her innovative strate-
gies in their classrooms (MacCallum & Morcom, 2011). This was not
without challenges and her innovations have yet to be adopted
more widely.
The attitudes and values of educators can also impact innovation and
implementation. Williams’ research (Chap. 6) found that teachers who
valued physical activity didn’t perceive barriers as strongly as those who
didn’t value it. This is an important point to consider for enacting change.
Equally, the attitudes and values of school leaders and parents can impact
teachers developing and researching innovative practices. Dixon and
Verenikina (Chap. 11) also point to teachers’ attitudes to research and
their perceived lack of power and control in implementing evidence-
based practice, but also to the importance of a range of contextual affor-
dances and constraints of classrooms and schools, such as school culture
and availability of resources, relevance to their practice and time. The
“research-practice gap in special education was supposed to be solved by
the introduction of EBP by enthusiastic and eager practitioners” (Dixon
& Verenikina) but the model was too simplistic and the outcomes were
disappointing.
268 J. MacCallum
Another challenge of innovating in schools described by Padró et al.

(Chap. 3), is integrating the curriculum in the midst of different testing
regimes, and insufficient professional development of teachers and prepa-
ration of pre-service teachers. Professional learning was one way that
Haeusler et al. (Chap. 7) were able to support primary school teachers to
implement the science curriculum in a way that developed students’
abstract thinking. Dixon and Verenikina (Chap. 11) propose longer and
practice-based professional development in the context of a community
practice to be one way to support the implementation of relevant
evidence-based practice in special education.
12.6 W
ays Forward for Innovating
and Researching in Schools
There are different ways of understanding the world and in these chapters
we see how the different orientations of individuals and groups, posi-
tioned in different critical areas, create tensions and challenges for inno-
vating and researching in schools. An important question is how to work
with these differences and tensions to find effective ways forward. One
way recommended by Rasmussen and Andreasen (Chap. 5) is to re-
establish “the constructive links between innovation projects, educational
research and everyday practices in schooling and teaching” and to do that
we need to recognise the differences, bring together the relevant groups
and individuals, develop mutual respect and establish stable communica-
tion. Respectful dialogue can help to bridge differences as demonstrated
by Harris and Danaher (Chap. 10). This can help to build parity of
esteem (Grundy et al., 1999) that is necessary for collaborative research
by academic researchers and teacher researchers.
We can start with small groups but to have impact more broadly we
need ways to bring different groups together for a common purpose.
Projects like Innovative Links that engage multiple groups in action
research relevant to their particular local settings is one possibility. Dixon
and Verenikina’s (Chap. 11) proposal for engaging teachers in profes-
sional learning that is practice based within a community of practice is
another. Murdoch University has been developing a school-based model

of teacher research that is part of a research masters, where teachers
develop a research project that is relevant to their work with the support
of university academic supervisors. These projects need the support of the
school community and the creation of a culture promoting innovation
and research. With this support we are more likely to keep teacher
researchers in schools to support other teachers in innovating and
researching. Often teacher researchers transition to work as university
academics, as is evident amongst the authors in this volume. We also
need new ways to disseminate research findings other than journals which
are often not accessible to practitioners. New avenues of dissemination,
like The Conversation (https://theconversation.com/au/education), could
engage more practitioners.
Pre-service education is another area of focus for potentially building a
connection between teaching practice and research. Finland has been
extolled in recent years for achievements in international testing, for the
autonomy and professionalism of teachers and its research-based teacher
education (Niemi, Toom, & Kallioniemi, 2012). However, as Niemi
et al. explain, despite their pre-service education giving teachers “tools for
professional development throughout their careers, they still need sup-
port for their work and various possibilities for in-service teacher educa-
tion” (p. 280). A recent study of research-based teacher education in
Finland and Norway showed the ongoing challenge for new teachers of
connecting research-based knowledge in teacher education and teachers’
professional work (Jakhelln, Eklund, Aspfors, Bjørndal, & Stølen, 2019).
Another way to build connection is to develop opportunities for dis-
cussion fora that bring together participants with different perspectives
(Rasmussen & Andreasen), so that each participant can better appreciate
the needs and demands of each other’s work. Change models like expan-
sive learning (Engeström & Sannino, 2010) can suggest ways to work
together to transform approaches to innovating and researching in
schools. Technologies could be used to broaden the reach of these kinds
of activities. In addition, mixed methods research may be a way to develop
more complex research projects that include qualitative and quantitative
approaches to research, and create opportunities for dialogue between
researchers from different research traditions. There are different
270 J. MacCallum
paradigmatic avenues to bring different approaches together and a dialec-

tic approach “promotes dialogue amongst theories, data and results”
(Shannon-Baker, 2016, p. 323) and supports the examination and dis-
cussion of convergence and divergence in data.
Advocacy was argued by Nerren (Chap. 4) as a means for the voices of
practitioners and experts to be heard by policy makers. In Western
Australia, advocacy and lobbying by early childhood researchers, teachers
and parents on the benefits of play for young children was successful in
changing policy. The Focus 2019 document released by the Director
General of WA Department of Education “instructs administrations to
emphasise the role of play-based learning in a balanced curriculum for
kindergarten and pre-primary students” (Cross, 2018). Associations and
researchers have an important role in this kind of work.
The chapters in this volume demonstrate that educational innovators
and researchers contend with similar tensions and challenges around the
world. The coronavirus pandemic shows how truly globalised we have
become with the spread of COVID-19 reaching every corner of the
globe. Health research and expert advice have come to the fore with pol-
icy and practice being informed by applied research and vice versa on a
daily basis. It shows the value of research in informing decision making
and how on-the-ground knowledge can inform research and policy and
feed back to inform practice. In the health emergency there are elements
of commonality in policy and practice across countries, but also differ-
ences that reveal tensions related to politics, infrastructure and personal
beliefs.
Schooling and educational research have been impacted by this global
crisis, with face-to face contact reduced and technologies providing new
ways to participate. Teachers have quickly learned new ways of teaching
and students taken more responsibility for their own learning. It is a
reminder that societal conditions can change and change in a short period
of time. What will this mean for educational innovation and educational
research into the future? Only time will tell how the activities and differ-
ent ways of participating in the current time will develop into the future.
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Index
A Challenges to better STEM teaching,

Advocacy, 93, 95, 97 159, 160
Assessments, 24–28, 30, 31, 36 Classroom context, 1, 2
Attitudes of special educators to Collaboration, 224, 232
research, 241, 242 Competition state, 110–113, 115
Australian Curriculum Context, 136
Science, 144, 145, 158 Contextual barriers, 121–138
Australian History Curriculum Critical theory, 197–215
(AHC), 197 Cultural-historical perspective, 259
Axes of professional values, 225, 231 Curriculum, 23, 26, 28, 32, 36,
222, 232
Curriculum, schooling,
B 3, 11
Basic skills, 21–24, 30
Benefits, 123–124
D
Daily physical activity, 121–138
C Denmark, 106–109, 111,
Capacity to learn higher level, 146 112, 115
Case study, 226, 232 Desire to learn higher level science,
Central tension, 161 146, 158

in Education Research Methods, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48822-2
274 Index
Desire to learn how and why, 158 Innovation projects, 103, 104,
Dialogism, 224, 225, 231 108, 112–117
Dialogue, 221–232 Intended curriculum, 165–190
E M
Early childhood education, 77–97 Management, 221–224, 232
Early interest in science, 145 Mass media influence, 146
Educational change, 97, 221–232 Math-science education, 41–66
Educational complexity, 221–232 Mixed methods research, 269
Educational innovation, 1–14,
258, 270
Educational policy, 77–97 N
Einstein-First, 159 Neurosciences, 25, 26, 29, 31
Enablers, 130 New Nordic School, 112
Enacted curriculum, 165–190
Evidence, 33
Evidence based practice, 103, 110, P
111, 115, 116, 237–252 Partnership, 224–226, 230–232
Pedagogical frameworks,
203, 206
F Physical education, 169–172,
Field, 224, 225, 231, 232 178, 184
Funding, 104, 109, 114, 117 Piaget, J., 144
Policy, 21–37, 221–224, 232
Positivism, 199–201, 207
H Practice, 221–225, 231, 232
Health and Physical Education Practices and management,
(HPE), 165–190 165–190
Health education, 171, 173, 175, Pre-service teacher
177, 179, 185, 187 preparation, 41–66
Historical-policy analysis, 63, 66 Programs, 27, 29–33, 36
Public school, 103–117
I
Impact of school policies, 171, 179 Q
Innovation, 21–37, 103–117 Qualitative research, 226
Index 275
R Snapshot 3–genetics knowledge and

Reform, 22, 24, 27–29, 32–36 the mass media, 151–152
Regulatory compliance, 41–66 Snapshot 2–living things and a wool
Research, 1–14, 24–29, 31–33, model for DNA, 149–150
35, 36, 103–117, Sociocultural analysis, 237–252
257–270 Sociocultural theory, 238, 244, 245,
Research design, 108, 113, 114 248, 250
Researchers, 257, 258, 263–270 Special educators, 240–242, 245,
Research methods, 113 248, 249, 252
Research-practice gap, 240,
242–245, 250, 251
T
Teacher advocacy, 93
S Teacher perceptions, 121–138
School improvement, 21–37 Teacher–researcher relationships,
Schooling, 222, 232 225, 232
School subject department Teachers, 24–27, 29, 32–36, 257,
head, 221–232 258, 262, 264–270
Science engagement, 145 21st century learners, 165–190
Snapshot 4–atomic theory and
attitudes towards
science, 152–155 U
Snapshot 5–professional University education
development for researcher, 221–232
teachers, 155–158
Snapshot 1–living things and
DNA, 148–149 W
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Donovan Et Al (2020) Curriculum, Schooling and Applied Research

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PALGRAVE STUDIES IN

EDUCATION RESEARCH METHODS

More information about this series at

ISSN 2662-7345 ISSN 2662-7353 (electronic)

 eflections about Conducting Research

Schools Participation in the Research

provided the teachers with a range of strategies within a teaching/learning

professional development and/or at lunchtimes so there were lost oppor-

We overestimated several aspects about the teachers—the coherence of

comment on the tensions and contradictions with colleagues and stake-

Curtin University, Bentley, WA, Australia David Treagust

• Rebecca Wyde, Eleanor Christie and the editorial team at Palgrave

–– Emilio A. Anteliz, Faculty of Engineering, Central University of

• Our colleagues for their continuing encouragement and interest

1 Educational Innovation: Challenges of Conducting and

Part I Global System Level and Policy Issues 19

2 The Long March towards School Improvement in France:

3 The Unintended Impact of Regulatory Compliance: The

4 An Educated Nation: Governmental Policy and Early

5 Innovation and Research in the Danish Public School103

Part II School and Teacher Challenges 119

6 Teacher Perceptions of Daily Physical Activity and

7 Children Versus Curriculum: Who Wins?143

7.4.4 Snapshot 4, 2013, Year 4 (Interviewers:

8 HPE: Navigating the Chasm of Policy, Practice and

Part III Researchers’ Experiences and Challenges 195

9 Challenging the Seductive Promise of Positivist Research

10 Developing Dialogue between a School Subject

10.5 Conclusion 231

11 The “Wicked Problem” of Implementing Evidence based

12 Afterword: Innovating and Researching in Schools257

Karen E. Andreasen Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark

Marlene M. Hurley Monmouth University, West Long Branch, NJ, USA

Fig. 3.1 Institutional preference for either commitment or resistance

Table 6.1 Polychoric and polyserial correlations among the 11 manifest

K. Trimmer (*) • J. Donovan • N. Flegg

© The Author(s) 2020 1

system itself. The book traverses a wide range of conceptual, disciplinary,

1.2 Literature Review

1.3 Examples from the Editors’

2008; Trimmer, 2016). However, where funding to conduct the research

at each school to introduce me as ‘the person on the ground’ who would

1.4 Book Outline

1.4.1 Part 1: System Level and Policy Issues

Part 1 takes a global focus to consider the influence of policy, regulations

math-science education in the USA. Nerren in the next chapter looks at

1.4.2 Part 2: School and Teacher Challenges

Part 2 considers different ways of conceptualising, identifying, and evalu-

1.4.3 Part 3: Researchers’ Experiences and Challenges

Part 3 places the focus on researchers’ experiences and challenges. It pro-

in Queensland, Australia where they discuss the issues surrounding their

and Educational Improvement, The University of Minnesota and Ontario

© The Author(s) 2020 21

scaling-up. In this step-by-step “technocratic” building of the French

internal lobbying for maintaining the legacy of student guidance policy

2.3 “ Monitoring the French Accountability

outstanding research on neurosciences and cognitive sciences. Despite of

facilitating teamwork and in defining training needs (Barrère, 2006).

2.4 L inks Between Research, Policy

for French policy makers is to be able to map and to compile these

by neurosciences. Created on the 10th of January 2018, the scientific

and analyses lack reflexivity and are relatively enclosed in a kind of

(Debarbieux, 2015). Now, with the change of minister, these public

from the local university after a hearing process. The objective is to

eflections about Conducting Research

Schools Participation in the Research

Curtin University, Bentley, WA, Australia David Treagust

1 Educational Innovation: Challenges of Conducting and

Part I Global System Level and Policy Issues 19

2 The Long March towards School Improvement in France:

3 The Unintended Impact of Regulatory Compliance: The

4 An Educated Nation: Governmental Policy and Early

5 Innovation and Research in the Danish Public School103

Part II School and Teacher Challenges 119

6 Teacher Perceptions of Daily Physical Activity and

7 Children Versus Curriculum: Who Wins?143

7.4.4 Snapshot 4, 2013, Year 4 (Interviewers:

8 HPE: Navigating the Chasm of Policy, Practice and

Part III Researchers’ Experiences and Challenges 195

9 Challenging the Seductive Promise of Positivist Research

10 Developing Dialogue between a School Subject

10.5 Conclusion 231

11 The “Wicked Problem” of Implementing Evidence based

12 Afterword: Innovating and Researching in Schools257

1.2 Literature Review

1.3 Examples from the Editors’

1.4 Book Outline

1.4.1 Part 1: System Level and Policy Issues

1.4.2 Part 2: School and Teacher Challenges

1.4.3 Part 3: Researchers’ Experiences and Challenges

2.3 “ Monitoring the French Accountability

2.4 L inks Between Research, Policy

3.2 Lack of Progress for IMS by 2012

study shows the extent to which interdisciplinary education is under-

3.4 Methodological Considerations

3.5 The Logical Model Lens

3.6 Policy Steering

3.7 Institutional Commitment, Adaptation or

3.8 The Minimaxing End of the Continuum

3.10 L essons Learned: Discussion

4.1 Poverty and Our Youngest Schoolchildren

4.6 Common Core State Standards (2009)

Carlsson-Paige, 2014). Many of those with complaints about the state-

4.8 Do We Listen to the Teachers?

4.9 Assessment: Not a Means to an End

4.10.2 Defending the Early Years

4.11 Positive Steps