From "Mandates" To "Actions": Insights Into Public School's Implementation Of Policies On Educational Change

This study is conducted as an in-depth analysis on public school's behaviors concerning the implementation of curriculum reform policy. The aim of it is to describe exactly the micro-level policy implementation process, to conceptualize the pattern of public school's implementing behaviors and unseal the underlying logics of action seemingly viewed as self-evident. Directed by case study approach, the author finally chose S middle school of SooChow as a typical case on which nearly three months had been spent to carry out the fieldwork investigation. The qualitative methodology employed cheifly included observations at varied sites in this sample school, interviews with the principal and managerial teachers, collections and review of school documents and necessary survey of 89 teachers of all subjects. Based on abundant data containing information of curriculum policy implementation, the findings finally come as follows:(1) The curriculum reform at school level has generally been driven by mandates from multiple-level of governments above."meetings","trainings"and"routinized practice"seem to be the main sites where teachers are making sense of policies, and it is"routinized practice"that serve as the core situation for teachers to translate the"stated policy"into"policy-in-use". The sensemaking activities almost run through the whole process of policy implementation.(2) Implementing process of this school basically fall into Three phases characterized as"Planning-Preparing"and"experimenting-exploring"as well as"consolidating-promoting"respectively. While"holding meetings","setting rules","organizing trainings","developing conmunications","observing-evaluating classes"&"giving multiple rewards"are the most commonly enacted activities of which the essence turned out to be exerting a series of hierarchical managerial power.(3) In general, the constellation of all the implementing behaviors of the school could be categorized as three systems of behaviors respectively named"sense-making","action-adopting"and"outcome-demonstrating", which are all interwoven with each other and together turn the school's implementing behaviors into a routinized pattern that tends to localize members'understanding of policies, monotonize the school's instrumental stuctures, superficialize the output of the implementation process. Overall, no fundemental change on the part of the instruction in class could be captured.(4) The pattern of policy implementation seems to be"programmed"by institutional logics working within the school organizational field."Administative logic"behind bureaucratic organizations and"Cognitive logic"within school context has performed as two kinds of strongly influencial constraining forces, which have worked to determine the basic procedure and manner of policy implementation of the school and influence the dominating principle and tendency of sensemaking activities of the staff. Furthermore, numerous behavioral habitus rooted in historical legacy and a series of institutional scripts embedded in school context have all manipulated the policy implementing process in a coercive manner.(5) Any change that seeks to go deeper invariably requires people to free themselves form the tap of institutional"Iron cage". It is necessarily highlighted that school members should increase their rational self-awareness for reflection during policy implementation practice and at the same time explore for possible ways to make themselves the owner of change while situated in the ongoing"accumulative reform".