Ebook: Extending Educational Change: International Handbook of Educational Change

ANDY HARGREAVES Department of Teacher Education, Curriculum and Instruction Lynch School of Education, Boston College, MA, U.S.A. ANN LIEBERMAN Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Stanford, CA, U.S.A. MICHAEL FULLAN Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Canada DAVID HOPKINS Department for Education and Skills, London, U.K. This set of four volumes on Educational Change brings together evidence and insights on educational change issues from leading writers and researchers in the field from across the world. Many of these writers, whose chapters have been specially written for these books, have been investigating, helping initiate and implementing educational change, for most or all of their lengthy careers. Others are working on the cutting edge of theory and practice in educational change, taking the field in new or even more challenging directions. And some are more skeptical about the literature of educational change and the assumptions on which it rests. They help us to approach projects of understanding or initiating educational change more deeply, reflectively and realistically. Educational change and reform have rarely had so much prominence within public policy, in so many different places. Educational change is ubiquitous. It figures large in Presidential and Prime Ministerial speeches. It is at or near the top of many National policy agendas. Everywhere, educational change is not only a policy priority but also major public news. Yet action to bring about educational change usually exceeds people's understanding of how to do so effectively.

This volume deals with the idea and necessity of extending educational change – conceptually and in action. Extending educational change matters for getting existing approaches to educational change to work more effectively in more places, and for deepening our understandings of and sensitivity to whose interests are at stake in educational change. Who benefits and who loses? How do these interests and how we address them affect what kinds of changes we pursue? What challenges does all this pose for the change process itself?

One of the major challenges of educational change today, is how to define and manage change in a politically contested and multi-dimensional environment. It is time to revisit some of the fundamental issues in the field, extend our analysis of them further, and connect with sociological and political forms of inquiry that are attuned to the highly contested terrain that schooling now comprises.

This volume (part of 4 volumes) is the second section in the International Handbook of Educational Change.

The volumes are a state-of-the-art collection of the most important ideas and evidence of educational change. The volumes bring together some of the most influential thinkers and writers on educational change. It deals with issues like educational innovation, reform, restructuring, culture-building, inspection, school-review, and change management. School leaders, system administration, teacher leaders, consultants, facilitators, educational researchers, staff developers and change agents of all kinds will find these volumes an indispensable resource for guiding them to both classic and cutting-edge understandings of educational change, no other work provides as comprehensive coverage of the field of educational change.