Educational Change: Easier Said Than Done

In the opening chapter to this section of the Handbook, Fink and Stoll review the contemporary field of educational change and ask why educational change is so difficult to understand and achieve in present times. They begin by discussing the historical, social and organizational forces that create continuity in education; which sustain structures and practices that in many cases may be outliving their usefulness. They then discuss four common and widely used approaches to bringing about educational change in the face of such continuity: school effectiveness, school improvement, school restructuring, and more recent orientations to school reculturing. Each of these approaches is examined clearly and also critically.

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