Social Histories of Educational Change

This article sets out new directions for thinking about educational change theory. In particular, a number of different segments in educational change processes are examined – the internal, the external and the personal.In analyzing the importance of these different segments of educational change, a socio-historical approach is adopted. It is noted that in the expansionist period of the 1960s and 1970s internal change agentry was dominant and, as a result, modernist change theory located in that period stressed the importance of the internal processes which had become central in orchestrating the change process. In the 1980s and 1990s external change mandates have become dominant, with a number of downsides related to internal and personal missions.In the new millennium it is argued that, as well as internal and external segments, increasing attention will need to be paid to the personal missions and purposes which underpin commitment to change processes. Without a fully conceptualized notion of how the internal, external and personal will interlink, existing change theory remains underdeveloped and of progressively less use.In the final sections, a tentative model of change processes is defined. In this model, the internal, external and personal are integrated in ways that seek to provide new momentum for change processes and their study.