Bolivian Teachers’ Agency: Soldiers of Liberation or Guards of Coloniality and Continuation?
Mieke T. A. Lopes Cardozo
This paper investigates the problems and promises of teachers’ agency associated with Bolivia’s current “decolonising” education reform. The Avelino Siñani Elizardo Pérez (ASEP) education reform is part of a counter-hegemonic and anti-neoliberal policy that aims to advance the political project of the government of Evo Morales, with teachers as its most strategic leading card. The article…

Rethinking Institutional Secularization as an (Im)possible “Policy”
Ezequiel Gomez Caride
The paper analyzes through a genealogical discourse analysis how religion as a cultural practice escapes into the borders of state institutions. While most studies about secularization focus on institutional aspects, such approaches tend to link state secularist policies with cultural secularization. This essay argues that state promotion of religious institutional secularist policies needs to…

Students’ acceptance of university institutions
Javier Calvo de Mora, María-Jesús Gallego-Arrufat, Francisco-J. Lamas, Pedro-Antonio García-López
This study analyzes students’ perception of university institutions. According to empirical evidence obtained from a questionnaire on perception of university institutions performed at the University of Granada, Spain, university students show perceived acceptance that is institutional, academic, and personal. Students’ perceptions contain attitudes involving a certain institutional…

Looking Beyond School Walls: An Environmental Scan of Minneapolis Public Schools, 2004-2008
Nicola A. Alexander, Wonseok Choi
We provide an expanded environmental scan to assess the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) faced by education communities. Grounded in the literature, we identified 48 indicators and grouped them into 6 broad categories: (1) budget levels, (2) funding patterns, (3) community needs, (4) external economic conditions, (5) political culture, and (6) children outcomes. We then…

Issues of Teacher Performance Stability are Not New: Limitations and Possibilities
Thomas L. Good, Alyson L. Lavigne
Morgan, Hodge, Trepinski, and Anderson (2014) have written an article that continues to confirm what we have known for some time—teacher effects on student achievement have limited stability. In this commentary, we address the other potential contributions this work can make to inform practice, policy, and research. While illustrating Morgan et al.’s inattention to history, we take the…

“Are we architects or construction workers?” Re-examining teacher autonomy and turnover in charter schools
A. Chris Torres
Charter school teachers nationwide expressed greater autonomy compared to traditional public school teachers at the turn of the century. But is this trend changing? The recent proliferation of Charter Management Organizations (CMOs), which often have prescriptive organizational models, has raised questions around how teachers perceive autonomy and control in these schools. Researchers…

What makes teachers satisfied with their profession?
Daniel Capistrano, Ana Carolina Cirotto
This article presents an analysis of the level of job satisfaction declared by Brazilian teachers in lower secondary schools. The research was based on results of a comparative survey conducted in 24 countries. This study identifies school factors that are associated with teachers’ job satisfaction and provides some reflections on the impact of the evidence found in the research…