Building capacity for grassroots reform: an Australian case study

Abstract

Grassroots reform, particularly in the private educational sector, has had a noticeable impact on the Australian middle years of schooling landscape. Middle years' grassroots reform however, has often been implemented in ad hoc ways, which has meant it has not always resulted in meaningful change that is aligned with middle years' research and philosophy. This case study examines one school's efforts to improve education in the middle years through a grassroots reform project, namely the "Year 9 Project". The study explores how capacity building for meaningful change can be both helped and hindered during grassroots reform. It also examines the experiences and involvement of teachers in grassroots reform, understanding their pivotal role as key implementers of school change. The study reaches two conclusions regarding how capacity building may be enhanced to effectuate meaningful change at the grassroots level.

A Case Study of Responsive Middle Grades Education in a Laboratory Middle School in the USA

“…Case studies of middle level schools have been widely used to illustrate program characteristics, document implementation of policies and innovative programs, and contextualize processes and issues in middle grades education. For example, the middle-level literature includes case studies describing how a school cultivates a sense of belonging and an ethic of care [19,20]; the implementation of a restorative justice approach to school discipline [21]; grassroots capacity-building efforts [22]; how a school offers "critically conscious, culturally responsive, social justice education" [23] (p. 2); and the development of school-university partnerships [24][25][26]. In each of these examples, case study methodology allows the researchers to holistically examine the phenomena under investigation and clearly describe complex relationships and interactions.…”