Sustainable school‐improvement in complex adaptive systems: A scoping review

Abstract

School‐improvement initiatives are implemented with admirable goals, often requiring substantial human and material resources. However, many fail to be sustainable beyond short‐term funding cycles or the enthusiasm of local initiators. Typically, implementation and improvement are viewed linearly and as static end‐products that fail to consider that schools are complex adaptive systems (CAS) that are continuously and recursively challenged with change. To investigate sustainable school‐improvement within CAS, we used PRISMA‐SR guidelines to conduct a scoping review of peer‐reviewed journal articles extracted from six databases using keywords synonymous with ‘complex or adaptive system’, ‘sustain’, ‘school’ and ‘initiative’. The search process yielded 1146 articles but only 16 of those articles met our inclusion/exclusion criteria that specified that authors present an integrated view of sustainable implementation in schools conceptualised as CAS. Within the selected 16 articles, key components for sustainability in schools described as CAS included access to adequate funding and resources, engagement and involvement of stakeholders, the ability of stakeholders to adapt to change, formation of collaborative partnerships, and the development of supportive policies and procedures. Some important issues arose, such as the tendency of the ‘whole school approach’ to be reduced to information dissemination activities that do not adequately deal with components of complex systems, and the increasing recognition that older implementation models that seek ‘institutionalisation’ fail to appreciate that sustainability is a process, not an end goal. This scoping review highlights the need to recognise the complexity and adaptivity of school systems for successful and sustained implementation of school‐improvement initiatives.

Barriers and Facilitators to Sustaining School-Based Mental Health and Wellbeing Interventions: A Systematic Review

“…The majority of these barriers and facilitators to mental health interventions are at the school level and are very similar to health interventions and educational improvement interventions more generally [ 19 , 51 ]. Given this, it is important for sustainability researchers to focus broadly on the difficulties of delivering interventions in school settings and the unique challenges of working within such complex systems [ 58 , 59 ]. Barriers such as constantly shifting priorities and high levels of staff turnover may be particularly salient in schools and consequently would require specific approaches to increase sustainability.…”

Sustainable School Environment as a Landscape for Secondary School Students’ Engagement in Learning

“…The very idea of sustainable school reveals an integrated approach to school as a system in which sustainability is integrated in all aspects of school life, not only in the physical environment [26]. In addition to the above-mentioned aspects, sustainability contains curricula, moral principles, relationships, and tools for capacity building, managing of processes, and creating coherence [27]. Moreover, sustainability is not a stable, fixed fact, it is a dynamic process having potential for change [28], and the school community is an active agent of the process that can influence its direction.…”

Feasibility of using health and wellbeing data for school planning: the SHINE pilot in Scotland

“…SHINE is underpinned by a Whole School Approach that recognises schools as complex adaptive systems that constantly evolve and change. While the importance of a Whole School Approach is embedded within the Scottish education system ( Scottish Government, 2021b , no date ), in practice there is often a focus on short-term implementation rather than an evolving, sustainable process ( Murphy et al , 2021 ; Koh and Askell-Williams, 2021 ). Following Murphy et al (2021) , SHINE’s interactions with schools are conceptualized as a disruption to the existing school system, impacting school sub-systems including a range of agents (e.g.…”

“…This broad approach may be more effective at improving health and behaviours than singular health interventions ( Bond et al , 2004 ) and has the potential to lead to more sustainable change ( Svane et al , 2019 ). There have been criticisms however as to whether Whole School Approaches engage sufficiently with schools as complex adaptive systems that require stakeholders to drive change ( Turunen et al , 2017 ; Bartelink et al , 2019 ; Koh and Askell-Williams, 2021 ).…”