In educational systems, directives formulated by policymakers are not always implemented as originally intended. Within this context, the agency of teachers—as one among several potential policy implementers—has been examined in the literature, including scholarship on educational ecosystems (Niemi, 2021). Nonetheless, the nuances of ecosystem components warrant further elaboration. This presentation focuses on a case that foregrounds such subtleties. The qualitative study under discussion involved the collection of policy circulars issued by a subject-area superintendent—a district administrator responsible for a specific school subject within the Ministry of Education—and in-depth interviews with teachers who enacted that policy in their classrooms. The findings reveal that teachers exceeded the policy's requirements by adopting self-initiated leadership actions vis-à-vis the latter. These findings call for a reconsideration of several ecosystem concepts, of which interconnectedness (how proximate should policymakers and policy implementers be for policies to be executed as intended, and what connection types are required?) and nestedness (who nests within whom, and when can formal nestedness become loosened?) will be discussed. Beyond these theoretical implications, the presentation offers a practical possibility for policymakers: redesigning vertical hierarchical nesting structures into flexible configurations to potentially enable better policy-implementer connections.

Authors:
Einav Argaman, Levinsky-Wingate Academic College, Israel

About the Presenter(s)
Dr. Einav Argaman is a senior lecturer at Levinsky-Wingate Academic College and a board member of the Israeli Association for the Study of Language and Society.

See this presentation on the full schedule – Saturday Schedule

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