The long road to systemic improvement in education: a comparative multi-level case study in federal countries

ABSTRACT

Ideas about educational improvement are contextual and contested. This study proposes a critical and pragmatic framework to analyse systemic improvement, taking into account the paradoxes and limitations of quantitative sources. The study compared 83 subnational educational systems of three federal countries in Latin America: Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico. Based on a mixed methodology, we analysed the evolution of multiple educational indicators in 2004-2019. Then, we applied an expert’s consultation process to select four cases of systemic improvement for further analysis: Ceará and Pernambuco in Brazil, Córdoba in Argentina, and Puebla in Mexico. Each case was studied in its context, with a multi-level analysis that links it to national educational policies. Instead of a series of policy recipes, we find that constructing a solid platform for education governance is the critical element shared by the studied cases where there is subnational systemic improvement over a long period.

摘要

关于如何改进教育的观点，事关背景且具有争议。本文提出一个批判和实用的框架来分析系统性改进，并顾及量化数据的矛盾与局限。本研究比较了拉丁美洲三个联邦国家（阿根廷、巴西和墨西哥）的83个地方教育体系。基于混合方法，我们分析了2004到2019年间多个教育指标的演变，并运用专家咨询程序选择四个系统性改进的案例深入分析：巴西的塞阿拉和伯南布哥、阿根廷的科尔多瓦和墨西哥的普埃布拉。每个案例都根据其背景进行研究，并进行多层次分析，将其与国家教育政策关联。我们发现，搭建一个可靠的教育治理平台，是各研究案例中地方得以长期系统性改进的关键要素，而非一系列的政策配方。

KEYWORDS:

• Systems´ improvement
• comparative education
• educational policy
• Latin America
• subnational education
• federalism

关键词:

• 系统性改进
• 比较教育
• 教育政策
• 拉丁美洲
• 地方教育
• 联邦制

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The research project was coordinated by the author and had the collaboration of Martín Scasso in the data curation process. Belén Sánchez, Filipe Recch, Vinícius Baptista Soares Lopes, Lucas Hoogerbrugge, Juan Cruz Olmeda, and Valentina Sifuentes conducted some of the interviews. The research assistants were Ignacio Barrenechea and María Emilia Larsen. The project was funded by the Instituto Natura from Latin America.

2 Previous studies that analyzed the 2001–13 period found notable improvements in Ceará, Rondonia, Espirito Santo, Minas Gerais, Tocantins, and Pernambuco (Carnoy et al. 2017).

3 Interview with Frederico da Costa Amancio, secretary of Education of Pernambuco (November, 2019).

4 Interview with Delia Provinciali, Secretary of Education of the province of Córdoba (October, 2019).

5 https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/platform

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Axel Rivas

Axel Rivas is Lecturer, Researcher and Dean of the School of Education at the Universidad de San Andrés, Argentina. Academic Director of the San Andrés Centre for Applied Research in Education (CIAESA). He works on comparative education policy in Latin America and as senior advisor for UNESCO in the region. He is also chair of the Educational Improvement SIG at the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES).