A Capital Theory of School Effectiveness and Improvement

A new theory of school effectiveness and improvement is outlined, based on the master concepts of intellectual capital, social capital and leverage, linked with the conventional concept of institutional outputs. Each master concept is deŽ ned in terms of two subsidiary concepts. Twelve speciŽ cally educational concepts are set within this framework to provide the theory. It is proposed that, through a simpliŽ ed model, the range and fertility of the theory can be exempliŽ ed and tested in three speciŽ c cases—the changing nature of school effectiveness and improvement in knowledge economies, citizenship education and teacher effectiveness. Introduction: the Need for Better Theory Since the publication in 1979 of Fifteen Thousand Hours by Michael Rutter and his associates, the Ž elds of school effectiveness and, later, of school improvement, have been dominated, at least in Britain and much of the English-speaking world, by the model (rather than an explicit theory) on which this pioneering study relied. The book’s fame depended in part on the prominence it gave to the concept of school ethos; though the research had not aimed to measure school ethos, the concept was invoked to make sense of the correlations between a number of school-related process variables and four educational outcome variables. These correlations formed the core of what became the conventional model, one with surprisingly little theoretical elaboration. The accumulated results of this line of enquiry have been recently summarised (Sammons et al., 1995) in terms of 11 characteristics of effective schools. Despite being attacked as platitudinous or tautological, the Ž ndings are reasonably robust. It may be fruitful to treat the model’s limitations as desiderata for a better model, as follows. · A model should derive from a theory: it must be more than a set of measured variables that correlate with measured outcomes. A useful theory contains a relatively small set of concepts in explicit relationships, and measured variables should be capable of being contained within the concepts. When integrated into a coherent whole, the Received 10 October 2000; resubmitted 12 February 2001; accepted 1 March 2001. ISSN 0141-1926 (print)/ISSN 1469-3518 (online)/01/040487-17 Ó2001 British Educationa l Research Association DOI: 10.1080/0141192012007148 9 488 D. H. Hargreaves concepts become a theory from which testable hypotheses can be derived to guide research. · Concepts which are basic to educational discourse, such as curriculum, must Ž nd a place in the theory, since what is taught in school cannot be ignored. The curriculum cannot be divorced from the goals of schools and thus has a legitimate place in any theory of effectiveness. Re ecting such goals, educational outcomes need to be fully explicated. Since 1979, the outcomes that specify the effective school have been progressively narrowed and in many studies are reduced to test results of academic knowledge. These are important measures of schooling, but not the only outcome that matters. An educational theory with an excessive or exclusive focus on the cognitive is impoverished. · It would be advantageous if a model could be derived from a common theoretical base for both school effectiveness and school improvement. A key idea for linking school effectiveness to school improvement is that of capacity for improvement, which is assumed to characterise a school that sustains its effectiveness by successfully managing change in a context of instability and reform. Attempts to deŽ ne this capacity usually invoke additional variables—for example, a commitment to staff development or a culture of enquiry—rather than building capacity into the concepts which deŽ ne effectiveness itself. This short article attempts to deal with some limitations of the conventional model, whilst retaining some of the input–process–output features, by providing a theory of a limited yet integrated set of concepts from which a better working model can be derived. First, some clariŽ cation of basic concepts is in order. An Outline of the Theory The theory has four master concepts—outcomes, leverage, intellectual capital and social capital—only the Ž rst of which is central to the conventional model. The following deŽ nitional statements may be regarded as testable hypotheses. The outcomes of a school represent both the extent to which its overt goals are achieved and any unintended consequences of the processes involved. Outcomes are assumed to be principally of two broad kinds: cognitive and moral, deŽ ned here in essentially Aristotelian ways. For Aristotle, the very purpose of the state—and thus of its institutions—is to enable its citizens to lead the good life. On his view, it is eudaimonia, the Greek word usually translated into English as happiness, but perhaps better rendered as well-being, which is the complete end or purpose of life. Eudaimonia is not a state of mind or set of feelings, but a quality of conduct or disposition to act in a certain way. Well-being consists in virtuous activity. Here we meet a second intractable problem of translation: the Greek arete, usually translated as virtue, is perhaps better rendered as excellence. In Artistotle’s view, there are two kinds of excellence, namely intellectual excellences, such as science, art and practical wisdom; and moral excellences, such as courage, justice and self-control. (In today’s terms, intellectual excellences include many forms of knowledge, skill and understanding; and moral excellences include many aspects of social and emotional life.) A person’s excellences are not so much a matter of his or her capacities as how they have chosen to be and to act. The purpose of education is to initiate the young into these excellences, through which they acquire the disposition to make sound intellectual and moral judgements and choices. From their teachers’ example and their own habits based on A New Theory of School Effectiveness and Improvement 489