Open Access“The Road Not Taken” – Israeli Teachers’ Reactions to Top-Down Educational Reform
Author(s) -
Roxana G. Reichman,
Shlomit Artzi
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
the qualitative report
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.335
H-Index - 35
ISSN - 2160-3715
DOI - 10.46743/2160-3715/2012.1743
Subject(s) - opposition (politics) , the internet , teacher education , christian ministry , pedagogy , sociology , political science , education reform , public relations , primary education , politics , law , world wide web , computer science
The authors have investigated teachers’ reactions towards an imposed reform initiated by the Israeli Ministry of Education in collaboration with one of two teachers’ unions based on the messages and letters sent by high school teachers to an internet forum during a teachers’ strike which took place between October and December of 2007. This study is the result of collaborative work between a teacher educator and a veteran teacher studying towards her Master of Education degree in Learning and Instruction. The research question was: What were the teachers’ attitudes regarding the “New Horizon” reform as conveyed on an internet forum during the strike? The article focuses on the teachers’ opposition to the proposed reform. The authors explore the use of the internet for sustaining this strike while also discussing the methodological issues related to this type of analysis and relation to collaborative research. Recommendations are suggested for successful implementation of educational reforms.