School Reform, Culture and School Leaders in Asia
Understanding the Connection
Umiati Jawas
Faculty of Language and Literature, Universitas Kanjuruhan Malang, Indonesia
Keywords: Culture, School Leaders, School Reform, Asia.
Abstract: Empirical studies on school reform have indicated the need to explore change process taking place during
reform in relation to its socio-cultural contexts. The Western framework of change process is seen to have
limited cultural validity when applied in different contexts. In Asian contexts, socio-culture has a main
influence in defining successful implementation of reform efforts. In addition, empirical studies have shown
that school leaders do have an important role in making school reform happen by creating structural and socio-
cultural processes that develop the capacity of schools for improvement. In brief, it can be said that there is a
close connection among school reform, culture, and school leaders. This article tries to explain the influence
of culture on school reform efforts in Asia and how such circumstance affects the role of school leaders.
1 INTRODUCTION
These past decades have witnessed consistent and
global efforts by educational policy makers to reform
schools. These reform efforts aim to improve school
effectiveness to provide better learning for students
(Leithwood and Day, 2008; Pont et al., 2008;
Robinson, 2010). The OECD defines school reform
as a change in learning conditions and other related
internal conditions through a systematic, sustained
effort to accomplish educational goals more
effectively (Velzen et al., 1985). This definition
implies that the reform qualifies if changes happen at
school as a whole and to all aspects such as structures,
processes, and climate, which lead to a pedagogical
change (Dalin, 2005). School reform is also
described as a strategy to enhance student outcomes
(Hopkins et al., 1994). Those definitions above imply
that school reform is about raising student
achievement through providing quality education.
2 SCHOOL REFORM IN GLOBAL
CONTEXT
These past decades have witnessed consistent and
global efforts by educational policy makers to reform
schools. These reform efforts aim to improve school
effectiveness to provide better learning for students
(Leithwood and Day, 2008; Pont et al., 2008;
Robinson, 2010). The OECD defines school reform
as a change in learning conditions and other related
internal conditions through a systematic, sustained
effort to accomplish educational goals more
effectively (Velzen et al., 1985). This definition
implies that the reform qualifies if changes happen at
school as a whole and to all aspects such as structures,
processes, and climate, which lead to a pedagogical
change (Dalin, 2005). School reform is also
described as a strategy to enhance student outcomes
(Hopkins et al., 1994). Those definitions above imply
that school reform is about raising student
achievement through providing quality education.
To achieve the desired quality education, many
governments around the world have redefined their
approaches to reform schools. In some parts of the
world, centralization of education has re-emerged.
Countries such as Australia, previously known for
their strong practices of decentralization, have
become more centralized. In other parts of the world,
there has been a noticeable resurgence of education
decentralization. Countries which used to be
centralized like Indonesia are now implementing
policies of decentralization. These changing
approaches to reforming schools have brought
significant development in the field of education. The
most obvious to notice is the redefinition of authority
given to schools, resulting in a balanced and
distributed role between central government and local
Jawas, U.
School Reform, Culture and School Leaders in Asia - Understanding the Connection.
In Proceedings of the Annual Conference on Social Sciences and Humanities (ANCOSH 2018) - Revitalization of Local Wisdom in Global and Competitive Era, pages 429-433
ISBN: 978-989-758-343-8
Copyright © 2018 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved
429

schools in both decentralized and centralized systems
(Dalin, 2005). Democratization of school systems
through stronger participation of school stakeholders
in school decision-making and the simplification and
de-bureaucratization of school administrations are the
tangible proof of the shared role (Dalin, 2005).
Although the literature systematically examining
the processes and outcomes of school reform efforts
has grown enormously over the past decades, there
has been very little direct observational data to
document how schools change from being less to
more effective in educating their students
(McDougall et al., 2007). The empirical basis for
understanding the actual process of school reform is
very limited. Few studies have examined the effects
of reform models within experimental or quasi-
experimental research designs that would provide
clear conclusions about the effects of reform models
on student learning outcomes. Even fewer studies
have looked directly at the process of reform to
examine prospectively the dynamics of leading
school reform (McDougall et al., 2007). Without
detailed knowledge of how schools change, the
knowledge about why school reform efforts obtain
the results they do will remain incomplete (Desimore,
2002; McDougall et al., 2007).
In addition to the shortage of empirical studies on
how schools improve their learning performance and
how reform models affect student outcomes, there is
also the concern of existing bias in the conclusions of
the empirical studies. Most published research has
been done in countries where English is a common
language and research on schools has been
systematically organized in databases for years. The
presentation of results from the conducted research
can be biased and subjective to these contexts (Dalin,
2005). More importantly, the Western framework is
seen to have a limitation of cultural validity when
applied in different contexts (Cravens and Hallinger,
2012; Hallinger and Kantamara, 2000). This
condition has led to the need to conduct more research
on an international scale to get cross-cultural studies
on school reform. Once this is accomplished, further
progress to understand school reform can be done
(Dalin, 2005).
3 SCHOOL REFORM,
LEADERSHIP, AND SOCIO-
CULTURAL CONTEXT
The implementation of school reform has brought a
substantial recognition of effective school leadership
practices in managing school change. Effective
school leadership has been described as a powerful
medium in making reform efforts possible
(Leithwood et al., 2008). Accumulating research
evidence has shown a growing confidence in the role
of effective school leadership as a key to both
continuous improvement and major system
transformation in schools (Bush, 2003; Leithwood
and Riehl, 2003; Southworth, 2005). School reform
requires the presence of effective school leadership as
it facilitates mediating variables such as teacher
motivation, classroom activities, school culture and
organizational direction, all of which affect teaching
and learning and influence student outcomes
(Chapman, 2003; Day et al., 2008; Harris, 2008,
2002).
Empirical studies have shown that school leaders
have an important role in making school reform
happen by creating structural and socio-cultural
processes that develop the capacity of schools for
improvement (Chen, 2008; Fullan, 2007; Hallinger
and Heck, 2010). Effective school leadership defines
school capacity for reform through the development
of a set of structural and socio-cultural processes
(Chen, 2008; Robinson et al., 2008; Southworth,
2002). Such leadership is required to face the
dynamic complexity of school reform and it cannot
be reduced by mechanisms such as committees,
standardized operating procedures, or participative
decision-making (Chen, 2008). As change agents,
school leaders develop school capacity to manage
change and increase organizational productivity to
restructure schools (Chen, 2008; Fullan, 2007;
Hallinger and Kantamara, 2000). Their role is of
importance, despite current trends toward emergent
models of relational leadership such as facilitative
and transformative (Fullan, 2007; Leithwood et al.,
1999).
For reform to take place, change is introduced and
implemented to all school aspects and incorporates
other factors that may determine desired pedagogical
improvement (Dalin, 2005). Therefore, to initiate
school reform, a holistic approach should develop and
connect all levels of the internal system to the external
system that they interact with (Elmore, 2000). In
addition, reform depends not only on the educational
context of a certain effort, but also on wider contexts
of political, social, economic, cultural and
demographic factors (OECD Report, 1989 cited in
Dalin, 2005) and requires a collaborative process
between the schools and their wider communities
(Sergiovanni, 2001; Dalin et al., 1994). Therefore, the
focus of school reform efforts should be derived from
contextual factors existing within a given school at a
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given time (Ainscow and West, 2006; Harris and
Chrispeels, 2006). These context-specific
characteristics will determine successful
implementation of reform efforts (Datnow et al.,
2002; Elmore, 2000; Harris, 2008).
4 SCHOOL REFORM IN ASIAN
CONTEXT
There has been a growing need to conduct
comparative study of education systems between
Western and Eastern contexts (Chen, 2008; Cheng,
2000; Cravens and Hallinger, 2012; Hallinger, 2010;
Hallinger and Heck, 2010; Hallinger and Kantamara,
2000; Sofo et al., 2012). Such need is driven by the
remarkable achievement of students from particular
Asian countries (Cravens and Hallinger, 2012; Sofo,
et al., 2012). Result of PISA 2015 shows contries
such as Singapore, Japan, Taiwan, Macao, Viet Nam,
Hong Kong, and South Korea have continue to be the
top performers above OECD average particularly in
mathematics and sciences (Cravens and Hallinger,
2012; OECD, 2016). Therefore, there has been an
accumulating research interest in exploring the role of
school leadership in educational change in Asian
context.
Although there are some similarities of
educational reform across West and East, Asian
context is quite disctinctive in relation to its socio-
culture. Two key cultural challenges of school reform
in Asia are power gaps and value mismatches
(Cravens and Hallinger, 2012; Hallinger and Heck,
2010). Large power gaps can serve to accelerate
change in some circumstances, through enhanced
compliance or take-up of initiatives; but this may not
be the case when the reforms are more complex and
require a greater degree of autonomy (Hallinger and
Heck, 2010; Hallinger and Kantamara, 2000).
Although the reform policies and programs have tried
to accommodate the strengths of West cultures into
Asian traditions, some inherent cultural influences are
difficult to eliminate from the tensions that emerge
from some of the educational policies and introduced
programs (Ee and Seng, 2008).
The initiative of school reform in Asia is primarily
driven by the proposition that educational reform has
to feature a multicultural education format that can
transform curricular content and process (Banks and
Banks, 2004; Nieto, 2002). The students are expected
to be able to surpass ethnic identity, self-concept, and
personal viewpoint about life and create attitudes that
would make them more tolerant to new experiences
and help develop broader perspectives (Nieto, 2002).
Empirical studies have confirmed that the ability of
school leaders to create socio-cultural processes is
crucial to developing school capacity for academic
improvement (Fullan, 2007; Hallinger and Heck,
2010; Leithwood et al., 1999). In Asian contexts,
school leaders need to be competent in leading
various polarized students from diverse and culturally
ethnocentric societies (Malakolunthu, 2009). For any
large scale change or transformation programs, this
competence becomes paramount for the achievement
of the necessary results (Malakolunthu, 2009).
Scholars have argued for a more holistic
understanding of the cultural factors at play in
educational reform, suggesting that any framework
should specifically account for societal, community,
school, and classroom influences (Cheng, 2000; Sofo,
et al., 2012). Cultural norms provide those in the
leadership level with more significant positions,
power and informal authority and the opportunity to
catalyze and sustain the change process (Cheng,
2000; Chen, 2008; Hallinger and Heck, 2010;
Hallinger and Kantamara, 2000). However, the
obligation to comply with this culturally-embedded
power and authority can create surface politeness and
passive resistance among staff (Hallinger and Heck,
2010; Hallinger and Kantamara, 2000). Therefore, it
becomes important for leaders to transform cultural
norms by reducing the power distance between them
and their followers to initiate stimulus for change
(Hallinger and Kantamara, 2000).
There are four identified tensions that are intrinsic
in the Asian education system: diversity versus
uniformity in school choice, national syllabi and
examinations; autonomy versus control on quality
assurance; innovation versus conservation where
academic performance remains a measure of success
built in a drilling and testing environment; and equity
versus elitism in the implementation of meritocracy
and absence of affirmative action policies, resulting
in ethnic-based preferential treatment both socio-
economically and educationally (Tan, 2007). The
implications for school leaders will depend on their
ability to make judgments on moral issues as
education becomes more complex and schools are to
work close to the boundaries of established rules and
values (Ee and Seng, 2008). As there will be more
predicaments and trade-offs in the education system,
managing educational reform requires a delicate
balancing act (Ee and Seng, 2008). Leaders must be
thoughtful in exercising autonomy intelligently to
ensure that the educational foundations are firm (Ee
and Seng, 2008).
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431

5 CONCLUSIONS
Nevertheless, empirical studies have shown that the
dynamic complexity of school reform in Asian
contexts signifies the importance of leadership and
skilled leaders (Hallinger and Heck, 2010; Sofo et al.,
2012). This requirement cannot be reduced by
mechanisms such as committees, standardized
operating procedures, or participative decision-
making (Chen, 2008).Research has suggested that
skilled school leaders are more likely to be able to
initiate school change and make their reform efforts
successful (Chen, 2008). A key conclusion is that
understanding the nuances of reform in a non-
Western context has much to teach us about the
immense influence of culture and the embedded roles
of leaders within the culture.
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