ABSTRACT
At one time in the not too distant past, studies which described efforts to improve schools and schooling were for the most part reports of attempts that failed or in some way fell short. Today that picture is changing. Case descriptions of successful school change now appear regularly. For example, the National Writing Project in the United States and the Young Writers Program in Canada, which involves teachers and students focusing on writing across all subjects, has, according to popular reports, produced dramatic results in improved teaching practice (Goldberg, 1984). Hechinger (1983), writing in the New York Times, reported that teachers not only swear by the programme, but argue that it has changed their entire attitude toward teaching. The encouraging aspect in this and other examples lies in the fac’ hat we can now examine success in school change and try to understand it, rather than, as was so often the case in the 1960s and 1970s, document our failures. A small but growing body of literature is now extant concerning what constitutes success in a school improvement project (Davis and Thomas, 1989; Fullan, 1985; Little, 1986; Huberman and Miles, 1986).
