ABSTRACT
The concept of school improvement has a long history with origins in different theoretical and ideological frameworks from those that have traditionally framed the school effectiveness paradigm. This chapter locates the evaluative basis of educational change and development during the 1960s and 1970s and highlights its grounding, historically, in a process of reflexive institutional change. This discussion is followed by an examination of the shifts in meanings that have taken place in the conceptualization of school improvement in the aftermath of the 1988 Education Act.
