ABSTRACT
A systems view comparing teachers in the national education system and that of a subsystem helped reveals different configurations of forces that shape teaching practices. By employing Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems lens combined with Orton and Weick’s concept of coupling, we found three major configurations of key forces that shaped teacher practices. These different configurations co-exist in a centralized system, in what could be referred to as “simultaneous couplings” or conditions when organizational elements vary in the looseness or tightness of their couplings depending on the fluctuating context of different relationships and situations. This chapter describes and discusses these different configurations and how teachers respond to these fluctuating forces in different ways. The insights provide a framework that can be utilized to discuss how education systems can be potentially configured to shape better teaching and learning practices, particularly in light of what actually happens in the classroom and the school.
