Abstract:

As countries strive to improve the quality of their education systems it is increasingly important to understand the systemic change process. Systemic change moves the focus of education change from the unit of the school to large-scale change at the level of the district, province or state. By influencing change at larger levels of the system such as a school district, the pace of change is accelerated. Furthermore, the systemic approach is premised upon improving all schools in a system rather than being satisfied with pockets of excellence. The main aim of this paper is to fully explore the concept of systemic change and provide a systemic change framework for educationists, practitioners and researchers. The discussion elucidates various system theory concepts and principles, as well as conveys the approaches of various system theorists including seminal theorists such as Banathy, Ackoff, Sarason and Senge. A secondary aim is to apply the systemic change framework to a research problem in education, which involves interrogating a systemic change venture at the level of a school district. Thus, the paper will further demonstrate how the framework can be applied to research in education.

Keywords:

Systemic change, large-scale change, education change, systemic change framework, school district, systems theory.