The purpose of this chapter is to present an extensive review of the literature regarding school autonomy. The chapter firstly provides a theoretical framework for school autonomy, including its definition, rationales, degrees, areas, and forms. The latter part of the chapter introduces empirical research on the impacts of school autonomy, specifically on four areas: educational processes, school structure, teachers, and school culture.
School Autonomy A Delineation of School Autonomy
The concept of school autonomy may be easily confused with other umbrella terms such as decentralization and school-based management. Educational
decentralization refers to the transfer of authority and responsibility from higher to lower hierarchical levels (Abulencia, 2012; Hanson, 1998; Iftene, 2014b; Karlsen, 2000) or between organizations at the same level (Hanson, 1998). In an administrative system, there are generally four authorities from the center to the periphery, namely central government; provincial, state, or regional governments; municipal, county, or district governments; and schools (McGinn & Welsh, 1999; Brown, 1990; Galtung, 1974). When power and responsibility are decentralized to lower levels in the continuum, one of these agencies will be in authority and have official power to make decisions in the
decentralized area. However, Christ & Dobbins (2016) warned that decentralization does not necessarily result in actual decision-making autonomy.One means of education decentralization is school-based management, which refers to a systematic and consistent decentralization of authority and responsibilities from higher levels to school level (Mehralizadeh, Sepace, & Atashfeshan, 2006; Osorio et al., 2009; Robertson & Kwong,
1994). Therefore, this study maintains that school autonomy is a result gained from education decentralization in general and school-based management in particular (R. H.
Heck, Brandon, & Wang, 2001). Although the concept of school autonomy and school-based management are not entirely homogenous, these terms are used interchangeably in this study (Abulencia, 2012; Contreas, 2015; Göksoy, 2014; Grauwe, 2005a; Sleegers &
Wesselingh, 1995).
While there are a variety of definitions mentioned in literature and policy documents (Ainley & McKenzie, 2000), throughout this study school autonomy is defined as the freedom and authority of schools to make decisions within a determined framework of goals, policies, standards and accountabilities (Caldwell, 2013; Honingh &
Urbanovic, 2013; Suggett, 2015). This definition is employed because it specifically focuses on two essential aspects of school autonomy. On the one hand, school autonomy refers to the freedom of schools to make decisions on matters of school strategies and operations (Carlos & Amsler, 1993; Y. C. Cheng, Ko, & T. T. H. Lee, 2016; Cribb &
Gewirtz, 2007; B. Jensen, 2013; Lai-ngok, 2004; Patrinos et al., 2015; Węziak-białowolska & Isac, 2014). This meaning might attribute to its origin in Greek:
‘autonomous’ means ‘having its own laws’ (Oxford Dictionary, 2017). Accordingly, school is a self-managed organization in which can introduce its own regulations in managing and operating school activities (Neeleman, 2019).
However, school autonomy relates to not only school authority but also
responsibilities in making decisions on school strategy and operation. International tests such as PISA and TALIS tend to use an index of school responsibilities as a definition of school autonomy. According to this view, one school is autonomous when school-level actors such as principals, teachers, non-teaching staff, and the school council have responsibilities for school tasks and these responsibilities are not shared with external
agents (Contreas, 2015; Dworkin, 2015; Eurydice, 2007; Xia, Gao, & Shen, 2017). This concept of school responsibility might also suggest another aspect of school autonomy as its capacity to exercise autonomy and fulfill responsibilities (Agasisti, Bonomi, &
Sibiano, 2012; Gawlik, 2008; Gargallo, 2013; Helgøy et al. 2007; Lundquist, 1987;
Rönnberg, 2007; Wohlsteter, Wenning, & Briggs, 1995). In short, authority and
responsibility are two inseparable elements of school autonomy (Caldwell, 2005, 2014;
David, 1989; Göksoy, 2014; Pont et al., 2008).
Tied to responsibilities, school autonomy does not mean a complete freedom but it is always located within a centrally or locally determined framework of regulations and standards. ‘Autonomy’ can be distinguished from ‘independence’ since the latter implies a complete absence of external constraint to schools’ freedom to act (Wohlstetter, 1995).
Therefore, the interpretation of school autonomy as ‘the power to govern without outside controls’ (Berdahl, 1990, p. 171) or ‘functioning without the control of others’ (Levacic, 2002, p. 187) seems to be inappropriate. This study does not contrast freedom with control, but they are linked concepts. ‘The interplay between control and autonomy is an inevitable and pervasive phenomenon’ (Cribb & Gewirtz, 2007, p. 210). When enjoying autonomy, schools might be free from the control and imposition of external actors at some certain respects (Chubb & Moe, 1990; Bulkley & Fisler, 2003; Newton & Costa, 2016; Wohlsteter et al., 1995). However, there is neither complete freedom nor full school autonomy in the public education system (Caldwell, 2014). ‘Autonomy cannot exist in a vacuum’ (Cribb & Gewirtz, 2007, p. 210) because it is always exercised within central, regional, or local frameworks of policies, standards, curriculum, and
accountability (Bracci, 2009; Caldwell, 2005, 2014, 2016; Caldwell & Spinks, 1988;
Cribb & Gewirtz, 2007; Erss, Kalmus, & Autio, 2016; Osorio et al., 2009; Toh, Hung, Chua, He, & Jamaludin, 2016; Wohlsteter et al., 1995). Hill and Bonan (1991) interpreted
school autonomy as a relative term by which not ‘all’ but ‘an increase in the number or importance’ (p. 16) of decisions were made by authority at the school level. Similarly, Węziak-białowolska & Isac (2014) suggested that school autonomy is just a ‘relative independence’ (p. 5) because even when a school is a self-managed organization, it must adopt laws, rules and regulations set by both the school itself and external bodies
(Dworkin, 2015). Moreover, school authority is not determined by the school but decentralized from higher governing bodies to the school (Y. C. Cheng & Ko, 2016;
Cribb & Gewirtz, 2007; Eurydice, 2007; Göksoy, 2014; Keddie, 2015a; T. Nguyen &
Pfleiderer, 2012; Whitty, 1997). Therefore, the degree of school autonomy always relates to the degree of state intervention (Hooge, 1995). Overall, there is not a complete school autonomy but freedom to act within the broader framework of regulations and standards.
The following sections will further reveal different aspects of school autonomy in terms of its objectives, degrees, areas, and forms.
The Aims of School Autonomy
School autonomy is not an end in itself but is used as a means for different purposes (Caldwell, 2016; L. Davies, Harber, & Dzimadzi, 2003). This section discusses the main aims of school autonomy based on the theoretical arguments of Altrichter &
Rürup (2010), Y. C. Cheng (1993), and Clausen, Winkler, & Maike (2007).
First, school autonomy is argued as a government strategy to increase the
decentralization of the education system (Altrichter & Rürup, 2010; Y. C. Cheng, 1993).
Under centralization, schools are strictly controlled by external authority via a top-down mechanism and standard procedures. However, education is a complex practice that is unsuitable to be produced and delivered efficiently in a centralized style (Y. C. Cheng, 1993; King & Guerra, 2005). In a changing environment, schools are heterogeneous in background, goals, practices, and students’ needs (Y. C. Cheng, 2000; Ng & Chan, 2008)
that might lead to different patterns of responses (Caldwell, 2005). A uniform policy imposed by bureaucratic hierarchies could be inappropriate with a variety of schools and constrain schools from creativity and responsiveness (Abulencia, 2012). Therefore, increasing school autonomy might overcome these shortcomings of centralization. This practice is named an optimization model (Altrichter & Rürup, 2010) and could be observed in some German-speaking countries (Altrichter & Rürup, 2010) or self-managing schools in Australia (Hamilton Associates, 2015).
Second, from a democratic point of view, school autonomy, which commonly links with institutional features such as community involvement or co-determination of the school board, is a prerequisite for gaining social participation and democracy in education (Altrichter & Rürup, 2010; Clausen et al., 2007). In this participation model (Altrichter & Rürup, 2010), empowering schools to have autonomy, indeed, amounts to the distribution of authority to all stakeholders in schools, including principals,
professional actors, students, parents, and the local community. When schools enjoy autonomy, all stakeholders must share authority and responsibility for every school decision (Malen et al., 1990). This is not to imply that all parties will always act in harmony but that the authority rests within the school community under a system of self-made rules to ensure that decisions can be self-made. The participation model is presented via school autonomy reforms in Europe since the 1980s (Eurydice, 2007), in Queensland (Burke, 1992), and the school-based management movement in Latin America (Grauwe, 2005b). Christ and Dobbins (2016) found that social democratic parties in England, Germany, Italy, and Sweden generally support the participation model with aims to increase political participation and democracy.
Third, school autonomy might be an effective strategy for both state and school in terms of economy (Y. C. Cheng, 1993; Clausen et al., 2007). Decreasing the control of
external governance authority might lead to a reduction of the size and cost of
maintaining the state governance system and then an increase in management efficiency (Caldwell, 2005). This purpose greatly influenced school autonomy reforms in the 1990s due to the flourishing of New Public Management (Eurydice, 2007). For schools, ‘the freer schools are from external control - the more autonomous, the less subject to
bureaucratic constraint - the more likely they are to have effective organizations’ (Chubb
& Moe, 1990, p. 187).
Fourth, historically, during the 19th century and throughout most of the 20th century, school autonomy was characterized in Europe as a strategy to gain teaching freedom (Eurydice, 2007). Most current school reforms employ school autonomy as a strategy to improve the quality of education, effectiveness and responsiveness of the school system (Eurydice, 2007; Osorio et al., 2009; Pont et al., 2008). This perspective might link to the principle of equifinality (Y. C. Cheng, 1993). In contrast to the traditional principle of standard structure that focuses on external control and central management, equifinality emphasizes flexibility in school management: ‘there should be many different ways to achieve policy goals’ (Y. C. Cheng, 1993, p. 9). Accordingly, when external agencies do not pay much attention to the process of carrying-out or ‘steer not row’ (Pollitt, 2000, p. 184), schools are able to be more flexible in devising school policies to achieve both school objectives and policy goals. Moreover, school autonomy relates to a transformation from ‘passive implementing system’ to a ‘self-managing system’ (Y. C. Cheng, 1993, p. 9). Traditionally, schools are considered as a tool of governing bodies to achieve educational goals and must passively comply with
regulations and standards mandated from higher governance. In contrast, the concept of self-managing school assumes school to be an active and independent organization.
Schools have local knowledge and are most informed of its needs and capacities (Y. C.
Cheng, 2000; Heredia-Ortiz, 2007; B. Jensen, 2013; Wößmann, 2003b) because principals, teachers, and educational staff are those who maintain closest day-to-day contact with students and know their students very well (Hill & Bonan, 1991). When a school is a primary unit of decision-making (David, 1989; Elmelegy, 2015; Karlsen, 2000; Malen et al., 1990; Osorio et al., 2009), it can formulate appropriate school-based policies to meet diverse expectations of target subjects and serve students better than when being passive to top-down commands (Bandur, 2012a; Y. C. Cheng, 1993; W. H.
Clune & White, 1988; R. H. Heck et al., 2001; Heredia-Ortiz, 2007; Ng & Chan, 2008;
Osorio et al., 2009). Furthermore, school autonomy might attribute to the ideology of human initiative (Y. C. Cheng, 1993). In a bureaucracy management, employees might work more in accordance with the precise structural system, well-defined goals, and central control. When there are problems, people tend to rely on external interventions rather than promote local initiatives. In contrast, school autonomy links to an interest in encouraging human creativity and professionalism of the school community (Caldwell, 2005). It fosters greater freedom and a sense of ownership in school management. Thus, school leaders and teachers are committed to experimenting with innovations and initiatives to deal with challenges and improve school outcomes (B. Jensen, 2013).
Last, school autonomy is an essential tool to increase school competitiveness and diverse school choice for parents and students. This competition model utilizes school autonomy as a tool to promote competition between schools and increase education choices for students (Altrichter & Rürup, 2010). This model reflects a market-oriented ideology that every school as a business operating in the market and parents have an exclusive right to choose schools for their children (Karlsen, 2000). Thus, school autonomy is a chance to differentiate themselves and compete with other schools to attract students. The competition between schools then generates momentum to raise
education quality and innovation (Buschor, 1998). Where schools charge fees, competition can drive down costs and improve efficiency, further benefiting the customers. The competition model can be founded at charter schools in the USA, free schools in Sweden, and the school autonomy movement in Ireland (Hamilton Associates, 2015; Irish Department of Education and Skills, 2015). Conservative parties in England, Germany, Italy, and Sweden are likely to adopt this competition model with specific objectives such as increasing school competition, school accountability, and efficiency (Christ & Dobbins, 2016).
In short, school autonomy is used in different settings for many purposes, such as realizing decentralization, encouraging stakeholder’s participation in school management, increasing state management efficiency, improving education quality, stimulating
competitions between schools, and giving parents more school choice (Smyth, 2011).
While these goals are the theoretical objectives, the following sections of this chapter will discuss the implementation of school autonomy and its impacts in practice.
Three Parameters of School Autonomy
School autonomy is a ‘multidimensional concept’ (Gawlik, 2007, p. 526) and more complicated than it is often portrayed (B. Jensen, 2013). Researchers have made considerable efforts to highlight diverse dimensions of school autonomy. Y. C. Cheng et al. (2016) offer a reconceptualization that refers to functional, structural, and cultural autonomy. Functional autonomy means functional areas of daily school practice where schools have the authority to make decisions. Structural autonomy refers to the structural level at which schools have the authority to make decisions. Finally, cultural autonomy, which is a newly added element in the conceptual framework, is defined as ‘the extent to which a school’s internal cultural profile and operational characteristics are in line with the theory and culture of school-based management’ (Y. C. Cheng et al., 2016, p. 184).
Grauwe (2005a) concerns with the two aspects of which decisions are transferred and who receives the authority. Other authors add that school autonomy should be explored in three dimensions namely: (i) loci and modes of autonomy; (ii) domains of autonomy; (iii) loci and modes of control (Cribb & Gewirtz, 2007; Karsten & Melter, 1999; Levacic, 1995). The first facet presents whose autonomy and how it is being exercised; the second one relates to areas over which autonomy is being exercised, and the last one refers to who are the agents of control, and how is their agency exercised. Caldwell (2013)
suggested an explanatory model with three dimensions on the extent of school autonomy, the extent of control over schools, and the outlook of a school or system. The
combination of these three dimensions creates eight types of schools with different degrees of autonomy, control, and outlook.
This study supports the framework of Scheerens and his colleagues to highlight school autonomy from three facets: the areas of autonomy, the actors or bodies in charge of decisions, and the degree of autonomy of these actors (Amelsvoort & Scheerens, 1997;
Scheerens & Maslowski, 2008). This framework is utilized because it focuses on three crucial questions of what, who, and how in investigating school autonomy.
The areas of school autonomy.
The areas of school autonomy relate to the concept of ‘functional decentralization’
(Bray, 1994, p. 819) or ‘functional autonomy’ (Y. C. Cheng et al., 2016, p. 180). It refers to concrete domains of decision-making in which schools have the authority to operate.
To illustrate these domains, most authors tend to list specific works in relation to which schools have and have not authority and responsibility. Extant literature shows that although authors may vary in categorization, they share consensus on the main areas of school autonomy, namely finance, human resources, and academic activities (Agasisti, Catalano, & Sibiano, 2013; Amelsvoort & Scheerens, 1997; Bulkley & Fisler, 2003;
Bullock & Thomas, 1997; Caldwell, 2008, 2014, 2016; David, 1989; Eskeland & Filmer, 2002; Finnigan, 2007; Grauwe, 2005a; Hanushek et al., 2013; Keddie, 2015a; Maslowski et al., 2007; T. Nguyen & Pfleiderer, 2012; Patrinos et al., 2015; Saarivirta &
Kumpulainen, 2016; Salokangas & Chapman, 2014; Sluis, Reezigt, & Borghans, 2017;
Solomou & Pashiardis, 2016; Winkler & Gershberg, 2000). Besides these three key sectors, some authors enlarge the scope of school autonomy to organizational issues such as school leadership, planning and structures, and school regulations (Amelsvoort &
Scheerens, 1997; Caldwell, 2008; Eskeland & Filmer, 2002; Nicolaidou Solomou &
Pashiardis, 2016; Winkler & Gershberg, 2000) or autonomy in relations with students’
parents (Eskeland & Filmer, 2002). It is worth noting that the areas of school autonomy might vary among different contexts depending on national or regional policies, historical features, and school settings (Y. C. Cheng et al., 2016). For this study, school autonomy covers three key domains (Amelsvoort & Scheerens, 1997):
The educational domain includes teaching and learning, student admission, assessment of student performance, curriculum development, and selecting or developing textbooks and educational materials.
The organizational and personnel domain includes recruiting and firing teachers and school staff, determining employee’s wages, teacher appraisal and promotion, and recruiting the principal (Grauwe, 2005b).
The financial domain refers to planning, mobilizing, and allocating the school budget. Some authors suppose that autonomy in control of finance is the most vital factor of school management (R. H. Heck et al., 2001;
Reezigt & Creemers, 2005)
The loci of decisions.
The second facet of school autonomy is the locus of decision taking. Being a complicated social system, a school is a collection of stakeholders in different roles, and in which one’s scope for decision-making might affect the work of others (Wermke &
Salokangas, 2015). Hence, the question on whose autonomy or in other words, the loci of decision making becomes a fundamental issue in the operation of school autonomy
(Bergh, 2015; Wermke & Salokangas, 2015). Y. C. Cheng and Cheung (2003) maintained that school autonomy is presented via three levels of organizational level (autonomy of a school), collective level (autonomy of board of the school, a group of teachers), and individual level (principal autonomy, teacher autonomy). These diverse layers illustrate the feature of ‘multi-level self-management’ of school autonomy (Y. C. Cheng &
Cheung, 2003; W. M. Cheung & Cheng, 1996). However, this study does not support the concept ‘the autonomy of a school’ in Y. C. Cheng and Cheung’s framework because autonomy is not granted to the whole school, but must belong to specific actors or bodies in that school (B. Jensen, 2013). In another classification, decision making authority could be distributed to people within the boundary of schools, such as principals, school council, teachers, and groups of teachers or to separate, external people and/or
organizations (Hindriks, Verschelde, Rayp, & Schoors, 2010). OECD (2011) classifies three levels of school autonomy according to the loci of decision-making as:
School authority or full school autonomy: authority is given to only principal and/or teachers. This notion is supported by Hindriks et al.
(2010) where these authors defined school autonomy as ‘the operational empowerment of principals and teachers’ (p. 1).
Mixed authority or partial school autonomy: authority is given to the principal and/or teachers, and regional and/or national education authority or school council.
External authority or no school autonomy: authority is given to only regional and/or national education governing bodies
According to the framework of OECD (2011), once authority is given to external bodies, it is unreasonable to label it as school autonomy. Therefore, in this study, the loci of decisions could be given to the principal, teachers or teacher groups, and the school council.
The degree of school autonomy.
The last facet of school autonomy is the degree of autonomy in decision-making at a particular domain. Most authors illustrate the degree of school autonomy via the extent that a school can freely make decisions. For instance, Caldwell (2008) suggested three levels of school autonomy are: (i) full autonomy at the level concerned, (ii)
consultation with other bodies at that level, and (iii) independent but within a framework set by a higher authority or other. Gawlik (2007) displayed school autonomy by a
continuum ranging from complete constraint to complete freedom. Similarly, Osorio et al.
(2009) investigated school-based management practice in various countries and illustrated school autonomy via an autonomy continuum with five scales and specific criteria
respectively, spanning from weak, moderate, somewhat strong, too strong, and very strong.
OECD (2003) reported that the degree of school autonomy depends on the governance model selected by the state. Schools could enjoy ‘substantive autonomy’ in the competitive market model since every school is an independent institution that competes with others for both students and funding. In the school empowerment model,
schools are still a part of the overall system and can act within a ‘devolved autonomy.’ In the local empowerment model of governance, schools can exercise a ‘consultative
autonomy’. Finally, if the government applies the quality control model, the school can only enjoy a ‘guided autonomy’ with limited authority and significant dependence on higher governing bodies.
Y. C. Cheng (2011) described the degree of school autonomy in evolution over wave paradigms of school leadership. In the first paradigm, when school management is under external control by a bureaucracy, schools can only enjoy a limited autonomy. In the second paradigm, thanks to school-based management reform, schools are granted a bound autonomy under central monitoring, accountability framework, and external review. Last, in the third paradigm, schools may have sufficient autonomy to achieve their own goals regarding regional and international benchmarking in management and educational practice.
This study employs the categorization of Eurydice (2007) to guide the discussion.
It should be noted that one school can adopt a mix of these degrees in different areas:
Full autonomy: schools make decisions in conformity with laws and general regulatory framework in the field of education, without the control and/or intervention of external agencies.
Limited autonomy: schools make decisions within a set of options predetermined by higher governance or seek approval for their decisions from governing bodies.
Discretionary delegation: schools are delegated authority in certain areas, but this authority might be revocable.
No autonomy: schools are not able to make decisions in a given area.
Furthermore, it is essential to distinguish school autonomy in de jure from in de facto. The former refers to the extent of school autonomy, which is legally regulated, whereas the latter concerns with the degree of actual autonomy in practice (Aoki, 2010).
De jure autonomy is significantly essential since it sets a legally firm foundation for the scope of school autonomy. However, de jure autonomy might not necessarily lead to actual authority on the ground, which tends to be more significant (King & Ozler, 2005).
Therefore, the term ‘autonomy gap’ is used to express the gap between these two
concepts (Adamowski, Therriault, & Cavanna, 2007). The greater emphasis of this study is placed on de facto autonomy.
Contextualizing School Autonomy in International Practice
In international practice, increasing school autonomy has been a prominent trend in both developed and developing countries since the 1980s (Bandur, 2012a). Keddie (2015a) observes a movement in Western countries towards an increasingly decentralized education system over the 1980s and 1990s, notably charter schools and the autonomous public school system in the US and granted maintained schools in the UK. Other
examples are independent schools in the Netherlands, school autonomy reform in Italy (Bracci, 2009; Grimaldi & Serpieri, 2014), the Friskola movement of Sweden (Wermke
& Salokangas, 2015), the school-based management movement in New Zealand, self-managing schools (Caldwell & Spinks, 1988) and then independent public schools (Trimmer, 2013) in Australia, school-based management reform in Canada (Thompson et al., 2016), partly autonomous schools in Switzerland (Hangartner & Svaton, 2013), and autonomous schools in Ireland (Skerritt, 2019). In German-speaking countries, school autonomy has been a declared reform policy since the first half of the 1990s (Altrichter &
Rürup, 2010).
Besides this, school autonomy has been a vital element of education reform in many Asian developed countries, for example the School Management Initiative in Hong Kong (Ng & Chan, 2008), specialist schools in Taiwan (Chin & Chuang, 2014),
autonomous schools in Israel (Nir, David, Bogler, Inbar, & Zohar, 2016), independent schools and then autonomous schools in Singapore (Ng & Chan, 2008), and school autonomy reform in Japan (Kudomi, Hosogane, & Inui, 1999). At the same time, school autonomy has also increasingly become one prioritized policy in many other countries.
Bandur (2012b) observes that the Indonesian government has increasingly transferred power and authority to the school level. Being inspired by the charter school system in the US, Qatar has begun to transform toward a government-supported independent school model (Cheema, 2015; Guarino & Tanner, 2012). Other examples of school autonomy reforms can be found in the Philippines (Abulencia, 2012), Cyprus (Theodorou &
Pashiardis, 2015), Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras (Bruns et al., 2011) Although the individual histories and characteristics of each of these schools extend beyond the scope of this study, in brief, school autonomy is a common strategy in many countries, and the introduction of school autonomy in public systems generally accompanies a specific school type (Suggett, 2015). The following section introduces key features of schools from the view of schools as organizations.
School Organization
Public schools are organizations of the public sector, funded from the public budget, and operated according to the expectations of state and society about education (Klein, 2013). There are several features which distinguish schools from other
organizations (Greenfield, 1995). First, schools are uniquely moral institutions as the central moral obligation of schools and teachers is to contribute positively to the intellectual, social, emotional, and physical development of students. They can also be
said to be political institutions as they prepare students to take their place in the existing socio-political order. Second, schools are the working place of a highly educated and permanent teaching workforce. As professional educators, teachers should enjoy relative autonomy in their daily work and a low interdependency to accomplish tasks. Third, schools are extremely open and vulnerable to their external environment (Greenfield, 1995).Teachers, students and their parents all have connections with the wider
community which can bring social, economic and political influences to bear on school life. Like other organizations, schools might be threatened by regular or unpredictable changes from outside. Moreover, schools must often deal with conflicting goals of
professional performance and community expectations while they have limited autonomy to decide how the school will be organized, whom the school will serve, or how to
generate necessary resources. Therefore, the work context of schools is increasingly ambiguous and sometimes unpredictable (Greenfield, 1995).
The literature presents many approaches in investigating elements within-school organization. Kurt, Duyar, & Çalik (2012) emphasized three dimensions of individual, organization, and leadership in a school. Y. C. Cheng and Cheung (2003) argued that the profile of self-managing schools is formed at the individual level, group level, and organizational level. Dalin (2005) pointed out that the critical factors of a school are school surroundings, strategies, structure, relationships, and values. Based on the study of Braun, Ball, Maguire, & Hoskins (2011), Keddie (2014) offered a theoretical explanation of how schools approach and respond to school autonomy. This framework includes (i) situated factors like student intake, school history; (ii) professional factors like teacher values and school ethics; (iii) material factors like school staff, budget, and infrastructure;
and (iv) external factors like pressures and expectations from local and national governing bodies. Keddie (2014) argued that contextual factors determine the position of a school,
and these factors will drive how the school takes up granted autonomy. Therefore, school autonomy can be experienced in different ways in different school settings (Caldwell, 2016; Keddie, 2014). In general, schools include personal and organizational strategy or goals, school people, formal and informal structures, school systems, activities of members, and school culture (Härtel et al., 2007; Kieser & Walgenbach, 2010; Stone, 2005). Every element ‘makes different contributions to the overall operation of one school’ (Barr & Dreeben, 2012, p. 136).
Throughout this study, the school organization includes four key elements, namely: educational processes, school structure, teachers, and school culture (Everard, Morris, & Wilson, 2004) because this concept covers the most critical elements of school organization. Moreover, this concept reflects the complexity and interconnectedness of these factors while not ignoring the goal diversity and the relative autonomy of
individuals and groups within the school (Ball, 1987).
Educational Processes
Educational processes are considered as the central element of a school, including two main activities of curriculum development and teaching and learning (Amelsvoort &
Scheerens, 1997; Gargallo, 2013; Pont et al., 2008). Curriculum development is defined as the planning, designing, implementation, evaluation, and documenting of teaching and learning episodes (Salkind, 2008). In the context of this study, school autonomy in curriculum development might relate to the concept of school-based curriculum
development (Bezzina, 1989; Bolstad, 2004). Schools can create new curricular, adapting existing curricular, or adopting an existing curriculum (Bezzina, 1989). Bolstad (2004) argued that a centralized curriculum is too slow to respond to changing social and educational environment. Moreover, arguably, teachers know best about their students’
needs and school resources. They should be not only transmitters of knowledge but also