Building education groups as school collaboration for education improvement: a case study of stakeholder interactions in District A of Chengdu

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https://doi.org/10.1007/s12564-021-09682-0

Building education groups as school collaboration for education improvement: a case study of stakeholder interactions in District A of Chengdu

Jing Liu¹

Received: 10 November 2020 / Revised: 2 March 2021 / Accepted: 3 March 2021 / Published online: 15 March 2021

Abstract

School collaboration has become a popular approach for education improvement in global education reform. This study examined the dynamics of stakeholder school collaboration in China to improve public education using a case study focused on an Education Group government initiative in Chengdu, China. Frist an introduction to a global reform for education improvement through school collaboration is given, followed by a review of global reform for school collaboration and Hargreaves and Shirley’s discussion on design and innovation for school networks and collaboration to visualize the framework for the interpretation of the stakeholders’ school collaborative interactions. Then, the school collaboration for education improvement in China is examined in detail based on 20 interviews with stakeholders from educational authorities, the lead and member schools involved in the establishment of the Education Groups in Chengdu, China. The interviews were designed based on a review of policy documents about construction of the Education Groups in Chengdu. The findings revealed that the establishment of the Education Groups in Chengdu was driven by both top-down initiatives and bottom-up innovations, and while there had been some success in improving education quality in the lower performing schools, the stakeholder interactions had been hindered by the lack of policy coordination within and beyond the education reforms. It was concluded that a collective institutional context was needed to foster the shared values and trust needed between all stakeholders and promote the sustainable reform of the Education Groups to ensure education equity and quality.

Keywords Education improvement · School collaboration · Education Groups · Interaction · Policy coordination · China

Introduction

With the failure of marketization and standardization in education reform, since the 1990s, network-based school- to-school collaboration has become a popular education improvement approach (Muijs et al., 2011), with many countries having already adopted various networks or school collaboration forms to improve educational outcomes. For example, the UK government implemented several networking initiatives, such as Excellence in Cities, the Leadership Initiative Grant, school federations, and chains of schools and academies to encourage schools to work together for continuous improvement (Armstrong & Ainscow, 2018;

Chapman & Muijs, 2013; Hadfield & Chapman, 2009; Har- greaves & Shirley, 2009; OECD 2012). In 2006, the French government launched its Ambition Success Network program to improve the education quality in disadvantaged schools, which involved assigning supplementary teachers to the selected schools within each network (Beffy & Dav- ezies, 2013). The Alberta Initiative for School Improve- ment in Canada involved encouraging the schools involved in the project to work together, share experiences, and cre- ate professional learning communities to engender innovation (Hargreaves & Shirley, 2012). In 1997, the Singapore government adopted a School Cluster system to strengthen the autonomy, flexibility, efficiency, and effectiveness of the public school system and encourage mutual support, collaboration and sharing to improve educational outcomes in the schools within the same cluster (Yong, 2006), and through its Program of Improving the Quality of Education for All for school improvement, Hong Kong encouraged school collaborations and partnerships (West & Ainscow, 2010). In the

* Jing Liu

jing.liu.e8@tohoku.ac.jp

1 Graduate School of Education, Tohoku University, 27-1 Kawauchi, Aoba-ku, Sendai 9808576, Japan

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1990s, Nagaoka City, Japan, established a school network to accommodate the student demand for hobbies and interests (Liu, 2018a), and since the late 1990s, there has been a network for school as a learning community initiative in Japan, which actively promotes collaborative learning in the classroom, and encourages the establishment of a professional learning community and collegiality between teachers and school staff and participatory teaching and learning from parents and communities in the involved schools and teachers (Sato, 2012).

In China’s context, school collaboration, in general, refers to school-to-school support through sharing various forms of educational resources, such as school facilities, human resources, and experiences. Such practices received increasing attention after Shanghai was recognized as one of the world’s highest performing education systems in the 2009 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).

As part of its public education reform in 2007 to improve the education quality, the Shanghai government had adopted

“entrusted management” and “bundled school management”

for low-performing schools by pairing them with high- performing schools (Jensen & Farmer, 2013; Liang et al., 2016; OECD, 2011; Tan, 2013; Zhou & Deng, 2019). In recent years, collaborations between high-performing and low-performing schools have become a common approach in China to encourage education improvement, with other local governments launching similar strategies to Shanghai to promote school collaboration, narrow the school gap, and accommodate the rise in the public’s demand for quality education. Specifically, local governments have started promoting the establishment of Education Groups between high-performing and low-performing schools in the same district and/or in different districts, and some have launched school alliances between high-performing and low-performing schools and established 9-year school systems through the merger of primary and secondary schools in the same district. These diverse school-to-school collaboration or network forms share the same basic ideology, brand, resources and development experience, with the aims being to improve public education quality and expand access to quality education resources (Gu et al., 2017; Liu, 2018a, b).

While school-to-school collaborations for educational change in China have been recognized as an effective education improvement solution, the stakeholder interactions remain unclear and the innovative strategies to improve public education have not been comprehensively compared with similar strategies around the world. Therefore, to go some way to addressing this research gap, this paper examined the stakeholder interactions in school-to-school collaborations through a case study on the development of specific Education Groups in Chengdu, China, to reveal the similarities and differences between the Chengdu case and others around the world. The Education Groups in this study were

government-initiated school-to-school collaborations that involved high-performing schools that shared their school brand, education concepts, management know-how, leadership, curriculum, teaching resources, and educational technology with member public schools located in the same area to enhance the overall education quality (Shi & Xu, 2011).

The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. First, a brief introduction to Hargreaves and Shirley’s discussion on design and innovation for school networks and collaboration is given to elucidate a framework for the interpretation of the stakeholder school collaborations, after which the shifts in the school-to-school collaboration policies in China are reviewed. Then, the research methodology is detailed and the results presented, in which the focus is on the stakeholders’ interactions when establishing the Educa- tion Groups in District A in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China. In the final section of the paper, the school-to-school collaboration similarities and differences between China and global examples are compared and discussed.

Literature review on school collaboration

A literature review on a global discussion on school-to- school collaboration shows it is a complementary approach which provides resources, knowledge, skills through collaboration between high-and low-performing schools. And research indicate positive impact of the collaboration on school improvement, such as improvement of student outcomes, improvement of capacity building of teachers and professional development, and enhancement of resource sharing (Ainscow et al., 2006, 2020; Armstrong et al., 2021; Liu, 2018a; Mujis, 2015). Notwithstanding, research show school collaboration has influence on school auto- mony, power balance between schools in school collbaotion (Armstrong, 2015; Hayes & Lynch, 2013; Liu, 2018a; Muijs et al., 2011). Moreoover, researchers highlight the importance of trust and clear communication between stakholders in school collaboration (Armstrong et al., 2021; Liu, 2018a).

The marketised education system that encourages competition among schools is also a major barrier for collaboration beteen schools (Keddie, 2015).

In a review of the global education change practices, Hargreaves and Shirley (2009, 2012) constructed a list of the general principles for education improvement, which included inclusive and inspirational policies, professional expertise considerations, and effective partnering between the stakeholders; teachers, school leaders, parents, communities, and local governments. It was concluded that global educational network improvement depended on the development of mutual trust between all stakeholders, a focused culture of improvement by the strong to help the weak, and

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community development, engagement, and empowerment (Hargreaves & Shirley, 2009, 2012).

In contrast to educational change, which emphasizes standardization and competition, there has been an increase in discussions on the need for collaboration and partnership to engender school improvements. In their discussion on the Fourth Way of educational change, Hargreaves and Shirley (2009) suggested that to improve public education there needed to be an interactive guiding partnership between the government and an engaged public, for which they outlined partnership principles that emphasized professional cultures of trust, cooperation, and responsibility, and in particular, close mutual trust relationships between districts and schools, professional peer and mentor networking, improvement cultures where the strong assist the weak, and community development, engagement, and empowerment.

Network approaches such as school-to-school collaborations have been popular educational improvement methods in recent education reforms. Hargreaves and Shirley (2009) claimed that the most effective networks involved both innovation and design, with the former generating open and free interactions between stakeholders, and the latter shaping the interaction pathways in the desired direction. They also emphasized that effective school improvement networks required a balance between design and emergence, that is, if there is no clear design or shared purpose, while the stakeholder innovations may be diverse, they may not necessarily be effective, and if the design is too restrictive, stakeholder innovation could be suppressed and the network only func- tioning to implement government policies (Fig. 1). Overall, it is essential that the government be a supporter rather than a controller of the network as the government needs to leave enough space and time for the stakeholders in the network to transform the teaching and learning through the development of a culture of shared responsibility and collaboration across the network (Hargreaves & Shirley, 2009).

Therefore, based on this balance between design and networking emergence, this paper examined the shaping of the stakeholder interactions when establishing Education Groups to elucidate a conceptual framework that visualized these interactions. By adopting the discussion above, this

study has potential to present a concise interpretation on diverse interactions among stakeholders in balancing policy and innovation to build school collaboration for education improvement in China’s context which has not been deeply investigated and connected to a global discussion on school collaboration.

School‑to‑school collaboration in china:

policy contexts

The original school-to-school collaboration concept was mooted in the 1960s when the government emphasized counterpart support to alleviate poverty.¹ In contrast to the many bottom-up based school collaborations and networks around the world, the school-to-school collaboration policies in China generally have a top-down style. Further, because China is a socialist country that emphasizes collectivism, school-to-school collaboration is quite familiar to policy makers and practitioners, with three policies identifying school-to-school collaboration as the solution to education improvement having been previously implemented.

The first policy of Counterpart Support for education improvement was implemented between the 1980s and the 1990s. The government dispatched teachers from schools or universities in the urban areas to the ethnic minority areas and the socially and economically under-developed areas. These teachers were supposed to provide training for teachers in these areas and to improve their instruction in these areas (The National People’s Congress, 1984; The State Education Commission and The State Ethnic Affairs Comission, 1994).

In the early 2000s, the government’s second policy initiative focused on balanced educational development for a har- monious society, and since 2005, there has been continued emphasis on balancing the compulsory education development between schools in the same area, schools in different areas, and schools in urban and rural areas. In particular, higher performing public schools with quality education resources have been encouraged to partner with or share their resources with lower performing schools (The Central Committee of CCP² and The State Council, 2010; Ministry of Education, 2005, 2014).

The government’s third policy context was associated with the government policies advocating urban–rural

Fig. 1 Interaction between network design and emergence. Source:

Author, based on Hargreaves and Shirley (2009, pp. 99–101)

1 Zhong (2013) reported that the original Counterpart Support Policy practice was a collaboration between factories in urban areas and a People’s commune in the rural area of Shanxi Province. Through the collaboration, the factory provided technical assistance for the commune’s maintenance of agricultural machines, and fostered techni- cians and support for facility construction.

2 CCP refers to Chinese Communist Party.

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integration with the educational urban–rural integration foci being to integrate the separate educational development planning and standards in the rural and urban areas. In 2017, to balance the urban–rural integration for compulsory education development at county (district) level, the government again suggested a number of school improvement approaches, such as school district-based school management, Education Group-based school administration, alliances between high-performing schools and low-performing schools, and 9-year schools (The General Office of the Cen- tral Committee of CPC and The General Office of the State Council 2017, 2019).

Development of the Education Groups

The Chinese term “Education Group” is not new as the min- ban education (people-run education) concept was included as part of education marketization in the early 1990s (Gao

& Wei, 2011). Initially, the Education Group referred to school groups that were established and managed by a private company that provided a range of educational services or training. Then, the idea evolved to accommodate the rise in demand for quality education whereby local educational authorities merged high-performing and low-performing public schools to increase the availability of quality education, and education authorities invited private sector interests to invest in and establish new private schools as group members affiliated with the high-performing schools using the same brand. With the twenty-first century shift in focus from

“efficiency first” to “equity and balance first,” the Education Group became a method for promoting school-to-school collaboration and improving the education quality for all, at which time local governments encouraged the high-performing public schools to work with the lower performing public schools, newly-established public schools, and rural schools to improve the overall education quality and meet the rising public demand for higher quality education (Yang, 2014).

Currently, there are mainly two Education Group organizational models in China. The first is a one-unit school cor- poration model composed of a lead school (higher performing school) and some member schools (lower performing schools). The principal of the lead school is the general principal for the whole group and has absolute authority over the capital, personnel, and school management in all schools in the group. Therefore, the principal is responsible for assigning school managers and high-performing teachers from the lead school to the member schools to share the education brand, the school management concept and culture, and other resources. In contrast, the second more loosely coupled Education Group model is a lead school (higher performing school) and a couple of independent schools (lower performing schools) that seek overall improvement by

sharing the education brand, the school management concept and culture, and other resources (Meng et al., 2016). Besides the urban collaborations between high-performing schools and low-performing schools, local education authorities have also encouraged high-performing schools in developed areas to collaborate with newly-established schools in newly-developed areas and rural village schools to improve the education quality.

The Education Groups have had noticeable positive effects on public education. First, they have enlarged the available quality education services and allowed a greater number of students access to quality teaching and learning, which has reduced the public’s competition for access to quality education in urban China. Second, these collaborations have provided teachers, and especially those in the low- performing schools, access to quality educational resources and training for teaching and research, which has enhanced the general teaching capacity and improved the overall educational quality. This process has also given school leaders and managers the opportunity to strengthen school management (Liu, 2015, 2018a, 2019; Yang, 2014). However, several studies have raised concerns regarding the construction of these Education Groups, commenting that such top- down initiatives may not generate the required motivation in the schools, that group-based collaboration could result in imbalanced development and improvements in schools in the same groups and/or in schools inside and outside of the groups, and that the sharing of the brands and educational practice could result in a homogenization of the schools in the Education Groups (Liu, 2018a; Yuan, 2012).

Research methodology

From an interpretative sociology perspective, this study bor- rows the perspective of constructivist organizational theory to explore the factors shaping stakeholder interactions in the establishment and operation of the Education Groups.

According to constructivist theory, the world is constructed through people’s interactions and communication. And these interactions and communication are formulated by power relationships among stakeholders with different socioeco- nomic status (Burr, 1995; Gergen, 2015). Therefore, school collaboration as a process of social interaction among the relevant stakeholders in the public schools would be formulated by diverse patterns of people’s interaction and communication in the reform. Moreover, according to this theory, networks of organization has potential to provide organizations new knowledge and understanding of the world (Muijs et al., 2011). Stakeholders could not only reach shared perception but also learn and adopt new and different knowledge and understanding through interactions and communication between organizations. Organizations provide

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a platform for stakeholders to construct a shared understanding and interpretation of reality in each organization.

Networks and collaboration between organizations provide stakeholders an opportunity to have a complementary understanding of the world from each other. On the other hand, this theory emphasizes that there must be sufficient cognitive differences to build new knowledge of the reality among stakeholders in the collaboration (Weick, 1995). It also states that the differences should be similar enough for the collaboration to be possible and constructive. Furthermore, con- structivists emphasize the role of contextual factors, such as relationships, history, and power in constructing a network or collaboration (Muijs et al., 2011). This paper referred to the effective network design and emergence concepts in Hargreaves and Shirley to visualize the stakeholder interactions during the establishment of the Education Groups. It also provides an analytical approach to interpret how different schools in the same Education Group constructed a shared understanding as well as exchanged new and different knowledge for school improvement.

While many Chinese studies have analyzed the Education Groups policy, few have provided a comprehensive analysis of the stakeholder engagement and interactions at the district and school levels (Yang, 2014; Yuan, 2012). Therefore, a case study method was used in this study to investigate the stakeholder actions during the Education Group formation in China.

Background

Chengdu, which is one of the pioneer cities that adopted urban–rural educational integration into its urbanization development plans in the early 2000s, has used the Educa- tion Group strategy to close the urban and rural education quality gap (Liu, 2019). By 2018, 122 Education Groups involving 348 Chengdu public schools had been established at the compulsory education level (Group of Book Series of Comprehensive Education Reform of Chengdu, 2019).

District A in Chengdu was therefore selected as the research site as it was one of the six areas in China that had initially developed Education Groups in 2009. The District A schools are well known in Chengdu for their high quality education resources, for which there was significant parental competition in the past to send their children to the primary and lower secondary schools. To accommodate this rise in demand for quality education and to address the need for urban/rural educational integration, District A sought to establish local Education Groups, and by 2018, had established four at the primary education level and two at the lower secondary education level (Group of Book Series on the Comprehensive Education Reform of Chengdu, 2019;

Yuan, 2012).

Case study Education Groups

As shown in Table 1, the Primary Education Group A and B were selected for this case study, which were the first two Education Groups established in District A in 2009. Two procedures were followed to select the Edu- cation Group member schools; the district education bureau selected the lead schools, which were high quality schools with long histories in District A, and then they chose newly-established schools in the newly-developed areas of District A. Three out of the six member schools in Education Group A were involved in this study. There are three out of ten schools within Education Group B selected for this study.

Data collection and analysis

Based on the Education Groups policy document review at city and district level, an open-ended interview guideline for interviews with stakeholders involved was designed with the questions being mainly related to their experience and interactions with the other stakeholders when implementing these policies. There were three parts of interview questions.

The 1st part included questions related to personal information and career experiences of interviewees in District A’s education sector. The 2nd part included questions on interviewees’ experiences and their interactions with other stakeholders in the implementation of policies on constructing Education Groups. And questions in the last part gave focus on difficulties and challenges met by interviewees during the construction process. Interviews with stakeholders were conducted in October 2017 and April–May 2018 at their offices or spaces where they felt comfortable, such as meeting rooms and classrooms. All interviews were recorded after an explanation of purposes of this study to the interviewees and an interview consent form signed by the interviewees. One officer from the city education bureau and one officer from the district education bureau were interviewed to understand the top-down initiatives for Education Groups formation, and six principals and 12 teachers were interviewed to elicit the bottom-up initiatives when developing the groups. Table 1 shows the main characteristics of principals and teachers from two Education Groups involved in the interviews for this study.

The recorded interviews were analyzed through transcrip- tion, coding, group coding, and mapping the code groups to conceptualize the issues that were relevant to interaction among stakeholders during the establishment of Education Groups. To investigate the forces in the stakeholder interactions, the analysis was presented by visualizing the interactive responses to the Education Group establishment policy and implementation.

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Table 1 Characteristics of principals and teachers for interviews GroupSchoolsKey characteristicsInterviewees ASchool AFounded in 1918. A popular school for taking initiatives to promote education reform in teaching, learning, and research. School A was designated as key school in Chengdu city in since the 1990s. Comparatively speaking, this school received more high-performing school leaders and teachers, and more quality education resources. In 2009, it joined Group A as a lead school

Principal 1 joined school in 2001 and became school principal and the general principal of Education Group A in 2015 Teacher 1 joined School A in 2000 as a Chinese teacher. From 2009, Teacher 1 was in charge of Secretariat of Education Group A Teacher 2 is a Chinese teacher who was dispatched to one member school of Educa- tion Group A for 1 year School BMerged with a village school, it was a newly established school in a newly developed resident area in District A in 2008. It joined the Group A as a member school in 2009

Principal 2 was dispatched from School A in 2009 Teacher 3, who is an Art teacher, originally was from the village school which was merged with School B in 2008 Teacher 4, joined School B in 2009 as a teacher in charge of technology and information education Teacher 5, who is a Chinese teacher joined School B in 2008 right after graduation from university School CMerged with a village school in 2010 and an enterprises affiliated school in 2011Principal 3, who was dispatched from School A to School B in 2008 and then dispatched to School C in 2009 Teacher 6, is a Chinese teacher, joined the village school in 2005 Teacher 7, joined enterprises affiliated school in 1988, is school manager in charge of general affairs of School C BSchool DFounded in 1961 and was a popular school in Chengdu. The School is famous for educational technology and its application to teaching and learning. Its value of collaboration with parental participation for education is also widely accepted by the society. School B was designated as key school in Chengdu city in since the 1990s. Comparatively speaking, this school received more high-performing school leaders and teachers, and more quality education resources

Principal 4, joined School D in 2011 as principal of School D and became general principal of Education Group B School ENewly established school in 2008 to accommodate the need for education generated by urban development in District APrincipal 5 joined School E in 2011 Teacher 8 started career as a mathematics teacher in 1997. Joined School E in 2012 Teacher 9 started career as a Chinese teacher in 2005 and joined School E in 2012 School FNewly established school in 2008 by merging with a village to accommodate the need for education generated by urban development in District A. And it joined the group B in 2009

Principal 6 started career as Chinese teacher in 2004. Entered School D in 2013 as vice Principal. And then dispatched by School D to another member school in 2014. Joined School F in 2017 Teacher 10 joined School F as Chinese teacher in 2008 Teacher 11 joined School F as Chinese teacher in 2008 Teacher 12 started as mathematics teacher in 2004 in a rural school in District A. The teacher entered in School E in 2010 and was dispatched by School E to School F in 2018

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Findings

It was found that the Education Group stakeholder interactions were formulated based on both top-down initiatives and bottom-up innovations, with the interactions being shaped by a limited policy coordination within and beyond the education reforms. Shared values/culture and trust between the Education Group stakeholders was also found to influence the interactions when establishing the Education Groups in District A, Chengdu.

Top‑down initiatives

It was revealed that there were two top-down initiative levels;

city and district; when establishing the Education Groups in Chengdu, both of which influenced the overall policy design and the Education Group direction. More importantly, these top-down educational sharing and exchange collaborative initiatives required that the infrastructure and institutional platforms be comparatively equal for the public schools in the same district.

The first city initiative was aimed at promoting urban–rural education integration over three stages; infrastructure construction, institutional construction, and institutional integration. The city authority identified the need to close the educational infrastructure gap and integrate the urban and rural area education. Consequently, between 2004 and 2009, a city-wide school infrastructure construction was launched to improve the school facilities and education environments in the underdeveloped areas. In the secondary stage between 2009 and 2017, the city government focused on establishing the relevant rules and regulations associated with the redistribution of the human resources to rural schools and the exchange and rotation of teachers and school leaders between the urban and rural area schools. In 2009, the city government released the Opinions on Promoting the Development of Education Groups to further encourage human and educational resource exchanges between schools (Chengdu City Education Bureau, 2009, 2016). To activate the rotation system, the government changed the school-based teacher employment system to a district-based teacher employment system, which removed the institutional barriers and encouraged the teachers and school leaders in the urban/high-performing schools to work in the rural/lower performing schools.

The institutional support provided by the Education Groups policy design motivated the high-performing schools to take part in the reform as it gave an extra 10–20% perma- nent staff to the high-performing schools to make up for the teachers and school managers sent to the low-performing schools. From 2012, the city government gave 10 million CNY per year to schools that had successfully established

Education Groups³ and also launched programs to improve teacher training and upgrade professional development. The third stage of the city government’s initiative started in 2018 with the aim of addressing the institutional integration of the educational authority and other related authorities by enhancing educational integration policy connectedness.⁴

The second initiative was operationalized by the district government. Based on the city level urban–rural education integration policies, the district government implemented initiatives to balance the District A urban and rural area public education developments. It launched a “high-performing schools go west project” with the aim of opening new or upgrading previous rural schools in the newly-developed residential areas to ensure quality education provision for the new residents, and established a District Educational Human Resources Management and Service Center in 2007 to fully manage teacher employment after the teacher affili- ation change from “school teachers” to “district teachers,”

which was the institutional pre-condition for the teachers and school leader rotations between schools in the same district (Yuan, 2012). As the Education Groups at the city level were being developed, the district education authority advocated for school-to-school Education Group collaboration at the district level and promoted collaboration between high-performing schools and the newly-established and rural schools to improve the overall district public school quality.

To standardize the process, the district education bureau also introduced implementation plans and associated regulations to strengthen the establishment of the Education Groups, for which there was a one-unit model and one loosely coupled model. The exact number of teachers and school managers needed for the planned annual exchanges were also deter- mined to assist in the human resource exchanges between schools in the same groups. The district also provided sub- sidies to motivate the teachers sent to work in rural areas.

The district also had similar evaluation criteria as the city for the district level Education Groups development, and also established a fund to support the group-based activities and reward the best performing Education Groups.

The district education authority also introduced a group withdrawal mechanism to encourage improved schools to leave the group and take collaborative leadership roles in new Education Groups to improve the quality in other low- performing schools. The least improved schools would also

3 The city education authority had already established group management, exchange of staff, construction of educational community, effect of special program, and other innovative practices criteria for evaluating the Education Group achievements (information collected from interviews with staff at the Chengdu City Education Bureau on April 27, 2018).

4 Information is based on interview with staff of Chengdu City Edu- cation Bureau on April 27,

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be encouraged to leave the group to take part in other institutional reforms arranged by the district. These initiatives were focused on both institutional and infrastructure changes and provided a direction and blueprint for school-to-school collaboration.

Bottom‑up innovation dynamics at the school level Although the establishment of the Education Groups was a top-down initiative, the government allowed the schools the autonomy to construct the groups. The examination of the Education Groups in District A indicated that the bottom-up school level innovations associated with the construction and management of the Education Groups allowed for innovative solutions to be found for education resource sharing, teaching and learning, school improvements, and the attainment of education equality.

As the Education Group lead schools and member schools collaboratively designed their respective organizational structures, the two groups involved in this study had different organizational structures. Group A established a loosely coupled group while Group B developed a one- unit group. The Group A lead school shared its school’s brand, educational concepts, school management style, teacher training, and curriculum with the other member schools and sought to maintain equality with the Group A member schools. As Fig. 2 indicates, the Group A member schools had equal group management status and shared roles and responsibilities, with each group member having a specific responsibility in the collective group management structure, which allowed the member schools to learn from the lead schools and gave them to opportunity to share their own unique programs/practices with the other group members, which generated a two-way sharing that benefited both the lead school and the member schools. In contrast, Group B initially decided on a one-unit model, with the principal of the lead school becoming the general

principal of the whole group and responsible for the school management in all member schools. This arrangement put a significant burden on the principal who did not have enough time to take care of the lead school management.

Accordingly, Group B decided to shift to a loosely coupled model in the 4th year of the reform, which gave the principal the time to take care of the lead school development.

To implement the education authority initiatives to balance the quality of teaching across the member schools, the lead school also needed to send a team of three to five high-performing teachers and school managers to each member school for 3 years to support the teaching and school management. Therefore, after consultations, the lead school selected and sent high-performing teachers and school managers to work with the teachers and school managers at the member schools to enhance the teaching, promote curriculum development, and strengthen school management.

The decision making and autonomy given to the schools motivated both the lead schools and the member schools to take diverse collaborative approaches. For example, the Group A member schools jointly hosted a cultural festi- val to provide the Group A students and teachers a platform to demonstrate their talents to a wider audience, and organized group-wide sports activities so that the teachers could strengthen their mutual communication. In Group B, the high-performing teachers sent to the member schools received support to establish laboratories in the member schools to promote teacher training and conduct textbook research. The lead school also shared its curriculum development know-how with the member schools. More importantly, the member school teachers had the autonomy to include their school’s characteristics into the curriculum development and class design. One Group B member school integrated environmental education, which was a special school-based program at their school, into their Chinese class design. One teacher from this school highlighted

Fig. 2 Organizational structure for Education Group A. Source: Author

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how the sharing of know-how motivated the teachers to be involved in curriculum development, saying;

With the knowledge taught by the high-performing teachers from the lead school, we were able to consider how to integrate our school’s features into our class design and teaching practices. We integrated a series of classes about seasonal changes and the environment into a classic Chinese poem teaching activity, which provided the students with a method to understand and feel the beauty of the nature described in the Chinese poems…this would not have happened if we had not received guidance from the teachers from the lead school. (Interview with a teacher from one Education Group B member school on May 25, 2018)

The teacher and school leader exchange collaboration also enhanced the research capacity of the teachers in the newly-established schools. Figure 3 indicates that there was an increase in the number of research papers published by School B teachers, who said that as there had been no requirement for them to conduct research when the school was a village school; they did not know how to conduct research. However, with the new establishment of School B, a team from School A joined School B and started

supporting their teaching, curriculum development, teacher training, and school management; therefore, the teachers from School B learned what research was and how to conduct it. Consequently, there has been an increase in the number of School B teachers publishing papers at city, provincial levels, and even national levels, which clearly indicates the positive effect gained from the secondment of the professional teams from the lead school to the member schools.⁵

The establishment of the Education Groups improved the educational equality for disadvantaged students by providing internal migrant children access to quality education resources and high-performing teachers. Figure 4 shows the changes in the number of students that had local household registration and those that did not. School B was a newly- established school in a newly-developed residential area⁶

Fig. 3 Research papers published by School B Teachers (2012–2018). Source: Author.

Data collected from School B of Education Group A on May 23, 2018

0 1 1 2

0

1 1 2 3 2

12

16

0 0 0 0 0 1

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18

2012-2013 2013-2014 2014-2015 2015-2016 2016-2017 2017-2018

Research Papers Published by School B Teachers˄˄2012-2018)

National Level Provincial Level City Level

Fig. 4 Change in student structure in School B. Source:

Author. Data collected from School B of Education Group A on May 23, 2018

31 102 139 171 269 440 631 707 791 914

605 757 782 805 889 929 983 1046 971 943

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017

Change in student structure in School B

（

（2008−−2017））

Students with local Hukou Students without local Hukou

5 The interviews with two teachers of School B were conducted on May 23, 2018.

6 According to the principal of School B, this community used to be the largest community of internal migrants in Chengdu before becoming a newly-established residential area in 2008. This is why Fig. 4 shows there were more internal migrant children than local children at the beginning. With the rapid urbanization, an increasing number of local children moved into this school. Gradually, it became an edu-

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that used to be the largest internal migrant community in Chengdu and farmland before 2009. When it was merged with the previous village school, School B joined Educa- tion Group A and was sent several high-performing teachers and school managers from the lead school, which gave the migrant children access to quality education and professional teachers and also allowed them to study with the local students in the same school. Figure 4 highlights the social cohesion in School B between the local residents and the internal migrant families.

The findings revealed that the bottom-up Education Group innovations led to two-way educational resource sharing between the lead school and the member schools and empowered the teachers and school managers in the low- performing schools, all of which were only possible because of the willingness to provide equal access to quality education for the socially disadvantaged.

Limitation in policy coordination

The findings above show dynamic interactions between the top-down initiatives and the bottom-up innovations were made possible through the establishment of Educa- tion Groups for school improvement. However, there was limited policy coordination among different administrative authorities concerned with the education reform, which in turn created barriers for the Education Groups.

The incentive subsidy to motivate the teachers and school leaders to take part in the establishment of the Education Groups was not fully implemented as part of the perfor- mance-related payment system, which meant that it was difficult to distribute the subsidy to individual teachers and school leaders. This also meant that the reward for high- performing Education Groups could only be distributed to schools rather than to teachers and school leaders. The lack of the subsidy could have prevented teachers and school leaders being fully involved in the reforms.

There was also policy coordination limitation in the Education Group human resource distribution policies.

While the local authorities had promulgated a policy to provide extra staff to the lead schools to make up for the teachers and school managers sent to support the member schools for 3–5 years, this approach was terminated under the central government public administrative institutional reforms in 2012 that prohibited an increase in public serv- ant recruitment (including public school teachers and staff).

This cause significant understaffing difficulties for the lead schools, with the local institutional innovations to promote

the establishment of Education Groups becoming ineffective due to the limited policy coordination between the education and other administrative authorities at the central and local levels, which in turn discouraged the school principals and teachers from engaging in the reform. This result highlighted the need to foster more collective institutional policies to promote the sustainable reform of Education Groups to provide balance and quality in compulsory education in China.

Shared values and trust

It was found that it was necessary to ensure that there were shared values and trust between the stakeholders when establishing the collaborative Education Groups. Previous research has found that shared values and trust are vital for school change when sharing experiences and resources (Ain- scow et al., 2020; Armstrong & Ainscow, 2018; Liu, 2018a;

Hadfield & Chapman, 2009; Muijs et al., 2011). The interviews with the school principals and teachers involved in the Education Groups in District A revealed the importance of shared values and trust between the principals and teachers in one school, the member schools in the same group, and between the support team from the high-performing schools and the teachers in the member schools. The interviews also revealed that it was important that all stakeholders to reach a mutual understanding prior to the fostering of the shared values and trust. The principal of School C described the lessons she had learned from the trust building process;

Before joining this school, I had been working in School A for more than 20 years. Therefore, it was easy for me to take for granted that teachers at all schools should know how to teach professionally, how to conduct research, how to develop curriculum…However, I was shocked when I came here…I got angry with teachers who did not understand how to teach, how to make curriculum, how to prepare sample classes…My understanding of excellent education seemed very far from theirs, my requirement for teachers was beyond their capacity…and I felt so disappointed and help- less…It took about 5 years for me to shift my mind to face the reality and try to understand my teachers and school managers…I started to try to understand why my teachers were so different from my standard by contrasting the different students, teacher training, education resources and social network between this school and School A. I started to show respect to my teachers here… Then my goals for change in this school also became realistic and practical. Gradually, I received increasing support and trust from the teachers…and now I think we are on the right track. (Inter- view with the principal of School C on May 15, 2018)

Footnote 6 (continued)

cational nest accommodating both local children and migrant children (Interview with principal of School B conducted on May 23, 2018).

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It was also important to have shared values and to build mutual trust between the member schools in each Education Group. The principal of School B pointed out that mutual respect for a shared education value was the pre-condition for sharing and group collaboration;

One of the keys to the achievement of sharing and collaboration within Education Group A was that the principals of each member school shared similar educational values and had a willingness to share and work together… As the principals of the member schools were all from School A, as ex colleagues, we did share the education values and culture of School A. Therefore, there was a high degree of understanding and trust among us to work together. However, if there had been a principal who did not share the education values of School A, it would have been difficult for us to work together, not to mention to share and collaborate. (Interview with principal of School B on May 16, 2018)

The principal also shared an experience of failing to collaborate with one low-performing school that was supposed to become a member of Education Group A; however, as the principal did not have the willingness to share and collaborate, the plan was terminated. The interviews demonstrated the importance of shared values and trust in building the willingness to share and the desire to collaborate for school improvement between the stakeholders in one school or between the schools in one Education Group.

Discussion and conclusion

The case study findings illuminated the Chinese school-to- school collaboration for education improvement that was formulated using both top-down initiatives and bottom-up innovations at the city, district, school and individual levels. The city and district government top-down initiatives outlined the guidelines for the establishment of Education Groups to promote collaboration between high-and low-performing schools to improve the education quality at the low- performing schools. The governments on both levels also provided support for the school collaborations by upgrading the public school infrastructure and establishing institutional platforms, such as a teacher and school leader rotation system, a teacher employment reform, and an Education Group reward standard, evaluation criteria, and withdrawal mecha- nisms. These top-down initiatives gave autonomy to the public schools to generate bottom-up innovations to promote the Education Groups. The schools involved in the Education Groups developed diverse approaches to resource sharing and exchange to improve education quality. However, it was found that the effectiveness of the school collaboration was

adversely influenced by a limited policy coordination and a lack of shared values and trust. Therefore, to promote the sustainable reform of the Education Groups to ensure quality and balance in the compulsory education public schools in China, it is necessary to better cement the collective institutional context and establish shared values and trust between the stakeholders.

The findings also shed light on the school collaboration similarities and differences between China and in other countries. The promotion of school-to-school collaboration in the global context is generally aimed at liberating schools from the local education authority to allow them greater autonomy over their budget, staffing, and curriculum to meet a standardized performativity and market’s needs (Keddie, 2015). In contrast, the Chinese school-to-school collaboration focuses more on education quality improvements in low-performing schools to better balance the public education provision. Moreover, the reform diversified public education rather than standardizing school education. It enhanced schools’ capacity of developing diverse curriculum and diversified education activities which fit well to school context and characteristics. The role of the government in the reform of school-to-school collaboration in the Western context is to establish a standard for evaluating the account- ability of schools. However, in China, the city and district level government are both policy makers and standard devel- opers with the common aim of establishing comparatively equal infrastructure and institutional platforms for public schools within the same district as a pre-condition to enable public schools to collaborate for educational sharing and exchange. As discussed by Hargreaves and Shirley (2009), it is necessary for governments to support rather than control, that is, under the reforms initiated by the district education administrative authority, the Education Group lead schools and member schools required autonomy to activate and sus- tain their willingness to take part.

To some extent, it was found that the top-down initiatives did not restrain the Education Group innovations at the school level. In a culture that emphasized rule following and obligations, the school level stakeholders supported these initiatives by developing group collaboration avenues, establishing the mutual exchange of human resources and other education resources, and jointly developing innovative curriculum and teacher training programs (Tan & Ng, 2007), which are also the values associated with a “common prosperity for all” in socialist societies.

Following Deng Xiaoping’s reform philosophy in China, this focus enables some regions and some people to get rich first so that they can implement initiatives to help enrich others so as to realize a common prosperity (Han

& Zhang, 2018). The interviews with the policy makers and school leaders in this study indicated that they had a similar common prosperity value, which was demonstrated

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by the willingness of the higher performing schools to help the low-performing schools improve their educational quality. This collaboration also contributed to social inclusiveness by providing accessible quality education resources and learning environments for disadvantaged students.

Finally, similar to the school-to-school collaboration discussion in the western context, the construction of the Education Groups in Chengdu revealed the importance of clear policies and shared cultures in fostering collaboration between schools (Armstrong, 2015). The finding of the limited policy coordination presents a policy barrier which restrains school autonomy to construct the Edu- cation Groups. On one hand, it is necessary to enhance policy coordination at district level to connect education reform to finance and personnel reforms. A collective institutional cooperation among these authorities is necessary for making policies more relevant to the construction of the Education Groups. On the other hand, the findings unveil it is necessary to guarantee continuity of education reform through policy coordination between the central government and local government. It is necessary for the central government to build a continuous and supportive policy context for this reform at local level. Furthermore, a common culture or shared values among member schools within the same group is the key to sharing, understanding, collective innovation and the sustainability of the Educa- tion Groups.

To conclude, this study elucidated the school-to-school collaboration efforts being made in China to improve education for all, highlighted the importance of balance between top-down initiatives and bottom-up innovation, and demonstrated a wider collective approach for building sustainable reform establishing policy connectedness between different policy makers and fostering a shared culture and value between stakeholders. This study analyzed the stakeholder interactions involved in the construction of Education Groups as an approach to school-to-school collaboration in China. By borrowing the educational network framework discussed in Hargreaves and Shirley, future studies could further interpret dynamics in the formation of stakeholders’ interaction in school-to-school collaboration by examining the need to balance the design and emergence of school collaboration in different social and cultural contexts. Also, it is necessary to explore more regarding effects of constructing the Education Groups on education improvement and equity to connect the Chinese way to discussion on global reform for school collaboration.

Acknowledgements This work was supported by the MITSUBISHI Foundation, Japan (ID: 30209).

Declarations

Conflict of interest The authors declare they have no conflicts of interest.

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