Agents of Change and Continuity: The Pivotal Role of Teachers in Albanian Educational Reform and...

Agents of Change and Continuity: The Pivotal Role of Teachers in Albanian EducationalReform and DemocratizationAuthor(s): Meg P. GardinierReviewed work(s):Source: Comparative Education Review, Vol. 56, No. 4, Special Issue on the Local and the Globalin Reforming Teaching and Teacher Education (November 2012), pp. 659-683Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Comparative and International EducationSocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/667396 .Accessed: 02/11/2012 10:56

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Comparative Education Review 659

Agents of Change and Continuity: The Pivotal Role ofTeachers in Albanian Educational Reform and

Democratization

MEG P. GARDINIER

This article explores how teachers navigate and respond to the competing pressures ofschool change in a global policy context. In postcommunist Albania, national policiesreflecting global norms for the teacher’s role overshadowed complex and cultural as-pects of teaching and learning and, as a result, led to gaps in implementation. On thebasis of ethnographic research and the analysis of two Albanian teachers’ narratives,this article shows the complexity of the teachers’ world as well as their significant dualrole as agents of change and stakeholders of continuity. Findings suggest that in responseto pressures, teachers selectively adopted reform policies and created hybrid forms ofpractice. To avoid unintended consequences, policy makers should thus reinforce teach-ers’ experiential knowledge along with policy aims.

How do teachers navigate and respond to the competing pressures of com-plex school life amid increasingly influential global frames for national ed-ucational reform? Learning is driven by relationships. Various actors—teach-ers, students, administrators, parents—shape, define, and enact the dynamicsof teaching and learning in subtle and powerful ways. The complexity ofschool life thus resembles an extended family “where unspoken understand-ings dominate” (Lieberman and Miller 1984, 94). The complexity of schoolsalso entails a cultural dimension in which implicit meanings, beliefs, values,and norms often complicate efforts for change (Fullan 1993; Fink and Stoll2005). With attention to such complexity at the school level, teachers’ pro-fessional practice can be seen as situated within an intricate web of relation-ships that shape and constrain their pedagogical choices.

Internationally, schooling within the global knowledge economy is oftenportrayed not as a microcosm of personal and professional relationships but,rather, as a key institution that determines economic growth and serves asan expedient means to measurable ends. Education policy makers have in-creasingly adopted the norms and models of international organizations suchas the World Bank and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and

Received June 30, 2011; revised April 16, 2012; accepted June 14, 2012; electronically published Au-gust 9, 2012

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Development (OECD) that advocate schooling as a means of building humancapital for participation in the global knowledge economy. Such modelsportray secondary education as “the highway between primary schooling,tertiary education, and the labor market” and characterize schooling as thecrucial mechanism “to connect the different destinations and to take youngpeople where they want to go in life” (World Bank 2005, xii). Ultimately,these two distinct views of education—one that envisions the school as acomplex family-like cultural world and one that frames schooling as a linearpathway from illiteracy to economic productivity—commonly compete todefine global and local efforts to transform the teaching profession.

The case of educational reform in postcommunist Albania poignantlyillustrates this tension. Over the last 2 decades since the fall of a 4-decadecommunist dictatorship, Albanian educational policy makers have adoptedprevailing models of education for a democratic, market-based, knowledgesociety. These models frame students as autonomous, independent, and fu-ture-oriented learners preparing to participate in a liberal form of democracyand succeed in the global economy. Teachers are constructed as “lifelonglearners” and “knowledge workers” who are to be evaluated through theirachievement of standardized teaching competencies. Yet, as the contradictionbetween notions of schooling as “family” versus “highway” suggest, a signifi-cant gap exists between prescriptive global norms and the concrete circum-stances and underlying motivations of Albanian teachers and learners.

In this article, I argue that teachers’ work cannot be understood as eitherthe idiosyncratic practice of individuals or the measurable result of an output-driven system. Reducing the complexity of the profession to such a binaryis costly and counterproductive. Instead, we must approach teachers as sit-uated actors that occupy a complex and multifaceted professional locationthat is at once personal, political, and institutional.

Furthermore, as Michael Fullan (2007) suggests, cultural aspects of teach-ing, learning, and schooling as a whole must be theoretically and empiricallyengaged. However, the notion of culture presents a fundamental challengeto researchers and policy makers alike. Fullan (1999, 2007) argues that re-formers need to “reculture” schools through phases of initiation, implemen-tation, and institutionalization. While this framework may be a useful meth-odology in school systems where a unified culture can be identified and thusreplaced with a new, more progressive culture of participatory learning andgrowth, it may be less appropriate for systems in which school cultures arediverse and where cultural legacies pervade systems of education, such as inpostcommunist and postauthoritarian countries (Polyzoi and Cerna 2001).At the same time, international mechanisms for educational reform largelyignore culture altogether and instead present a more generic model of whatgood schooling (and thus effective teaching) should look like. Simply put,bolstered by the achievement of standardized teaching competencies, good


AGENTS OF CHANGE AND CONTINUITY

teaching is seen as the mechanism through which students should be effec-tively transported along the evenly paved highway of secondary education.In this way, international agencies such as the World Bank and the OECDadvocate reforming the teaching profession globally by standardizing teach-ing and learning outcomes and minimizing the role and impact of culture(s).I argue that this approach results in serious gaps and unintended conse-quences.

In the case of Albania, the dominance of international prescriptions ofteachers’ role in the global knowledge economy has led to the adoption ofnational policies that overshadow complex and cultural aspects of teachingand learning and, as a result, undermine the implementation of reforms atthe school level. Furthermore, in response to multifaceted and often com-peting pressures, teachers have selectively adopted reform policies and cre-ated hybrid forms of classroom practice. These two related findings, takentogether, help us understand how and why teachers come to occupy a pivotaldual role as agents of change and continuity during a contentious period ofsocial, political, and educational change.

The teachers discussed in this article provide a window into the worldof Albanian teachers during this historical moment. Their differences illu-minate some of the important variation among teacher identities and class-room practices. Yet certain qualities and themes unite them as well. Thearticle begins with an examination of how teaching for and within the de-mocratization process frames teachers’ professional identities and practice.These prescribed frames are then juxtaposed with an analysis of the teachers’situated knowledge, expertise, and pedagogy. I then present and discuss thenarratives of two Albanian teachers, Rozafa and Albana.1 These vignettesdemonstrate the complex choices that Albanian teachers make and provideexamples of their hybrid classroom practice. In analyzing these narratives, Ipay particular attention to the range and nuance of the factors that influencetheir choices. I rely on the theoretical work of Larry Cuban (1984) and othersto develop a better understanding of how teachers’ choices are both inno-vative and “situationally constrained.” I argue that this analysis of the family-like complexity of school life has implications both for the local implemen-tation of teacher educational reform policies and for the global circulationand adoption of educational models designed to transport students downthe highway of secondary education.

Method

This article is based on dissertation research conducted over 32 monthsin Albania during 2003–9. During this period, I interviewed 45 participants,

1 All names of teachers, schools, and other informants have been changed to protect participants’confidentiality.

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Fig. 1.—Stages of coding and data analysis

including teachers (8) and school directors (5), municipal and national ed-ucation officials (10), staff in local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs;9), foreign educational consultants (2), and staff in international nongov-ernmental and intergovernmental organizations (11). Also, I conducted 16hours of classroom observation, an additional 50 hours of participant ob-servation in schools, and over 55 hours of participant observation in edu-cational meetings, training, and conferences held outside of schools. Theresults and conclusions presented in this article have been influenced by thefindings of the larger study. However, the specific data presented in thisarticle are drawn from two 90-minute semistructured interviews, several in-formal interviews, and a combined total of 8 hours of classroom and schoolobservation exclusively with the teachers Rozafa and Albana.

All of the teachers that participated in this study were selected throughpurposive sampling. The selection criteria for the two school sites discussedhere were their participation in democracy-related educational projects, theirlocation in an urban periphery area and nonurban municipal center, theirwillingness to participate in the study, and their accessibility. Interviews withAlbana and Rozafa were conducted in the Albanian language with the helpof a translator and then transcribed into English.

I analyzed the interview transcripts and observation data in a recursivemanner, as depicted in figure 1. In the first stage of coding, I analyzed theprimary research themes of teachers’ identities, professional roles, forms ofknowledge, and practice. After further review and analysis of the data, I addedthe theme of relationships. In the second stage of coding, I focused on therelationship between and among these five elements. During the third stage,I interpreted the various themes through the lens of core concepts from the



literature.2 Then, I developed the various conceptual schema that I presentin this article (tables 1 and 2).3 Additionally, an extensive review of Albanianeducational policy documents from 1995 to 2010 and an analysis of projectdocuments from the World Bank and the OECD were also instrumental inthe conceptualization of my argument for this article.

Theoretical Framework

Teachers are situated at a critical juncture in the Albanian educationalreform process. They are envisioned to play a central role in delivering thenew curriculum to secondary school students throughout the country, as partof widespread reforms. They are charged with preparing a new generationof students—young people who will participate in an evolving democracyand become global citizens in Europe and the world. Furthermore, teachersare positioned to be instrumental in a subtle cultural shift indicated in policydocuments. As Albania becomes increasingly oriented toward “Europeani-zation,” new priorities are emerging, embedded in educational goals. Forexample, recent policy documents emphasize issues of diversity, tolerance,human rights, equality, and nondiscrimination as norms that students andteachers should now embrace. New models construct the classroom as anopen space for inquiry and experimentation, where students are at the centerand teachers play the role of facilitator and mentor. As a result of thesepolicies, teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and practices constantly mediate theimplementation of educational policy in the classroom. Teachers are thus atthe crux of the democratization process; without them, reform agendas fordemocratic citizenship education and the preparation of youth for the globalknowledge economy inevitably fail.

Teachers as Local Agents of Change and Continuity

The building of a democratic society in the wake of an authoritariancollapse can be seen as a transformational project. Schools that were oncecreated and legitimized as an apparatus of a centralized political system nowcome to be seen—in an ideal sense—as preparatory engines for democraticcitizenship and microcosms of a democratic society. The role of teacherswithin these institutions, like active citizens in the new democracy, is to cat-

2 Works by Cuban (1984), Lieberman and Miller (1984), Scott (1998), and Britzman (2003) wereparticularly helpful.

3 The larger study on which this article is drawn is a vertical case study following Vavrus and Bartlett(2006). Building on the work of Bray and Thomas (1995), Vavrus and Bartlett propose the vertical casestudy “as a means of comparing knowledge claims among actors with different social locations in anattempt to situate local action and interpretation within a broader cultural, historical, and politicalinvestigation” (2006, 95). Bray and Thomas visually depict a framework for comparative educationanalyses (1995, 475). As this framework influenced the early design of my dissertation study, it can alsobe seen as contributing to my conceptualization of table 2, depicting complexity in the teachers’ world.

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alyze the necessary participation and preparation to reach these transfor-mational goals. In this context, teachers act as agents of change.

Yet schools often serve another function in both democratic and au-thoritarian societies. “Education is used to promote national unity and uni-formity, protect respect for authority, and serve as a common mechanismfor the preservation of traditions and their continuity” (Britzman 2003, 5).In the process of educational reform during political democratization, it isthe schools that are charged with equipping student-citizens with the nec-essary knowledge and skills to effectively engage in the roles and respon-sibilities associated with democracy. Furthermore, in the current push forinternationalization, the demands of cultivating national citizenship are com-pounded by the expectations of the international organizations that legitimizethe newly democratic state. In particular, in their aspiration to join the Eu-ropean Union, the Albanian government has adopted the strategy of har-monizing national policies with European educational standards and models.Within these domestic and international frames, teachers are again chargedas agents of change (responsible for guiding students through the processof political transformation) as well as guarantors of continuity (maintainingstability in schools and ensuring that national and local educational goals aremet).

As pivotal intermediaries between educational authorities, students, andtheir families and communities, teachers play a crucial role in localizing globaleducational models. This study shows that while policy documents prescribevarious roles and identities for teachers, the teachers themselves interpretand respond to these constructions in diverse ways, thus authoring their ownsense of identity through their educational practice. In this way as well, theybecome agents of both change and continuity.

Teachers’ Role in the Knowledge Economy

The reshaping of the Albanian economy from a planned socialist systemto a market-based capitalist system is another significant regime of changethat envelops teachers. Over the past 2 decades, the Albanian governmenthas adopted internationally sanctioned frameworks for educational reform—in particular, the World Bank’s Educational Excellence and Equity Projectand the National Strategy for Development and Integration—seeking to alignnational policy objectives with international and pan-European goals, prin-ciples, and benchmarks (Albanian Ministry of Education and Science 2005;Albanian Council of Ministers 2008). Embedded in these policy platformsare certain assumptions and prescriptions that have important implicationsfor teachers.

For example, from the vantage point of leading international agenciessuch as the World Bank, teachers and schools occupy a disadvantaged positionvis-a-vis the internationally legitimated skills and capacities necessary for par-



ticipating in the contemporary knowledge economy. According to WorldBank documents, “The implicit challenge is that knowledge of teaching isfor the most part tacit, difficult to articulate and systematize, and strictlypractical and context based. These characteristics reinforce the traditionalisolation of teachers and schools, making the transfer and full utilization ofknowledge very difficult. In short, teacher education institutions, schools asorganizations, and education systems in general are still very far from meetingthe needs of a knowledge-management society” (World Bank 2005, 107–10).Thus, as Albanian policy makers align themselves with international stan-dards, contestation over the efficacy and legitimacy of teachers’ tacit knowl-edge comes to the forefront in debates over global and local approaches toeducational reform.

In particular, competencies have become the principle unit of analysiswithin the international community’s approach to standardizing educationalreforms for a market economy. Experts defined key competencies for edu-cation as those “that enable individuals to participate effectively in multiplecontexts or social fields and that contribute to an overall successful life forindividuals and to a well-functioning society (i.e., lead to important and valuedindividual and social outcomes)” (Rychen and Tiana 2004, 22). Yet evenWorld Bank and OECD experts recognize that in specific local contexts, thesebroad and abstract conceptual goals meet with significant challenges in theiradoption and implementation. World Bank officials have found “a profoundmismatch” between the new competencies demanded of learners and theparticular skills that teachers acquire from teacher training colleges and in-service training programs; they note that “the new competencies clearly re-quire that teachers behave in classrooms in a way contrary to the trainingthey receive” (World Bank 2004; cited in World Bank 2005, 106–7). Such agap, whether substantive or rhetorical, demands further investigation.

In Albania, educational professionals echoed this belief that internationalprescriptions for teacher expertise were often inappropriate or mismatchedto the local context. For example, Spiro, an experienced Albanian educatorand a local consultant to the World Bank and the Albanian Ministry of Ed-ucation, argued, “In our country, it is necessary to stress individual respon-sibility and [educators] don’t like this; why? Because they are scared fromthe authoritarian regime, and they don’t like to view power only in oneperson. Even the principal doesn’t like to have all the power to hire and fireteachers because he knows what kind of pressure he will face. This is ourculture and we have to say ‘OK, our way is not individual, but collegial—it’sa different way’” (personal interview, 2006).4

Yet international experts pushed for decentralization and autonomousschool-based decision making. According to Spiro, this approach was not

4 “Spiro” is a pseudonym.

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working in Albania. Instead, he argued, reforms must always take into accountnot only culture and tradition but also what he defined as the “root” of thisculture: the legacy of the dictatorship. In his view, the legacy of authoritar-ianism had created a culture in which Albanian citizens, particularly inschools, viewed the state as the enemy and thus practiced “official lies” inorder to escape persecution. “Why do our teachers raise students’ marksinstead of putting marks based on merit?” he asked rhetorically; “It is anofficial lie. But our people used to lie officially for a long period. The wordis separated from the truth” (Spiro, personal communication, 2007). ForSpiro and other Albanian education officials, educational reform provideda means of transforming this cultural legacy and “resuscitating” the public’sconfidence in the state.

Teachers’ Situated Forms of Knowledge

International models of teaching based on standardized competenciesoften portray learning as discretely defined, linear, and measurable. Learningis transmitted in one direction—from the teacher to the student—in distinctunits or curriculum modules that comprise key competencies. Either studentsmaster the competency or they do not. Either the teacher possesses therequisite ability to teach the material or she does not. Yet, as discussed in thecases below, teachers approached their curricular work within a much morecomplex relational web in which they must constantly negotiate their identity,knowledge, and professional practice.

The powerful work of James C. Scott (1998) provides an alternative wayof conceptualizing teachers’ multifaceted sources of knowledge and expertise.Scott introduces the concept of “metis” to illuminate the importance of thepractical, experiential, and taken-for-granted knowledge of key local actors.In Scott’s critique, the forceful application of a generic external frameworkbased on technical knowledge and rationality is almost always doomed to failbecause “any formula that excludes or suppresses the experience, knowledge,and adaptability of metis risks incoherence and failure” (319). The conceptof metis as a locally situated form of knowledge that is derived from practicethus provides a useful counterpoint to the more generic externally legitimatedencapsulation of knowledge and practice into key competencies.

Nuances of teachers’ situated knowledge and practice are further illu-minated through Larry Cuban’s (1984, 1986) construct of teachers’ “situa-tionally constrained choices.” In his exploratory analysis of “how teacherstaught” between 1890 and 1980 in the United States, Cuban (1984) foundthat teachers favored constancy over change in the introduction of new pro-gressive models of student-centered education. In some cases, mostly among“veteran” teachers, Cuban found that teachers developed “hybrid” practicesthat intermixed both teacher- and student-centered approaches. Cuban thenoffered five plausible arguments for his findings:



1. Because schooling is a form of social control and sorting, we see morestability than change in pedagogical practices;

2. School and classroom structures determined how teachers chose toallocate their time and energy; thus, teachers “constructed certain teach-ing practices that have emerged as resilient, simple, and efficient so-lutions in dealing with a large number of students in a small space forextended periods of time” (242);

3. A culture of teaching was embedded in these teachers’ daily practice,and this culture included a resistance to change and preferences forestablishing reliable, durable routines that accomplished their goals overtime;

4. Teachers’ individual and shared ideas and beliefs about child devel-opment, the purpose of schooling, authority, and classroom practiceshaped what they chose to do (and what they are willing to change) intheir classrooms; and

5. In some cases, inconsistent or “feckless” implementation of reform pol-icies accounted for the dominance of consistency over change in teach-ers’ practice (245).

After examining these possible explanations in more depth, Cuban(1984) synthesized them into what he labeled the “situationally constrainedchoice” that teachers make. For Cuban, situationally constrained choice con-sists of the interrelationship between school structures and teachers’ beliefsbound together in the teachers’ culture of teaching. He explained: “Theconstraints, pressures, and channeling that the school and classroom contextsgenerate is the invisible, encompassing environment that few recognize po-tentially shapes what teachers do daily in classrooms. . . . Within this orga-nizational framework, the culture of teaching, itself shaped by structuralarrangements, further funnels both newcomers and veterans into teachingregularities that folk wisdom reinforces as essential for classroom survival”(250). Thus, through his nuanced construct of situationally constrainedchoice, Cuban explains why more constancy than change characterized teach-ing practice during this period of progressive educational reform in theUnited States. His compelling notion of teachers’ situationally constrainedchoice provides a valuable conceptual and analytic tool to help make senseof the Albanian teachers’ responses to local and global pressures as expressedin the narratives below.5

5 It is important to note that there is some debate about this notion of culture. For example, incontrast to Cuban, Deborah Britzman argued, “To speak and act as if there is one monolithic cultureof teachers, students, or schools is to take up a discourse that is at once authoritative and impossible.Within any given culture, there exists a multiplicity of realities—both given and possible—that formcompeting ideologies, discourses, and the discursive practices that are made available because of them”(2003, 71). For Michael Fullan, changing school culture is the crux of reform. He argued, “Make nomistake about it, transforming the culture of schools and the systems within which they operate is themain point” (2007, 152). For Fullan, education reform through reculturing entails not only changingthe mentality of educators but also reconfiguring the range of concrete possibilities that circumscribe

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Teacher Vignettes

Vignette 1: Equality Middle School

Rozafa was a middle-aged grade school teacher of history and social ed-ucation with nearly 30 years of teaching experience. Since 1991, she partic-ipated in numerous trainings on educating for democracy, human rights,and conflict resolution, and she was trained as a teacher trainer in conflictresolution as part of a local NGO pilot project. Although Rozafa felt confidentabout her position in the school initially, she nonetheless seemed cautiousabout allowing me to observe her classes. For example, when we met for ourfirst extended interview, Rozafa told me about another teacher who alloweda foreigner to observe her classes and conduct some trainings without theexplicit permission of the school director. This person was immediately fired,despite being a very successful teacher. Rozafa seemed to share this story asa cautionary tale, and I was careful to secure the necessary paperwork andpermission before initiating classroom observation.

Rozafa’s school—Equality Middle School—was fairly large, newly reno-vated, and located in the periphery zone of the capital city, with over 600students in first through ninth grade. When I visited the school in 2009, ithad just added the ninth grade; previously it had been an 8-year school.When asking about this school as a research site, I was told repeatedly thatit was a “problem school” due to its diverse student population including alarge percentage of Roma and Egyptian minorities and recent immigrantsfrom the mountainous northern parts of the country. According to Rozafa,“We have different kind of students, with different backgrounds, studentsthat came from the North, and we have Roma students who make up 26%of the school population, and 13% are Egyptians. But despite this, we coexistpretty well together, without discrimination against each other. All this isthanks to the teachers and the hard and successful work that they havemade.”6

Rozafa described the diversity of her students as a special quality of herschool. Although teaching amid such differences posed many challenges,Rozafa was confident that there was no discrimination in her school and thatstudents were all treated as equals. As we discussed her response to thenumerous educational trainings related to human rights and democracy,Rozafa sounded self-assured about the changes both in the Albanian edu-cational system and in society at large. She noted:

After 1996, the textbooks changed completely, and this was a really difficult time

their professional practices. For Larry Cuban, the “culture of teaching” is precisely that amalgam offamiliar repertoires, beliefs, and “folk wisdom” that teachers gain through their ongoing practice (1984,250). Neither monolithic nor stagnant, this culture of teaching is part of what is learned and internalizedthrough the collective experience of teaching within the particular social and political structure ofschooling.

6 Part of this quotation has been published previously in Gardinier and Worden (2011), 203.



for us, the old teachers. We did not have any more socialism, I mean in a humanistway, in treating people equally, but we started to change our point of view aboutstudents. Before we tended to look at everybody in a capitalism–socialism way, butnow we have new concepts about market economy and respecting human rights.We knew in theory what human rights were and we were applying those rights, butlater we learned that the true rights were when you gave the teachers and thestudents freedom to participate in every activity that was made, to give them equalrights and possibilities even though not everybody had the same capacity to dothings, but at least they all had a chance to do those things.7

Throughout our interviews, I asked Rozafa about how her role as a teacherchanged during the past 20 years and what was different about the kind ofmaterial she was teaching as part of the history and social education curricula.All of my questions probed at the intersection of her professional role, varioussources of knowledge, and her pedagogical practice. As she spoke about thesevarious issues, it became clear that Rozafa embraced the increasing inter-nationalization of her subject areas as well as the growing diversity of herschool’s student body. She was quite aware of the key elements of new “stu-dent-centered” educational models, including the importance of small groupwork and interactive lessons. In the excerpt below, she discusses these ideasas well as some of the particular local difficulties she faced in her school:

Before 1990, in my subject area of History, I was talking to my students aboutAmerican Imperialism; but after 1990, the concept changed to the most democraticplace in the world. My students in 8th grade know very well about the MarshallPlan, and of course all the names of every American president, starting from thefirst one till the last one, because this is how we study History. Even the fact thatObama became elected President influenced our students a lot; there is less skincolor discrimination. Look at how much racial discrimination has disappeared, justbecause Obama—this black skin man—was elected as President.

Also in my Social Education class, the concepts of human rights and citizenshiphave influenced a lot. The students tend to learn these concepts by practicing them.In lessons, the students ask, “Who am I?” The students have to know themselves,to know how to work in groups; what’s his role in the group; what rules he/sheneeds to follow in order for the group to be successful. And this helps a lot inevery other subject, in order to learn how to be involved in various activities, andto give their best.

As I told you before, the first difficulty is having a large number of students inthe class. The second one is the amount of student differences, because not all theclasses have excellent students. We are facing difficulties especially when the stu-dents have to discuss and argue or give their own opinion on something because,nowadays, they are supposed to be all included. Five or six years ago, these studentsdid not have much at home. Now there are students who still don’t have computersat home, even though they try to make it up by going often at the Internet centersand cafes.

As for us teachers, there have been some difficulties too, like before we could

7 Part of this quotation has been published previously in Gardinier and Worden (2011), 203.

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easily teach the theory, but the practice part was hard at the beginning. Evennowadays some people are asking me: “How can you do this? This is very difficultto do. How can you be so good?” They usually say this when I do something newwith my class. But I don’t feel much pressure or difficulties because I have taughtmy students well, and I know that if I give them one idea, they will give me a lotmore ideas in return and they do all the work by themselves. I have taught themand also helped with the practice.

On the basis of these interview responses, it seemed that Rozafa had adoptednew educational ideas and practices in which she approached education asa student-centered participatory activity. Through her verbal embrace of con-cepts of human rights, democracy, equality, and nondiscrimination, Rozafa’sdescription of her role matched that of reform policies calling for new modelsof pedagogical practice. Her participation in various locally and internation-ally sponsored trainings equipped her with knowledge of human rights andcitizenship education principles and activities.

Yet, as I discuss in the next section, it became evident upon observationthat her school was rife with legacies from the previous authoritarian era.Rozafa’s cautionary tale quietly conveyed her pervasive sense of apprehensionand mistrust regarding her school leadership. Her adoption of new normsand values was tempered by a visible awkwardness or neglect in addressingstudent differences, particularly among students of minority backgrounds andthose with special needs. Within the microcosm of her classroom, the school’subiquitous discourses of “equality” and “nondiscrimination” seemed to ren-der invisible the striking differences among students in terms of their eco-nomic, cultural, and ethnic background and identities and their diverse abilitylevels.

Classroom Observation at Equality Middle School

When I observed Rozafa’s eighth-grade “free hour” (i.e., extracurricular)class, she had prepared a special lesson on humanitarian action that hadbeen adapted from a translated Red Cross handbook that she received aspart of an NGO training. As my assistant and I followed Rozafa into theclassroom, all eyes were on us. But as Rozafa began the lesson, the students’attention shifted. She read a story about racial integration in Americanschools in the 1950s. After reading the story to the class of 35 students, Rozafadivided them into three working groups to develop questions about the story.While the students worked individually at their seats, Rozafa came back totalk to us.

Leaning in closely, Rozafa pointed to a boy sitting up in one of the frontrows and said he was i semure (ill) and then twisted her hand next to hertemple in a gesture that meant he was “mentally ill.” But, Rozafa said, “Welet him stay in the class and we don’t bother him. We let him stay with therest and we just treat him like every other student.”

In the next class, Rozafa repeated the same lesson with another set of



students. Again, while the students were working, she came to talk with usin the back of the room. This time, she showed us her lesson plans writtenin a small notebook. She described the various steps and questions she pre-pared to ask students. I asked her why she selected this particular story toread. She said that the story of American desegregation is relevant to herown school. She then explained that she makes that connection clear at theend of the lesson by asking the students whether this situation applies hereand now.

Rozafa said that in their school they have many Roma students. She noted,“We have two Roma students in this class,” and then turning to her right,she pointed to two darker-skinned girls seated at a nearby desk and said,“one” and then “two,” numbering them like that. She said that in the fifthand sixth grades they have many more, maybe half the class. She seemedproud and said, so that the girls could hear, that they were very good students.

At the end of the class, Rozafa asked one of the Roma girls to say some-thing about the school. The girl stood up at attention and stiffly said, “I havenever experienced discrimination in this school.” The other Roma girl nextto her did not say anything, and the class ended.8

Vignette 2: Community Grade School

Albana was an elementary and middle school teacher of Albanian liter-ature and social education. Like Rozafa, she had participated in a local NGOproject on conflict resolution that trained her to be a mediator and to trainother teachers and students as mediators. When I met her in the spring of2009, she was in her late 30s and had been a teacher for 8 years in the smalltown of Lezhe, about an hour north of the capital city.

As a member of a new generation of teachers who began teaching earlyin the new millennium, Albana’s recollection of past practices weighed heavilyon her. She held a very nurturing and open style of practice and purposefullyaimed to avoid reproducing the intimidating methods of many teachers dur-ing the dictatorship. With the new challenges of internal migration in Albania,Albana expressed a sensitivity and awareness of diverse student needs andidentities in her classes. In several instances that I observed, she made clearefforts to address student needs and conflicts. Viewing her students as anextension of her family, Albana aimed to create a safe and inclusive climateof openness and belonging in her classroom and the wider school community.

Unlike Rozafa, Albana did not seem fearful or guarded. When I askedher about her relations with the school director and others in the school,Albana took a long drag from her cigarette, laughed, and proclaimed, “I amnot scared at all.” She then explained:

If we create an idea of the teacher’s job, after she closes the door of the classroom,

8 An abbreviated excerpt of this episode has been previously published in Gardinier and Worden(2011), 203.

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we have the impression that the teacher has total control of the class, but it is neverlike that. Usually I keep the class door open, not for any special reason, but thatis the impression that the other teachers and the director have of me. They arealways saying: “Albana, you are open. You keep the door open so that whoeverwants to come and listen to your lecture, you are not afraid.” I personally feel veryfree and have a lot of freedom in organizing my classes. I have always been open,and also I always have invited teachers or directors and even DAR [the municipaleducation directorate] to be part of my classes, because I want them to see whatI do. I have my own methods as you have yours, but the important thing is thatwe reach good results.

Underlying this sense of ease in the classroom and her goal of catalyzingstudent engagement, Albana believed it was her role to help shape a newgeneration of learners through new strategies and approaches to teaching.She was reflective and careful to avoid the pedagogy of her own teachersthat put students on the spot, shaming those who failed to provide the correctanswer. For Albana, the school was like a family; her role as a caregiver wasintegral to her role as an educator. She described her role as follows:

First of all I like to be the mother, then I like to be their teacher. I like to be theirfriend, and why not also to try to be their age? Because only like this will I un-derstand them better, and only like this will I succeed in my work. Only like thiswill I make them feel free and comfortable with me, and only like this will wecollaborate with each other. I could not imagine an hour of class without thecollaboration of the students. If I don’t reach this kind of collaboration, I havefailed. My goal is not to explain or tell the new lesson, but to be the guide. I wantto be just as the music conductor, and so my students are like the orchestra.

How do I do this? Usually, at the middle of the class hour, I open up newdiscussions, for example, common topics about society that may not have a directinfluence on the students right away, but at least it makes them speak openly. Iinsist very much on teaching my students how to express themselves.

Later in our conversation, I asked Albana about the significance of this kindof teaching in the context of all the social and political changes occurringin Albanian society. I asked, how did she see her role in relation to democracyand citizenship? She explained that the role of teachers was very importantand “decisive to the future” because “the teacher can educate the new gen-eration.” Albana felt that her students were at a critical age in which theircharacter was being formed. For this reason, she tried to “be careful” in frontof students, to be consistent between her words and actions, and to alwaysmodel “good manners.” She felt compassion for the students who are “grow-ing up in a difficult environment” and “living in stress.” She emphasized herstudents’ concerns about the outbreak of swine flu, for example, and notedthat they told her anxiously, “Teacher, one-third of the world population willdisappear.” In light of students’ concerns, Albana underscored the need forteachers to provide accurate and useful information to help alleviate theirfears and serve as role models for their positive development.



Throughout her narrative, the primacy of social relationships and theinterconnections between her school relations and her classroom practiceswere important themes for Albana. Another large part of her role as a teacherwas learning to manage conflicts that arose and help students grapple withnew aspects of diversity within the school and community. In this way, thelocal community context was an ever-present backdrop to classroom dynam-ics. Albana saw her role as a formative one in which she aimed for studentsto gain skills to manage conflict, improve communication, and actively par-ticipate in the life of the school, community, and society at large. As we closedour lengthy interview, she stressed these overlapping themes of community,connection, inclusion, and social responsibility:

Since this generation soon will take the control of our future and this country,most of all I wish and want from them to be fully developed in terms of goodmanners and citizenship and education. This is because they have new and moreprogressive ideas compared to us. Albania has been closed and now it is open tothe world; we are getting more experience and influence from other countries.This becomes very clear when we see or meet our students that have studied abroad,and they come back with new ideas/mentality. They should be an example for us.

It is very important for these students and this generation to learn what’s bestfor them and for the nation, because only like this can we fight the bad phenomenathat our society is facing, like corruption. If we would have a non-corrupt govern-ment, then everybody will feel good, because they will win by knowledge, valuesand not by corruption, money or friends. We can’t go further with these kind ofmethods, we will have to destroy them first, because when somebody applies for ajob, the one that deserves it should win (like in the private companies), not likein the state’s institutions where the one who gets the job is the one that has morefriends or money. If we could raise these kids, this generation, with the idea anddesire to fight these phenomena like corruption or old mentality, and also to befair, then the society will go one step further.

As for my students, I always try to make them feel open and to ask for theirrights, because if they have values, let them knock on these doors. I want them toknow how to protect themselves. I don’t want them to feel pressured from me andthey often say to me: “Teacher I don’t agree with this thing, with your thoughts.”In this way, I have made my students to feel sure of what they think and not afraidto show it.

Whatever background their families have, the children spend a lot time in schooland so they get influenced from it. I try very hard to teach them not only the lessonbut also to educate them to be good citizens. I teach them the way they should actin public, the way they should speak, the way they should communicate, and I tryto teach them also the way they should face problems. I have told them that lifeis not easy, there will come a time when you will face many problems, but theyshould never give up, they should try to open another door of opportunity.

Observing Albana’s classroom practice helped clarify these beliefs, while atthe same time raising questions about how she was both an agent of changeand a stakeholder of continuity.

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Community School Visit—Sixth-Grade Class

As we arrived at Albana’s sixth-grade social education class, we were sur-prised by a young student running out of the door crying. The student wassoon stopped by the guard of the school and subsequently returned to theclassroom. Albana immediately asked the class why their friend was so upset.All the students started to shout out simultaneously. Albana tried to calmthem down and asked for them to speak one at a time, and so they did.

We soon understood that the girl, who was a relative newcomer to thecommunity, was upset because another student had teased her for her (dif-ferent) dialect. She had pronounced the word e veshtire (difficult) as e shtire(fake), and a local student made fun of her. Albana recognized the conflictand played the role of the mediator, trying to help the students resolve theissue. She asked the students to put themselves in the position of that girl:“How would you feel if you were discriminated against for speaking differ-ently?” she asked. The class remained silent. Then Albana reminded herstudents about a poem they had learned about discrimination. She explainedhow bad it is to discriminate against others because of their thoughts, religion,language, color, and so on, because after all, we are all human. She said, “Weshall not discriminate against people for their color, because it is not ourvirtue to be white, it is in our DNA; what we become in our life is our virtue.”“When we are born, we are pink; when we are sick, we look green; and whenpeople die, they look purple. We are all different colors and not just white,so we should not discriminate against people who look different from us.”Using this approach, she tried to teach them how to listen, to be open-minded,and not to discriminate. “We should be tolerant,” she said, “and find a win-win solution.”

Meanwhile, the girl at the center of this conflict stayed behind her deskwith her head down. She looked very angry and embarrassed. Her face andeyes were red from crying. She was not talking at all, but she sat quietly, listeningto Albana.

Albana discussed the situation without pointing at individual students—saying you are right or you are wrong. As an impartial mediator, she wantedto give a pleasing solution, so that all the students could understand and notrepeat the same mistake. She then explained to the students that they wouldface conflicts in the future, in different ways, but what is important is to knowhow to solve these issues with tolerance and understanding. By the end ofthis impromptu lesson, the students seemed to feel better, and the boy whoteased the girl was apologetic. The girl stopped crying, and the other studentsdid not say a word of disagreement. Then Albana moved forward with thetextbook lesson that was planned for the day on the topic of the market.

Analysis and Discussion

Interestingly, despite a generation gap and a difference of over 20 yearsof teaching experience, both Rozafa and Albana verbally embraced the cur-



riculum changes being introduced along with their new roles as mediators,facilitators, and knowledgeable authority figures within their schools andclassrooms. Both teachers shared a desire for their students to become func-tionally literate citizens and people who contributed positively to society. Asrole models for their peers, Rozafa and Albana expressed a strong sense ofconfidence in their pedagogy and a willingness to be observed by others inthe process of demonstrating new teaching methods. In this way, they canboth be understood as informal leaders in their schools. Yet, on closer ex-amination, this leadership role ultimately enabled them to both propel andimpede change. While attempting to introduce new paradigms and practicesin their teaching, Rozafa and Albana nonetheless preserved some aspects ofa more traditional role in the classroom. Table 1 helps illuminate this dimensionof their work.

The analysis presented here of Albanian teachers exhibiting hybridity intheir approach to introducing new techniques and content into their classesechoes the findings of other researchers concerned with teachers’ practicein postauthoritarian, postsocialist, and reform-oriented contexts. For exam-ple, Sarfaroz Niyozov, a comparative education researcher investigating ed-ucational change in the post-Soviet Republic of Tajikistan, provides a usefulanalysis of the instances of nonuniform and experimental pedagogical practiceamong the teachers. Niyozov found that “the same teachers moved betweenteacher-centered, authoritarian, coercive, and transmissive pedagogic models,on the one hand, and student-centered, democratic, and collaborative styles,on the other. This was often within the same classrooms and subjects” (2008,137).

Furthermore, hybrid enactment of new teaching approaches may takeon different forms, depending on the teacher’s situation. Here, the differ-ences between these two teachers help illuminate the range of factors thataffected their practice. For example, the most salient difference betweenRozafa and Albana was their varying sense of freedom and their feelings ofsecurity/insecurity regarding their positions. While both teachers describedfeeling somewhat free within their classrooms, it was clear from classroomobservation and discussion that they were affected differently by a numberof interrelated factors, including their relationship with the school leadership,the quality of the classroom space, the availability and reliability of resourcesand services, and their perceptions regarding what was acceptable or desirableon the basis of school and societal norms.

Another important difference that shaped their pedagogical choices wasthe quality of student-teacher relationships and the corresponding variationin their roles as an authority figure. While Albana maintained her authorityby staying close to students, encouraging their active engagement and par-ticipation in class, Rozafa maintained more of a relational distance fromstudents. This was evident in the way she addressed her students formally

TABLE 1Teachers’ Work: Enacting and Resisting Change with Unintended Consequences

Teacher’s ActionEnacting Change—Actions along the

Prescribed Lines of the ReformResisting Change—Actions at Counterpur-

poses with the Prescribed ReformImmediate Results—Intended (I)

and Unintended (U)

Rozafa’s adaptationof “humanitarianaction” lesson onschool desegrega-tion

She juxtaposed an imported American non-governmental organization lesson withclass discussion and posed questions in-tended to internationalize by linking USand Albanian school contexts

Her emphasis on students’ “equality” al-lowed her to overlook or ignore cultural,social, economic, and ability differencesamong students

I: Captured the majority of students’ atten-tion through reading the story; engagedstudent curiosity; attempted to ground aforeign lesson on human rights andequality in local realities

U: Rendered diverse student identities andeducational needs invisible through a dis-course of “equality,” thus contributing tothe reproduction of educational inequali-ties

Albana’s “open-door”teaching approach

Unlike many other teachers in the school,she kept her classroom door physicallyopen and allowed students to address herin informal ways

The content of borrowed educational mate-rials was delivered at face value—studentspresented as fact materials downloadeddirectly from the Internet; there was noconnection made between the formal/planned curriculum (discussion of mar-ket) and the de facto/lived curriculum(experience of discrimination based oncultural and economic class differences)

I: Introduced new teaching methodologiesand transformed the teacher-student rela-tionship, at times offering a more stu-dent-centered approach

Albana’s adaptationof technology usein the classroom(based on anotherday of observation)

She allowed students to run the PowerPointpresentations on new global themes ofAIDS and environment

U: Despite interactive nature of the lessons,students continued to play a largely pas-sive role without critical examination ordiscussion of downloaded and borrowedmaterials, textbook content, or theteacher’s lesson on tolerance



during the lesson and then came to speak informally about the studentswith me during the class. Discussing students’ ethnicity and psychological(dis)abilities with me during the class period, with the students in the room,signaled a kind of authority move that minimized the presence and voice ofthe students in those moments. Furthermore, while both teachers com-manded respect and, as is customary throughout Albania, students rose toaddress them, their responsiveness to students varied measurably. In thesedifferences, we can link the teachers’ perceptions about their role (as anurturing mother, a role model, and a friend) to the more formal and tra-ditional roles that they held (such as ensuring mastery of the lesson’s contentand evaluating student performance).

Finally, the school and classroom contexts as well as the range and qualityof prior experience of these teachers varied significantly. As apparent in thevignettes, the teachers brought their prior experiences into the classroom.For Albana, this centered on improving communication with and for herstudents. She aimed to depart from the practices of her own teachers, whodiscouraged students from having confidence in their voice by “discriminat-ing” against them. She sought to encourage students’ confidence in a numberof ways. Her pedagogical approach resulted in both an open-door classroomand other attempts within the school to create openness—such as throughher role as a conflict mediator. In Rozafa’s case, the institutional context—both physically and discursively—weighed heavily on her practice. As a “pe-riphery school” that was labeled by many as a school in trouble, EqualityMiddle School broadcast its commitment to “equality.” Yet in everyday prac-tices, there were times when students’ rhetorical equality was undermined inthe face of the very real and largely overlooked inequalities among them.

These similarities and differences provide a more nuanced understandingof the complexity of the teachers’ world. Table 2 situates these findings withina wider lens that incorporates the intersecting layers of influence that op-erated for these teachers. While it is difficult to translate the fluidity of ateacher’s perceptions into the modality of a table, this nonetheless representsan attempt to map out one view of the constellation of concerns that affectedteachers’ decision making and practice as localizers of global educationalmodels in Albania during the concurrent processes of democratization andeducational reform.

In my analysis of these multidimensional factors, I take to heart the richinsights of Deborah Britzman based on her ethnographic study of beginningteachers. She wrote, “Learning to teach is a social process of negotiationrather than an individual problem of behavior. This dynamic is essential toany humanizing explanation of the work of teachers. Teaching concernscoming to terms with one’s intentions and values, as well as one’s views ofknowing, being, and acting in a setting characterized by contradictory real-ities, negotiation, and dependency and struggle” (2003, 31). With this com-

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TABLE 2Complexity within the Teacher’s World

Area ofTeacher’sWorld

Teachers Concerns in Relation to:

Self Students School/System Community/Municipality Society/Nation/World

Role/identity/status*

Sense of one’s roleas a professional;guarding one’sreputation; con-cern for job secu-rity and financialwell-being

Being perceived as anexpert; attention toclassroom manage-ment and disciplin-ary role; desire to bea role model anddemonstrate correctbehavior; mentoringstudents; and tutor-ing students whoneed additional in-struction

Acting as a departmentalleader, mediator, teachertrainer, curriculummodel; gaining a reputa-tion within the schooland wider system as anexcellent teacher;achieving certification;being a role model toother teachers

Gaining respect within munic-ipality through civic partici-pation, leadership of activi-ties, providing services suchas mediation and achievingcertification; becoming anadvocate for youth and pro-viding a safe communityspace for youth at risk; par-ticipating in municipal edu-cational and community-based activities

Becoming a representative globalcitizen and member of knowl-edge society; forming the nextgeneration of leaders; attainingsocial mobility within and be-yond local community; servingas a local representative for in-ternational organizations

Forms ofknowledge†

Subject knowledgeand formal edu-cational training;experientialknowledge and“metis”; commu-nication knowl-edge; knowledgeof one’s expectedposition in schoollife

Knowledge about stu-dent learning andteaching methods;pedagogical knowl-edge; child develop-ment knowledge;age-appropriate sub-ject knowledge

Knowledge of school struc-ture, hierarchy, andschedule/timetable; un-derstanding of profes-sional position inschool; knowledge oftraining methods andsubjects when serving aspeer mediator andtrainer; knowledge ofrules and regulations;tacit knowledge ofschool culture and poli-tics, norms, and proce-dures

Awareness of community is-sues such as internal migra-tion issues, rural/urbanflight; economic conditions;understanding of localnorms, community culture;knowledge of municipal ed-ucation structure, proce-dures, expectations

Knowledge of subject matter forteaching and learning aboutthe nation/world; experientialknowledge based on interna-tional travel, reading, research,intercultural interaction; tech-nological knowledge throughe-mail and Internet and onlineresources; experiential knowl-edge gained from national, in-ternational, and transnationalprofessional activities such astraining, conferences, meet-ings, workshops, educationalexchange, and so on

679

Relationships‡ Nurturing one’spersonal, profes-sional, and pri-vate family life;attending toone’s immediateand extendedfamilies; main-taining personalcontacts and in-volvement in vari-ous groups andnetworks as amember

Caring for students’well-being, character,and future opportu-nities; cultivating asense of friendship,respectful authority,mentoring, and mu-tual respect with stu-dents; advising stu-dents and mediatingconflicts through for-mal and informalprocesses; attendingto students’ personaland academic needs

Maintaining a positive rela-tionship with the schooldirector, vice director,department head, andother leaders; develop-ing a good working rela-tionship with the munic-ipal educationaldirectorate and key ac-tors at the municipallevel; contributing topositive working rela-tionships with peers, fel-low teachers, and evalua-tors

Responsive to relations withcommunity leaders, localparents, civic, social andnongovernmental groupsand organizations; participa-tion in (or aversion of) lo-cal politics, political parties,and media outlets; member-ship and participation inmunicipal-level organiza-tions

Membership and participation innational, regional, interna-tional peer groups or interna-tional nongovernmental advo-cacy networks; participation inteachers’ unions and profes-sional associations; engagementin social networks and relationswith foreign diaspora

Practices/en-actment§

Self-evaluation andesteem; personalinvolvement ineducational pro-jects; training andprofessional de-velopment for ca-reer advance-ment; lifelonglearning

Student evaluation,testing, and assess-ment; fostering stu-dent performanceon tests; involvingstudents in curricu-lum goals related toliterature, language,sciences, social stud-ies, math; advisingstudent groups suchas student govern-ment and clubs; de-veloping curriculum,particularly for free-hour lessons; main-taining the classroomphysical and learningspace

Preparing for school-wideand system-wide exami-nations; navigating effec-tively through infrastruc-ture issues related toclassroom, school, com-munity; training andmentoring peers; adapt-ing and implementingnew regulations, re-forms, textbooks, andcurricula; participatingin extracurricularschool-related activities

Educating school and commu-nity about needs of localenvironment through activi-ties and projects; navigatingthrough uneven aspects oflocal infrastructure such asroads, school buildings inpoor condition; creatingand promoting opportuni-ties for community eco-nomic and social develop-ment; addressing socialissues and mediating con-flicts within the communityand between school andcommunity

Teaching students and modelingpositive behavior and values vis-a-vis democratic citizenship,conflict resolution, nationaland cultural identity; encoun-tering and translating, adopt-ing, or contesting globalnorms, values, beliefs, andpractices; negotiating betweenlocal realities and new globalinfluences; preparing studentsto participate in society andknowledge economy, employ-ment, civic participation; par-ticipating in national, interna-tional, and transnationalprofessional or social networks

* Characterized by self-identified, discursive, institutional, and professional roles and formal and informal status.† Characterized by concrete, abstract, analytic, experiential, conceptual, and applied forms.‡ Characterized by a sense of inclusion, care, participation, and leadership.§ Characterized by professional, creative, productive, and resistant forms.

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plexity in mind, table 2 maps out some of the intersecting dimensions thataffected the choices, beliefs, and practices of the teachers in this study.

To understand a teacher’s world holistically, we must look at the variouscontexts and relationships that constitute her “situation.” The situationallyconstrained choices that teachers must make, at different times throughouttheir day or through their careers, catalyze concerns over a range of com-peting demands and factors. For instance, what impact will their pedagogicalresponses to students in the classroom have on their relations with parents,community members, and school leadership? How will their participation ina local organization or NGO project inform or impede their obligations withinthe school? If they are selected to participate in an international project—such as a United Nations Children’s Fund project on children’s rights—howwill their involvement benefit them? Will it contribute to or improve class-room resources, content knowledge, or teaching practice? Will it enhancetheir professional reputation? Or will involvement in an international pilotproject merely serve as an unrecognized constraint on their limited time? Byexploring the kinds of choices and selections that teachers make at variousintersecting points on table 2, we can begin to fathom the complexity of theireveryday world.

Moreover, teachers’ varying degrees of freedom and insecurity weighheavily on the process of addressing these competing interests. For teacherswho feel a great deal of freedom or autonomy in their classroom, the optionsmay be wider, and the choices made, more flexible. Yet for teachers who haveinternalized a sense of insecurity over their position, other factors—such astheir relationship with school authorities, interactions with community mem-bers, or their status and professional reputation—will weigh more heavily ontheir decision making. The tacit knowledge that factors into teachers’ choicesis difficult to identify in the modality of a table. However, I argue that in eachof the interlocking cells in table 2, a teacher uses various forms of knowledgeaccording to the specific needs, desires, and pressures that she or he expe-riences in that situation. Furthermore, through an analysis of this kind, theinterplay of teachers’ various roles, identities, forms of knowledge, relation-ships, and social and pedagogical practices can be acknowledged and ana-lyzed.

Conclusion and Implications

Taken as a whole, the vignettes and research findings discussed hereprovide some insight into the complexity of the teachers’ world as well asthe significant dual role teachers occupy as agents of change and continuityin classrooms during periods of reform. Considered in light of the widergoals of Albanian educational reform and democratization, this more com-plicated view of teachers’ hybrid practice forces us to reexamine and assessthe intended outcomes of policies that construe teachers’ work in narrow



functionalistic ways. Further, this analysis enables us to better imagine thecomplexity of school life from the point of view of teachers and thus tocontextualize the possible unintended consequences that may result fromthe hybrid enactment of familiar and novel teaching approaches. I arguethat while these implications have particular relevance in the Albanian con-text, many of the issues discussed here also offer insights for educators andreformers in other national and local contexts in which teachers face a mixof constraints and opportunities.

For instance, my research suggests that similar processes of change andcontinuity are occurring within schools throughout the region of southeastEurope in postsocialist countries pursuing democratic reforms. At a regionalnetworking conference on citizenship and human rights education hostedby the Council of Europe, educational professionals from Romania, Serbia,Croatia, Montenegro, and Bosnia and Herzegovina all expressed their con-cerns that teachers needed additional support in breaking from the past andimplementing more interactive methodologies and assessment tools for dem-ocratic citizenship education. Given the inherent uncertainty of school sys-tems undergoing reform in postcommunist and postsocialist contexts, thepressures and challenges teachers face must not be underestimated.

As old and new collide in the space of a curriculum unit—the enactmentof which is left to the teacher and students to negotiate—teachers are subjectto a range of discourses regarding their role and identity. They are at oncepositioned as workers in the global knowledge economy and local educatorsaccountable to parents, school hierarchy, municipal authorities, and nationaland international standards. Thus, the situationally constrained choices theymake incorporate their response to a range of pressures as they mediate localand global forces. These contradictions and flows collide within them andare negotiated through their hybrid and (at times) disjointed practice. Takingthis complexity into account, reformers must learn more about the skills thatexperienced teachers already have as well as the skills and related institutionaland professional support that they need to successfully navigate these uneventerrains of local/global identity, knowledge, and practice.

Ultimately, when introducing and implementing educational reforms,educational authorities should recognize that teachers respond from a mul-tiplicity of perspectives. My findings suggest that to avoid negative unintendedconsequences, policy makers should emphasize the value of teachers’ intuitiveand experiential knowledge as well as larger social, political, and internationalpolicy goals. By tapping into the metis of experienced teachers, policy makerscan galvanize momentum for change, allowing for teachers to develop andgradually incorporate new elements into their classroom configurations ofpower, relationship, knowledge, and pedagogy. As suggested by several au-thors, the classroom is composed of a delicate balance of personalities, goals,

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orientations, epistemologies, and abilities.9 Teachers must mediate these el-ements on a daily basis, making moment-to-moment choices in their activitiesand interactions. One quick glance from teacher to student can shift theclassroom dynamic. Such calculated gestures are strategically deployedthroughout the 50-minute class period multiple times each day. To demandimmediate and widespread change within such a delicate web of interactionis often counterproductive.

This is not to say that all microsystems within a national educationalstructure are not equally nuanced and complex. However, the classroomserves as the direct interface between the larger structure of the nationalcurriculum and the microcosm of teaching and learning. Furthermore, asthe teachers in this study demonstrate, cultural factors matter. For instance,the construction of identity is constantly underway as a by-product of curric-ular and pedagogical aims. In the classroom, teachers’ reputations and statuspositions are defined and refined. Students’ sense of themselves as learners,members of the school community, and citizens are also constructed throughboth direct and tacit interventions within the life of the classroom. Thesecomplex processes all entail cultural elements that should not be ignored asreforms enter the school through the classroom door. Ultimately, we mustappreciate teachers as situated actors whose particular knowledge and ex-pertise enable them to serve as both agents of change and stakeholders ofcontinuity during the uncertain and unsettling process of reform.

References

Albanian Council of Ministers. 2008. “National Strategy for Development and In-tegration, 2007–2013.” Albanian Council of Ministers. http://www.dsdc.gov.al/dsdc/National_Strategy_for_Development_and_Integration_7_2.php.

Albanian Ministry of Education and Science. 2005. “National Education Strategy,2004–2015.” Republic of Albania Ministry of Education and Science, Tirana.

Bray, Mark, and R. Murray Thomas. 1995. “Levels of Comparison in EducationalStudies: Different Insights from Different Literatures and the Value of MultilevelAnalyses.” Harvard Educational Review 65 (3): 472–90.

Britzman, Deborah P. 2003. Practice Makes Practice: A Critical Study of Learning toTeach. Rev. ed. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.

Cuban, Larry. 1984. How Teachers Taught: Constancy and Change in American Class-rooms, 1890–1980. New York: Longman.

Cuban, Larry. 1986. Teachers and Machines: The Classroom Use of Technology since 1920.New York: Teachers College Press.

Fink, Dean, and Louise Stoll. 2005. “Educational Change: Easier Said Than Done.”In Extending Educational Change, ed. A. Hargreaves. Dordrecht: Springer.

Fullan, Michael G. 1993. Change Forces: Probing the Depth of Educational Reform. Lon-don: Falmer.

9 See Cuban (1984), Lieberman and Miller (1984), Sarason (1996), Fullan (2007), and others.

http://www.dsdc.gov.al/dsdc/National_Strategy_for_Development_and_Integration_7_2.php

http://www.dsdc.gov.al/dsdc/National_Strategy_for_Development_and_Integration_7_2.php



Fullan, Michael G. 1999. Change Forces: The Sequel. London: Falmer.Fullan, Michael G. 2007. The New Meaning of Educational Change. New York: Teachers

College Press.Gardinier, Meg P., and Elizabeth A. Worden. 2011. “The Semblance of Progress

amidst the Absence of Change: Educating for an Imagined Europe in Moldovaand Albania.” In Post-socialism Is Not Dead: (Re)Reading the Global in ComparativeEducation, ed. Iveta Silova. International Perspectives on Education and Society14. Bingley: Emerald.

Lieberman, Ann, and Lynne Miller. 1984. Teachers, Their World, and Their Work:Implications for School Improvement. Alexandria: Association for Supervision andCurriculum Development.

Niyozov, Sarfaroz. 2008. “Understanding Pedagogy: Cross-Cultural and Compara-tive Insights from Central Asia.” In Comparative and International Education: Issuesfor Teachers, ed. K. Mundy, K. Bickmore, R. Hayhoe, M. Madden, and K. Madjidi.Toronto: Canadian Scholars.

Polyzoi, Eleoussa, and Marie Cerna. 2001. “Forces Affecting the Implementationof Educational Change in the Czech Republic: A Dynamic Model.” ComparativeEducation Review 45 (February): 64–84.

Rychen, Dominique S., and Alejandro Tiana. 2004. Developing Key Competencies inEducation: Some Lessons from International and National Experience. Paris: UNESCO.

Sarason, Seymour B. 1996. Revisiting “The Culture of the School and the Problem ofChange.” New York: Teachers College Press.

Scott, James C. 1998. Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the HumanCondition Have Failed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Vavrus, Frances, and Lesley Bartlett. 2006. “Comparatively Knowing: Making a Casefor the Vertical Case Study.” Current Issues in Comparative Education 8 (2): 95–103.

World Bank. 2004. Learning to Teach in the Knowledge Society. Washington, DC: HumanDevelopment Network.

World Bank. 2005. Expanding Opportunities and Building Competencies for Young People:A New Agenda for Secondary Education. Washington, DC: World Bank.

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