Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Despite the Odds: The Contentious Politics of Education Reform
    Despite the Odds: The Contentious Politics of Education Reform
    Despite the Odds: The Contentious Politics of Education Reform
    Ebook260 pages7 hours

    Despite the Odds: The Contentious Politics of Education Reform

    By Merilee S. Grindle

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Despite the Odds poses an important question: How can we account for successful policy reform initiatives when the political cards are stacked against change? Theories of politics usually predict that reform initiatives will be unsuccessful when powerful groups are opposed to change and institutions are biased against it. This book, however, shows how the strategic choices of reform proponents alter the destinies of policy reforms by reshaping power equations and undermining institutional biases that impede change.


    In many countries, the political path to reform can be daunting. Antireform interests are powerful and support for change is, at best, lukewarm. Centrally important institutions strongly defend the policy status quo. Despite these political odds, reformers have seized the initiative in promoting reform, weakening and marginalizing opposition groups, and marshaling political patrons and networks to advance their initiatives.



    Despite the Odds opens the "black box" of decision making in five initiatives designed to enhance the quality of education services in Latin America. The book addresses the strategies used by reformers to manage the political process of change and those adopted by opposition groups and institutions resisting their efforts. Individual chapters consider how leaders set national policy agendas for education, how policy design teams created the content of reform initiatives, how they dealt with the messy and public confrontations that greeted reform proposals when they were announced, and the carryover of political conflict when they were implemented.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPrinceton University Press
    Release dateJun 5, 2018
    ISBN9780691186818
    Despite the Odds: The Contentious Politics of Education Reform
    Author

    Merilee S. Grindle

    Merilee S. Grindle is Edward S. Mason Professor of International Development at the Kennedy School of Government and Director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University. She is the author, most recently, of Despite the Odds: The Contentious Politics of Education Reform (Princeton).

    Related to Despite the Odds

    Related ebooks

    Teaching Methods & Materials For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The Best of Times, The Worst of Times…

      Jan 25, 2023

      In describing the state of American higher education today, it is hard to improve upon Charles Dickens’s memorable opening lines in A Tale of Two Cities: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of

      12 min read

    • Article

      Solving A Population Puzzle

      May 20, 2021

      How should we regard China’s demographic changes and related issues at a time of heated discussions about new births hitting a record low, the population about to see negative growth and the aging process accelerating? How should China address the po

      4 min read

    • Article

      Metro In The 1970s

      May 5, 2019

      ‘Whitlam!’ That’s the one word that best captures Metro’s journey in the 1970s. When I first met Metro in 1973 – before it was even officially known as Metro – it was a roneoed newsletter created by a handful of passionate teachers who shared overlap

      3 min read

    • Article

      Science Is Alive And Well In Maine

      Jan 25, 2021

      Science Is Alive And Well In Maine
      3 min read

    • Article

      Can Civics Save America?

      May 15, 2021

      Can Civics Save America?
      9 min read

    • Article

      Q&A

      May 1, 2021

      It’s been quite a year for the public sector. What has impressed you the most about the Canadian government’s response to this pandemic —and what has disappointed you? In the first wave last March and April, the response to the pandemic itself as wel

      6 min read

    • Article

      How to Actually Promote Diversity in STEM

      Nov 29, 2019

      The future depends on a robust scientific workforce, but millions of minority students are massively underrepresented in these fields.

      6 min read

    • Article

      Calling All Inventors

      Feb 1, 2019

      This is an open letter to all COBBLESTONE readers. I am calling upon you to invent. Are you wondering why I’m asking you to invent in a magazine devoted to U.S. history? Think about it. The United States has contributed an amazing number of scientifi

      2 min read

    • Article

      In The Americas, Right To Learn A Second Language Gains Support

      May 30, 2019

      Mexico recently cleared the way for citizens to learn a second language, and debate is going on in Canada as well. What is prompting the shift?

      4 min read

    • Article

      The Learning Recovery

      Jul 23, 2021

      The Learning Recovery
      6 min read

    • Article

      Necessary Work: Reorganizing Space For Equality

      Jun 27, 2021

      Rory Hyde: What are your thoughts on what is happening now with the pandemic? How do you think it could change the way we live in suburbia? Dolores Hayden: What the pandemic has done, in its strange and terrible way, is to focus our attention on nec

      5 min read

    • Article

      Education: What We Can Do Better

      Jun 1, 2021

      AS COVID-19 SWEPT THROUGH THE WORLD, SOME AREAS OF OUR lives were more deeply affected than others, one of them being education. Before the pandemic, technology had started taking a more prominent place in education, and online learning was being int

      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Despite the Odds

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Despite the Odds - Merilee S. Grindle

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1