Moving language barriers. A mixed-methods study of the implementation of school-based language policies in primary schools

All schools in Flanders are mandated to implement a school-based language policy in order to enhance students’ proficiency in Dutch, the language of instruction (Corson, 1990; Mullis et al., 2016). To date, little empirical evidence is available on how schools implement their SLP, and whether it enhances language teaching and learning. This dissertation investigated whether schools manage to implement a policy that effectively promotes student language development.

SLP, good for the strong, strong for the weak?

The first two studies explored the effectiveness of SLP implementation. The first study that we conducted was a quantitative multilevel study in which indicators of SLP implementation in 28 primary schools were related to the reading outcomes of around 3000 students in first, third and sixth grade. Results indicate that some SLP indicators are significantly positively related to students’ technical reading performances. Lower-grade pupils performed better on tests measuring reading decoding skills in schools with more reflective capacity on language instruction than pupils in schools with less reflective capacity on language instruction. SLP seems less present. By contrast, no significant relationships between other indicators of SLP and decoding skills, and between SLP and student reading comprehension skills were found. In addition, SLP was not found to be differentially effective for pupils with a different language background or low SES. In sum, this study does not provide strong evidence that SLP implementation enhances all students’ Dutch language proficiency. We hypothesize that either SLP is not effective as a measure to promote more complex language skills, that it is not implemented effectively within schools (Fixsen et al., 2005), or that it was not measured adequately in this study.

In order to further explore these findings, the second study looked closer into the configuration of school-based SLP. Qualitative data were collected in a subsample of six schools from the first study. Focus group interviews were conducted with the SLP policy making team and teachers, and were supplemented with an analysis of policy documents, class observations and focus groups with pupils (Miles & Huberman, 1994). Insights from EER on what constitutes effective general school policies were used to score the quality of the SLP of the 6 schools (Kyriakides et al., 2010; Reynolds et al., 2014). The results of this study confirm the hypotheses put forward in the first study. School teams take several measures to implement an SLP, but only one out of six schools managed to implement an SLP that can be identified as ‘effective’, in line with the available empirical evidence on educational effectiveness (Kyrkiakides et al., 2010; 2016). The SLPs that schools implement are likely to foster student foundational language skills such as reading decoding and vocabulary knowledge, but they probably do not address complex language skills such as reading comprehension or writing to the same degree. The perceived complexity of promoting more complex language skills provides one explanation of this outcome and is also reported in other studies examining innovation in language education (e.g., Graham, 2019). The school management teams, which function as the policy initiators in all schools, were found to struggle with teacher autonomy. Teachers were only partly involved in the policy making process. Teachers, in turn, mainly interpret SLP as something additional to their current practice, and not something that is to replace traditional teaching practices. A final explanation for these findings corroborates the conclusion of many studies on language education policy, which is that educators’ beliefs about language and multilingualism, too, complicate the implementation process (e.g., Galdames & Gaete, 2010; Harklau et al., 2018; Johnson & Johnson, 2015).

Since the schools in this study also participated in study 1, data were available on student language performances. Our results indicate that schools that are ineffective at promoting student language development (based on sixth-graders’ reading comprehension performances) did not manage to design and implement a strategic SLP – their policies mainly exist on paper, or within the rooms of policy management teams. Yet, the opposite might not be true: we could not find a one-on-one relationship between effective SLP implementation and effective student language development. Other practices and individual effective teachers seem to play a substantial role, in line with previous studies indicating that teachers are the final arbiters of policy (Hornberger & Johson, 2007; Menken & Garcia, 2010). It is important to note, however, that we cannot infer causal relationships from our data. It may also be the case that the effect of SLP on student achievement is reciprocal, with higher performances leading to a more strategic use of school autonomy (De Grauwe, 2005; Muijs et al., 2004).

Overall, the first two studies confirm that increased school autonomy does not necessarily lead to school improvement, which has also been reported in other studies (e.g., Hanushek et al., 2013; Watson & Fullan, 2000). We hypothesized that SLP may require too much of a change from most schools, as traditional language teaching (with a main focus on basic skills and frontal teaching) and isolated teaching are still widely prevalent in most schools (AHOVOKS, 2019; De Smedt et al., 2016; Graham, 2019). Our findings corroborate the conclusion of May (2007, p. 402) about the implementation of whole-school literacy policies in secondary schools in New Zealand that ‘alongside knowledge of effective language and literacy instruction, schools need knowledge of sustainable change management and leadership, and of the school organization and culture’. Furthermore, our results confirm the findings of previous research conducted in multilingual school settings, which indicate that language education policies are continuously interpreted and negotiated at all levels (Shohamy, 2006; Menken & Garcia, 2010). Regardless of school language policy, individual teachers also look for ways to continuously adjust their practice to their students’ linguistic needs. In other words, effectively implemented strategic SLPs may help to improve education, but schools without a strategic SLP are not necessarily  ineffective. However, this  may become a problem when effective individual teachers leave the school (Fullan, 2015; Hargreaves & Fullan, 2012). 

Conditions affecting SLP implementation: every school an SLP?

For a language education policy issued by governments to lead to system-wide improvements in  language education, all schools need to be able to successfully implement the policy (Teddlie & Reynolds, 2000). However, a vast amount of studies, both in the language education policy literature and the general education policy literature indicates that policy implementation is often uneven across different schools (Honig, 2006). For instance,  the Flemish Inspectorate (2015) noticed that schools with a more socio-ethnically diverse student population more often develop an SLP than schools that are less diverse.

The third study examined what role the school context plays in SLP implementation. The study adopted a mixed-method design by combining quantitative survey data collected in the 28 schools from study 1 with qualitative data collected in a subsample of six schools (study 2). The results indicate that student socio-ethnic composition indeed is a major driver for school teams to implement an SLP, revealing a deficit perspective: school teams feel the ‘need’ to implement an SLP in order to compensate for their students’ low language and literacy skills. Apart from student composition, average teacher experience and school size seemed to influence the implementation of an SLP. Of course, not all differences between schools could be explained by the school contextual factors included in this study; school cultural aspects such as teacher informal relationships and school leadership are likely to be  important predictors as well (März et al., 2018; Valckx et al., 2020).

These findings nevertheless resonate with the conclusions of several other qualitative studies that investigate the implementation of innovative teaching practices and evidence-based programs, and that indicate that diversity in implementation is the norm rather than the exception (e.g., Ball et al., 2012; Johnson et al., 2018; Menken & Solarza, 2014; Liddicoat et al., 2018; Ruys et al., 2014; Samuda, Van den Branden & Bygate, 2019). This implies that some schools experience a stronger need to implement the policy (Viennet & Pont, 2017), and that for some schools, it is easier to implement an SLP than for others (cf. Van der Wildt et al., 2015). This also implies that different strategies and tailored (external) school support may be needed in order to improve language instruction in different school contexts (Honig, 2006; Hopkins, 2001). It seems  to be an illusion that merely giving schools the autonomy to tailor the policy to their local needs will be sufficient.

Stakeholder experiences with SLP: what do they think is best?

As SLP implementation, much like other policy implementations, is uneven across different contexts, study 4 examined what stakeholders involved in the implementation of SLP believe is necessary for SLP to contribute to student language achievement. Previous studies emphasize that language policy implementation is a multi-layered process that is constantly interpreted and appropriated as it travels through different layers of the education system, because different stakeholders bring their own beliefs and experiences into the process (Menken & Garcia, 2010; Ricento & Hornberger, 1996). The studies conducted so far have primarily examined teacher interpretations and implementation of language education policy, since teachers are the final arbiters of language policy, and mainly adopt a qualitative approach (Harklau et al., 2018; Johnson et al., 2018; Menken & Garcia, 2010; Varghese, 2008). There are, however, many more stakeholders involved in the implementation process (Burns & Köster, 2016), and qualitative results cannot be easily generalized to other contexts. This study therefore included different groups of stakeholders at different layers of the policy process (Ricento & Hornberger, 1996), and adopted a mixed-method approach.

A Q-study (Brown, 1980; Lo Bianco, 2015b) was conducted in order to unravel the implicit beliefs of stakeholders regarding SLP implementation. Four viewpoints were identified: there are those who are convinced that the solution to bridge the gap between SLP intention and execution lies in engaging teachers to collectively improve their practices;  those that believe that it is necessary for school teams to follow a detailed roadmap;  those who think it is key to provide these teams with extensive support in order to substantially shift teachers’ mental models of language and language learning; and, finally, a limited number of respondents who question the overall logic of the policy.

The most striking result of  our analysis is that the framing and interpretation of the policy is substantially different for actors that have the task to either guide or evaluate schools on the one hand, and actors that  have to implement the policy in their everyday practices on the other hand. While interpretations of the policy are rather uniform within stakeholder groups (Honig, 2006), and clearly reflect their professional background, no full agreement exists across groups on how best to implement an SLP, and what its function in schools should be. These differences in interpretation may provide an additional explanation of why school-based language policies are often not well implemented (cf. also Edgerton & Desimone, 2019; Levin, 2008). This outcome shows that it is important to involve different stakeholders in future policymaking (Lo Bianco, 2015a), and to intensify their mutual dialogue, as they all shape policy implementation by bringing their own experiences and beliefs (Spillane et al., 2006).