Centralization and school empowerment from rhetoric to practice

Decentralization and school empowerment reforms have become popular restructuring initiatives, receiving much attention both in academic publications and in research coming mostly from decentralized states, such as the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Following liberal voices that call for increased local control, it is for some time now that school empowerment initiatives are also sweeping educational systems, which traditionally have featured a highly centralized structure. Decentralization efforts are continually growing, although evidence coming from various centralized countries reveals only limited lasting effects, failing to establish the grounds for solid theoretical generalizations that would support the potential of these restructuring initiatives to promote school autonomy and effectiveness in centralized structures. The objective of this book is to fill this gap. The book is a result of an international project exploring the capacity of centralized structures to absorb change initiatives oriented towards school empowerment. In search of common denominators among Mediterranean Basin states which traditionally have featured a highly centralized structure, this book attempts to provide international audiences substantial indicators based on a comparative perspective regarding the infrastructure of centralized educational systems and to present implications in terms of possibilities and constraints for school empowerment reforms.