Bridging gaps: a systematic literature review of brokerage in educational change.

Bridging gaps between educational stakeholders at the classroom, school, and system levels is essential to achieve sustainable change in primary and secondary education. However, transferring knowledge or building capacity within this network of loosely coupled stakeholders is demanding. The brokerage concept holds promise for studying these complex patterns of interaction, as it refers to how specific actors (brokers) link loosely coupled or disconnected individuals (brokering). However, different research traditions, in terms of theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches, and various stakeholders examined in their role as bridge builders make understanding the role of brokers, brokering, and brokerage in changing educational practice challenging. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to provide an overview of the current literature on these concepts in educational change research. In a systematic literature review based on 42 studies, we analyzed each study's theoretical assumptions, methodological approach, scope in terms of stakeholders involved, and empirical findings. First, the literature review revealed that research on educational change refers to four different theoretical frameworks when focusing on brokers, brokering, or brokerage. Second, our results indicate that predominantly qualitative approaches have been applied. Third, using content network graphs, we identified teachers and principals as among the most frequently analyzed brokers. Fourth, four relevant aspects of the empirical findings are presented: brokers' personal characteristics, conditions that enable brokering, successful brokering strategies, and outcomes of brokerage. Finally, we outline a future research agenda based on the empirical evidence base and shortcomings.

Adapting routines in schools when facing challenging situations: Extending previous theories on routines by considering theories on self-regulated and collectively regulated learning.

Routines play a major role in educational change in schools. But what happens if the routines performed by school staff fail to deal successfully with current challenges? What strategies aid adaptation of the routines in a specific situation? Up to now, there exists no comprehensive concept for understanding why and at what points the adapting of routines in schools in a specific situation takes a favorable or unfavorable direction. To address this gap, we propose extending theories on routines by considering theories on self-regulated and collectively regulated learning. We consider these theories to be a beneficial complement because of their broad theoretical, methodological, and empirical research base. We argue that these theories enhance the understanding of adapting routines to specific challenging situations in schools. We present a newly developed theoretical framework for dealing with specific challenging situations in schools as an interplay between routines and regulation processes. Finally, important research questions regarding the suggested approach are discussed.

[Conceptualizing and Measuring the Quality of Adaptive Learning Support in Kindergarten Using Mathematical Board Games. A Study in Germany and Switzerland]. / Konzeptualisierung und Messung der Qualität der adaptiven Lernunterstützung in Lernsituationen mit mathematischen Regelspielen im Kindergarten. Eine Studie in Deutschland und der Schweiz.

Good adaptive support by educational professionals is crucial for pre-school children's mathematical learning. Thus there is a need for appropriate instruments to evaluate the quality of the planning, implementation, and reflection process for mathematical learning opportunities in kindergarten. Existing instruments tend to focus on micro-adaptive learning support (MI-ALS), which considers the interaction between the professionals and the children. The quality of macro-adaptive learning support (MA-ALS), the teachers' planning of and reflection on learning opportunities, has yet to be comprehensively investigated. MA-ALS is important for the acquisition of subject-related (mathematical) competence, an aspect of kindergarten education that is gaining in importance in the pre-school curricula of many countries.The quality of mathematical learning support in kindergarten is conceptualized by differentiating between the quality of MA-ALS and MI-ALS. MI-ALS is also divided into general support (group management, emotional warmth) and subject-related support (learning stimulation, subject-specific language). A rating tool for analyzing the quality of mathematical learning support is presented and its psychometric quality is assessed. The tool is then used to analyze the teaching quality in two guided play situations (recorded) and two interviews each with 145 education professionals in Germany and Switzerland. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) confirms the validity of the distinction between group management, emotional warmth and subject-related support. The relationship between the level of MI-ALS and MA-ALS, the training of the teachers (academic vs non-academic), and the educational context (Germany vs Switzerland) is examined. The results corroborate the importance of including planning and reflection as a dimension of learning support quality.

"Title does not dictate behavior": Associations of formal, structural, and behavioral brokerage with school staff members' professional well-being.

Individuals in brokerage positions are vital when further developing complex organizations with multiple subgroups only loosely coupled to each other. Network theorists have conceptualized an individual's brokerage as the degree to which a person occupies a bridging position between disconnected others. Research outside the school context has indicated for quite some time that an individual's social capital in the form of brokerage is positively associated with professional development-not only on a collective but also on an individual level. Schools are without any doubt complex organizations with multiple loosely connected stakeholders involved when further developing their educational practice. Thus, it is not surprising that in recent years, the concept of brokerage has gained interest in research on school improvement as well. Up to now, in school improvement research brokerage has been operationalized in different ways: as individuals' formal entitlement to act as intermediaries (formal brokerage), their position within a social network (structural brokerage), or their behavior when linking disconnected groups of staff members (behavioral brokerage). As these perspectives have often been examined separately, this study, as a first step, aimed to simultaneously assess school staff members' formal, structural, and behavioral brokerage, and examine their degree of interrelatedness. In a second step, associations of brokerage with professional well-being were analyzed. Even though there is evidence for the positive impact of brokerage on professional development, only little is known about its associations with professional well-being. In a third step, interaction effects were examined when formal brokerage is congruent or incongruent with other facets of brokerage. Based on a sample of 1,316 school staff members at 51 primary schools in the German-speaking part of Switzerland, we conducted both bivariate correlational and multiple-group structural equation modeling analyses. The findings revealed that formal, structural, and behavioral brokerage are interrelated facets. However, formal entitlement did not determine either structural position or behavior. Moreover, brokerage within schools was only partially related to professional well-being. In the discussion section, the study's key contributions and practical implications are presented in detail.