Policy efforts to meet UNESCO’s Sustainable development Goal 4: A 3-pronged approach

ABSTRACT

Governments around the globe have realised that meeting UNESCO’s Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 of ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education requires meaningful changes to policy and practice. There are numerous ways localities have attempted to do so: policies aimed at intentional hiring of more diverse teachers, policies requiring professional development for current teachers, and including diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) training as part of pre-service preparation programmes. In this paper we argue that each of these is necessary, but none is sufficient on its own, to move the needle towards SDG4. Policy implementation literature suggests the importance of the social dimension of those tasked with implementing new policies, which guides our argument for how policies can move from aspirational to enacted. We offer examples of policies and practices at each of these three inflexion points for change (pre-service, hiring, and in-service), with implications for teacher education in other contexts working to create truly inclusive, equitable schools.

KEYWORDS:

• Policy implementation
• DEI
• teacher education
• sustainable development goal4

A 3-pronged approach to inclusive and equitable education

Governments around the globe have realised that meeting UNESCO’s Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 of ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education requires meaningful changes to policy and practice. There are numerous ways localities have attempted to do so: policies aimed at intentional hiring of more diverse teachers, policies requiring diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) professional development for current teachers, and including DEI training as part of pre-service preparation programmes. In this paper, we argue that each of these is necessary, but none is sufficient on its own, to move the needle towards SDG4.

Here in New Zealand, there is growing acknowledgement of persistent bias in the country’s education system and its negative impact especially on Māori and Pacific learners’ success. Systemic bias includes stereotyping specific groups based on their ethnicity as well as privileging dominant ways of thinking, teaching, and learning, which creates barriers for minority learners. Māori and Pacific learners’ experiences of systemic bias and its impact on their self-esteem, engagement, and outcomes is widely documented (Allen and Webber 2019; Rubie-Davies et al. 2012; Rubie-Davies, Hattie, and Hamilton 2006; Webber, McKinley, and Hattie 2013). Our colleagues’ research has found systematically lower teacher judgements in reading and writing for Māori and Pacific students compared to New Zealand European students after controlling for standardised achievement results (Meissel et al. 2017). New Zealand Human Rights Commission reports point to the prevalence of racial bias (Human Rights Commission 2022a, 2022b)). Policymakers and government agencies highlight the need to confront systemic racism and discrimination in education (MoE 2020a, 2020c; The Teaching Council 2020). Yet, the Voice of Racism education campaign has been critiqued for focusing on individual change and not acknowledging the systemic and institutionalised nature of bias (Birk 2022).

The growing acknowledgement of systemic bias has led to calls for action here and globally. Locally, the 2020 Statement of National Education and Learning Priorities’ (NELP) first priority is to ‘ensure places of learning are safe, inclusive and free from racism, discrimination and bullying’ (MoE 2020c, 1). The 2020 Action Plan for Pacific Education identifies five ‘key shifts’ for education to support Pacific learner success. Key shift #2 is to confront systemic racism and discrimination in education (see education.govt.nz). Likewise, two further important Māori education initiatives, Ka Hikitia – Ka Hāpaitia (Ministry of Education 2020b) and Te Hurihanganui (Ministry of Education, 2021), has countering racism key priorities. Further, the recent ‘Unteach Racism’ campaign by the Teaching Council is an app-based program that aims to support teachers in identifying, confronting, and dismantling bias. Thus, educators are increasingly asked to discuss racism, discrimination, and bias in their school context and to commit to professional learning around anti-racism and discrimination. However, these efforts, when taken in isolation, do little to confront persistent bias. In this paper, we argue that a three-pronged approach to inclusive and equitable education is needed to meet UNESCO’s Sustainable Development Goal 4 of ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education. Before we turn to each of these prongs – initial teacher education, in-service teacher professional development, and efforts to recruit teachers who mirror the populations they serve – we present a brief review of the prior research on what makes policy implementation so challenging, and ultimately so critically important in moving from aspiration to results.

What is known about policy implementation

In New Zealand, there is a Māori whakataukī that [author] use in my policy course, mā te huruhuru te manu ka rere, which translates as ‘it is the feathers that make the bird fly’. A policy, in and of itself, does not create change. A written policy document sits dormant until implemented. In education, teachers are the feathers that make a policy fly. Policy implementation – also called policy enactment (Ball, Maguire, and Braun 2011) – denotes the stage at which a policy is transformed from an aspirational document into action, or, conversely, flounders in inaction.

Adding metaphorical feathers to an otherwise flightless policy is not simply a matter of crafting a compelling policy document. Honig (2006) argues that ‘confronting the complexity of policy implementation is essential to building the kind of instructive knowledge base that educational decision-makers demand’ (p. 3). For decades, the literature on policy implementation has stressed the importance of the interactions between a policy text, the people tasked with implementing it, and the place it is implemented in determining whether a policy is ‘implementable’ and in deeming whether a policy has resulted in the intended outcomes (Honig 2006; Odden and Marsh 1989). As Dumas and Anyon (2006) note, there is an ‘inextricable link between education policy implementation and larger political, economic, and cultural processes’ (p. 149). Further, policies that aim to change teacher behaviour can be more challenging than those that impose structural changes (Cuban and Tyack 1995; Elmore 1996; McLaughlin and Talbert 2001).

A growing segment of the scholarship on education policy implementation highlights the social aspect in determining the extent of policy implementation (Coburn and Stein 2006; Dumas and Anyon 2006; Honig 2006; Little 2003; Spillane, Resier, and Gomez 2006). Coburn and Stein (2006) call this the ‘ongoing negotiation of meaning among teachers’ (p. 26) when they confront a policy that asks them to engage in new learning. This negotiation includes aspects of trust, shared goals, and opportunities for collaboration that can be within a school or in ‘microcommunities’ of formal and informal teacher networks. These negotiations of meanings are most fruitful when schools provide teachers with opportunities that foster ‘the conditions under which learning unfolds’ (Coburn and Stein 2006, 42).

As with professional development intended to shape teacher practice, new education policies need to include not just the intended actions teachers are expected to take to meet the policy objectives, but the ‘social infrastructure to foster learning’ (Wenger 1998, 225). A new policy that demands changes to teachers’ behaviour is unlikely to be enacted as intended unless teachers are able to interact with others in their understanding of the policy document, and are provided ample opportunities to engage in sense-making of how the policy can be introduced into their existing practice (Spillane 2000; Spillane, Resier, and Gomez 2006). Further, interacting with others who share a scepticism of a new policy is likely to lead to what Malen (2006) terms ‘policy dilution’ in which teachers as policy implementers can enact various forms of implementation resistance, including adaptation, neglect, or outright sabotage (Anyon 1997; Smith and Thier 2017; Stone 2001). Indeed, histories of racist colonisation have legacies of pervasive discourses that remain, perhaps at the ‘unconscious’ level (Blank, Houkamau, and Kingi 2016).

In the case of implementing policies aimed at increasing equity in schools, teachers will ‘construct different understandings even when they have a complete knowledge of reform demands … [because they will] view new demands in terms of what they already know and believe’ (Spillane, Resier, and Gomez 2006, 51). In their interviews in six states in the US about the challenges of implementing the Common Core State Standards, Smith and Thier (2017) found that policy implementation was hampered by a range of factors including limited capacity, misunderstanding intent, and outright resistance. A policy that asks teachers to confront inequities may face a range of barriers spanning these factors; school leaders and professional development providers need to centre the notion that even with full buy-in for the goals of such a policy, ‘fundamental conceptual change requiring restructuring of existing knowledge is extremely difficult’ (Spillane, Resier, and Gomez 2006, 53). As such, open channels of communication can enhance social capital across teachers, school leaders, and boards (Smylie and Evans 2006).

Pre-service teacher preparation and the provision of inclusive and equitable Education

Pre-service teacher education in Aotearoa New Zealand has a significant role to play in addressing issues of equity and inclusion: it makes a fitting initial prong to a three-pronged approach. To make this point, [author] reflect on my experiences over the last twenty years as a white male university pre-service teacher educator who has attempted to address issues of inclusion and equity with Indigenous Māori. I point to challenges I have experienced in preparing pre-service students to teach in a treaty-led education system and opportunities I see for teacher educators to support the intent of Te Tiriti o Waitangi (The Treaty of Waitangi) in their practice.

To give a bit of context, in 1840 Te Tiriti o Waitangi/The Treaty of Waitangi was signed by the British crown and Māori leaders. Te Tiriti is the te reo Māori version of the Treaty of Waitangi and was signed by all Māori chiefs and Crown representatives at Waitangi on 6 February 1840, the English version was not (Orange 2015). Due to inconsistencies in translation between the English and te reo Māori texts, Te Tiriti is the version recognised by international law and its principles are enforceable in Aotearoa courts (Puni Kōkiri 2002). Te Tiriti established the right and responsibilities for the Crown to govern, for Māori as Indigenous peoples to live as Māori and protect and develop their taonga (treasured cultural/physical resources) and equality of and common citizenship for all New Zealanders (Waretini- Karena 2012). Within twenty years, a range of decisions made by new settler governing bodies saw the relegation of the Te Tiriti to the status of a historic relic as settlers passed laws that led to the confiscation of Māori land, the deliberate destruction of te reo (Māori language), and the official denigration of Mātauranga Māori knowledge systems (Orange 1989).

Following the signing of te Tiriti, education became a crucial site for the development of policy that systematically discriminated against Māori, while affirming Pakehā knowledge and practices as superior (McMurchy-Pilkington 2001). The Education Ordinance of 1847 signalled the first involvement of the Crown in the provision of Western education for Māori and reflected a view that Māori needed to be assimilated to European ways to pave the way for the smooth colonisation of New Zealand (Hetaraka 2019). Subsequent Crown policies, such as the Native Schools Act of 1867 were designed to make Māori like Pakehā so they would be less likely to oppose the dispossession of their lands and rangatiratanga (Barrington 1970). The assimilationist beliefs inherent in the Education Ordinance and Native Schools Act positioned Māori as an intellectually inferior people best suited to manual labour and domestic work (McMurchy-Pilkington 2001). While the Education Act 1877 aimed to provide equitable education for wealthy and poor settler children, provision for Māori schooling continued to be under the control of Native Schools Act until 1967. Throughout the next 90 years Māori were subject to an education system charged with the responsibility of assimilating Māori children to the underclass of New Zealand society (Hetaraka 2019).

The social changes that occurred across the Western world in the 1960s accelerated attempts to have the treaty honoured. Energised by the Black civil rights movement, Māori became more vociferous in their discontent of the assimilationist education policies that had controlled their experience of schooling since the Native Schools Act (Tauri and Webb 2011). From the 1970s, Māori activism had led to some recognition of the 1840 Te Tiriti o Waitangi as the country’s founding document (Haig-Brown and Hoskins 2019). Māori language revitalisation began to take hold, land confiscations began to be compensated, Māori early childhood centres and schools were established, and Māori language and culture became a more visible aspect of the mainstream New Zealand curriculum. By 1985, a national network of treaty education providers, known as Project Waitangi, was launched to educate New Zealand communities on the promises of Te Tiriti o Waitangi (Huygens 2016).

In the year 2000, [author] had begun my first role in pre-service teacher education as a visiting lecturer. At this point in time I had some knowledge of Māori language and culture and next to no understanding of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. That was about to change. One of the first courses I co-taught required pre-service students to explore the implications of the Treaty for their work as future teachers. I was warned by my new colleagues that the series of workshops around the Treaty would likely evoke some emotional responses in students. They were not wrong!

The series of three Treaty workshops began with some historical exploration of the timeline of the Treaty. The second session involved a simulation drama activity with the fictional premise that New Zealand has been visited by aliens from out of space who sign a ‘contract’ with the ‘New Zealanders’ to peacefully coexist. Through the workshop the various clauses of the contract are breached by the aliens as they take gradual control of New Zealand decision-making institutions while New Zealanders find their rights continually eroded by the extra-terrestrial colonists. The final workshop involved students making connections to the simulation learning activity they had participated in and the experiences Māori had with Pākehā settlers in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Much like their lecturer, these workshops were the first time many of the students had thought deeply about the Treaty and its implications for their work as teachers. A majority of the Pākehā students found the workshops a powerful learning experience. In some cases, the Māori students within these classes could understand the transformational intent of the workshops but found the learning process deeply painful. It is with a sense of regretful irony that I have come to realise that in attempting to assist my students to understand the Treaty, I disregarded the cultural safety of those students that were most disadvantaged by the Crown breaches of the Treaty. With the benefit of hindsight, and an improved understanding of cultural competencies required for teachers of Māori learners, it is clear to me now that I needed to be more proactive in engaging with my Māori learners. Prior to the simulation activity I could have demonstrated whanaungatanga by discussing the sessions purpose with Māori students and seeking their advice on this approach (New Zealand Teachers Council 2011). There were also usually a small group of Pākeha students who failed to see the relevance of the Treaty to their teaching practice. When students had the opportunity to share their thoughts on the learning activity, there were emotional scenes as some students threatened by this new knowledge retreated to paternalistic views of Māori. A typical comment from these students would acknowledge that while Māori had been deceived by the Pākehā, their Treaty transgressions needed to be consigned to the garbage bin of history, as Māori had essentially benefitted technologically, socially, and spiritually from colonisation. ‘We’re all kiwis, aren’t we?’ was a common question asked by these students as they implored their peers to forget the conflicts of the past and embrace a utopian future of harmony.

As a teacher educator I found myself acutely aware that the comments made by the resistant minority were hurtful to the majority. Furthermore, I recognised that their reluctance to see the relevance of the Treaty fore-shadowed the likelihood that these particular pre-service students were likely to resist examining how their assumptions perpetuated inequities between Māori and Pākeha. To address these views, my only recourse was the power of ‘persuasive pedagogy’ (Murphy and Alexander 2007) to assist me in shifting these entrenched attitudes. In some cases, my stubbornness and persistence resulted in shifts towards more inclusive attitudes towards tangata whenua in my students. However, I knew there were students who were intransient in their views and this worried me. I needed another tool in my armoury to ensure the pre-service students in our programmes could be persuaded to adopt practices that were inclusive and equitable for Māori children and young people. I eventually got this assistance in the form of the Graduating Teaching Standards (GTS).

In 2008 the New Zealand Teachers Council published the GTS. The Council is the regulatory and governing body for teachers in New Zealand and required ITE providers to give evidence on how all graduates would meet the GTS through participation in their programmes. Standard 3b required graduating teachers to ‘have knowledge of tikanga and te reo Māori to work effectively within the bicultural contexts of Aotearoa New Zealand’. While the Treaty was not explicitly referred to in this document, as a teacher educator I now had an obligation to transform intransient attitudes or terminate programme completion for those who would continue to exclude te ao Māori (the Māori story and identity) from their practice (Alcorn 2015). The publication of the GTS in 2008 served to underscore the importance of the Treaty to public education in Aotearoa that had previously established in both the early childhood curriculum, Te Whāriki (Ministry of Education 1996), and the New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education 2007).

Further changes were to come in 2017 when the Council introduced ‘Our Code, Our Standards’ (2017). This document provided all teachers in New Zealand, including pre-service students, a unified set of teaching standards and a range of professional commitments framed as a code of conduct. ‘Our Code, Our Standards’ further strengthened the place of te aō Māori in education and established teaching as a Treaty-led profession. The first standard requires teachers ‘to demonstrate a commitment to tangata whenuatanga and Te Tiriti o Waitangi in Aotearoa New Zealand’. To enact this standard, teachers need to acknowledge the history of Māori and ‘practice and develop the use of te reo and tikanga Māori’. Furthermore, the code of conduct aspect of the document requires teachers to engage in behaviours that demonstrate a commitment to the Treaty partnership in the learning environment.

The introduction of specific teaching standards and codes of conduct relating to the Treaty has provided a firm foundation – the first prong in the three-pronged approach – from which ITE providers in Aotearoa New Zealand can educate pre-service students to be capable of providing an inclusive and equitable education for Māori. While this firm footing allows for teacher educators to challenge exclusive and inequitable practices and behaviours, which does not mean we are without challenge in this space.

So what can teacher educators do to ensure inclusive and equitable practices that enhance the achievement of Indigenous learners have a chance of flourishing in ours schools? At this point, I would like to reaffirm I am writing from the position of a white person, not an Indigenous person, and as such my suggestions for ensuring equitable and inclusive practices for Indigenous children and young people are directed mainly at my non-Indigenous teacher educator colleagues. These action points are as follows:

1. Learn the language and culture of your Indigenous peoples and integrate these throughout your practice. It is important to acknowledge that language revitalisation is a complex process that will often involves multiple Indigenous language communities facing the potential loss of their language. Non-Indigenous educators need to navigate this space with sensitivity and humility.

2. When evaluating policy and practice initiatives, be mindful of an Indigenous lens.

3. Speak up and advocate for your Indigenous colleagues when they are undermined politically or academically.

4. Explore how local Indigenous communities could benefit from involvement in your programme and the reciprocal benefits such an association could have on your faculty and students.

5. Remember that all of the points above will inevitably draw on the expertise and labour of your Indigenous colleagues. How will you be able to reciprocate their generosity?

We still have pre-service students who question the relevance of te reo Māori and tikanga Māori to their work as teachers. These attitudes are reinforced by calls from the political right for a ‘back to basics’ focus on English literacy and numeracy in our schools. Other learning areas like te reo Māori are viewed as by these conservative commentators as ‘nice to haves’ but far from essential in a country ‘supposedly’ gripped by falling educational standards and a crisis in schooling. These politicians and educational lobbyists draw on the work of academics who question the epistemological relevance of Mātauranga Māori in a mainstream curriculum underpinned by western scientific knowledge (Rata 2017). These academics appeal to the certainty of the ‘science of instruction’ to provide student teachers with what they need to know to lift the achievement of all learners regardless of cultural background (Brown 2023). More culturally responsive pedagogies are viewed with suspicion. These colonial discourses serve to embolden racists while undermining Mātauranga Māori. While Our Code, Our Standards provides some reassurance to Māori communities that the educational needs of Māori children and young people will be included in teacher practice, there are still many Eurocentric policies and practices that perpetuate exclusion and inequity (McRae and Averill 2019).

Further, if pre-service teachers are hired by schools where the ideas they learned in their pre-service programme are not embraced, these emerging educators may falter in their commitment to using inclusive methods in practice. Hence, the need for the other two prongs: DEI professional development for in-service teachers, and efforts to hire teachers representative of the communities they serve. Without all three prongs, newly trained teachers may find their practices stand out as different from ‘the way we do things’ at their new school community and may abandon these practices in an attempt to fit in.

Policy efforts in the United States to increase teacher diversity through targeted hiring practices

In the United States, policy efforts at the state and school district level have focused on recruitment and retention of teachers and school leaders whose ethnic background mirror their students (Smith et al. 2022). In 2020, fifteen states had included teacher diversity policies in their response to federal policy aimed at improving student achievement. Nine states had pledged ‘to revise, enact or remove state policies that will address specific challenges for both diversifying the educator workforce and ensuring all educators are culturally responsive in practice’ (Council of Chief State School Officers 2019). For example, a state policy in Connecticut requires the state to hire a minimum of 250 minority teachers state-wide each year, a state policy in New Jersey aims to recruit men of colour into the teaching profession, and a state policy in Oregon calls for increasing students’ access to educators who more closely mirror the K-12 student population.

These policies remain aspirational, falling far short of their targets. For example, Oregon’s Minority Teacher Act was adopted in 1991 to increase the diversity of the teacher workforce to better reflect the diversity of the state’s student population. As the diversity of Oregon’s students has increased over the past thirty years, the vast majority of the workforce has remained white, with 36% of students in the state of Oregon identified as ethnic minorities, but only 8% of the teaching population (Chief Education Office 2016).

One reason these efforts to recruit more diverse teachers has stumbled at the implementation stage is that there is a shortage of candidates of colour for teaching positions in the US. It is not surprising that since students of colour face persistent bias in schools, there is little motivation to pursue a career in institutions that are viewed as hostile. As [author] found in our study examining efforts made by intentionally diverse schools in three US states, meeting policy objectives was futile without sufficient candidates: a participant from our study noted, ‘It’s not lost on us that it’s a national epidemic that we have so few teachers of colour’ (p.7). While a variety of policy instruments have been trialled, the policy targets remain elusive. As [author] conclude, ‘Thirty years of aspirational legislation and individual school efforts such as those in our study sample to increase teacher diversity have fallen short’ (p. 13).

Even when candidates of colour are hired, they leave the teaching profession at higher rates than their white peers, citing hostile climates within schools (Kohli 2018). In response, some school districts have engaged in ‘cluster hires’ to create community among newly hired clusters of diverse teachers. While these efforts begin to address the social dimension of policy implementation, and the social nature of the teaching profession, school contexts can present isolation when a there are only small pockets of diversity. The need for newly hired teachers of colour to feel valued speaks to the importance of our three-pronged approach to creating inclusive and equitable education settings.

Policy efforts in New Zealand to train in-service teachers to meet bi-cultural obligations

New Zealand’s current education statute, the 2020 Education and Training Act, legislates that schools reflect and integrate te reo Māori (the Indigenous Maori language), tikanga Māori (cultural values and practises), mātauranga Māori (a concept that refers to Māori knowledge), and te ao Māori (Maori worldview) in the schooling system. The policy places the responsibility for ensuring this onto School Boards. Earlier legislation stipulated that school boards should represent the demographics of their local communities, but prior research has found a range of challenges to meeting this requirement (Smith 2023). The Ministry of Education has piloted professional development including Te Kotahitanga and Rongohia te Hau for practicing teachers aimed at increasing their comfort with using te reo, tikanga, and te ao Māori.

Policy implementation scholars warn of the challenges posed by policies that require teachers to engage in learning that departs from their existing subject area expertise, finding that teachers resort to their familiar practices after a professional development session (Coburn and Stein 2006; Spillane 2000). Further, Dumas and Anyon (2006) argue that education policy is implemented ‘as a social practice that takes place upon a social terrain’ (p. 151). The social terrain of each New Zealand school – and the school’s relationship with its board – will shape how teachers respond to legislation stipulating that schools reflect and integrate te reo Māori, tikanga Māori, mātauranga Māori, and te ao Māori.

The social terrain includes the norms and culture of each school, as well as the national political terrain. In New Zealand, the current legislation was passed under Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s Labour government. If the next election results in a change in the party in power, we may see what Tamahai (2021) warns of: ‘short-term political cycle and … failure to ensure effective policy succession’ (p.59). Sceptical school boards – and overwhelmed school teachers – may opt to delay full implementation of the 2020 legislation. As Apple (2006) asserts, messages about the value of implementing a new education policy that strives to bring equity to schools needs to come from multiple levels and sources. If this is done consistently, and in-service teachers are joined by new teachers who have been trained to enact culturally sustaining pedagogies, March’s (2021) assertion that ‘big policy decisions are made in Wellington, but there is much truth in the saying that she or he who implements decides’ (p. 254) may result in greater efforts at inclusion and equity in New Zealand schools.

Implications

We began with the premise that policy implementation determines policy outcomes, and is based on the interactions between people, places, and the policy itself. Our stance is that education policy implementation is uncertain, unpredictable, ‘difficult to control, and prone to failure’ (Smylie and Evans 2006, 187). As Carr (2021) warns, ‘For anyone who has ever tried to make something happen in the world, to say that there is a great deal of work involved and many cracks for policies to fall through between adoption and implementation is a trite observation’ (p. 70). Rather than seeing these dire warning as a sign of the futility of policy efforts, we see them as reason to work systematically towards change.

Meeting the UNESCO Sustainable Development Goal 4 requires both buy-in and change from multiple levels of an education system. It requires pre-service training, so that teachers entering the profession are equipped to deliver content in culturally sustaining ways from a strength-based approach. Inclusive and equitable education is facilitated by a teaching workforce that represents the students, the community, and the nation, and policy efforts to hire diverse teachers need mechanisms to attract and retain such teachers: this includes changing school cultures and funding for teacher salaries so that students see teaching as a desirable profession, and so that diverse teachers find a welcoming work environment. Finally, in-service teachers need to be able to ‘make connections between the promise of progressive education policy and their everyday lives’ (Dumas and Anyon 2006, 165).

Rather than seeing the examples we’ve presented here as context-specific, we urge others to heed Honig’s, 2006 advice to ‘mine the research for ideas, evidence, and other guides to inform their deliberations and decisions about how lessons from implementation research may apply to their own policies, people, and places’ (p. 23). The three-prongs we highlight offer ways to infuse education systems with the goals of SDG 4 by targeting pre-service teacher preparation programmes, policies that promote intentional hiring of more diverse teachers, and policies funding professional development of in-service teachers. The social aspect of policy implementation – and the inherently social aspect of the teaching profession – leads us to posit that if implementation efforts are focused on one level of the system alone, it will be harder to move the needle towards more equitable, inclusive schools.

The two locales described here, the United States and New Zealand, differ greatly in the way the schooling system is organised. In the US, schools are nested within school districts, with are overseen by State Education Agencies, which are in turn accountable to the federal Department of Education, In contrast, schools in New Zealand are each governed by a school board, which report directly to the Ministry of Education without the intermediary organisations of school districts or states. As Malen (2006) argues, ‘policy implementation is a dynamic political process that affects and reflects the relative power of diverse actors and the institutional and environmental forces that condition the play of power’ (p. 85). Dumas and Anyon (2006) echo this sentiment, noting, ‘all stakeholders do not have the same access to power in the process of implementation’ (p. 165). A teacher in a rural school in New Zealand may feel a lack of power when a policy adopted by the Ministry of Education does not seem to account for their local context. A similarly rural school in the US has layers of institutional power that can either add layers of bureaucracy that leave teachers feeling powerless or can buffer such feelings: state education agencies and school districts in the US can play what Malen (2006) terms a ‘policy amplification’ role by developing structures and coalitions to ‘install and sustain’ (p. 100) new policies.

Discussing examples of policies aimed at meeting diversity, equity, and inclusion goals in the two very different education systems of the US and New Zealand intentionally highlights the importance of institutional context. As Malen (2006) notes, ‘policy implementation is a messy process marked by combinations of contests, contingencies, and disruptions that can not be fully anticipated let alone readily controlled. Bringing that reality into view is arguably an important service’ (p. 101). Further, the socio-political context of these two countries provide ample room to view efforts to reach DEI policy aims as bounded in the cultural context. New Zealand is formally a bicultural country, bound by the Treaty of Waitangi. In education, policy efforts naturally focus on the schooling sector’s ability to meet Treaty obligations. Further, it is important to recognise the superdiverse status of Aotearoa, and the implications of this with regard to Tiriti obligations (Chan and Ritchie 2020). In the United States, in contrast, the history first of slavery and then of legislated segregation in the South provides a hostile backdrop in which to implement policies under the banner of equity. Further, while both countries have growing immigrant populations, the US also has a history of injustice against immigrants from its southern border with Mexico. UNESCO’s Sustainable Development Goal 4 sets an aim for countries globally, but as we have argued here, education policy is enacted by social beings who interact in a ‘complex web of organisational structures, professional affiliations, social networks, and traditions’ (Spillane, Resier, and Gomez 2006, 56). Initial teacher education, recruitment efforts, and ongoing professional development of in-service teachers can each have a role in implementing policy aimed at achieving equity in our schools.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.