Between context and comparability : Exploring new solutions for a familiar methodological challenge in qualitative comparative research

Finding the balance between adequately describing the uniqueness of the context of studied phenomena and maintaining sufficient common ground for comparability and analytical generalisation has widely been recognised as a key challenge in international comparative research. Methodological reflections on how to adequately cover context and comparability have extensively been discussed for quantitative survey or secondary data research. In addition, most recently, promising methodological considerations for qualitative comparative research have been suggested in comparative fields related to higher education. The article’s aim is to connect this discussion to comparative higher education research. Thus, the article discusses recent advancements in the methodology of qualitative international comparative research, connects them to older analytical methods that have been used within the field in the 1960s and 1970s, and demonstrates their analytical value based on their application to a qualitative small‐N case study on research groups in diverse organisational contexts in three country contexts.peerReviewe

The OECD's campaign for distributed leadership : The risks of pushing for more accountability and teacher responsibility

The OECD has advocated ‘distributed leadership’ to accommodate the increased number of tasks and responsibilities associated with accountability in schools. In the United States, new federal grant schemes are similarly promoting distributed leadership as a way for schools to increase student outcomes. This chapter problematizes the global campaign for distributed leadership within prevailing accountability discourses that value data-driven orientations of schooling over democratic ones. It draws on multiple sources of data—such as policy documents and reports by the OECD and the US federal government—to trace the evolution of distributed leadership as a product of contemporary modes of educational governance. This historical analysis demonstrates how distributed leadership has emerged as a key element of the accountability era. Ultimately, it critiques the accountability-based promotion of distributed leadership as missing an opportunity to advance democratic ideals that could otherwise be achieved by including more participants in schools’ decision-making processes