Enduring Themes in Educational Change

Book excerpt: Potential and novice graduate students, researchers, educators, and reformers may find themselves bewildered and perplexed by the vast changes in public education. They may just want to briefly know the core concepts. They may also need to use the language in order to be able to articulate its major issues. Whatever the case, the work of authorities in the field of educational change facilitates the conceptual landscape that can enable one's entry into the fundamental concepts that sustain this flourishing field. Here is a close and descriptive reading of some of the foundational works of one of these authorities in the field of educational change (the Canadian scholar and theorist of educational change Michael Fullan) who has certainly helped many make sense of the complexity of the educational change process. David A. Escobar Arcay offers here a brief but substantive description of the multiple themes and issues located within a particular and limited time period of the corpus of this authority in the hopes of engaging in an introductory manner the exciting and ever-expanding and unfolding field of educational change. Read it and be equipped to engage in the ongoing and larger discussions about the change process and its core participants, theories, and issues.