A Field Research On Formation Of School Assignment Policy—from New Institutionalism Perspective

With increasingly thorough study on academic burden as well as learning evaluation,the viewpoint that school assignment is established cannot meet the need of present study.The issue “why assignment is shaped like that” should be paid urgent attention to,which leads to the decisive factor——school assignment policy.It is the formation of the school assignment policy that this study focuses on.With the perspective of New Institutionalism,it explores two questions: How does New Institutionalism analyses the formation of institution? With its perspective,how does school assignment policy form?Aiming at the aforementioned questions,this study constructs the analytical framework of the formation of school assignment policy basing on the literature review.With the support of theoretical framework,this study analysed the 18 policy texts from the educational administration departments and the target school itself,meanwhile,14 school administrators and teachers have been interviewed.The conclusions are as follows:The formation of school assignment policy can be divided into two stages: establishment and institutionalization.In the first phase,with the purpose of solving the practical problems encountered in the work,the school established the original assignment policy through collective consultation as well as trial and error.The policy includes two parts,one is the normative operation of the assignment,which equals the operating norms of specific disciplines.The other is the cultural-cognitive policy,namely the perception of assignment.Then,the departments in charge of education supply assignment policy outside the school.The regulative policy and most of normative policy are ensured by educational supervision and analogic forces.Consequently,the school makes integration and refinement of according policies.Due to the lack of supervision and protection,cultural-cognitive policy and part of the regulatory policy resulted in effectively delivery,then end up with being ignored.Ultimately,assignment policy established through above two approaches combines.In the process of combination,the supplied policy rules,meanwhile,the perception of assignment continues to retain.As a result,the school has formed a new set of assignment policy,in which the supplied policy comes first.In the second stage,different school assignment policies institutionalized differently.Firstly,regulative assignment policies are delivered through official documents and conferences,which render teachers informed of avoiding punishment,thus eliminating the act such as assigning excessive homework.Secondly,normative assignment policies,delivered through school teaching and research group meetings,make teachers learn that “teachers should skillfully deal with assignment issues and perfect school-based collective preparation assignment”.So the teachers intentionally acquire the assignment operational manipulation,and increasingly support the model of collective preparation assignment and join it.Thirdly,the cultural-cognitive assignment policies are delivered through daily chat,mentoring and other forms.And through according approaches,the very perceptions are observed and imitated by novice teachers,on basis of which they initiate to consider assignment issues.On account of the hereinbefore conclusions,this thesis puts forward two issues: attach significance to the inner-balance and consistency of the supplied assignment policies;fully realize the school's governance capacity on assignment issues.