Abstract

According to Hargreaves and Shirley (2009a, 2012), recent educational changes have often followed three stages: a First Way of teacher autonomy characterized by great professional freedom, but little system coherence; a Second Way of standards, markets,and accountability; and a Third Way of data-driven decision-making. Hargreaves and Shirley argue that each of these stages of change are limited. They present international evidence that a Fourth Way of democratically-governed educational professionalism yields greater student outcomes while preserving and enhancing local school and community cultures. But does this framework for educational change contribute to our understanding of recent educational reforms in Latin America? This article serves as a first exploration of this question, drawing on the cases of a national policy reform in Chile; a single school in Porto Alegre, Brazil; and a rural school improvement network in Colombia. The cases indicate that the region has already enacted examples of Fourth Way principles and practices, such as inspirational school leadership, educational networks, and student voice that manifest core principles and practices of the Fourth Way. These, in turn, can be instructive for advanced school and system-level change both within and beyond the boundaries of Latin America.