Sense-making and school leadership at the beginning of a large-scale reform: the case of the new public education in Chile

This paper presents the first results of a research that seeks to understand how school leaders "make sense" during the initial phase of a large-scale reform that has begun to be implemented in Chile, known as "New Public Education" (NPE). Semi-structured interviews were conducted with twelve school principals participating in this reform. The results show that there is a wide diversity of meanings associated with the NEP, which can be classified into three main ones ("paradigm change", "pedagogical change" and "bureaucratic change"). The research also made it possible to identify some factors associated with the meaning that leaders assign to the New Public Education, as well as to describe the first consequences of this "sense-making" process in the implementation of this reform at the school level. Some implications for the design and implementation of large-scale reforms are discussed.