Abstracts - Earli

children to achieve beyond their own expected potential and at the same time it makes activitiesmore exciting and interesting. Furthermore, constructive competition can be a dimension ofchildren’s collaboration, as well as their individual activities. The results provide information thatcan be used by teachers and educators to create conditions for competing in ways that makeindividuals grow, develop their self-esteem and ambitions. They also generate knowledge about towhat extent individual versus collaborative work promote different forms of competition and howthis is experienced from the perspective of children.G 2430 August 2007 08:30 - 10:30Room: 1.60SymposiumSchool organization and classroom instructionChair: James Spillane, Northwestern University, USAOrganiser: James Spillane, Northwestern University, USAOrganiser: Lauren Resnick, University of Pittsburg, USADiscussant: Lauren Resnick, University of Pittsburg, USADisseminating instructional psychology so that it makes a difference in the world of classroompractice is difficult (Resnick & Spillane, 2006). Instructional reformers have partial success atmost, and only rare experiences of high fidelity implementation, spread, and sustainability(Spillane, 2005; Cohen, 1990). Reasons offered for such limited success often focus on theindividual implementing agent – the classroom teacher or school principal - and includedifficulties related to practitioners’ motivation, beliefs, and understanding. Scholars have alsorecognized that the environment and organization that surround any particular instructionalintervention influences whether it is adopted into existing classroom practice. Mostly, however,we have treated context as a "limiting factor" as we continue with our preferred ways ofdisseminating our scientific knowledge such as telling people about new approaches, developingstudy tools that support particular learning about new approaches (Resnick & Spillane, 2006). Thissymposium will focus on examining the organizational dimension of changing instructionalpractice from a variety of different perspectives using empirical studies from four differentcountries. We argue that going to scale is optimized when organizational issues are taken intoaccount. Developing potentials for learning in schools depends in important measure onorganizational factors. The four papers focus on different dimensions of the school organization,examining how these dimensions enable and constrain changes in instructional practice. A centralargument cutting across these papers is that scholars working to maximize the potential forlearning in schools must take the organization into account.Shifting student populations as impetus for organizational learningGeert Kelchtermans, University of Leuven, BelgiumKatrijn Ballet, University of Leuven, BelgiumIt seems obvious that changes in student population have an impact on teachers’ daily work, morein particularly when these changes include the development to an ethnically and religiouslydiverse population. Yet, what this "impact" is and how it works out is far less obvious. In our– 426 –