However, this idea of a reflected and profound in-school process of institutionalizing
the expectations of inspections may not always be met in reality as we want to
clarify by using DiMaggio and Powell’s (1983) account of organizational change. In
their view, changes in the organization and daily practices in schools emerge out of
the structuration of organizational fields, such as the education and evaluation system
in which schools function. These organizational fields provide a context in which the
efforts of individual schools to organize their teaching and learning are constrained
which, in turn, leads to some homogeneity in structure, culture and
output. In an inspection and evaluation context, such constraints typically derive
from external actors, such as an Inspectorate of Education and other stakeholders
of the school. Schools may be coerced into meeting inspection expectations
when stakeholders or organizations upon which they are dependent exert
formal or informal pressure on them to meet these expectations. However,
schools may also actively seek out examples of peers who successfully meet
the expectations of the Inspectorate and mimic their responses to proactively
prevent potential action and pressure by these external actors. Examples of how
schools try to meet such expectations include the implementation of curricula
that are ‘inspection-approved’, using similar lesson plans with pre-set hours of
teaching in specific subjects, and purchasing and implementing quality assurance
systems that incorporate the inspection standards.