Multi-models of education quality and multi-levels of self management in school

In current educational reforms, the shift to school-based management is often assumed as the important approach to enhancing school effectiveness and education quality. This assumption will be problematic if the relationship between education quality and school-based management is conceptually and empirically not clear. This paper aims to provide a theoretical framework to explore this relationship. School education quality can be conceptualized by seven different models including the goal and specification model, the resource-input model, the process model, the satisfaction model, the legitimacy model, the absence of problems model, and the organizational learning model. And, school-based management should be a type of self management at the school, the group and the individual staff levels including components such as environmental analysis, planning and structuring (affiliating), staffing and directing (developing), implementing, monitoring and evaluating. Based on the above conceptions, this paper explores how the characteristics of school-based management or self management at multi-levels can contribute to the emphases and concerns of all the seven different models of education quality in school. The proposed theoretical framework can deepen the understanding of the linkage between education quality and self management and provide useful implications to current educational reforms in international contexts.