Abstract
The process of education reform takes place in a highly politicized environment. Language plays an important part in the characterization of the reform, and the words used connect the reform to higher ideals, usually extensive to the local environment but signifying some opportunity for progress. The language is frequently decoupled from the reform and can distort the perceived policy and activity environment to create a qualitative advantage while the mechanisms of change play through their agendas. When ambiguity exists in the characterizations of the reform, there are risks that the apparent progress will result in confused hierarchies of authority. That is, the ambiguities enable strange loops to flourish without attention by management in addressing the complexities in reform. The result is the regression of the reform, re-forming to a previous state as if reform was necessary again.
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