EXPLAINING VARIATION IN TEACHING PRACTICES - EFFECTS OF STATE POLICY,TEACHER BACKGROUND, AND CURRICULA IN SOUTHERN AFRICA

State actors assume that central policies and interventions can penetr ate the classroom to effectively change teaching practices (an open-sy stems framework). Empirical research in the West, however, has illumin ated how inventive school actors can often buffer policy makers' attem pts to modify pedagogical scripts and routines followed by teachers (a n institutional framework). This paper steps outside of Europe and the U.S.A. to first examine how much ''natural variation'' exists in teac hing practices among schools within one post-colonial African nation: Botswana. Then, we assess whether policy-manipulable features of the s chool organization are related to the limited range of pedagogical var iation observed. We find that individual background characteristics of teachers, linked to selection policies, hold little relationship to p edagogical practices. In contrast, the subject being taught, teacher t raining, and textbook use all help to explain several teaching behavio rs, with the latter tending to reduce the complexity of instruction wi thin the Botswana context.