Regional Offices for Education (“Regionale Bildungsbüros”, RBB) have been established by almost all local authorities in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) in order to support school improvement as well as efforts towards the development of quality in education. Educational policy-makers have high conceptional expectations towards the RBBs’ impact, especially concerning their capability to coordinate and manage networking processes in the regional educational landscapes. The research about this new actor in school improvement still is in a very early state. This article presents theoretical considerations and empirical findings of a baseline survey of the RBBs in NRW. It investigates the question whether this stakeholder acts as a boundary spanner and gateway between various organizations.

Schlagworte
Regional Offices of Education, Boundary Spanner, baseline survey