Teachers’ perceptions of educational reform: A comparative study of EFL/ESL contexts in Algeria, Uganda, and the United States

Abstract

Educational reforms are sustained processes of systemic change in educational policies, structures, and practices designed to improve the quality, equity, and relevance of education in response to societal needs (Fullan, 2007). Because these needs vary across contexts, reform implementation is inevitably shaped by local institutional, cultural, and pedagogical conditions. Despite the global diffusion of competency-based reforms, a persistent gap remains between policy intentions and classroom practice. Building on this gap, the present study investigates how teachers perceive educational reform across diverse Global North and Global South teaching contexts. Specifically, it examines English language teachers’ perceptions of reform in Algeria, Uganda, and the United States. Using a single-instrument survey design with embedded qualitative components, the study adopted a mixed-methods approach. Data were collected from fifty-seven (57) EFL, ESL, and English Language Arts (ELA) teachers through a structured questionnaire combining Likert-scale and open-ended items. The analysis focused on teachers’ perceptions of reform objectives, implementation processes, institutional support, and classroom impact. The findings reveal substantial cross-contextual convergence, particularly regarding limited teacher participation in reform design, insufficient professional development, increased workload, and weak alignment between policy expectations and classroom realities. Differences also emerged between Global North and Global South contexts: Algeria and Uganda emphasised implementation constraints, whereas the United States foregrounded accountability pressures. Although contexts differed in governance structures, reform visibility, and resource distribution, reforms were consistently experienced as top-down processes that constrained teacher agency and engagement. The study concludes that implementation challenges derive less from teacher resistance than from structural and contextual misalignment. It therefore calls for participatory, context-sensitive, and resource-supported reform models.