Systemic Nature of Organizational Change

The Organizational Congruence Model of Nadler & Tushman consists of four linked elements: inputs, strategy, transformation process, and outputs (as in Deszca et al., 2024, p. 66). Environmental and contextual inputs are strategically applied in a transformation process to create new outputs, outputs then become the new inputs, and the cycle repeats. Suggesting that greater congruence among elements translates to improved organizational performance. 

The Ecology of Teaching Demands and Resources

To conceptualize the context of teaching, this synthesis called on the Job Demands-Resources Theory of Demerouti et al. (Bakker et al., 2023). This model considers work environments as a function of the relationship between job demands, job resources, and how they translate to job outcomes. In the context of FI, many teachers percieve inclusive practices as additional demands. In this space, inclusive practices have been reframed as demand-buffering resources that support teacher AND student engagement and well-being.

Job Demands

Demands constitute structural, linguistic, and/or linguistic aspects of work that require sustained effort. In addition to the cognitive demands, emotional labour, accountability pressures, and role complexity of teaching, additional demands among FI teachers would typically include: 

• Linguistic mediation

• Differentiation requirements (language AND content simultaneously

• Curriculum pacing (all non-Language Arts curriculum are the same in English and French language tracks)

• Cross-linguistic behavioural interpretation

Job Resources

Accordingly, Resources constitute aspects of work that support professional functioning and employee well-being. Examples typically include: 

• Instructional tools

• Ongoing and professional development and training

• Professional autonomy and professional development

• Flexible leadership

• Organizational supports

• Cross-disiplinary cooperation

• Professional learning and collaboration

Demand-Buffering Practices

• UDL 

• Tiered Intervention

• Differentiation

• AFIRM training modules

• Translanguaging (code-switching)

Job Outcomes

Ultimately, teacher outcomes are determined by the responsibilities legislated by the Section 4 of the School Regulation (1989), which requires teachers to create, deliver programming in, and evaluate students' intellectual, human, social, and career development. 

Teacher Engagement

Teachers are integral to successful educational change; as noted by Goodson, meaningful educational change cannot happen without teacher engagement (2001). Unfortunately, top-down consultation often leaves educators struggling to recognize their contributions in the final product. According to Chen (2015), this can lead to animosity, apathy, and mistrust, ultimately underming change efforts . 

Research consistently emphasizes the value of shared understanding. Harris (2011) notes that sustainable change cannot happen without a shared underatnading of both problems and solutions . 

Gagliardi et al. (2015) suggest that the circumstances that support the creation of shared understanding include: 

• clearly defined goals, roles, and expectations

• multiple and varied opportunities for engagement

• development of a shared professional language

These conditions allow the consistent interpretation of diverse perspectives to be leveraged toward shared goals.

Participatory evaluation approaches also allow stakeholders to see themselves and their contributions reflected in both the process and outcomes, which will reinforce trust and engagement. 

The Importance of Trust

Education, and educational change, takes place in historical and relational contexts. Hargreaves maintains change that consists solely of present and future considerations is unsustainable; and that to grow sustainably it is equally important to learn what did not work in the past (2007). 

Similarly, Evans et al. argue that the acknowledgement of the past is what creates the psychological safety required for authentic collaboration (2012).

In a public system often characterized by near-constant change efforts, educators often experience what Evans et al. (2010) would call initiativitis; a proliferation of initiatives that results in confusion, exhaustion, and incomplete knowledge translation. Ultimately undermining change efforts.

Sustainable change emerges gradually, and buids momentum through incremental engagement and trust. 

The Opportunity of Ambivalence

According to Deszca et al. (2024), ambivalence is an opportunity to create engagement; those who experience its discomfort may be motivated not to. Their ambivalence can be leveraged to generate the motivation necessary to resolve conflicting perspectives. 

Superficial engagement with entrenched resistance is a decision to perpetuate it (Lumby, 2012); whereas authentic acknowledgement of these experiences will create greater emotional safety (Armenakis et al., 1993; Northouse, 2021), which is required for meaningful and effective collaboration (Evans et al., 2012; Hargreaves, 2007)

Practical Implications

The integrity of any education program is subject to the quality and availability of its educators. This is a particularly delicate balance for FI programs in BC where we are constantly in search of qualified FI teachers. 

In Western Canada, FI classes are disproportionately more likely to be staffed on a ‘without prejudice or precedent’ basis, which means a teacher is knowingly hired without linguistic proficiency. Moreover, in a context where teachers are increasingly asked to do more with less, many FI-qualified teachers are choosing English contracts in response to rising workload demands: 

• 1 out of 7 teachers (14.2%) report that their mental health is currently poor (BCTF, 2025)

• 2 out of 5 teachers (39.0%) consider their overall workload 'manageable' (BCTF, 2025)

• Over 75% of educators identify time as a significant barrier to the use of data in decision-making (Moore & Croft, 2017).