Does regulatory inspection contribute to quality of education? A qualitative study of Dutch school staff emotions in response to negative inspection reports

Regulatory inspections of schools not only serve to assess quality of education, but also intend to contribute to this quality. The disclosure of school inspection reports also intends to increase transparency and stakeholder pressure on the quality of schools. However, whether these positive effects take place in reality, depends on the perception of and response to the inspection’s assessment by school staff and other stakeholders. Especially negative inspection reports may elicit negative emotions with school staff and negative external reactions. Demotivated staff may leave their jobs. These effects may hinder, rather than foster learning and quality improvement and thus limit the effectiveness of inspections. This paper presents qualitative research on the reactions and experiences of Dutch schools with negative inspection reports by the Dutch Education Inspectorate. Our study includes internal and external reactions. We use Affective Event Theory (Weiss & Cropanzano 1996) to explain internal school staff reactions, and study how emotions evoked by the inspection report influence the motivation to improve quality of education. To study external reactions, we use reintegrative shaming theory (Braithwaite 1989) to identify how the communication of the negative assessment by the Inspectorate, and the reactions by external stakeholders are experienced as stigmatizing or reintegrative. Our study contributes to scholarship on the role of emotions in regulatory governance and Affective Public Administration, as well as to reintegrative shaming theory.