Hi Rafael

In China there are some recent examples of model teacher lessons being peer critiqued and used to mentor beginning teachers as part of a formalistic system - see my article "Progressive School teaching in China? for some references.

Hello Rafael

This phrase - 'model x x x x' is used in speech but does not seem to be used widely in papers (although there are references to 'x x x model' or modelling). However, there are some interesting references pertaining to Finland OECD (i.e.Organisation  for Economic Co-operation and Development) and their education model:

Finland: Slow and Steady Reform for Consistently High Results

http://www.oecd.org/pisa/pisaproducts/46581035.pdf. 

In this paper below, teachers are termed as 'model citizens':

Paksuniemi M. (2013) Discipline, decency, and teetotalism at early-1900’s teacher training colleges in northern Finland

http://www.casestudiesjournal.com/CSJ%204th%20Issue%20paper%201.pdf

See also: Model Vihti

http://www.oecd.org/edu/ceri/49750537.pdf

The 'model . . . ' phrase is used in: 

'The Finnish Education Mystery: Historical and Sociological Essays' i.e. pp. 51, 56, 58 -  'model pupil',  

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=qw-tAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA172&lpg=PA172&dq=Like+a+Model+Pupil?+Globalisation,+Finnish+educational+policies+and+pressure+from+supranational+organizations&source=bl&ots=7QCEZtVo5r&sig=FyueDGRdmPRBOx-9HarYHsy4o4E&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCUQ6AEwAWoVChMI_O7sr_bVxwIVS1rbCh0nLgFq#v=onepage&q=Like%20a%20Model%20Pupil%3F%20Globalisation%2C%20Finnish%20educational%20policies%20and%20pressure%20from%20supranational%20organizations&f=false

The phrase 'model pupil' is also used in:

Rinne, R. (2006) ‘Like a Model Pupil? Globalisation, Finnish educational policies and pressure from supranational organizations’, in J. Kallo & R. Rinne (Eds.) Supranational Regimes and National Education Policies – Encountering Challenge, Turku: Finnish Educational Research Association, 183‐216.

However, I have been unable to access this chapter. It is quite widely referenced e.g. as in:

 Grek S. (2009) The role of the OECD as an agent of Europeanization: Problemisation and change in education governance in Europe

http://www.ces.ed.ac.uk/PDF%20Files/TPLWP1.pdf

See p.124 in this paper on ResearchGate:

Kauko, J., & Diogo, S. (2012). Comparing higher education reforms in Finland and Portugal. Higher education management and policy, 23(3), 115-133.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227461345_Comparing_higher_education_reforms_in_Finland_and_Portugal_different_contexts_same_solutions

Rinne also co-authors with Osga in Chapter 6, p.97 (p.108 for model pupil reference) in:

Seddon, T., & Levin, J. (2013). Educators, professionalism and politics: Global transitions, national spaces and professional projects. Routledge.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=2E1219xGU5kC&pg=PA115&lpg=PA115&dq=Like+a+Model+Pupil?+Globalisation,+Finnish+educational+policies+and+pressure+from+supranational+organizations&source=bl&ots=kcVARc9qdv&sig=lZxnHiIEYuczBdyFP9uU35ws57o&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCEQ6AEwAGoVChMI_O7sr_bVxwIVS1rbCh0nLgFq#v=onepage&q&f=false

Very best wishes

Mary

Article Comparing higher education reforms in Finland and Portugal: ...

"Model something or somebody" used to be a colloquial topos in Soviet set of school discourses - the teachers' ones as well as the pupils' and the ones of activists in Octyabriata, Pioneers and Komsomol organizations (mass children's organizations, highly ideologically pointed in their activities, resp. for the beginners, middle school age and elders). The topos was partly institutionalized - say, through a set of hagiographic life-stories of "pioneer-heroes" or through more sophisticated tools having to do, say, with compulsory list of school reading (model ways of behaviour, biographies, attitudes etc). As early as the beginning of 1930s the appeared full-scale literary and cinema projects (very large scale ones) for producing the models of the kind. We (me and my colleague Galina Belyaeva) have written a number of papers dealing with the "modelling projects" of the kind - but they are all in Russian. Nevertheless, if you read the language or can find somebody who could do it for you - see:

https://www.academia.edu/12637104/%D0%A1%D0%BC%D0%B5%D1%80%D1%82%D1%8C_%D0%B3%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%BE%D1%8F

https://www.academia.edu/11107523/_%D0%9F%D0%BE_%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%8E%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%BC_%D1%8F_%D1%81_%D0%B4%D0%B5%D1%82%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B2%D0%B0_%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B8%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%BB%D1%81%D1%8F_%D0%BF%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%BA%D0%B0_%D0%B1%D0%B5%D1%81%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%B7%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B2_%D0%B2_%D1%81%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B5%D1%82%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BC_%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%BE

see also here at ResearchGate:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281003171__________

if you are in need to discuss something in this respect - feel free to e-mail me

Vadim Mikhailin

Book Между позицией и позой: учитель истории в советском "школьном" кино

It sounds like what you're describing is strongly related to (social control through processes of) standardization. A starting point is the following (see link).

Also see John Meyer's (et al.) work on processes of institutionalization. His paper on the institutionalization of higher education is a case in point: 

"[A] new model of society became institutionalized globally-one in which schooled knowledge and personnel were seen as appropriate for a wide variety of social positions, and in which many more young people were seen as appropriate candidates for higher education."

http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.soc.012809.102629

http://asr.sagepub.com/content/70/6/898.short

It had lots to do with standartization, sure. But the core effort was (initially, at least) to call empathic reactions through producing the attractive models

Thanks all! I'm particularly interested in how the identification of 'models' serves as an idealised point of comparison - so the Soviet lead was a very useful one, thanks Vadim (I can't read Russian but have been able to follow this lead through Joel Spring's Pedagogies of Globalisation). The concept of standardisation is a useful one to bear in mind, too - especially since in the context I am studying (a primary school in Tigray, Ethiopia) the use of models does not lead to standardisation, but the elevation of inspirational/idealised examples, some of which are selected according to shifting/unclear criteria.

Best wishes both to you and to your research :)