Showing papers by "Tony Bush published in 2022"

Challenges facing school principals: Problems and solutions

Abstract: There is widespread evidence of the demands facing school principals in many parts of the world, illustrated recently by the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the normative preference for shared and distributed leadership in many contexts, principals retain the main accountability for school improvement and for student learning and welfare. The universal requirement for schools to be led by heads or principals reflects the importance of this role, and the pressures facing these senior leaders in most countries. These demands are particularly challenging in those many countries that do not provide specialised preparation or training for current or prospective principals. In the first paper in this issue, Mireia Tintore and colleagues present the findings of a scoping review of the problems and challenges faced by school leaders. They reviewed articles, books and book chapters, using keywords ‘problems’ and ‘challenges’, linked to principal or head teacher, finding 1138 sources potentially relevant to the review. The authors identify the main conflicts facing principals, including balancing system demands with leadership for learning, navigating pressures for autonomy and accountability and increasing pressures from families and the wider society. They conclude that the role of principals continues to be challenging. Marcus Pietsch, Pierre Tulowitzki and Colin Cramer report the findings of a study of principal ambidexterity in Germany, noting the need to simultaneously pursue exploitation and exploration. They also examine the relationship between these dimensions and the degree of competition between schools. They surveyed 405 principals from across the country. They report that these principals were more exploitative than explorative, and attribute this to inter-school competition and the need for schools to survive and, preferably, to flourish. While principals are central to school improvement, it is widely recognised that their impact is mostly indirect, via teachers. In the second paper focusing on Germany, Andre Meyer, Dirk Richter and Viola Hartung-Beck examine the relationship between principal leadership and teacher collaboration. The authors sampled 630 primary and secondary school teachers in one of Germany’s federal states. They found that teachers rated their principals’ instructional and staff development activities to be below average, despite the view that higher collective efficacy is reported where principals are involved in these activities. They conclude that principals rarely find sufficient time to devote to teachers’ professional development. Despite the ongoing emphasis on principal leadership, there is also increasing interest in shared models, such as distributed and participative leadership. A similar construct is democratic leadership, discussed by Monika Pazur in respect of Zagreb, a rare contribution to school leadership research in Croatia. The author claims that democratic leadership is oriented towards consensus with the leading process being shared between participants. Following ‘expert validation’, and a Editorial

Middle leadership in higher education: Challenges and opportunities

Abstract: Leadership in higher education is perceived to be increasingly managerial in many contexts. Power is often centralised in a senior leadership team headed by a president or vice chancellor. Departmental leadership may then be seen as primarily a conduit for the implementation of top-down decision-making rather than an opportunity to carve out a distinctive identify linked to the academic and professional norms of subject disciplines. University reputations are based on the collective achievements of their departments, but this may not be reflected in sufficient scope for such middle leaders to define their role or the future of the sub-units they represent. Responsibility without power, for example in respect of financial and staff management, is a recipe for frustration for such academic leaders. As a consequence, being appointed as a department head may be seen as a ‘poisoned chalice’ rather than a reward. Sharon Kruse explores these issues in her study of department chair leadership in the United States. She cites Buller’s (2012: 3) comment that chairing a department in higher education is ‘probably the most important, least appreciated, and toughest administrative position in higher education’. Drawing on 45 interviews with department chairs, she focuses on chairs’ perceptions of their role. Her findings indicate that chairs struggle to balance their approaches to the work, in an unavoidable and often overwhelming political landscape, with limited institutional authority. Greeni Maheshwari and Rakkishore Nayak explore the barriers and enablers to women leadership in Vietnamese higher education. They note that women in Vietnam widely accept their traditionally ascribed roles as housewives and experience challenges when seeking leadership positions. They interviewed 21 people, 19 women and 2 men, working in higher education institutions in Ho Minh City and Hanoi, including senior leaders, middle managers and lecturers. They report that the main barriers to career enhancement were work–life imbalance, subordinates’ perceptions, social networking and personal factors. The enablers were perceived to be family and mentor support, changing mindset of employers, and the potential competency of women leaders. These factors are consistent with international research but understanding these issues in this distinctive context contributes to our understanding of this important and complex phenomenon. Promotion opportunities in higher education may also disadvantage women. Ed Dandalt and Stephane Brutus examine this issue in respect of business schools in Canada. They report that women are under-represented as full professors in Canadian business schools (only 23% are women). They conducted a survey of tenured female faculty in these business schools, followed by the analysis of faculty collective agreements between six universities and faculty unions or professional associations. They conclude that, while there is evidence of gender discrimination, often unconscious rather than overt, this is not the only organisational barrier to the promotion of female faculty in Canadian business schools. Xiaohua Jiang reports on the transformation of a Swiss university, drawing on 22 interviews with university leaders and faculty members. She utilises Kotter’s Organisational Change model Editorial

Succession planning for school principals: System control or leader agency?

Abstract: The recruitment and appointment of principals are one of the most important activities of school and system leaders. The compelling evidence (e.g. Leithwood et al., 2006, 2020) that talented leadership has a signi fi cant impact on school improvement provides empirical support for the proposition that careful preparation and selection of principals are vital if schools and their students are to thrive. The criteria used to appoint principals vary across jurisdictions but typically include teaching experience, instructional leadership knowledge and skills and notions of contextual ‘ fi t ’ . However, such educational considerations may be trumped in some settings by political or administrative imperatives (Xue and Bush, 2021).

Reply on RC1 - response to detailed comments from authors

Abstract: RC1. Alphasense NO2-A43F electrochemical NO2 sensors (and Alphasense NO2-B43F) have a known cross-sensitivity to ozone (Spinelle et al.). Although the Praxis Urban sensor system and the St Ebbe’s monitoring site do not appear to measure ozone, the study fails to mention/address this concern. While inclusion of this variable into feature training could restrict the spread of this model to other networks, it could greatly enhance the performance of the NO2 model. Spinelle et al. also found that sensors from the same manufacturer can behave differently in the same environmental conditions. This manuscript would greatly benefit from applying your model to more than one sensor to demonstrate its capability to nullify discrepancies from sensor to sensor. (Spinelle, L.; Gerboles, M.; Kotsev, A.; Signorini, M. Evaluation of Low-Cost Sensors for Air Pollution Monitoring: Effect of Gaseous Interfering Compounds and Meteorlogical Conditions; Publications Office of the European Union:Luxemborg, 2017. https://doi.org/10.2760/548327)

Reply on RC2 - response to detailed comments from authors

Abstract: RC2. The applied data post-processing approach is in my view not sufficiently explained. The different applied stages are described, that is good, however, some of the stages raise questions: The filters applied in stage 1 are presented in Table 1. If I understand the logic behind the filters as presented, I conclude that all observations at relative humidity > 35% had to be removed. It is unlikely that this is true, please correct (if yes the sensors are useless for most locations).

School leadership and gender in Africa: A systematic overview

Abstract: The purpose of this article is to report the findings of a systematic review of school leadership and gender in Africa, and to identify gaps in the literature, to prompt and encourage further research. The literature search focused based on school leadership and gender, linked to all 54 African countries. The review focused on articles in non-predatory journals, plus university theses. The review provides a compelling picture of school leadership and gender in Africa, with three main findings. First, there is limited knowledge production on this important topic, with no sources identified in most African countries. Second, organisational, social and personal factors combine to inhibit women's accession to school leadership. Third, African women principals are shown to be more collegial and collaborative than men, with some evidence that they may be more effective school leaders. The article’s conclusion draws out three main implications. First, the findings indicate a strong need for ministries of education to review their recruitment and selection policies to address barriers to women's accession as school principals. Second, they show deeply embedded social attitudes that women should be focused on domestic and family responsibilities, rather than school leadership. This calls for community education programmes to address family and social attitudes. Third, while the article presents a significant picture of the extent and nature of women principals' leadership accession and enactment across the continent, further research is recommended to address knowledge gaps, especially in those African countries where there is no knowledge production on school leadership and gender.

Editorial: System leadership in English schools: The long goodbye to local authorities?

Abstract: Most of the discourse of educational leadership relates to schools, colleges and universities, and researchers often use these settings as units of analysis. They may be seen as ‘prime institutions’, central to the educational landscape, within their communities and beyond. However, these organisations may also be conceptualised as part of a wider system of schools, coordinated, and perhaps controlled, by a more senior level within the educational hierarchy. The ‘glue’ that holds such systems together, and provides a degree of coherence, is the district level. Collectively, despite their ubiquitous presence, the role of districts remains under-researched and weakly theorised. In England, local education authorities, later described just as local authorities, had a substantial role for much of the 20th century in leading educational provision. The 1944 Education Act described education as a national service, locally administered. Local education departments, headed by chief education officers, or directors of education, played major roles in defining and coordinating community education provision. Local authorities were also political entities and political values and ideologies were influential in determining the nature of schooling and further education within their boundaries. This ‘middle tier’ was an important arena for educational policy-making, with accountability to local communities through the electoral process. It is important not to romanticise this period as a ‘golden age’, because there were often political and/or bureaucratic weaknesses, but they were successful in providing a local centre for educational development. In the 21st century, as Steven Courtney and Ruth McGinity report in the first article in this issue, local authorities have become much less significant as schools were encouraged, or cajoled, to become academies, independent of local authorities. Subsequently, a new ‘middle tier’ emerged in the form of multi-academy trusts (MATs). These authors note that MATs are now the legal entity that provides educational services across numerous sites that may or may not have a geographical basis. They say that suchMATs now constitute educational ‘systems’, led by an executive headteacher or chief executive officer (CEO). They report on a case study of a MAT in a coastal community, comprising four schools. They conclude that system leadership, epitomised by MATs, is a mechanism for depoliticization, with power located within unaccountable, para-statal institutions. Further education in England has also experienced a substantial change in the new millennium, with significant impacts on college leadership. Stephen Corbett investigates the role of further education middle managers in a distinctive way, through the lens of human resource managers, addressing the question, what are the contemporary professional expectations of further education middle managers in England? The author surveyed one HR manager from each college with a 19% response rate. He comments that middle managers are responsible for translating the vision of Editorial

The price of popularity: Expanding EMAL to manage demand

Abstract: In 20 years as editor-in-chief of Educational Management, Administration and Leadership (EMAL), I have been able to observe the growth of our field from a privileged position. Over these two decades, interest in educational leadership has grown dramatically, notably in its expansion from its Anglo-Saxon roots to become a global phenomenon. EMAL bears witness to this expansion, with submissions from 44 countries in the past 12 months. While this growth is gratifying, it provides challenges in managing the journal. As submissions have increased, from around 80 a decade ago, to more than 500 in 2022, the Editorial Board has adopted several strategies to manage demand. Initially, we changed the number of issues per volume from four to six. This was followed by increasing the page extent of each issue. Subsequently, we made the criteria for acceptance more stringent, meaning that fewer submissions were published. Despite all these changes, the gap between acceptance and allocation to an issue has grown, meaning that papers might be available online-first for more than two years before they receive volume, issue and page number details. The Editorial Board and our publisher, Sage, have responded to this problem by increasing the number of articles in each issue from eight or nine to 12, beginning with this issue. Over time, we expect this change to reduce the backlog of accepted papers. Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy reading the additional articles. The first paper in this newly expanded issue, by Se Woong Lee and Xinyi Mao, provides a systematic review of the US literature on the recruitment and selection of school principals. As these authors note, there are challenges in recruiting sufficient well-qualified applicants in several countries, including the US. Following a systematic search strategy, they identified 64 studies for inclusion in the review. They highlight four main implications of their study. First, they note the lack of attention to minority principals in the literature, a significant issue as student populations are becoming more diverse. Second, women continue to be under-represented as principals, an issue in many other national contexts. The authors recommend mentoring to address these imbalances. Third, they point to working conditions, notably long hours, as a disincentive for potential principals and as a consideration influencing principal turnover. Finally, they point to the lack of research on hiring processes in the US, but this is also true of international research. High-quality preparation may contribute to providing a pool of good applicants for principalship positions. Gavin Murphy explores leadership preparation and career pathways for novice principals in Ireland. Drawing on interviews with 12 recently appointed principals of primary and postprimary schools, the author notes that principals feel that distributed leadership is working well in their schools. He comments on the importance of anticipatory socialisation and of the value of building leadership capacity, concluding that contextual issues are important in preparing successful principals. Editorial

Reviewing fifty years of EMAL scholarship: Longitudinal perspectives on the journal and the field of educational leadership and management

Abstract: Welcome to this very special 50th Anniversary edition of EMAL. The issue features longitudinal overview papers on several significant aspects of educational leadership, by influential authors who play a major part in the development of the journal, and of the field of educational management, administration, and leadership. All lead authors are members of the UK or International Editorial Boards, and thus contribute strongly to the strategic direction of the journal. As noted in my previous editorial, the first edition of the journal was published in June 1972, with the title of Educational Administration. Initially, there were only two issues per volume, but this increased to three each year in the 1980s and to four from 1989. This continued until 2009, when the current pattern of six editions of each volume was introduced, with up to 54 articles published each year. This expansion reflects the growing importance of the field as an arena for study and practice. The increase in the size of each volume is also a response to author demand to publish in the journal, with more than 600 submissions in both 2020 and 2021. A related development is the internationalisation of the journal, with submissions from 80 countries in the past year (see Table 1). Table 1 shows the international spread of submissions to the journal, illustrating the global significance of the field, amid increasing recognition of the importance of effective leadership for school improvement and student learning. Knowledge production is one measure of the priority given to school leadership in each jurisdiction. The widespread interest in EMAL is in sharp contrast to the early years of the journal when all contributors were British. The journal quickly became a forum for debates about the nature of educational administration. A prominent example came in 1976, when Educational Administration featured a symposium entitled ‘Barr Greenfield and Organisational Theory: A Symposium’. Greenfield challenged 1970s conventional wisdom about organisations, arguing that they have no meaning beyond that of the people who work in, or relate to, schools or other educational institutions. He rejected the widespread assumption that organisations exist, have goals, and can act independently from the people who inhabit them. Greenfield’s critique led to an extended debate, played out in the journal and elsewhere, and remains important deep into the 21st century. My book on Theories of Educational Leadership and Management (Bush, 2020), now in its fifth edition, features his work extensively in the chapter on subjective models. The debate includes contemporary issues, such as vision and mission, and whether such constructs Editorial