Showing papers in "Cambridge Journal of Education in 2003"

Leading Educational Change: reflections on the practice of instructional and transformational leadership

Abstract: Over the past two decades, debate over the most suitable leadership role for principals has been dominated by two conceptual models: instructional leadership and transformational leadership. This article reviews the conceptual and empirical development of these two leadership models. The author concludes that the suitability or effectiveness of a particular leadership model is linked to factors in the external environment and the local context of a school. Moreover, the paper argues that the definitions of the two models are also evolving in response to the changing needs of schools in the context of global educational reforms.

Leadership for organisational learning and improved student outcomes - What do we know?

Abstract: The Leadership for Organisational Learning and Student Outcomes (LOLSO) Research Project addresses the need to extend present understandings of school reform initiatives that aim to change school practices with the intention of supporting enhanced student learning. In this article results from LOLSO's teacher surveys ('teacher voice') and student surveys ('pupil voice') are organised around six of the project's major research questions: how is the concept of organisational learning (OL) defined in Australian secondary schools (teacher voice)? What leadership practices promote OL in schools (teacher voice)? What are some outcomes of schooling other than academic achievement (pupil voice)? What are the relationships between the non-academic and academic outcomes of schooling? Do school leadership and/or organisational learning contribute to student outcomes? What other factors contribute to student outcomes? The answers to these questions lead to four clear implications relating to distributive leadership, ...

Teacher Leadership: towards a research agenda

Abstract: This article explores the emerging discourse about teacher leadership in the UK. It draws upon the international literature in exploring a classification of forms of teacher leadership and discusses issues concerned with the policy context. It considers some theoretical perspectives on distributed leadership before going on to examine in detail a possible framework of factors affecting teachers' capacity to exercise leadership. Finally it puts forward a proposal for research.

Using Data in Leadership for Learning

Abstract: School leaders are faced with the daunting task of anticipating the future and making conscious adaptations to their practices, in order to keep up and to be responsive to the environment. To succeed in a rapidly changing and increasingly complex world, it is vital that schools grow, develop, adapt and take charge of change so that they can control their own futures.This paper will examine the tension that exists for school leaders in relation to data about their schools and their students, arguing that the explicit connections between data and large-scale reforms make it impossible to avoid a critical approach to data, drawing on research in Ontario and Manitoba in Canada, and examining parallels with evidence from research in England, to highlight the challenges involved in using data effectively in different political contexts and mandated policies on the uses of data.

'Interactive Whole Class Teaching' in the National Literacy Strategy

Abstract: Building on evidence from an earlier small-scale study of the discourse of the National Literacy Strategy (NLS) in England, the findings of a more extensive investigation (n=70) into interactive and discourse styles of a nationally representative sample of primary teachers are presented. Using a computerised observation schedule and discourse analysis system, the paper explores the impact of the official endorsement of 'interactive whole class teaching' in the teaching of the NLS to see whether it is promoting higher levels of interaction and cognitive engagement by pupils. The findings support our earlier study and suggest that the NLS is encouraging teachers to use more directive forms of teaching with little opportunities for pupils to explore and elaborate on their ideas. The implications of the findings are considered in the light of their impact on classroom pedagogy and the professional development of teachers who are charged with implementing the national policy-led initiatives like the NLS.

Citizenship Education in Northern Ireland: Beyond national identity?

Abstract: The introduction of citizenship education to the curriculum of all schools in Northern Ireland is one way of underpinning a long-term commitment to democratic politics as part of a fragile peace process. However, the concept of citizenship requires careful consideration in a society where there are different loyalties that give rise to conflict over the future constitutional status of the society itself. Neither British nor Irish national identity provides the basis for a 'patriotic' model of citizenship that could be accepted in all schools. This article describes the commitments and confidence-building measures contained in the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement and its implications for developing a concept of citizenship that might transcend the two main nationalisms that exist in Northern Ireland.

Citizenship Education in Post-Apartheid South Africa.

Abstract: How is citizenship understood in South Africa, a new democracy with a deeply divided past? This paper describes the approach to citizenship education in recent educational policy, and in curriculum developments. It does so against the background of a conceptualisation of citizenship based on both the participatory vision of the anti-apartheid struggle and on the citizen as presented in the new Constitution. The shifting nature of the divisions that still deeply divide this society is explored, together with tensions between what can be called the official conceptualisation of citizenship and a more popular interpretation of citizenship as access to socio economic rights. This tension poses potential problems in the democratic polity, as well as a challenge for citizenship education.

Towards Understanding of Social Capital and Citizenship Education

Abstract: Social capital is often seen as an indicator of the effectiveness of a society. Societies that are healthy and functioning are also well stocked with social capital. However, social capital is not necessarily 'good'. In the disturbingly troubled times facing western democracies since 2001 the concept of social capital appears all the more relevant. Societies which are significantly divided, it may be argued, demonstrate less trust, civic engagement, positive networking and mutual cooperation among members. In turn this can negatively affect the quality of life of members. This argument is examined from the perspective of school programmes of citizenship education in democratic and newly democratic states. What constitutes divided societies is discussed in other articles within this issue, but the emphasis is upon severe divisions, invariably involving violence. Some of the comments in this paper are speculative and potentially contentious. Nevertheless it is important to raise these issues at this time, p...

Traditions and Tensions in Leadership: the Ghanaian experience

Abstract: This paper will explore some of the tensions that arise for Ghanaian headteachers in trying to resolve traditional and tribal expectations with ‘Western’ conceptions of leadership roles and competencies. These are particularly acute in rural communities where expectations of school leaders often reflect, and are constrained by, ascribed status in the tribe or village. Gender issues illustrate these tensions as successive governments initiate strategies to ensure that gender equality concerns are integrated into all their policies and programmes. The starting point for this paper—the process of research itself—sets the scene for an exploration of a complex multi-faceted leadership culture.

Blindfolded in a Minefield: Principals' Ethical Decision-Making

Abstract: Schools in Australia, as in most other western nations, face global trends resulting in principals being placed under intense and increasing pressure. Some of this pressure results from their having to make and justify decisions that are complex and fraught with ethical difficulty. Unfortunately, many feel ill-equipped to deal with these challenging decisions. A recent survey of principals' experience in relation to such decisions suggests that many lack the skills necessary to confidently discharge their duties. If we accept that there is a dearth of professional development in ethical decision-making, we must accept that there is an obligation to provide appropriate preparation and support, both on employing authorities such as departments of education, and on external agencies such as universities. However, it is essential that such professional preparation appropriately balances system needs against the needs of individual principals in the community contexts in which they work.

The End of Citizenship? The Nation State, Threats to its Legitimacy, and Citizenship Education in the Twenty-first Century

Abstract: This paper argues that whilst citizenship as a concept has a long and venerable history, present-day conceptions are relatively new, being primarily constructs created two to three hundred years ago to bolster the status and influence of fledgling western nation states. They were generated to inculcate in disparate populations the belief that their primary allegiance should not be to their region and lord, but to a larger entity of disputed size and composition, the nation state. Yet because it is a political arrangement in time, and there are such variations in its practice, there is an increasing awareness of its nature as a construction which can be deconstructed. The present status of the concept of citizenship, then, depends at least in part on the perceived legitimacy of the nation state by those who inhabit its borders. Yet this paper will argue that not only is there a greater awareness of its artificiality, but there are also forces at large in the world today which constrain its powers and threa...

Schools and Leadership in Transition: the case of Scandinavia

Abstract: This article will set the context of democratic leadership in Scandinavian countries. This concept will be discussed in a dual perspective. On the one hand there are pressures to transform the governing of the schools towards a more ‘rigorous’ form of New Public Management (NPM) with models of leadership/management from the world of business and industry. This trend is affected by a new wave of economical and cultural globalisation, while the discourse of NPM is exerting a strong influence on how municipalities organize and govern the schools in Scandinavia (Moos, 2000; Peters et al., 2000). On the other hand there is a growing consciousness of the need for sustaining trust and loyalty in the school as an organisation. This may be seen as an effect of European/Scandinavian societies becoming increasingly complex. These societies are often called hyper complex societies with no one single centre from which government can be exercised. The governing of the public sectors therefore has largely to rest on tru...

Compiling the White Inventory: the practice of whiteness in a British primary school

Abstract: 'Whiteness studies' has become a significant theme in writing about ethnicity and education over the past decade. Unlike both multiculturalism and anti-racism, whiteness theorists suggest that whiteness can be seen not as a biological fact, but as a social construction, and seek to examine white behaviour and assumptions as a first step toward resisting that behaviour. While its place in the academic world seems secure, its theories have had a limited impact on practitioners, particularly in Britain. Despite urgent calls by many writers in the field of whiteness studies, the number of white teachers attempting to understand how their own ethnicity affects their work appears negligible. In this paper I seek to begin to address that problem by applying a model of white attitudes to my own thinking and behaviour as a white teacher in a multi-ethnic primary school. It is suggested that this act of recording and reporting on the taken-for-granted behaviour of whites must be the first step toward decentring whi...

Civic Education and the New American Patriotism Post-9/11

Abstract: This study analyzes the theoretical and practical political frameworks behind the two main approaches to civic education in America, 'civics' and 'service'. The first focuses on educating students about the formal political process. It is associated with liberal political theory and also with a justice-oriented, distributive politics that in practice has increasingly become consumer-oriented--fights over 'who gets what'. The second, 'service' (or community service or service learning) is associated with communitarian political theory and also with politics known internationally as neo-liberalism or the 'Third Way'. Neither liberalism nor communitarianism has been able to mount a significant alternative to what editors of a recent CJE issue call 'educational Darwinism' in education, in which less powerful groups are losers; to the spread generally of marketplace ways of thinking in every arena of society; or to the increasingly militarist and unilateralist foreign policy of the United States and the UK. On...

School Leadership and Three Waves of Education Reforms

Abstract: This paper aims to report how school leadership is challenged by the three waves of education reform and development in Hong Kong. Since the 1970s, school leaders in the first wave were mainly concerned with achievement of the planned goals through improvement of teaching and learning. In the 1990s, school leaders of the second wave often focused on interface improvement through various types of quality inspection and assurance. In facing the challenges in the new century, the third wave of changes in Hong Kong is moving towards the pursuit of future effectiveness. The school leaders need to be concerned with enhancing educational relevance and creating new goals. This paper will discuss how the leadership conceptions and concerns of the third wave in Hong Kong are completely different from the traditional thinking. Implications are drawn for educators, policy-makers, and scholars in different parts of the world.

School Leaders Facing Real Change: shifting geography, uncertain paths

Abstract: A central problem for school leadership in the United States is to create settings in which success for students motivates teachers. Meeting this objective is becoming more difficult as teachers, except the most brilliant, struggle to cope with the diversity of students in a changing socio-economic climate and a context in which there is a ‘policy vacuum’, an unclear articulation of policy issues and choices, and inconsistency in policy initiatives. This is where school leaders must step in. Improvement in classrooms rarely occurs without strong leadership from building and district leaders. The fact that many school leaders in the USA were trained to exhibit authoritative rather than democratic leadership has often led to ‘democratic minimalism’, where the emphasis is on statutory fairness and majority rule, but not on full involvement of affected parties, such as teachers, students, and parents. The issues in contemporary leadership in areas of disadvantage are illustrated through the experience of one ...

From Administering to Leading a School: challenges in German- speaking countries

Abstract: Schools in German-speaking countries presently experience transforming changes from a managerial style of administration towards a leadership which meets contemporary challenges. This can be seen in three areas: school development, professional development and the schools' opening up towards their environment. For quite some time the relationship between ‘leaders’ and ‘followers’ could not be dealt with productively because of the negative connotations of the German word ‘Fu¨hrung’. Nonetheless, researchers argue that leadership is an important concept in the ongoing debate. More recently leadership has gained ground in the learning school movement, since the need for reflection on the systemic relationship between actors involved in school improvement has become a constituent element. Teachers are faced with the challenge of reconceptualising their professional personal image integral to the larger whole, which is the school, and so redefining and extending their tasks within this context. As a consequen...

The Impact of Impact.

Abstract: This is not a fully researched paper. It is a playful, but, I hope, purposeful, very preliminary excursion into territory that is exceedingly serious. It arises partly from my research in the field and my consultancy work with teachers in schools and colleges over a number of years, and partly from my increasing frustration and irritation with the vulnerability of academic work to the language of performance that, as this short piece suggests later on, has much to answer for—in terms of people’s lives, not just the increasingly fatuous, hectoring tone of public statements and policy aspirations. In a nutshell my position is this. First, the language we use to describe our work and our aspirations matters a great deal. It is not a peripheral issue: it opens up some possibilities and closes down others. Secondly, the language of ‘impact’, whether it is used in a research context or any other social and political arena, foregrounds some things and marginalises others and we need to be aware of what is affected by this. My sense is that it valorises what is short-term, readily visible and easily measurable. My sense is also that it has difficulty comprehending and valuing what is complex and problematic, what is uneven and unpredictable, what requires patience and tenacity. My sense is that it finds difficulty in distinguishing between levels of change, between what is fairly superficial and what is, to coin another already over-used, increasingly presumptuous phrase ‘transformational’, between what, in the management literature, is second-order rather than first-order change. Thirdly, I worry, not only that it will turn out to be a blunt instrument which will produce commensurately crude findings, but also that it will draw us further into the mindset and practices of performativity that have seriously affected the young people of this country in ways which are deeply regrettable.

Civic and Citizenship Education in Israel.

Abstract: As distinguished from the formal, political science-oriented citizenship curriculum studied exclusively in secondary schools, civic education-learning develops throughout the young-mature citizen's life in Israel. The analysis of the role and learning of two primary civic myths--'Israel is a Jewish and a democratic state' and 'Israelis are Jews'--demonstrates how this learning takes place through 'formations' of hegemony such as the family, the media, civic militarism as well as through schools' statist and social curricula. Successes of civic education enable the civic myths to be vibrant, gestalt worlds of meaning for Jewish Israelis, and sites of resistance for ultra-orthodox Jewish as well as Palestinian citizens of Israel. On the other hand, as an ethnocracy, democracy in civic Israel is not a meaningful world of value but rather a means to manage political processes. Therefore, the Israel case study is insightful for understanding the limitations of civic and citizenship education that seeks to adva...

Targets, Assessment for Learning, and Whole-School Improvement

Abstract: This article develops the idea that there is something of a gap in theory and practice regarding the relationship between whole-school targets and individual targets. I suggest that subject, year or key stage leaders have an important mediating and cohering role to play. I argue that all of the work in schools concerning the use of targets for school improvement, for performance management and for individual pupils' progress, rests on effective assessment for learning. Significant research is referred to in support of six main propositions, and guidance is offered on how they might be implemented.

Curriculum 2000: A Broader View of A Levels?.

Abstract: Curriculum 2000 was heralded as a long overdue reform of the post-sixteen curriculum in England. In particular, critics of the traditional A level school curriculum had long complained of the narrow focus of these qualifications. The initiative therefore sought to improve the breadth of study experienced by students, through the added inclusion of Key Skills to the curriculum and the institution of an additional tier of assessment in Year 12; this latter reform would, it was hoped, allow students to follow broader courses of study in Year 12 before specialising in Year 13. Curriculum 2000 also sought to bring together the academic and vocational tracks, through encouraging mix-and-match qualifications. In practice its first two years have been characterised by implementation problems, as examination boards, schools, teachers and students have struggled to come to terms with the new system. Recently these problems have received the full glare of publicity, contributing to a ministerial resignation, as the ...

Visions, Provisions, and Reality: Political Changes and Education for Democratic Citizenship in Croatia.

Abstract: This paper is an attempt to describe and critically analyse the emergence and development of education that is directed at promoting citizens' empowerment and responsibility in the framework of political changes and democratic challenges that Croatia faces as a post-Communist and post-war country within a prospect of European integration. In the beginning, a short reference to a politically unstable, economically extremely unfavourable and culturally complex context of education for democratic citizenship is given. Following the vision/provision/implementation/evaluation rationale for achieving the expected results, the author addresses three main issues: the changes in the government's priorities for the period 1991-2001, with special emphasis on education; the implementation measures that support educational changes pertinent to the quest for citizens' empowerment; and their actual outcomes. The gap that exists between the visions and reality is explained as resulting from number of structural and psych...

Can You See the Difference? Early Impacts of the Primary National Literacy Strategy on Four Secondary English Departments

Abstract: As schools adapt to the Key Stage 3 Literacy Strategy, this paper looks at early impacts upon secondary English departments of the primary National Literacy Strategy (NLS). Since 1999, pupils with increasing experience of the primary NLS have been entering secondary schools. This paper focuses upon four secondary English departments at three points in time: early in the first year in which secondary schools received Y7 students who had experienced the NLS (autumn 1999), towards the end of the same school year (July 2000) and five terms later (spring 2002). The paper looks for shifts over time in departmental policy and practice across the primary/secondary transfer that may relate to the impact of the primary NLS. Of the two major findings from rounds one and two of interviews, one was confirmed by the third round of interviews and one was not. The persistent finding was that greater success with post-NLS students in Y7 was experienced by the English department that already practised high levels of liaiso...