BELMAS CONFERENCE 2004
The Performance of Leaders.
Psychology, Organisational Psychology, Chaos and Complexity
BELMAS Annual Conference
8th – 10th October 2004
Working in Partnership with TOSHIBA
Members’ papers
Followed by
Dialogues, Seminars, Symposia and Workshops
sYNOPSES
in alphabeticalorder by name of the first author
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION OR COPY OF INDIVIDUAL PAPERS, PLEASE CONTACT THE AUTHOR/S AT THE GIVEN EMAIL ADDRESS.
Harith N.S. AlHinai Saturday Session 4
Educational Leader's role and the curve of the students' results
This paper presents some findings from a case study conducted in a College of Education in Oman. The sample for this study consists of 1400 students' results in different grades. The methods used for collecting data were analysing official documents.
According to the official documents, this study is unique in that it reflects the expectations of the Ministry of Higher Education and the Omani leaders about how the Colleges of Education in the Sultanate of Oman should be led and managed pedagogically. It encompasses educational views of how lecturers should register proper marks for each student by considering the students' individualities, efforts and their class work. This allows the lecturers to be definite in giving an actual mark for each student in order to be able to distribute the students according to the curve of the results. This would help the dean of the college to work together as a team to raise students' achievements and the quality of their leadership.
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Ann Briggs Sunday Session 6
From Immersion to Establishment: the experiences of new school heads.
(Briggs, A.R.J., Bush, T. and Middlewood, D.)
New heads taking up their appointments in English schools in recent years have had supportive programmes to help them, both prior to headship and on taking up the role. This study examines the experience of around 200 heads new to their role in primary and secondary schools over the period 2002-2004. All were participants in the National College for School Leadership ‘New Visions’ programme for new heads. The study analyses the early experiences of these heads, following the framework offered by O’Mahony and Matthews (2003), and considers what influence the New Visions programme had on the way they addressed issues and problems encountered in their role.
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Sara Bubb and Peter Earley Saturday Session 5
Unprincipled Principals?
Towards a research agenda for the understanding of rogue headteachers and their practices
Headteachers wield a great deal of power and the growth of site based management, greater school autonomy and the devolution of resources make it crucially important that they act morally and responsibly – and within the law. The vast majority do so, but what about the headteachers who act in an unprincipled and illegal way – the rogues? There is little research about heads who have been involved in financial skulduggery, who have hit children, and who have bullied staff. Nobody knows how great the problem is: for
every case that hits the headlines there must be many more that are swept under the carpet or that are undiscovered.
In this paper, we draw up a typology of deviant behaviours - from the maverick to the criminal - and develop an agenda of issues to be considered in this vital and under-researched field. We consider why some headteachers act in an unprincipled way. Is it as a result of the pressures of the job? Does power corrupt? Or does headship attract the sort of person who is more likely to act as a rogue?
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Carol Cardno Friday Session 1
Images of Professional Leadership in Secondary Schools
A Pacific Perspective
An analysis of the role of secondary school principal reveals that regardless of the degree to which the school is self-managed, there is an expectation that the principal will perform a key role as the professional (curriculum/instructional) leader of the school. This demanding role, that involves influencing the quality of learning and teaching, is one of several dimensions that are taken into account in judging the performance of school leaders. In New Zealand, where a school self-management model has been in operation for fifteen years, principals confirm that they wish to give primacy to this aspect of their work. Achieving this is no easy task and a recent study draws attention to the difficulties that arise when this role is conceptualised as direct involvement in instruction rather than an indirect and strategic form of leading change and improvement. In less devolved systems, such as the Pacific nations of Tonga and Fiji, research has established that undertaking an effective professional leadership role is a performance expectation for secondary school principals. Whilst they wish to spend more time on this task, they are also required to attend to the more visionary, strategic elements of leadership and struggle to do this when forms of direct instructional leadership, such as high teaching components, characterise their day-to-day work. The realities of the political/economic challenges in the Pacific region make it essential for principals to demonstrate capability as leaders who are strategic and visionary. In all three nations there are system requirements to meet stakeholder aspirations and improve student achievement. It is conjectured that a reconceptualisation of professional leadership that renders it less direct, more strategic and more visionary is an appropriate consideration for secondary principals who must adopt new ways of exerting influence on the core task of the organisation.
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Sheila Carr-Stewart Friday Session 2
First Nations Control of Education:
Jurisdictional, Curricula, and Leadership Complexity
Since 1972 First Nations in Canada have gradually gained Indian Control of Indian Education: what does this mean in a complex jurisdictional milieu with conflicting curriculum goals, parental aspirations for the children and the desire to maintain traditional languages, cultures and traditions?
In 1972, the National Indian Brotherhood (NIB) submitted their “statement of the philosophy, goals, principals and directions” of First Nations education to the Government of Canada: a document accepted in principle the following year by the Minister of Indian Affairs. In his letter to the NIB, the Minister stated:
I agree completely with the paper’s basic position of Indian parental responsibility and local control in education in partnership with the Federal Government. With the new authorities for transferring control of education to Band Councils, officials of my Department are ready to work out procedures for effective transfer. (Letter to G. Manual, February 1973).
Three decades later, the number of First Nations schools, located on reserves across Canada, have risen from zero to 500. Despite this achievement, the “minefield” in which First Nations schools operate is strewn with jurisdictional and organizational complexity, curriculum hodge-podge, and a seemingly lack of vision and purpose which ultimately affect student achievement. The Auditor General of Canada, 2000, stated:
Canada cannot demonstrate that it meets its stated objective to assist First Nations students living on reserves in achieving their educational needs and aspirations…[and that] the progress in closing the educational gap for Indian students…has been unacceptable. (Report of the Auditor General, 2004.
This paper presents an overview of the jurisdictional complexity in which First Nations education is situated, including the Constitutional jurisdiction of the three levels of government –federal, provincial and First Nations; the Indian Act; curriculum; and national and community First Nations educational leadership focus.
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Heather Duncan Saturday Session 4
Graduate learning on-line
Online education for practising teachers:
Promises and pitfalls
This paper explores the strategies that make on-line learning meaningful and the factors that detract from the experience for graduate learners, who are also practising teachers. It discusses the findings of a case study that investigated the factors that made interactive on-line learning meaningful, as well as those that impacted negatively on a graduate learning experience for practising teachers.
While external motivators, such as improved employment opportunities and higher salaries and pensions were important initial stimuli for embarking on graduate education, internal motivators, such as an increased sense of self efficacy, the opportunity for self reflection and self exploration, and engagement with the type of learning that not only acknowledged, respected, and built on their past experiences but was also relevant and applicable to their own real-life situations, contributed largely to learners' perceptions of what made the learning experience meaningful. Factors contributing to participants' frustration included the added time commitment on-line collaboration required, difficulty in fitting in with others' schedules and hesitation to impose personal timeframes on other participants. In addition, lack of face-to-face discussion, absence of visual cues, reduced instructor presence, slow assignment grading, and ambiguity in assignment requirements also impacted negatively. Questions arose regarding the optimum level of collaboration that is feasible and desirable for on-line learners and the congruency of learner's and instructors' expectations.
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Janneke Frank Saturday Session 5
Inspirational Teachers: A Story to Tell and a Willingness to be heard
This is a study of teacher effectiveness that draws upon Dabrowski’s Theory of Positive Disintegration to understand the personality, emotional characteristics, competencies, and disposition of inspirational teachers.
The Theory of Positive Disintegration, a theory of personality development, illuminates the inner life of highly able persons and provides these individuals with knowledge and strategies that facilitate differing forms of creative expression, self awareness and self acceptance, and assists them in finding their own way in life.
Teacher stories are interpreted through the lens of the Theory of Positive Disintegration and emergent themes are compared to the teacher effectiveness literature in gifted education. This would inform teacher recruitment, hiring and continued development.
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Dan Gibton Friday Session 2
The empire strikes back!
How (and why) English educational policy on leadership was adopted by Israel’s 2004 whole system reform
In April 2004 a major program for school reform in Israel was presented to the government. This study compares the reform to similar reforms in England between 1988 and 2002. The areas of comparison are: leadership, headship and administration; human resource management; and finally the conceptual frameworks and sociopolitical conditions of both sets of reforms.
Drawing upon theory and research on policy as discourse (Ball, 1994), globalization (Bottery, 2000, 2003) in educational reform, governance (Boyd, 2004; Glatter, 2003) accountability (Adams, Kirst, 1999; Hannaway, 2004), and leadership (Earley et. al. 2002; Gibton, 2004) this policy-analysis study analyzes reform and formal
government programs, legislation, position papers etc.
The study shows that the sources of crises in education in England and Israel emerge from similar processes. A democratic ethos, common to other English-speaking countries, is at the base of these reforms and the socio-political long term “megatrends” (Caldwell, 1993) that enhance and promote them. English school reform, including inspections mechanisms like OFSTED, the NCSL, school choice, performance management, National Curriculum and key-stages – all left deep footprints in Israel’s reform. Israel’s educational research has a longstanding inclination towards the US, so it is interesting to see that recent reforms are influenced more by England’s. Some problems of implementation are surprisingly similar: the tendency of headteachers to adopt reform partially, with local interpretations that are sometimes distant from what government intended. Local politics (e.g. governing bodies and LEA appeal committees) curb national reform’s targets. Headteachers are becoming central figures in reform implementation and the importance of leadership in school level is critical to reform’s success. Multicultural issues and atomization are also common to both countries.
However, important political, historical and social differences between England and Israel prevent total congruence between both systems. Governments in Israel are much weaker than their UK counterparts. Legislation has, so far, been a major policy tool in England, not so in Israel. These have important ramifications for the capacities of school leaders to adopt and implement reform.
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Tim Goddard Saturday Session 5
School leadership and equity:
preliminary Canadian results from an international comparative study
We know that there are great movements of people taking place around the world. Our societies are becoming more diverse and multiethnic in nature, especially in the urban environments of the larger cities. However, we also know that schools still represent the ‘status quo’ and that most principals (head teachers) are from the ‘majority’ culture. Curricula tend to represent and promote the values and beliefs of the majority culture, and the very constructs of school – timetables, policies, assessment methods, physical design, and so forth – are often quite foreign to the minority student. There is little empirical evidence describing how schools are responding to these changing demographics.
In this paper I shall present the preliminary findings from a pilot study conducted in Calgary, Alberta. This is the Canadian phase of a larger research project that is collecting and analyzing data from eleven different countries. Interviews were conducted with principals from three schools. Each was a public school in an urban environment, part of the compulsory education system (serving children aged 5 -16), and identified as having an ethnoculturally diverse student population.
The research question guiding this study is: In what ways do principals facilitate access to schools for all children? Specifically, I shall report on matters such as avoidance and inclusion strategies, school policies, and the recognition of difference.
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Callie Grant Saturday Session 5
An investigation into the factors impacting on the take-up of the concept of ‘teacher-leader’ by tutors in a post-graduate education programme at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
This paper reports on a study which aims to fill a gap in the literature on the concept of teacher-leader in South Africa by exploring teachers’ understanding and take-up of the concept of teacher-leadership and how it affects their personal identity. South African education policy post 1994 proposes a democratic approach to school management as well as that of teaching and learning, allowing for an inclusive style of leadership and the role of teacher-as-leader. However, most teachers continue to operate as restricted professionals performing primarily the mediator of learning role. Few, if any, embrace the leadership role.
The subject group in this study is the entire cohort of tutors teaching on the part-time, Bachelor of Education (Honours) degree at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Data sources include tutors’ reflective journals, focus group interviews, informal tutor observations and a student evaluation. Through discourse analysis the data will be analysed to determine if, why and how tutors take up the concept of teacher –leadership. This is a work-in-progress paper which reports on the first three phases of a four-phase study which is scheduled to end in January 2005.