scholarly journals Emergence in School Systems: Lessons from Complexity and Pedagogical Leadership

2021 ◽  
pp. 65-82
Author(s):  
Gabriela Alonso-Yanez ◽  
Armando Paulino Preciado-Babb ◽  
Barbara Brown ◽  
Sharon Friesen
Keyword(s):  
School Improvement ◽  
School Leadership ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Leadership Practices ◽  
Linguistically Diverse ◽  
School Systems ◽  
Urban Centre ◽  
Complexity Thinking ◽  
Leadership Research ◽  
Standardized Examinations

The theoretical framework for this study draws on conceptual advances from two bodies of scholarship: 1) complexity thinking in education, which has recently focused on school system change and, 2) school leadership research, which has recently attended to the effects of leadership interventions to school improvement. Using a complexity-thinking framework, the purpose of this study was to understand how leadership practices contribute to shaping change in school systems and how change occurred across the system. Our study was conducted in an urban centre in Alberta within a public-school jurisdiction and in an area of the city that had a high population of students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds from low-income households compared to other areas across the school jurisdiction. Students in this area typically scored in the lowest quartile on provincial standardized examinations. Our findings are significant because complexity thinking in the context of school leadership has not received sufficient empirical attention. In our study we identified and described pedagogical leadership practices that play a central role in redressing disparities currently found in schools.

Leading Inclusive Schools: Principal Perceptions, Practices, and Challenges to Meaningful Change

2020 ◽  
pp. 0013161X2091389 ◽  
Author(s):  
David E. DeMatthews ◽  
Amy Serafini ◽  
Terri N. Watson
Keyword(s):  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Students With Disabilities ◽  
School Leadership ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Mexican American ◽  
Leadership Practices ◽  
Family Background ◽  
Immigrant Community ◽  
Meaningful Change ◽  
Inclusive Schools

Background: For over 50 years, special education has been used as a tool to maintain racial segregation, particularly in schools located in low-income communities of color. This study utilized tenets found in disability critical race theory (DisCrit) and inclusive school leadership literature to examine the perceptions, practices, and challenges associated with meaningful change in inclusive schools. Purpose: The purpose of this article was to understand how six elementary school principals, identified as effective inclusive leaders, perceived students with disabilities within a low-income Mexican American immigrant community along the U.S.–Mexico border. Findings: Our study highlights the important role principals play in creating inclusive schools and the ways in which race, disability, family background, language, and immigration status effect principals in their efforts to promote inclusion. While each principal recognized the noted factors above and confronted a multitude of challenges, they differed in their beliefs and approaches to creating inclusive schools. Some leadership practices were aligned to research focused on effective school leadership while others more closely resembled social justice leadership practices. Conclusion: Findings suggest that principals must take into consideration a variety of factors to create inclusive schools and must draw upon a broad range of practices amid resistance and challenges to meaningful change.

Successful leadership in a rural, high-poverty school: the case of County Line Middle School

2014 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 422-445 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans W. Klar ◽  
Curtis A. Brewer
Keyword(s):  
Middle School ◽  
Service Learning ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Leadership Practices ◽  
Leadership Strategies ◽  
High Poverty ◽  
Content Type ◽  
School Principalship ◽  
Successful School

Purpose – In this paper, the authors present a case study of successful school leadership at County Line Middle School. The purpose of the paper is to identify how particular leadership practices and beliefs were adapted to increase student achievement in this rural, high-poverty school in the southeastern USA. Design/methodology/approach – After purposefully selecting this school, the authors adapted interview protocols, questionnaires, and analysis frameworks from the International Successful School Principalship Project to develop a multi-perspective case study of principal leadership practices at the school. Findings – The findings illustrate the practices which led to students at this school, previously the lowest-performing in the district, achieving significantly higher on state standardized tests, getting along “like a family,” and regularly participating in service learning activities and charity events. A particularly interesting finding was how the principal confronted the school's negative self-image and adapted common leadership practices to implement a school-wide reform that suited its unique context. Research limitations/implications – While the findings of the study explicate the specific ways the principal adapted leadership strategies to enhance student learning, this study also highlights the need to understand how principals become familiar with their community's needs, cultures, norms, and values, and exercise leadership in accordance with them. Practical implications – The case offers an example of the need for context-responsive leadership in schools. In particular, it illustrates how this principal enacted leadership strategies that successfully negotiated what Woods (2006) referred to as the changing politics of the rural. To realize this success, the principal utilized his understanding of this low income, rural community to guide his leadership practices. Critically, part of this understanding included the ways the community was connected to and isolated from dominant sub-urban and urban societies, and how to build enthusiasm and capacity through appeals to local values. Originality/value – While it is widely acknowledged that school leaders need to consider their school and community contexts when making leadership decisions, less research has focussed on understanding how this can be achieved. This case provides rich examples of how this was accomplished in a rural, high-poverty middle school.

scholarly journals Exploring causal relationships qualitatively: An empirical illustration of how causal relationships become visible across episodes and contexts

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Jensen
Keyword(s):  
Leadership Development ◽  
School Improvement ◽  
School Leadership ◽  
Quantitative Research ◽  
Causal Relationships ◽  
Process Data ◽  
Improvement Program ◽  
School Leadership Development ◽  
Cultural Historical Activity ◽  
Empirical Illustration

AbstractCausal relationships are traditionally examined in quantitative research. However, this article informs the discussion surrounding the potential use of qualitative data to explore causal relationships qualitatively through an empirical illustration of a school leadership development team. As school leadership development is supposed to offer continuing development to practicing school leaders, it brings into question the issue of causal relationships. This study analyzes audio and video recordings from 10 workshops involving a team of principals, municipality leaders, and researchers who met over two years to support the principals in leading a local school improvement program. The process data are organized into episodes and analyzed in three layers of causation an interpretative layer, a contradictory layer, and an agentive layer grounded in cultural-historical activity theory. When tracing a problem statement across episodes and relating the processes to events in a principal’s practice, causal relationships became visible across the episodes and contexts. The argument, then, is that the results are achieved in the processes. As such, process data can reveal causal relationships that quantitative data cannot.

scholarly journals School learning climate in the lens of parental involvement and school leadership: lessons for inclusiveness among public schools

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Alinsunurin
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
School Improvement ◽  
Parental Involvement ◽  
School Leadership ◽  
Hierarchical Modeling ◽  
Substantial Reduction ◽  
Learning Climate ◽  
Modeling Framework ◽  
Research Attention ◽  
School Learning

Abstract Prior literature has shown that school learning climate is critical in helping individual learners meet their educational objectives. In this paper, the role of parental involvement in shaping the school learning climate is explored within a multilevel and hierarchical modeling framework using data from the 2015 PISA round. As the schools’ social and relational character, we find that reducing learning barriers is a critical challenge for school leadership. A welcoming environment for parents, as well as the effective design of effective forms of two-way communications, are positively associated with a substantial reduction in the barriers to improving teacher management’s learning climate. We also find that public schools facing social and educational inclusiveness challenges can dramatically enhance their learning environment by activating specific parental involvement mechanisms. Similarly, principal’s leadership in framing and communicating goals and curricular development to the school is also found to be significant for inclusiveness. However, parental involvement is also found to have potential tensions with school management. The worsening of the learning climate may arise due to pressures brought about by laws requiring parental involvement in schools. Because the learning climate is composed of a wide variety of relationships between and within schools, this work demonstrates that parental involvement is an integral part of school leadership and the school improvement process. Further research attention is encouraged to understand the tensions between teacher roles, principal leadership, and parental involvement through employing other quantitative or qualitative research designs.

Shadowing school principals: what do we learn?

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierre Tulowitzki
Keyword(s):  
School Leadership ◽  
School Principals ◽  
Business Management ◽  
Management Research ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
Leadership Research

While shadowing as a method has been analysed and discussed, these discussions have often been focused on (business) management research as opposed to school leadership research. Additionally, little attention has so far been paid to the parameters of shadowing. Without knowledge of these matters, the validity, merits and difficulties of shadowing and data collected through shadowing are impossible to assess. This contribution aims at tackling these issues. First, it attempts to offer an overview of shadowing. Next, studies on school principals making use of shadowing are analysed, guided by the following research questions: What are the aims of the studies? How is shadowing defined by the author(s)? What are the parameters of the shadowing activities (duration, observers, observed persons)? What are the categories of observation? In conjunction with what other – if any – methods is shadowing used? What – if any – merits or pitfalls of shadowing are discussed? Finally, implications of the current use of shadowing are discussed and suggestions are offered to address desiderata uncovered during the analysis as well as to further develop the method.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document