Bridging theory and practice: a conceptual framework for consulting organisations

A growing number of organisations are emerging as partners to districts pursuing systemic improvement. Given the critical role a consulting organisation could play in supporting system reform efforts, how does a district leader looking to establish a consulting partnership determine what characteristics in a consulting organisation may be more likely to yield success? This paper utilises an exploratory sequential mixed methods approach for two purposes: (1) to assess whether the quality domains of consultants most prevalent in the literature are consistent with multiple sources of expert knowledge at the point of practice and (2) to determine which, if any, quality domains of consultants are perceived as more important than others for partnership success. Overall, the findings corroborated that the domains identified through the literature are influential to partnership success. While no specific domain or set of domains emerged as most dominant, interpersonal skills and content expertise are foundational indicators that crosscut the other domains.     

Preparing teachers to deliver gender-focused sexuality/HIV education: a case study from Nigeria

Evidence shows that a focus on gender and power in sexuality/HIV education increases the likelihood of achieving positive sexual health outcomes, and international agencies have called for a shift to a gender-focused approach. However, questions remain about the implementation of such programmes, including how best to prepare teachers to deliver such curricula. In the development of the national school-based HIV prevention curriculum in Nigeria, several state governments partnered with feminist (or like-minded) non-governmental organisations to collaborate on teacher training. This case study, drawing on teacher interviews and classroom observations, explores the effects of that experience. Teachers reported that the 10-day training developed their competence, confidence, and commitment to foster students' critical thinking about gender issues. Specifically, they reported changes in their own gender attitudes, pedagogic skills and connectedness with students, particularly girls. The findings suggest that high-quality training can prepare teachers – including those in large, resource-poor school systems – to deliver the kind of gender-focused sexuality/HIV education that is proving most effective at advancing sexual health outcomes. Non-governmental organisations can be important partners for providing such training. Further research is needed to assess what additional social and educational outcomes may result from gender-focused sexuality/HIV education.     

The school as a learning organisation: The concept and its measurement

A growing body of scholars, educators and policy makers has argued for reconceptualising schools as “learning organisations” in the last 25 years as. However, a lack of clarity on the concept has hindered its advance in theory and practice. This study responds to this problem by developing a schools as learning organisations scale that expands and clarifies the concept on several points. Drawing on survey data (nschool staff = 1,703) from Wales (UK), it examines the key characteristics of a school as a learning organisation through a principal component analysis and reliability analysis. The results showed that such a school is associated with eight dimensions: (a) a shared vision centred on the learning of all students, (b) partners contributing to school vision, (c) continuous learning opportunities, (d) team learning and collaboration, (e) a culture of enquiry, innovation and exploration, (f) systems for collecting and exchanging knowledge and learning, (g) learning with and from the external environment, and (h) modelling learning leadership. The resulting 65-item scale demonstrated good psychometric qualities. A reliable and valid schools as learning organisations scale can help enhance our understanding of the concept. The scale can also be used by school leaders, teachers and all others wanting to develop a thriving learning culture in their schools.     

Linking action learning and inter-organisational learning: the learning journey approach

The article presents and illustrates the learning journey (LJ) – a new management development approach to inter-organisational learning based on observation, reflection and problem-solving. The LJ involves managers from different organisations and applies key concepts of action learning and systemic organisational development. Made up of practitioners from 6 to 8 organisations, the LJ visits each of the organisations to explore management practices, taking into account their particular organisational context and challenges. Following a sequence of (a) becoming aware of the particular organisational context, (b) learning about established management practices and (c) working on a current challenge as ‘comrades in adversity’, the article introduces and illustrates the LJ approach. The article closes with a discussion of the approach's challenges and implications for research on – and development of – inter-organisational learning processes.     

‘Closing the gap’: systems leadership is no leadership at all without a moral compass – a Scottish perspective

This conceptual paper provides a critical analysis of the current convergence of major policy initiatives in Scotland to improve learning and teaching, promote greater equity and close the attainment gap through systems level leadership and change. It is neither an empirical study nor a literature review but synthesises across a range of fields – social justice, poverty, social mobility, school improvement, leadership and policy – in order to cast light on the problem and to inform public policy and practice. However system level leadership is not unproblematic, with, as argued by Boylan, the terms system and leadership seen as malleable concepts, nor can it be seen as a panacea for all ills. The paper argues that educational policy needs to be seen as residing within wider social policy. Without recourse to addressing systemic inequalities in society and building the infrastructure and support structures around schools, schools, on their own, are unlikely to rise to the challenge. The paper argues for a melding of distributive leadership (with emancipatory intent and purpose) with systems leadership, characterised by meaningful collaboration and partnerships from ‘within – to between – and beyond’ schools (as suggested by Chapman), imbued with moral purpose.     

Diversifying Schools and Leveraging School Improvement: a Comparative Analysis of The English Radical,and Singapore Conservative,Specialist Schools' Policies

ABSTRACT

Within the context of fierce global economic competition, school diversification and specialist schools have been seen by governments as cornerstones of education policy to engineer school improvement in both England and Singapore for more than a decade. In both systems, the policy has manifested in different school types, school names and sometimes buildings – in England, specialist status schools, academies and most recently free schools; and in Singapore, specialist schools and niche schools. Diversification is promoted by each school emphasising distinctiveness in its curriculum – often with implications for its funding and degree of autonomy – which differentiate it from others. There is normally the intention to scale-up curricular innovations school-wide. The paper addresses three aims in respect to both countries: first, it profiles the evolution of specialist schools' policies in both states in relation to school improvement and secondly, social justice; thirdly, it undertakes a comparative policy analysis in order to draw conclusions as to how the relationship between central government and schools has re-configured in both countries – arguing that the policy in England is radical, that in Singapore, conservative.     

Images of Leadership and their Effect Upon School Principals' Performance

The purpose of the present study is to identify how school principals perceive their world and how their perceptions influence their effectiveness as managers and leaders. The principals' views of their world were categorised into four different metaphorical ways of describing the workings of organisations: (1) the structural model (organisations as machines); (2) the human-resource model (organisations as organisms); (3) the political model (organisations as political systems); (4) the symbolic model (organisations as cultural patterns and clusters of myths and symbols). The results reveal that the best predictors of school principals' effectiveness as managers, according to their own assessments and teachers' reports, are the structural and human resource models, while the best predictors of effective leadership are the political and human-resource models.     

From silos to solutions: How one district is building a culture of collaboration and learning between school principals and central office leaders

Large urban school districts often struggle with hierarchy, fragmented processes and cultures whereby organisational silos between school and central office staff serve as a major barrier for reaching the desired strategic goals of improving student achievement. In addition, school district staff are undergoing change requiring leaders and staff in these organisations to adapt and build their capacity to support changing demands. However, little attention is paid to how to build the necessary systems and learning environments to support capacity building and leader development. This article reports on an action research study using mixed methods that reveal how central office leaders and school principals break down organisational silos to build a culture of learning using learning organisation principles. Using the Dimensions of the Learning Organization Questionnaire (DLOQ) short form, participants completed questions related to the school district's capacity for learning. Data from the survey and interviews outline key findings that illustrate how the learning organisation framework served as a model to create the organisational conditions and culture to enable support and cooperation for learning, capacity, change and improvement to occur. This action research case study is a look at one organisation's approach to addressing a gap in learning organisation research in the area of learning organisation interventions. In addition, it extends current research on schools as learning organisations with an example of data-informed change in one large school district in the southern United States.     

‘Wicked Problems’ and the Work of the School

As communities respond to challenges, threats and opportunities, organisations are changing in significant ways — new organisational designs, new communities of practice, new skills and new forms of human capital are sought. Yet K-12 school systems appear to be permanently failing organisations, not changing despite being shrouded by the rhetoric of change and entrapped in the competing expectations of different stakeholders. Using the idea of creative design and innovation as the cornerstone for learning and a focus on wicked problems for authentic audiences for the work of students and teachers, this article explores the opportunity of such a change and the barriers to enactment. Case examples are given of problem-based learning with design at the heart of the learning process and an analysis of schools as permanently failing organisations is provided. Since the human capital needs of the 21st century require different skills from those of the last century, this approach is seen as essential. It demands a transformation of our schools, not continuous improvement.     

School effectiveness or the horizon of the world as a laboratory

The present paper aims to provide an account of the genesis and development of a collection of scientific work that has received strong international recognition – the paradigm of school effectiveness. It shows how this theory, based on the design of measurement tools, has gradually influenced educational management and policies in promoting the effectiveness and quality of educational systems. In mobilising allies, setting up laboratories and extending its networks into major international organisations, school effectiveness research has contributed to the emergence of a new form of governance of education systems at a European level and to the promotion of new assessment methods of research in education.     

The ‘outdoor school’ as a school improvement process: empirical results from the perspective of teachers in Germany

This paper focuses on school improvement processes in the context of weekly curricular-based teaching and learning activities outside the classroom – known as Draußenschule or ‘outdoor school’ – in three German primary schools. Qualitative interviews were conducted with three teachers two years after implementing the ‘outdoor school’. The teachers’ experiences show that the implementation and (ongoing) development of an outdoor school affects (1) teaching as such; (2) the school staff, and (3) the entire school as an organisation. The three areas are interlinked in different ways and the school improvement process cannot be approached from the perspective of any one area alone.     

Consultation and the Parent-Educator Partnership: A Perspective

The importance of consulting with parents and teachers is discussed in this article. It is contended that educational and psychological consultants must go beyond adopting a systems approach to applying principles of general systems theory by understanding and enhancing the reciprocal influences of home and school. Three literature areas that support this contention are reviewed: (a) parent involvement in education, (b) prevention efforts, and (c) systems/ecological theory. Six critical practice issues are outlined for consulting when the home-school interface is a focal concern.     

Absorptive capacity: A conceptual framework for understanding district central office learning

Globally, school systems are pressed to engage in large-scale school improvement. In the United States and other countries, school district central offices and other local governing agencies often engage with external organizations and individuals to support such educational change efforts. However, initiatives with external partners are not always productive. We draw on the idea of absorptive capacity to present a conceptual framework for understanding when and under what conditions partnerships are likely to foster district learning and support change efforts. We contend that prior knowledge, communication pathways, strategic knowledge leadership, and resources to partner are preconditions for a district central office’s absorptive capacity, and we identify the features of the external partner that likely matter for productive partnering. We argue that the relationship between district absorptive capacity and features of the partner is mediated by the nature of the interactions between district and partner, with likely consequences for organizational learning outcomes. For researchers, this framework serves as a tool for understanding how a district central office can learn from an external partner for educational improvement efforts. For school district leaders and external partners, this framework provides a structure for thinking strategically about when and under what conditions a partnership is likely to be productive.     

Blackboard bullies: workplace bullying in primary schools

This paper offers a comprehensive examination of the ‘lived experience’ of workplace bullying in primary schools in Ireland. Underpinned by the qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews with a class teacher, a chairperson of a Board of Management and a school principal – all of whom who believe themselves to have been targets of workplace bullying in their schools – the paper presents their personal narratives as representative inductive exemplars. Each of these case studies highlight the far-reaching impact of negative workplace interaction for both individuals and the wider school community and, in so doing, provide a voice for a hithertofore silent minority. Through a Foucauldian analysis of the complex exercise of power which is at the heart of all bullying relationships, this study reveals the key role of management and organisational cultures to both the experience and incidence of adult bullying in primary schools, as well as the critical importance of leadership in framing the nature of professional relationships in school organisations.     

The Shared Agency of Photography in Gallery Education: Open Eye Gallery Discusses Its Rethinking of Gallery Education,through the Role of Photography as a Tool for Co‐Authorship and Co‐Production

This article describes a current project by Liverpool organisations Open Eye Gallery (Liverpool), Whitby High School (Ellesmere Port), recent partners Liverpool Hope University and Curious Minds. The school is in an area of high socio‐economic deprivation and low level of cultural engagement. The project seeks to support students’ photographic and digital skills, using co‐authored approaches to learning to raise young people’s overall aspiration levels. This article addresses conflicts / ethics of photography, social media and the digital in creative education today but ultimately seeks to champion photography as a tool for increased visual literacy when co‐authored between both school and cultural organisation.     

The Norden Associations and international efforts to change history education, 1919–1970: international organisations,education, and hegemonic nationalism

During the interwar period, a number of organisations started to look into education as part of an attempt to understand how nationalism was fuelled through education and to what extent it had forced the outbreak of the Great War. In response to nationalism and a perceived need for reformation of national narratives, the school subjects of history and geography became the primary suspects as advocates of chauvinism and militarism. In 1919, associations for the promotion of understanding and cooperation between the Scandinavian countries – the Norden Associations [föreningarna Norden] – began investigating history textbooks. This revision of textbooks was expanded in the 1930s to explore, assess, and develop the entire teaching of history in the Nordic countries. The Norden Associations converged on many levels with the disparate international movements for educational change. This article presents the Norden Associations as part of a process of hegemonic isomorphism in which cultural hegemony set the institutional boundaries within which the organisations could work in order to attain legitimacy. The article demonstrates how an organisation with a specific political agenda, and with only limited international objectives came to be – not only a part of – but, to some extent, an organisational role model for loftier efforts aimed at global and cosmopolitan history teachings.     

The significance of materiality in shaping institutional habitus: exploring dynamics preceding school effects

This article examines the objective possibilities of Swedish schools to offer an equal and functional pedagogical practice for students’ acquisition of knowledge and skills. The data consist of policy documents, observations, and interviews with students, teachers, and head teachers in three educational settings distinguished by different social demographics. The focus allows for a comparative understanding of how tangible objects generate formations of schools as a relational phenomenon depending on geographic location and social background of students. The article indicates that the impact of materiality lies in its preceding power. It shapes the condition of institutions visualised in architecture, buildings, and the quality of and design of facilities and artefacts. From this material root emanates schools’ values, appeal, social status, and pedagogical organisations – school effects – that empower or weaken the school’s attraction and self-confidence. Different materialities influence each school’s institutional habitus, producing school effects with unequal educational outcomes.     

The predictors of perceived social support among former foster youth

Based on a 5-wave panel survey of 732 foster youth, the current study examined the respective relationships between foster youths' individual characteristics, youths' social connections with individuals and formal institutions, and the development of perceived social support across the transition to adulthood. Several youth characteristics – including self-reported delinquency and attachment insecurity – were found to be statistically significantly associated with perceived social support. Attachment insecurity also appeared to mediate the relationships between social support and several other youth-level characteristics, including prior placement disruptions and placement with relatives. Social connections with different types of individuals – including caregivers, relatives, natural mentors, and romantic partners – were found to be associated with additive increases in perceived social support. However, some types of connections (e.g., romantic partners, natural mentors) appeared to be associated with much larger increases in social support than other connections (e.g., school or employment). Collectively, the findings help inform agencies' efforts to bolster foster youths' social connections as they transition to adulthood.     

Working with systems and thinking systemically – disentangling the crossed wires

This article explores two separate traditions that educational psychologists (EPs) in the UK have for working with systems. One of these is “systems work” with organisations such as schools. The other is “systemic thinking” for working with families. Over the years these two traditions, systems work and systemic thinking, have become crossed and intertwined. This article clarifies the connections between them by providing a historical overview, largely based on articles published by Educational Psychology in Practice and the thinking of R. Dallos and R. Draper on Family Therapy, of how they have developed. Opportunities for EPs working in Children Services to use systemic thinking and systems work are highlighted.