Embedding inquiry-based practices in schools: The strategic role of school leaders

The context of this study were research and development projects in Dutch secondary education, particularly funded by government to combine practice-based research with school development goals for inquiry-based culture. Aiming at better understanding of the strategic role that school leaders play in embedding inquiry-based practices in schools, the research question of this study was to explore to what extent and how do school leaders use the opportunity of participating in funded research and development projects for encouraging and integrating inquiry-based practices in their schools? Differences concerning the integration of inquiry-based working in the school as professional learning community were examined, distinguishing between school leaders’ strategies of capacity building. Twenty-eight school leaders of Dutch secondary schools, involved in nineteen projects, were interviewed retrospectively. Analyses showed the majority of the school leaders to be convinced that inquiry-based working is important for their schools’ development as a professional community. Their strategies for achieving school level project significance differed in school leaders’ successive attention on personal or interpersonal capacity building with regard to inquiry-based practices. Moreover, while some school leaders were actively involved with capacity building right from the start of the research and development projects projects, almost two-third of the school leaders developed interest in inquiry-based practices during the projects and started to enact in the final year of the project. In discussing the results, it is proposed that the interaction of strategy and context needs further study, for instance to inform peer learning among school leaders that are novice and experienced in inquiry-based practices as a means to develop the school as a professional learning community.     

From school leader to educational leader

ABSTRACT

This study builds on research which contends that just as effective principals must lead across a broad purview of responsibilities in order to build successful schools, so too must middle leaders. Decentralisation of school management has resulted in an expansion of school principals’ responsibilities, contributing to a further distribution of leadership responsibility to middle leaders. This conception of middle leadership requires a shift in understanding of the nature of middle leaders’ work. There is vast potential for middle leaders to contribute to their schools beyond subject administration, yet the research base yields limited insight on such work and on how middle leaders can be supported to accomplish it. This research finds that middle leaders who expand their leadership responsibilities do so in contexts that utilise school mission, policy enactment and organisational design as platforms for enhanced middle leadership.     

Developing an Inquiry Stance toward Instructional Improvement: Teacher-Leader Action Research

ABSTRACT

This special issue explores the relationship between practice-based research and the work of teacher leaders. Although teachers are called on with increasing regularity to share leadership in our nation’s districts and schools, it is not clear how teachers learn to practice effective leadership. The articles presented in this issue argue that systematic inquiry can help teacher leaders understand problems of leadership practice, implement support for professional learning, collect data related to their efforts and reflect on the outcomes of their leadership work.     

The school leader’s role in school-based development

ABSTRACT

Background: While the school leader’s role is undoubtedly instrumental in school effectiveness, the specific influence of formal leadership on pupil learning is indirect and can be difficult to determine. Research findings suggest that school leaders can influence school organisation and pupil learning by acting catalytically, thus unlocking their schools’ existing potential. In school-based development, school leaders and their staff undergo a workplace development process, using school resources to contribute to it.

Purpose: This article explores the concept of leadership in school-based development, focusing on leading teacher learning processes in relation to pupil learning. The research problem is formulated in the following question: How is the school leader’s role enacted and experienced when enhancing teachers’ learning in school-based development? The intent of the study was to further the understanding of leadership in school-based development.

Sources of information and method: A qualitative interview study was conducted with teachers and leaders from three lower secondary schools, roughly 2 years after the schools participated in a formal school-based development project which was initiated by the Norwegian education authority. To present the findings based on the collected data, narrative texts were constructed.

Findings: The findings draw attention to the importance of leaders’ participation in the teacher learning processes of school-based development. The study highlights the importance of leaders building trust in their schools: development processes must be collegium-rooted with common goals for the whole school. The interplay of culture, structure and content is found to be necessary for successful school-based development. Furthermore, school leaders need to balance internal and external accountability, moving school practices towards local goals, which are constructed within national overall aims.

Conclusions: The study suggests that leaders require an overview of developmental processes to manage to support and progress development; leadership needs to be distributed. Further research on leaders’ learning in relation to school-based development can generate knowledge that serves as a thinking tool, thereby informing leaders’ actions in support of school-based development.     

Choice,Competition, and Cognition: How Arizona Charter School Leaders Interpret and Respond to Market Pressures

ABSTRACT

A key goal of school choice policies is to generate competition between schools, which should theoretically drive school leaders to improve their programs to attract and retain students. However, few studies examine how principals actually perceive and define competition. This article empirically examines school leaders’ conceptions of competition and their strategic behaviors using cognitive frameworks from new institutional theory, including sensemaking theory. Drawing on data from qualitative interviews with 30 charter school leaders in Arizona, we explore how leaders’ cognitive understandings of competition influence their actions in an educational “marketplace.” We find charter school leaders make meaning of “competition” in different ways, influenced by their local contexts and their conceptions of what actions are legitimate. Our work suggests that it is important to study the meanings of competition to school leaders, as it has important implications for schools’ competitive responses and, ultimately, student outcomes. Our work has important implications for policy makers seeking to expand school choice as it sheds light on how competition works in practice, with implications for equity and access.     

Resilient principals in challenging schools: the courage and costs of conviction

The work of leaders in schools takes place in shifting and sometimes conflicting reform contexts which tend to increase and intensify their professional work and personal lives as they seek to influence a range of stakeholder groups and individuals in processes of school improvement. Such diverse and sometimes competing demands of policy, local context and educational values not only challenge the breadth of qualities, knowledge and skills possessed by leaders, but also test their adaptivity, flexibility and intellectual, and emotional energy on an everyday basis. Although much of the literature on resilience suggests that it is a necessary quality in extreme adverse circumstances – for example, physical or emotional trauma as a result of conflict – it seems obvious that everyday resilience will be an essential quality and a necessary capacity for leaders to lead to their best. However, this may be sorely tested as the range of their roles and responsibilities expands and their space to exercise ‘responsible agency’ at work shrinks, together with personal space outside the workplace – traditionally viewed as a time to reflect, recover and renew. A recent survey showed that, in England, for example, only 7% of secondary heads perceived that they had any time to engage in interests outside their work; it is unlikely that much will have changed in the years since then, as more recent root-and-branch reforms in the governance and curricula of schools in England and Wales demonstrate. How leaders of schools, which serve high-challenge communities of socio-economic disadvantage, sustain their resilience and the costs of doing so in raising and sustaining their levels of success has received only scant attention in the research literature. This paper reports the outcomes of research into the work of 12 successful principals who work in schools in challenging environments in different countries and were asked to talk about their contexts and the challenges which they had overcome in order to achieve their success. It uses one of these as an illustration of the role courage and conviction plays in all their lives.     

Who am I and where do I belong? The perception and evaluation of teacher leaders concerning teacher leadership practices and micropolitics in schools

The phenomenon of teachers taking on leadership tasks beyond their classroom duties has become widespread internationally. While presented as a catalyst for educational improvement, it blurs the traditional division between teaching and leading and therefore challenges the conventional professional relationships in schools as well as the professional self-understanding of teacher leaders. This article reports on an exploratory study of the perceptions of teacher leaders in Flemish primary and secondary schools. By conducting semi-structured interviews of 26 teacher leaders, we collected data concerning their tasks and the consequences for both their social–professional relations with teacher colleagues and school leaders and their professional self-understanding. From a micro-political perspective, the results demonstrate how teacher leadership introduces new structures of interactions in schools that makes teacher leaders find themselves continuously juggling between two different agendas of professional interests: obtaining recognition as a teacher leader by their colleagues as well as maintaining their social–professional relationships with their colleagues.     

Making schools inclusive? Educational leaders' views on how to work with children in need of special support

Educational leaders have a comprehensive responsibility for how preschools and schools work with children in need of special educational support. The aim of this research is to study how educational leaders (a) explain why children have problems in schools, (b) consider how preschools/schools should help children in need of special support and (c) the role they believe that Special Educational Needs Coordinators (SENCOs) should have in such work. Educational leaders (N = 45) working in preschools and regular compulsory schools in a Swedish municipality responded (100%) to a questionnaire. According to the results of this study, this group seems to view difficulties in schools as being caused primarily by individual shortcomings. Educational leaders often advocate solutions that are closely linked to the work of special educators. The educational leaders believe SENCOs should work with supervising staff and focus on documentation and evaluations. Preschool leaders attribute children's need of special support to teachers more often than their colleagues in compulsory schools.     

Why mission matters more for (some) charter principals

Reflecting post-bureaucratic organisation theory, education reformers intended charter schools to empower school-level leaders, most typically principals, with autonomy to pursue clear, student-centred missions. Yet little research explores whether charter school principals have more power than traditional public school counterparts. We summarise the limited literature addressing the issue. Second, we present findings from interviews with nine charter leaders from six US states who have experience in leading both charter and traditional public schools, a unique data set. Both prior research and our findings suggest that generally, leaders feel more likely to be held accountable for results in charter schools than in traditional public schools. Furthermore, without oversight from school boards and central office administrators, charter leaders report having more power over budget and personnel, and more ability to collaborate with teachers. At the same time, standalone charter leaders report needing business support and training, while those from charter management organizations feel free to focus on academic success.     

ESD implementation at the school organisation level,part 2 – investigating the transformative perspective in school leaders’ quality strategies at ESD schools

Previous research has suggested that adopting a transformative school organisation perspective when implementing ESD may be more productive than the previously recommended transmissive perspectives, but it is not clear how transformative perspectives could be introduced. To address this issue, we conducted an empirical mixed methods study of existing practices in 10 highly ESD-active upper secondary schools in Sweden. The schools’ leaders, who were responsible for implementing ESD, were interviewed to obtain information on the quality criteria they used to guide their work. The arguments used by the leaders to justify their criteria were analysed and categorised based on their relationships with the transmissive and transformative quality strategies. Both school organisation perspectives were found to co-exist within the schools. A detailed analysis of schools where the transformative perspective was dominant revealed three distinct quality strategies, one of which was found to embody a strong focus on a transformative approach. This specific quality strategy is discussed and suggested as a way for interested schools to implement ESD in a more transformative way at the school organisation level.     

课程改革中教师成为学习领导者的路径探索——基于一项实证研究的探讨

新课程改革要求教师成为学习领导者,这首先要求教师成为自身学习的领导者。但在现实的改革情境中,教师究竟如何成为学习领导者？本研究以北京两所小学为个案,通过对校长、教学主任、骨干教师、普通教师等43人次的访淡,呈现了课程改革中教师成为学习领导者的不同发展路向,展现多重情境因素如何影响教师开展学习领导实践。研究发现,自上而下的改革为教师转变为学习领导者注入内在动力、提供变革契机,但同时,国家主导教师学习目标阻碍着初萌学习领导意识的教师成长为真正成熟的学习领导者。在自上而下的改革理路中,教师能否将个人能动性汇聚形成互惠的共同目标成为教师突破结构限制、成长为真正的学习领导者的关键所在。     

Reviewing the English Teacher and the English Department: A Method of Individual and Departmental Assessment

This article reviews the evidence on the way that schools and school systems find, share and use research in their work, with a particular focus on the role of school and district leaders in increasing the prominence and value of research in their work. It reviews the evidence on the ways in which practitioners in education find and use research and the role of organisation factors in promoting the use of research. The article concludes with a discussion of steps that school and district leaders could take to increase the profile of research in their organisations.     

Promoting teachers’ instructional practices in alternative assessment through teacher collaboration

This paper reports the findings of a study which aims to examine the processes and effectiveness of the collaboration between teachers in their professional learning which some Singapore schools are currently engaged in. The learning process attempted to raise the profile of teacher professionalism in classroom alternative assessment through action research. A total of nine schools participated in this two-year study. Participants included teachers and school leaders. Guided by a university researcher and supported by a cluster superintendent and school leaders, the collaboration helped familiarise teachers with alternative ways of assessing student learning, connect theories with practice in their classroom assessment, and acquire the skills of doing research. Facilitated by a structure that supports the development of partnerships between teachers from different schools, the collaboration focused on teachers working on a common task. The data reveal how teachers took ownership of their own learning through this process and led their peers in their respective schools in curriculum customisation through alternative assessment practices. Such an education reform process, which has driven the effectiveness of the collaborative teacher learning in promoting teachers’ instructional practices, is analysed from four dimensions, namely, (a) macro level (systemic reform), (b) school level (school improvement plans), (c) teacher level (teacher community), and (d) micro level (classroom level). This paper concludes with a discussion of the challenges in sustaining teacher collaboration across schools in Singapore.     

农村小学教师工作满意度现状调查及对策研究——以某个县农村教师为例

随着社会的发展,整个社会对教育的关注愈加密切,教育的发展离不开教师队伍的稳定与质量的提高,而教师工作满意度直接影响着教师的工作效率。文章对某个县6所农村小学的200名教师进行问卷调查,采用SPSS11.5和EXCEL对调查数据进行统计和分析发现,目前在农村地区有77.58%的农村小学教师对自己的工作感到不满意。通过各维度均值和百分比比较发现,农村小学教师在自我实现、工作强度、师生关系、工作待遇、领导关系、同事关系六方面存在问题。根据研究结论和发现的问题提出从四个方面提高农村小学教师工作满意度的相关对策。     

Accounting for discrepancies in teachers’ attitudes towards evidence use and actual instances of evidence use in schools

While beneficial, the consistent and regular use of evidence to improve teaching and learning is proving difficult to achieve in practice. This paper attempts to shed new light on this issue by examining the question: ‘If using evidence to inform teaching practice is rational behaviour, why aren’t all teachers engaged in it?’ It first explores whether the evidence-informed practice (EIP) beliefs and perspectives of teachers align with their evidence-use behaviours; second it assesses what factors prevent teachers/schools that wish to engage in EIP from doing so. Using a Gradient Boosted Tree predictive model to analyse data from a survey of 696 practitioners in 79 schools, the findings suggest that, to increase EIP, school leaders need to: (1) promote the vision for evidence use; (2) illustrate how research enhances aspects of teaching and learning; and (3) establish effective learning environments. School leaders’ broader commitment to EIP, and the interplay between EIP and accountability are also explored.     

The role of school-based research champions in a school–university partnership

The value of teachers’ engagement in and with research is long recognised and it is acknowledged that school–university research partnerships are one way of enabling such engagement. But we know little about how research-based knowledge is negotiated into school practices. Here we draw on data from nine ‘research champions’, who are teachers in schools which are part of the Oxford Education Deanery, a research partnership with a university department. Taking a cultural/historical approach, the study examined the strategic intentions and actions in the activities of the champions as they negotiated research-based knowledge into their schools. Data comprised 59 completed templates that described what they did and why. Findings revealed differences between those with close links with senior leaders—who could take a whole-school approach—and those whose reach was restricted by their position in school practices. Nonetheless, all the champions carefully selected and targeted research in ways that reflected their knowledge of local contexts. The findings point to the need to incorporate the champion role into school systems and for universities to value the role as they develop their own research agenda.     

Facilitating a culture of relational trust in school-based action research: recognising the role of middle leaders

Abstract

Practices such as formal focused professional dialogue groups, coaching conversations, mentoring conversations and professional learning staff meetings have been taken up in schools and pre-schools as part of long-term action research and development activities to improve the learning and teaching practices. The development of relational trust has long been described in the literature as pivotal for the ongoing ‘success’ of such research and development in sites. In this article, we attempt to re-characterise relational trust as it is accounted for by participants in action research. We present data from a cross-nation study of middle leaders from Australian primary schools and Swedish pre-schools. Middle leaders are those teachers who ‘lead across’; they have both an acknowledged position of leadership or responsibility for the practice development of colleagues and a significant teaching role. The larger study examined the practices of middle leaders; and in this article we draw on interview data from one of the case-study sites that illustrate how colleagues in schools recognise the role middle leaders have for facilitating action research and teaching development. This article specifically presents excerpts from semi-structured interviews with 25 teachers, three principals, three executive teachers and three district consultants. Interviewees described how nourishing a culture of relational trust and mutual respect are critical features in the change endeavour. For them, the practices of the middle leader who facilitated the action research were instrumental in developing trust for teacher development. Analysis of participant accounts revealed five dimensions of trust: interpersonal trust, interactional trust, intersubjective trust, intellectual trust, and pragmatic trust.     

Pandemic,a catalyst for change: Strategic planning for digital education in English secondary schools,before during and post Covid

Following lockdowns in 2020 owing to Covid-19, schools needed to find a way to ensure the education of their pupils. In order to do this, they engaged in digital learning, to varying extents. Innovations emanated from all school staff including, for example, teachers, leaders and teaching assistants. Some were already innovating in this area and brought forward and implemented digital strategies, while others engaged with digital learning for the first time. While research is emerging about the effects of the pandemic restrictions on pupils and staff in relation to key issues such as mental health and educational attainment, very little is known about the impact on school leaders' strategic planning processes. To address this gap, this paper draws on a UK Research and Innovation funded study adopting a strategy as learning approach to report on 50 qualitative interviews with school leaders to examine digital strategy in English secondary schools, before, during and after July 2021, when restrictions were lifted in England. It draws on strategy as learning literature to evaluate if schools have changed their strategic planning for digital learning, as a direct response to having learned and innovated during the pandemic. The paper concludes that there is evidence that digital innovations during the pandemic have changed the ways in which leaders think about their digital strategy, thus supporting a strategy as learning approach. However it also concludes that although there is ample evidence that the pandemic has changed the way many schools view digital learning, for some schools, there remain persistent barriers to digital integration and planning. These emanate both from material and cultural considerations, as well as leader vision and belief in digital learning.     

How are leaders integrating the ideology of globalisation in primary school contexts?

This study carried out research focusing on diverse learners, such as pupils who have English as additional language (EAL) in primary schools in the Midlands, England. Essentially, we wanted to know how they are supported to become global learners. Therefore, questions were posed to school leaders on their understanding of the concept of globalisation; how globalisation is developed, supported, monitored and evaluated. Research on the concept of globalisation is contentious, with as many definitions as there are cultural contexts. But the central message is that the movement of a global economy brings with it the potential to make knowledge and information accessible to all. We interviewed senior leaders in primary schools over a period of 3 months and our sampling isopportunistic rather than truly random. The findings suggest the need for strong leadership for embedding globalisation in the curriculum, an enabling team structure, and partnership development locally and globally.     

Teacher leaders’ work with peers in a Quasi-formal teacher leadership model

Building on evolving conceptions of teacher leadership in the literature, this article argues that an integration of both positional and empowering elements of teacher leadership are the seeds of an evolved approach to teacher leadership for instructional improvement. Using data from a study of quasi-formal teacher leadership, the research examines how teacher leaders play a positive role in schools and fulfil a series of needs of teachers. However, the constraints of teacher leaders’ instructional authority limits their ability to influence the instructional practices of their peers. The findings clarify the distinction between school-level and individual-level teacher leadership.