Encountering the philosopher as teacher: The pedagogical postures of Emmanuel Levinas

Despite growing interest in Emmanuel Levinas’s ethics in educational theory and practice, little has been done with the fact that for over 30 years Levinas served as director of a teacher education school in Paris, and that he taught classes there for more than 40 years. I attempt here to begin to fill that gap by focusing on Levinas’s classroom practices and everyday interactions with students rather than on his philosophical writings. I sketch three pedagogical postures he embodied and discuss them in relation to ongoing philosophical work in teacher education.     

Levinas and an Ethics for Science Education

Despite claims that STS(E) science education promotes ethical responsibility, this approach is not supported by a clear philosophy of ethics. This paper argues that the work of Emmanuel Levinas provides an ethics suitable for an STS(E) science education. His concept of the face of the Other redefines education as learning from the other, rather than about the other. Extrapolating the face of the Other to the non‐human world suggests an ethics for science education where the goal of pedagogy is peace with each other and the world through the rupture, eros and justice that arises from openness to the demands of the world. Understanding the infinite responsibility of the invocation presented by the face of the Other radically reconceptualizes science education from STS(E) towards an E‐STS curriculum of responsiveness that critically employs the said of modern science and opportunities of experience to enable the next generation of citizens to act in peace to what the world is saying.     

Interrogating conceptions of leadership: school principals,policy and paradox

Currently educational research literature demonstrates wide discussion and endorsement of ‘distributed’ leadership while concurrently traditional, hegemonic forms prevail in practice. This article investigates understandings about educational leadership held by Australian school principals. The article describes the contradictory conceptions about educational leadership currently in circulation. It interrogates underlying assumptions and questions how both hegemonic and newer leadership conceptions and assumptions serve educational leaders. Data from principals around the country and across education systems reinforced the predominance of un-theorised or under-theorised notions about leadership, with similar assumptions found in important policy artefacts and practices. This article emerges from interviews with 100 principals focusing on their professional learning needs, which revealed interesting ideas, issues and dilemmas concerning ‘leadership’. It fills a gap in research on distributed leadership by exploring contradictions inherent in policy, practice and understandings in this area. The article is structured into four sections. First, extant literature on this topic and the research are explained. Second, the article focuses on principals' conceptions about leadership and those inherent within important policy and practical artefacts. A discussion of the findings focuses on the discrepancy between theory and policy endorsement and the views of practitioners. Finally, the article canvasses the implications of the research.     

School leadership and social justice: Evidence from Ghana and Tanzania

Headteachers working under conditions of severe hardship in Africa face tremendous challenges, often exacerbated by a sense of hopelessness and lack of agency to effect improvements within their school. This paper focuses on notions of leadership agency and ‘social justice’ within an African educational context, with a specific focus on the school level, and reports on a small-scale research project involving primary headteachers in Ghana and Tanzania engaging with action research in order to bring about changes which they feel will benefit the quality of pupil learning. The study presents some positive impacts generated by the headteachers’ actions and indicates ways in which these actions illustrate developments in areas of ‘social justice’ related to fairness, equity, recognition, and redistribution. The findings suggest that empowering headteachers through the use of action research can enable them to act creatively and positively to benefit the quality of education offered to the pupils within their schools.     

他者作为自由的基础与目的——他者伦理视域中的安徽人际和谐建设

追求邻里和谐历来是中国优秀传统文化的一部分。随着现代性境域下传统伦理道德的式微与市场经济下市民社会的形成,个人主义乃至道德虚无主义盛行,他人成为自我实现目的的手段或工具。他者哲学的代表人物列维纳斯在汲取现象学中他人思想的基础上,进一步揭示他者与自我非同一的绝对他性,从而将他者作为主体自由的基础与目的,建构起"责任先于自由"、"我为他者负责"的责任主体观。从他者视域诠释中国传统文化中调节人际关系的伦理道德,不仅有助于实现传统文化的现代转型,对当代建构和谐社会、尤其是人际和谐具有重要的现实意义。     

Culture,gender and school leadership: school leaders' self-perceptions in China

Since the 1980s, numerous studies have demonstrated the influences of culture and gender on leadership, including school leadership. Such studies have been criticised, however, for being dominated by Anglo-American paradigms and frameworks and for under-exploring the roles of culture and gender on leadership in non-Western societies. With reference to China, this paper focuses on the relationship between gender and school leadership and explores gender differences between Chinese male and female school leaders in their leadership orientations. The study adopted a mixed methodology of a questionnaire survey and individual interviews to solicit Chinese school leaders' views in 2008. The study finds mixed patterns of gender differences in Chinese school leadership, including stereotypical, non-stereotypical and no differences. This paper argues that these patterns can be interpreted as resulting from the dynamic interplay among traditional Chinese culture, contemporary political context and organisational settings into which Chinese school leaders are socialised and in which their leadership styles and behaviours are shaped and leadership is exercised.     

Teaching data use and school leadership

This case study uses evidence collected for accreditation and programme improvement at a small university Master's and certification programme in Educational Leadership Development to describe efforts to help leadership candidates use data during the programme's final internship experience. Programme features supporting the growth of candidates' instructional leadership skills are discussed as are the challenges faculty encountered supporting leadership candidates' efforts to use data to lead change projects. Suggestions for evaluating programmes' ability to teach evidence-based leadership practice are offered at the paper's conclusion.     

论课程领导与学校角色转变

课程领导是一种不同于课程管理的新的管理观，在课程领导的背景下，传统学校的工具型组织角色已经不能满足其要求，由工具型组织走向学习型组织是课程领导下学校角色转换的必然要求。     

Social justice leadership and inclusion: a genealogy

The purpose of this article is to engage in an historical analysis of research about two concepts: social justice leadership and leadership for inclusion. Recent experiences have caused me to wonder about our interpretations of justice, equity, and inclusion. Analysis of the relevant literature revealed a lack of consensus among scholars as to a clear, operational definition of both social justice leadership and inclusion. I use a Foucauldian genealogical method to examine texts and uncover the historical development of social justice leadership and leadership for inclusion in the United States. Uncovering past meanings and contexts should help illuminate current meanings and uses of these concepts. It is recommended that leaders engage in critical reflection to uncover the common sense language of equity-oriented leadership practices and that researchers take a more critical, historical, open stance of social justice leadership, and inclusion.     

The theory and uses of metaphor in educational administration and leadership: a rejoinder

ABSTRACT

This rejoinder article first examines the foundational theories and models for metaphor use in a number of related fields, as well as in educational administration and leadership, presenting a model for analysis. Secondly, it reviews the articles in this special issue against the model proposed.     

Meta-analysis of transformational school leadership effects on school outcomes in Taiwan and the USA

Researchers have suggested that transformational leadership is an important aspect of effective schools; however, whether the effects vary across related studies and the robustness of the overall effect size remain unclear. A meta-analysis technique was used to synthesize the results of 28 independent studies and to investigate the overall relationship between transformational school leadership and three measures of school outcomes. The study found that, in terms of the mean effect sizes, transformational school leadership does have positive effects on teacher job satisfaction, school effectiveness perceived by teachers, and student achievement. Support for this paper was funded in part by the Taiwan’s National Science Council. The author is especially grateful to the two reviewers for their valuable comments and Dr. Jin-Fu Wu for his helps of statistical analysis.     

Multicultural leadership, sustainable total school environment

Banks (2002) stated that to implement multicultural education successfully, we must think of the school as a social system. Therefore, if educational equity and excellence are to be provided to all students, a systemic Total School Environment [Banks (2001) Cultural diversity and education: Foundations curriculum and teaching, 4th ed. Allyn and Boston p.51] has to be structured and permeate every aspect of the schooling enterprise, i.e. (1) content integration, (2) the knowledge construction process, (3) prejudice reduction, (4) equity pedagogy, and (5) an empowering school culture and social structure. The Total School Environment is consistent with the educational change literatures discussed by Senge [(1990) The fifth discipline. Currency doubleday, NY]. This article is framed conceptually on a review of literature and the discussion is drawn from the case studies of innovative pedagogical practices using technology collected in the two research projects of the Center for Information Technology in Education (CITE), The University of Hong Kong during 2004–2006. With referencing to multiple school leadership literature and practices, the readers have an opportunity to explore the possible formation of the “total school environment” from one of the cases, but why not in another school? At the end of this article, it is concluded that school innovation requires a moral, systemic, integrative and emergent distributed leadership to build a scalable, sustainable learning community in a multicultural school environment.     

Instructional leadership and the charter school principal

Few studies have investigated what occurs inside charter schools with respect to instructional leadership, teaching, and learning. To address this gap in the literature, this case study examines two major issues: how the principals at four charter schools enact instructional leadership in their respective schools, and what barriers the principals encounter when enacting instructional leadership at their school sites. The results highlight three main categories of instructional leadership practices: developing a school mission, managing curriculum and instruction, and promoting school climate and culture. In addition, the data reveal that while the principals attempted to engage in instructional leadership, they encountered barriers related to budgeting and staffing. The paper broadens the scholarly understanding of instructional leadership in schools with high levels of autonomy.     

Foucault,counter-conduct and school leadership as a form of political subjectivity

Globally, a range of new schooling accountabilities have created a complex and often contradictory context in which school leaders work. For principals of low socio-economic status (SES) and disadvantaged schools, they must balance the accountability, performance and reporting requirements against the other needs of their communities. These tensions require new ways of rethinking leadership in the current educational context. This article draws on the work of Foucault, particularly the notions of power and counter-conduct, to examine the case study of one principal in a very low SES school as she negotiates her way through these new schooling accountabilities. This case study illuminates the importance of leadership as a form of counter-conduct through the constitution of the principal as a political subject or form of advocacy leadership.     

吴子牧的领导作风与领导艺术

吴子牧是中国矿业大学天津时期、北京时期的主要领导人，为为学校在20世纪50年代初的建设和发展作出了重大贡献。他懂得高等教育规律，办学有方，具有很高的领导水平和领导艺术，受到全院师生员工的崇敬和爱戴。     

Conceptualizing educational leadership in an academic development program

Promoting the development of educational leadership in higher education is essential for strengthening the quality of teaching and learning. Additional research is needed to conceptualize educational leadership, especially within informal roles. We analysed how faculty members in an academic development program conceptualized educational leadership. Five key characteristics emerged that inform the development of educational leadership capacity in postsecondary contexts: affective qualities, mentoring and empowering, action-orientation, teaching excellence, and research and scholarship. Three characteristics of academic programs aimed at developing educational leadership were also identified: funding and resources to implement a change initiative, building interdisciplinary communities, and embracing identity.     

Developing and validating an instrument measuring school leadership

In this study, we developed and validated an instrument that researchers can use to measure the collective effort of principals and teachers who excise their own unique leadership to generate (integrated) school leadership. Based on 644 teachers, we found sound psychometric properties of the scales of the instrument and the instrument as a whole. We also explored the predictive properties of the instrument in predicting student achievement at the school level. Based on 53 schools, we found that the instrument can indeed measure the kind of school leadership that really matters to student achievement. When predicting student achievement (at the school level), the instrument tends to be more sensitive to more difficult school subjects (e.g. mathematics), implying that improvement in school leadership would lead to larger improvement in student achievement (at the school level) in more difficult school subjects.     

注重道德接受心理研究 提高学校道德教育效果

在阐述注重道德接受心理研究的理论及现实依据的基础上,提出了注重道德接受心理研究才能有效提高学校道德教育效果的新思路,并提出了道德接受心理研究的3个主要研究方向：即注重接受主体“前在性”的道德接受心理倾向、道德接受心理障碍以及道德接受心理优化研究。     

This way please! Improving school leadership: the OECD way

In August 2008, the OECD published Improving School Leadership Volume 1: Policy and Practice and Improving School Leadership Volume 2: Case Studies on System Leadership. The main objectives of these reports were to compare school leadership policy between participating countries and to identify innovative practices and options for policy development. As part of the preparation for the final report, a background report on school leadership in the Republic of Ireland was prepared by the Department of Education and Science in 2007. This report will be analysed in this paper in order to identify the degree to which the background report achieved the objective of capturing the current and emerging issues facing school leaders in Ireland. A critique of the ‘one size fits all’ approach to policy in the area of school leadership detailed in Volume 1 of the OECD report follows. This critique contests that some of the policy recommendations contained in the report are based on a narrow and selective range of supporting evidence. A number of these are a cause of some concern particularly when considered in the context of specific features of the schools in the Republic of Ireland.