Leadership's Role in Inclusive LGBTQ-Supportive Schools

The field of school-leadership preparation has recently been making a concerted effort to embed social justice issues into the curriculum experiences of aspiring principals. Although much of this effort has focused on the academic achievement among students who are poor, nonnative speakers of English, or non-White, very little attention has been paid to students who identify or are perceived as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or questioning (LGBTQ). Informed by both their personal and professional perspectives, we expand the discussion on what it means to lead for social justice by focusing specifically on both changes that need to occur in the training (both preservice and in-service) of aspiring principals and specific strategies underlying the implementation of these changes, all of which are necessary if school leaders are to meet the needs of LGBTQ students.     

Effective Inclusive Schools: a study in two countries

Over the past several years a number of constituencies in the USA and the UK have advocated for the concept of the inclusive school as the placement of choice for students with disabilities. Such a school offers appropriate educational opportunities to all students regardless of type or severity of disability or difficulty. To determine the characteristic features of such a school, two separate studies of inclusive educational practices were undertaken in locations that shared a commitment to inclusive education but differed geographically and culturally. The first study focused on the implementation of a statewide policy on inclusion in a rural state in the USA. The second study was conducted in a densely populated London Borough also committed to inclusive education. Both studies utilised interviews with key personnel and observations of innovative practice. Results suggest that effective inclusive schools are diverse problem solving organisations and that there are different ways of achieving this goal that must reflect the cultural and social context. The barriers faced by schools are described and suggestions for policy makers, administrators and practitioners are presented.     

Inclusive Practice in English Secondary Schools: Lessons learned

This paper considers how some secondary schools in England have been able to respond to the conflicting demands of school improvement policies, as measured by high academic standards and the inclusion of pupils with special educational needs. It begins with a discussion of the context in which all English schools are currently operating and a summary of the extent to which research on school effectiveness and school improvement has influenced research on inclusion and vice versa. Key findings from our work in secondary schools committed to inclusion are presented and discussed in light of teacher, subject department and whole school responses to pupil diversity. The paper concludes with a conceptualisation of inclusive schools as those that meet the dual criteria of enrolling a diverse student population and improving academic standards for all.     

Moral Functioning: Navigating the Messy Landscape of Values in Finnish Preschools

This article employs a narrative approach to explore educators’ moral functioning in Finnish preschools. Our study is theoretically inspired by notions drawn from feminist and sociocultural studies, according to which education is understood as an entirely moral phenomenon. Within a holistic framework, moral functioning is understood as a concept that intertwines educators’ moral thinking, their actions, the situation, and the cultural context. The study aims to answer the question: What kind of moral functioning emerges from educators’ narratives in a Finnish preschool context? Research material was produced from four group interviews and interpreted through narrative analysis. Our findings reveal that four different moral layers evolved, overlapped, and intertwined in educators’ narratives: what works in a preschool context; what provides good for people; what the rules say; and what is possible to achieve in an educator’s position. We present these findings in detail and discuss their theoretical, methodological, and pedagogical implications.     

The Nature of Nurture in Inclusive Religious Education

This article considers whether nurture has value as a concept within plural religious education settings in a common school. This exploration is carried out through a critical review of one school type in Ireland that made belief-nurture a core aim of its educational program. The findings identify a number of areas where belief-specific nurture in a plural setting raises particular difficulties: curriculum design, lesson content, the position of the teacher, and the role of belief communities. It is concluded that, while there are significant challenges to using the concept of nurture in relation to teaching about religions and beliefs in common schools, there is some justification for doing so, and a model that conceptualizes nurture in a more comprehensive way is proposed.     

Lasting Leadership: A Study of High Leadership Capacity Schools

This report is about a study of high leadership capacity schools and those in the process of becoming such a school. Schools were selected for participation in the study based on the leadership capacity characteristics they possessed and evidence of improved and sustained student performance, professional cultures, and shared leadership dynamics. Analysis of the data examines the features, underlying factors, relationships, and patterns that contribute to leadership capacity for lasting school improvement. Ultimately, this is a story of educational leadership.     

Educational Leadership Reconsidered: Re-Invoking Authority in Schools

By far the most challenging task faced by schools in post-apartheid South Africa, has been the distance educational leaders were mandated to put between the educational institutions and the apartheid legacy of racial discrimination and exclusion. It is therefore not surprising that there are two dominant approaches to educational leadership, namely the transactional and transformational leadership paradigms that were considered as apposite to ensure the implementation of new educational policy and curriculum developments. Indeed, the theoretical debates about educational leadership have extended expositions of the concepts of transactional and transformative leadership that are often perceived as forms of educational leadership that can enhance the democratisation of educational institutions, such as schools. However, after the demise of apartheid all attempts to move beyond authoritative practices have been shown to be undesirable; and the transactional and transformative forms of educational leadership might have too hastily and prematurely abandoned authoritative forms of leadership. Therefore, in this article the authors argue in defence of authority as constitutive of transformative leadership in schools by reflecting on current leadership practices in schools.     

Schools and Leadership in Transition: the case of Scandinavia

This article will set the context of democratic leadership in Scandinavian countries. This concept will be discussed in a dual perspective. On the one hand there are pressures to transform the governing of the schools towards a more ‘rigorous’ form of New Public Management (NPM) with models of leadership/management from the world of business and industry. This trend is affected by a new wave of economical and cultural globalisation, while the discourse of NPM is exerting a strong influence on how municipalities organize and govern the schools in Scandinavia (Moos, 2000; Peters et al., 2000). On the other hand there is a growing consciousness of the need for sustaining trust and loyalty in the school as an organisation. This may be seen as an effect of European/Scandinavian societies becoming increasingly complex. These societies are often called hyper complex societies with no one single centre from which government can be exercised. The governing of the public sectors therefore has largely to rest on trust and communication (Kirkeby, 1998; Giddens, 1991; Thyssen, 2001). This article will discuss how Scandinavian school leaders try to cope with this dual pressure while maintaining distinctive aspects of Scandinavian educational culture. This is one of many dilemmas being faced by school leaders coming to terms with notions of accountability. As an illustration we will refer to some findings from an international research project in which Danish and Norwegian school leaders participated (Biott et al., 2001; Sugrue, 2003, forthcoming).     

Navigating Between National Religious/Confessional Ideology and Interreligiosity: The Case of Greek-Cypriot Teachers in Religious Education

This article examines what resources religious education teachers draw upon, in what ways, and under what conditions, to navigate between national religious/confessional ideology and interreligious values in education. The article is based on a year-long ethnographic research project on religious education in Greek-Cypriot schools. It shows the importance of teachers’ personal and professional biography, political affiliations, religiosity, the sociopolitical context of schools, and the wider society of Cyprus.     

School Leadership in International Schools: Perspectives and Practices

This commentary reviews the papers in this special issue, highlights the importance of understanding the nature, prevalence, and potential impact of leadership in international schools, and provides a set of guiding questions for the reader to reflect upon the relevance and implications of the findings.     

Attitudes of Teachers Towards Inclusive Education in Finland

ABSTRACT

Positive teacher attitudes are essential for success when children with special educational needs (SEN) are placed into mainstream classrooms. The present study surveyed teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion by using a large national sample and Teachers’ Attitudes towards Inclusion Scale (TAIS). A total of 1,764 Finnish basic-school teachers participated in the e-mail survey. They included 824 classroom teachers, 575 subject teachers and 365 special-education teachers. The classroom teachers scored below and the subject teachers significantly below, the neutral midpoint of the scale. The special-education teachers’ mean scores were above the midpoint. About 20% of teachers were strong opponents of inclusion, and 8% were strong advocates. The attitudes towards inclusion had only weak associations with variables other than the teacher category. Teachers’ work orientation and self-efficacy had low associations with their attitudes towards inclusion. The results illustrate the attitudinal climate of teachers towards inclusion and indicate the existing potential for policy change.     

Developing Curriculum Leadership in Schools: Hong Kong perspectives

This study is designed to investigate the impact of school‐based curriculum development teams on teacher development within the tradition of school‐based curriculum development in a primary school in Hong Kong. Teacher interviews were used to evaluate the extent that teacher engagement in curriculum decision‐making processes within two school‐based curriculum development teams has led to teacher professional development which were triangulated with the videotaped meetings and tryout lessons. Qualitative evidence has revealed positively that participating teachers have developed themselves professionally through the process of planning, experimenting and reflecting (PER model) upon curriculum practice and innovation under certain conditions. However, the complexity of the structures and processes that were established for involving teachers in curriculum decision‐making processes needs further empirical and theoretical work. This paper only looks at data relating to teacher development in curriculum leadership collected in the second action cycle of the project from January to June 2005.     

Leadership in Hard-to-Staff Schools: Novice Teachers as Mentors

In our study, we chronicle the development of two novice urban teachers who developed in to mentors in the third year of their teaching. The two novice teachers were hired to serve as mentors to new teachers in or near their school. Interviews with the teachers about their experiences identified three areas of discussion as a result of their mentoring role that included reflection on the impact to their own practice, identification of the need for time management skills, and realization of the reasons for mentoring. The results of the novice teachers serving as mentors were positive for the mentors and helped to set the stage to sustain the mentoring program.     

关于全纳学校课程调整的思考

该文分析了研究全纳学校课程的原因 ,并指出了全纳课程既是面向全体学生的共同课程、也是满足学生不同学习需要的弹性课程 ,因而涵盖了比传统的特殊学校以及普通学校传统课程都要丰富的内容与宽广的结构。本文还揭示了全纳课程调整与分层的原则及其具体方式 ,并结合我国随班就读课程的特点与具体实践进行了讨论。     

Corporal Punishment in the Schools of Ghana: Does Inclusive Education Suffer?

This paper reports on a study that compared the practice of corporal punishment in ten basic schools in the Greater Accra District in Ghana. Five of the ten schools were designated as inclusive project schools (IPS) and the other five as non-inclusive project schools (NIS). The primary purpose was to find out if the inclusive project schools were more effective in eradicating corporal punishment from their schools than were the non-project schools. One hundred teachers responded to a six-item questionnaire. A further 22 participants comprising ten teachers from the survey group, ten pupils and two directors of education were interviewed. Observation of the classroom practices, where these teachers work, substantiated the questionnaire and interview findings. The overall results indicated that corporal punishment still persists in both school sites at relatively the same scale. Three themes were found to underpin the administration of corporal punishment to students in these schools. (1) Punishment as an effective learning imperative (2) Punishment as a moral imperative (3) Punishment as religious imperative. The implications of these findings pertaining to inclusive education are discussed.     

随班就读学校残疾学生发展状况研究

本研究目的是了解目前在随班就读学校特殊学生的生态状况,并试图发现对随班就读学校特殊学生发展产生积极影响的因素。本研究以问卷调查、访谈、实地观察等方法进行调查,选取北京、上海、江苏、湖北、贵州、四川、云南、广西、福建等地的47所学校收集数据,最后获得有效教师问卷331份,有效家长问卷165份;获得34名特殊学生、75名普通学生、35名教师、21名家长的访谈记录;获得10所学校的观察记录。结果发现：在被调查随班就读学校中：（1）特殊学生属于轻中度残疾学生,以自闭症、听力残疾、智力残疾学生居多。（2）特殊学生的学业成就、自信心、社会交往能力状况良好,特殊学生对学校满意度高;在各类残疾学生中,听力残疾和智力残疾学生在校适应状况最好,而自闭症学生适应状况最差;轻度残疾学生比中度残疾学生适应状况更好。（3）影响特殊学生发展的最主要的积极因素是：教师和学生能够获得专业支持,学校营造的平等和互助的氛围,减轻教师工作负担。     

Education for Autonomy: the Role of Religious Elementary Schools

I argue that religious elementary schools whose pedagogical methods satisfy the principle of rational authority have distinctive advantages over secular elementary schools for the purpose of laying the foundations for ethical autonomy in the children of religious parents. Insights from developmental psychology bolster the argument from conceptual analysis. Before children have the cognitive capacities to engage in authentically autonomous reflection, their long‐run interest in developing autonomy is best served by developing their understanding of and provisional identity within their primary culture and by encouraging a limited form of ethical reasoning within the framework provided by that secure cultural identity.