Effective professional learning communities? The possibilities for teachers as agents of change in schools

The concept of the professional learning community (PLC) has been embraced widely in schools as a means for teachers to engage in professional development leading to enhanced pupil learning. However, the term has become so ubiquitous it is in danger of losing all meaning, or worse, of reifying ‘teacher learning’ within a narrowly defined ambit which loses sight of the essentially contestable concepts which underpin it. The primary aim of this paper is therefore to (re‐)examine the assumptions underpinning the PLC as a vehicle for teacher led change in schools in order to confront and unsettle a complacent and potentially damaging empirical consensus around teacher learning. This paper examines the characteristics and attributes of the ‘effective’ professional learning community as identified in the literature, drawing out the tensions and contradictions embodied in the terms professional, learning and community. The paper considers the implications of this analysis for practice, and concludes by offering some insights into the nature of ‘school improvement’, and the role of PLCs in realizing this.     

Sorting or mixing? Multi-track and single-track schools and social inequalities in a differentiated educational system

In the Dutch stratified secondary educational system, schools vary in how many tracks are offered. While the tendency in the Netherlands is for schools to become smaller, a relevant policy question is whether multi-track school settings promote equality of educational opportunity. Comparing single-track schools at the pre-university and pre-vocational levels with multi-track schools offering the same exams, and using relative geographical distance as an instrument of school choice, the analyses showed that single-track pre-university schools enhance the probability of obtaining a pre-university diploma without delay, but more strongly so for students from disadvantaged backgrounds (who have a lower chance of going to such schools). The single-track pre-vocational schools were associated with a lower likelihood of achieving a diploma at a level higher than pre-vocational education. Multi-track schools within a varied system will not automatically enhance equal opportunities, as middle-class children will also benefit from the additional options that multi-track schools provide.     

The SENCO role in post-primary schools in Ireland: victims or agents of change?

This paper considers the role of Special Educational Needs Coordinators (SENCOs) in mainstream post-primary schools (12–18 years) in Ireland. Little is known of the role in the Irish context and it is hoped that this research will inform policy. The Irish educational landscape has witnessed seismic change recently with further transformation imminent. The SENCO role is a recent phenomenon in Irish schools and while much is known of the role internationally, Irish SENCOs tend to operate in a policy vacuum. This paper draws on research with a purposive sample of twenty-seven SENCOs. A lengthy postal questionnaire served as the method of data collection, where both quantitative and qualitative data were collected. Findings reveal the complexity of the role in an evolving education system. SENCOs continue to fulfil largely operational roles and are limited in their capacity to effect change in inclusive practice from a whole-school perspective. Lack of formal recognition of the SENCO role has led to its ad-hoc development. This research makes the case for the formalisation of the role at policy level and recognition of the need to develop the SENCO as strategic leader, firmly situated within school management. Otherwise, Irish SENCOs risk being victims rather than agents of change.     

Changing and/or reinscribing gendered discourses of team leadership in education?

In this article, prevailing professional, business and managerial discourses of team leadership are ‘troubled’ by some feminist critiques and analyses of collectivity and gendered discursive relations of power. I draw on a study of primary school co‐principalships to describe and reflect on Karen’s (a pseudonym) accounts of her personal and shared leadership practices within a three teacher co‐principalship. The article indicates how feminist consciousness, politics and relationships can contribute to social, cultural and organizational change within ‘mainstream’ institutions. ¹ 1. I am grateful to the reviewers of this article, one of whom made this point. View all notes It also explores how pre‐constructed discourses about gender, class and leadership, can be unwittingly stitched back into an individual’s collaborative practices, limiting the potential for democratic change. My aim is to contribute to the kind of work called for by Davies when she argued that if we are alerted to the work being done by the various discourses we are invoking, then we can more effectively reflect on how limiting and disempowering discursive constructions can be challenged and changed.     

Achieving inclusion? Effective resourcing of students with special educational needs

In line with the increasing policy emphasis on inclusive education, there is now a greater focus on how best to provide for students special educational needs (SEN) in mainstream schools. However, there is little consensus internationally as to the most equitable way in which to support these students. Despite ongoing evaluations of the existing funding structures, there has been little discussion to inform future changes and ensure an equitable distribution of resources. This paper examines the system of SEN funding in Ireland during a period of policy change. Using data from a National Survey of Schools, we examine the profile and distribution of students across different school contexts to assess the extent to which the existing funding model targets those most in need. Findings show that the current through-put funding system broadly targets students with SEN but in any new model, there is room for greater differentiation in the allocation of funding, particularly within disadvantaged school contexts. The paper highlights the need for further discussion around how we conceptualise special education in mainstream education. We argue for greater emphasis on student outcomes and school accountability where SEN funding is received to support students.     

Do students' values change in different types of schools?

The purpose of this study was to determine if students' values were different depending on which type of school they attended, and whether these values changed across the school year. Students of three different types of schools (private, state, religious) were measured at the beginning and the end of a school year, using the Schwartz Portrait Values Questionnaire 40. At both measurement times the analyses showed that the most significant differences between the types of schools were found for values of Tradition and Hedonism. Across all schools, the most notable changes were discovered for the values of Power and Achievement, lesser changes were found for Benevolence and Universalism. The impact of school on change in values was mediated by religiosity for Conformity, Tradition, Benevolence, Hedonism and Power.     

Effective and inclusive schools? Attention to diversity in highly effective schools in the Autonomous Region of the Basque Country

This paper forms part of a research project that aims to characterise best practices in highly effective schools in the Autonomous Region of the Basque Country (ARBC). The aim is for the best practices identified to serve as points of reference when designing improvement plans to be implemented in all schools in the ARBC, with the advice and support of the education inspectorate. Highly effective schools are identified through the results of the Diagnostic Assessments carried out by the Basque Institute for Research and Evaluation in Education (ISEI-IVEI) of all primary and secondary schools in the ARBC. Multilevel statistical modelling and Hierarchical Linear Models were used to select 32 highly effective schools, with highly effective being taken to mean any school with higher-than-expected student results after adjusting for the effect of contextual factors. Eighty-three interviews were conducted with management teams, educational advisors and inspectors at each of the selected schools. This paper presents the results obtained in relation to how attention to diversity is organised. The practices identified included, among others, inclusive actions such as support teaching in ordinary classrooms, the splitting up of classroom groups, the formation of heterogeneous groups and the conceptualisation of the support provided as a shared teaching responsibility.     

Preferential treatment or unwanted in mainstream schools? The perceptions of parents and teachers with regards to pupils with special educational needs and challenging behaviour

This study explored the perceptions of parents and teachers regarding the differential treatment or stigma experienced by pupils with challenging behaviour – more specifically, those with behavioural, emotional and social difficulties (BESD), as well as children with visible special educational needs (Down's syndrome and/or profound and multiple learning difficulties) who frequently displayed challenging behaviour as a characteristic of their SEN. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with ten parents of children with challenging behaviour, together with 15 educational practitioners employed in mainstream and BESD schools. Findings revealed how several parents, and staff employed in BESD schools, viewed pupils with challenging behaviour as ‘unwanted’ in mainstream schools. The remaining parents, as well as mainstream practitioners, reported the opposite and indicated that these pupils received treatment deemed to be ‘preferential’ in the mainstream. This has direct implications for those concerned with supporting pupils with challenging behaviour in mainstream settings.     

Do extra-curricular activities in schools improve educational outcomes? A critical review and meta-analysis of the literature

Secondary schools tend to sponsor a large number of extra-curricular activities (ECA) yet little is known about their contribution to students’ educational outcomes. This meta-analysis aims to determine what it is about ECA participation that supports positive educational outcomes. Furthermore, this study challenges the theoretical assumptions about the benefits of participation in ECA. 29 studies (all except for one based on data collected in the United States) met the search criteria for inclusion in the analysis. Most effect sizes on academic achievements yielded from non-specific ECA, academic clubs and journalism were small, as were participation in performing arts, sports and leadership activities on a range of educational outcomes. Although the results show associations between participation in ECA and educational outcomes, causal effects could not be confirmed. It is concluded that the lack of evidence supporting the causal effects, and thus the common theoretical assumptions about the effects of ECA on educational outcomes, is due to methodology limitations in these studies.     

Governing the potentials of life itself? Interrogating the promises in affective educational leadership

This article critically explores how educational leadership is becoming increasingly affective in order to cultivate pupil potential and thereby meet the challenge of creating the best schools in the world. It critically analyses policy and handbook approaches to affective educational leadership technologies by showing the difficulty in keeping promises and by introducing the Massumian distinction between possibilities and potentiality. The analysis draws upon the notion of governmentality and the ‘affective turn’, and highlights affective, educational, leadership technologies as they appear in contemporary leadership handbooks in Denmark using four examples: (1) How school becomes the managed core of society. This reshapes educational leadership as onto-power, which means governing through ideas and materialities of perception and neurons. (2) How affectivity becomes synonymous with positive feelings, while more indeterminate parts of affectivity are neglected. (3) How educational leadership becomes a matter of governing the future through simulation and imagination. (4) How affective leadership is energised by a temporally and spatially structured bio-morality. I argue that such discourses tend to maintain the status quo rather than challenge basic premises and thereby, the edifying nature of the technologies paradoxically overshadows the possibilities promised by the technologies.     

Text or testament? A comparison of educational and literary critical approaches to research

This paper argues that a wholehearted acknowledgement of the fictionality of the research process creates scope for the development of different and challenging perspectives on experience. It is a reflective account of undertaking research which combined a qualitative analysis of women's learning experiences with textual analyses of the popular romantic fictions they studied on their course. The many parallels between literary critical research and educational research are acknowledged, but major differences between the two approaches are also identified. It concludes that the existence of these differences may restrict the construction of unusual and eccentric, but challenging and insightful analyses of fieldwork data.     

Teachers’ emotional experiences of growing diversity and multiculturalism in schools and the prospects of an ethic of discomfort

This article analyzes the ways in which emotions are constituted and mobilized by teachers to respond to growing diversity and multiculturalism in schools. The analysis is based on a two‐year ethnographic study conducted in three Greek‐Cypriot primary schools that are ‘multicultural’. The following focus questions are addressed: (1) How do teachers’ emotional experiences of growing diversity and multiculturalism in schools form particular economies of effect?; and (2) What is the nature of these economies of affect and in what ways is it possible to form an ethic of discomfort as a space for constructive transformations in multicultural schools? An ethic of discomfort is theorised as an economy of affect that uses discomfort as a point of departure for individual and social transformation. The outcomes of this study show that teachers experience intense emotional ambivalence in their efforts to cope with growing diversity and multiculturalism in schools. It is argued, however, that the capabilities of teachers to cope with growing diversity and multiculturalism are enhanced, if an ethic of discomfort is constituted in multicultural schools. The implications of this study are discussed in relation to teaching and teacher education and suggest that constituting an ethic of discomfort offers opportunities to challenge structures of power, privilege, racism, and oppression.     

The case of educational gerontology in Lebanon: a harbinger of empowerment,emancipation and social change?

Context: In Lebanon, older adults face socioeconomic challenges that are expected to worsen due to an increase in older adult population, chronic governmental neglect, institutionalised ageism and a lack of educational and social gerontologists. Consequently, local older adults are in dire need for social change, which can be initiated through later life learning. The University for Seniors (UfS) is a University for the Third Age providing learning opportunities for older people in Lebanon. While most older adult learning programmes are occupied with their learners’ self-fulfilment, Critical Educational Gerontology promotes emancipatory learning and social change. Study Objective and Design: A case discussion based on a variety of data sources is used to showcase and then challenge the practices of UfS from a critical educational gerontology perspective. To do that, we consider the semantic difference between emancipation and empowerment in their relation to power. Recommendations: We recommend programme-specific measures starting by revisiting the current philosophy of learning, targeting social change as an additional goal to later life learning, and advocacy for the establishment of educational degrees to prepare professionals and academicians in the field of social gerontology. We also recommend a more critical use of empowerment and emancipation within critical educational gerontology.