Headteachers’ readings of and responses to disadvantaged contexts: evidence from English primary schools

Existing research demonstrates the impact of context on school organisation and management, curriculum and pedagogy and on student peer relations. New developments in English education policy will devolve more responsibility for dealing with these issues to headteachers. Headteachers' readings of their contexts and the responses that they make are thus of increasing interest. This paper draws on interviews with eight headteachers of less advantaged English primary schools to explore how they understand and articulate the contexts in which their schools operate and how this knowledge is translated into strategies for organising curriculum, pedagogy and other school processes. These headteachers observed context through the lens of the behaviour of parents and children in relation to school, contrasting it with an assumed middle‐class normality. More critical perspectives on families' social and economic position or on the contribution of school practice to educational exclusion were largely absent. School responses were many and varied but, given the constraints of budgets, market and performative pressures, were unlikely to substantially transform the educational experiences and outcomes of disadvantaged students. We point to the continuing need for more contextualised funding mechanisms and policies to improve schools in disadvantaged areas and also, in the light of devolution to schools, to the need to develop mechanisms of support to headteachers to help them to develop critical understandings of context and to reflect on school process and practices in the light of these understandings.     

Value-added indicators for a fairer Chilean school accountability system: a pending subject

ABSTRACT

Although schools’ relative contribution to pupils’ progress is increasingly used in accountability systems around the world, momentum for value-added models (VAM) has not been reached in Chile. This small-scale study explores qualitatively the policy context in which this omission takes place, by analyzing policy documents and interviewing local policymakers and researchers about their views on VAM. These agents and official documents not only point to political, methodological and pragmatic reasons for and against value-added indicators, but also highlighted ethical and legal reasons pro (but not against) VAM. Overall, the most prominent reason for including VAM into the new accountability system was the ethical consideration. The notion that a fairer indicator could make justice, especially for those schools working in disadvantaged contexts, was a recurrent idea. In contrast, the most recurrent reasons against VAM were methodological. Whilst research on VAM for the Chilean school system has been conducted over the last decade, it has impacted very little the policy arena. Given that the creation of frameworks for assessing value-added indicators takes time, needs policy and research support and needs to consider potential unintended consequences, the road towards including them into the Chilean school accountability system is just starting.     

The impacts of district policy and school context on teacher professional development

Teacher professional development has become one of the most important policy issues in the context of standards-based reform in U.S. However, our understanding of the contexts that influence teacher professional development remains limited. Using a series of 3-level Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM/3L) statistical analyses of a large nationally representative dataset, this article examines the impacts of multi-nested district and school contexts on teacher professional development. This article suggests that diverse and complex relationships among contextual factors at the district- and school-level encourage or limit time for teacher professional development. Finally, some implications are presented for school leaders and educational policy makers in attempting to broaden and enhance teacher professional development.     

Home-to-school transport in contemporary schooling contexts: an irony in motion

This paper explores ‘home–school’ transport in contemporary schooling contexts in England. Home–school transport is a complex issue lying between government departments, policy frameworks, research and professional disciplines. It is complicated further by commercial and private interests alongside social and public ones. Informed by an interdisciplinary literature, the authors argue that there is an urgent need to develop understanding of the position of home–school transport policy and practices in contemporary schooling contexts, particularly in relation to school choice making and enactment. This paper calls for research to inform the development of home–school transport policy and practices that are socially just and sustainable.     

The new compulsory schooling age policy in NSW,Australia: ethnicity,ability and gender considerations

The new schooling-leaving age policy in New South Wales, a state in Australia, requires all students to stay at school until they are 17?years old. The policy was introduced in January 2010, with little warning and, it appears, little consideration of its impact in complex contexts. In south-western Sydney, the most diverse region in the city, the impact is just being felt. In this paper, we draw on Ball’s approach to policy, maintaining ‘the complexity and scope of policy analysis – from an interest in the workings of the state to a concern with contexts of practice and the distributional outcomes of policy’. The paper explores the impact of the increase in school-leaving age on the curriculum, and the implications for ethnically diverse schools, and for students with learning and behavioural issues. Interviews with principals, teachers, parents and students suggest that there are dimensions of gender, ethnicity and ability to consider when responding to the new policy. Many schools find a lack of opportunity or too much competition for opportunities, and limited pathways. Whole school change is restricted by inadequate resourcing in some schools and by insufficient social networks in their communities.     

Citizenship education in England and Wales: theoretical critique and practical considerations

This paper presents a theoretical critique of citizenship education in England and Wales, as a means of raising pedagogical considerations for teachers, and policy issues for curriculum makers and planners. Drawing on a range of recent empirical studies, we construct an analysis of practice and suggest that differences between dominant models of citizenship in England and Wales owe much to their histories. We suggest that such differences create opportunities for new curriculum‐making practices as well as democratic possibilities in the context of citizenship education, at a time when curricula in both England and Wales are under revision. Considering school councils/forums as an exemplar of practice common to both contexts, we question the wisdom of schools employing a narrow conception of active citizenship, via forums, in order to demonstrate they are satisfying the relevant requirements of the Order for Citizenship in England, and aspects of the Personal and Social Education curriculum in Wales. While the exemplars are both from the UK context the arguments apply beyond these borders and to more general concerns regarding the development of global citizenship.     

Oracles

This paper explores the potential of video capture to generate a collaborative space for teacher preparation; a space in which traditional hierarchies and boundaries between actors (student teacher, school mentor and university tutor) and knowledge (academic, professional and practical) are disrupted. The study, based in a teacher education department in an English university, is contextualised in the policy context of school–university partnerships. Video capture is used as a vehicle to promote dialogue and collaborative practice between partners during school-based elements of a teacher preparation course. Analysis highlights the power of this space to promote reciprocal learning across the partnership.     

ICT research and school performance feedback: a perfect marriage?

An important step towards the successful integration of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in schools is to facilitate their capacity to develop a school based ICT policy. However, one of the biggest challenges for schools is to gather data that could help shape such policy development. In this context, ICT researchers can be very useful as they can use the data gathered from their research projects to give feedback to schools. In this article, we present an electronic school performance feedback system (e‐SPFS) we developed for schools that participated in our survey research. This e‐SPFS illustrates how researchers can collaborate with practitioners; and how schools use data to examine their performance, their strengths and their weaknesses in shaping ICT policy decisions and practice. We appeal the ICT research community to carry out more research that is grounded in a school performance feedback cycle.     

Improving teachers’ pedagogical and instructional practice through action research: potential and problems

This conceptual paper reviews the extant literature on action research/teacher led inquiry and answers the question: How and in what circumstances can action research improve teachers’ classroom practice and therefore what might be the implications for school improvement? A critical analysis of the nature and purpose of action research as a mechanism for school improvement is explored via close examination of definitions, the characteristics of action research and models of action research. From the literature reviewed, it is noted that action research, whether conducted individually or collaboratively, has been found to contribute to teachers’ ability to investigate their practice with a view to improving students’ outcomes and for school improvement. Nevertheless, the success of action research is predicated on a number of conditions such as motivation, trust, mutual respect, and resources, particularly time spent within the situational context. Additionally, in educational contexts, action research is generally externally mandated, and tends to take place as a fulfillment for programs of higher education which are targeted at improving practice in settings such as schools and classrooms. Under these circumstances action research does lead to school and classroom improvement. Still, these circumstances can be called ideal and as such the question of institutionalizing action research as part of the routine of schools globally remains a challenge. Still, however, action research has the potential for improvement at both the individual and institutional level once the conditions are right.     

Assessing Key Competences across the Curriculum — and Europe

The development of key competences for lifelong learning has been an important policy imperative for EU Member States. The European Reference Framework of key competences (2006) built on previous developments by the OECD, UNESCO and Member States themselves. It defined key competences as knowledge, skills and attitudes applied appropriately to contexts. Now most Member States have incorporated key competences, or similarly broad learning outcomes, into their school curriculum frameworks. This is a necessary but insufficient step towards implementation; for the effective development of learners' key competences, assessment must also change. This article focuses on the challenge of assessing cross-curricular key competences in primary and secondary education. It is based on a major study for the European Commission (Gordon, et al., 2009), which drew on information gathered and validated with the help of experts in each of the 27 EU Member States. The study's typology of assessment provides a basis for reviewing some recent developments in Member States. Present challenges and innovative responses are addressed, including ‘unpacking’ key competences, ‘mapping’ them to contexts and ‘accessment’ of their full scope and range. Policy developments are considered in the context of the author's work with the European Commission's Thematic Working Group on the assessment of key competences. The article concludes with considerations for policy and practice.     

The school improvement policy context in Trinidad and Tobago

There have been appeals within the educational change (EC) and school improvement (SI) literature for research to explore more non-westernized and developing country contexts (Dimmock, 2000; Harris, 2009; Harris & Chrispeels, 2006; McMahon, 2006). This article is a response to those appeals. The study maps the SI educational policy contexts of Trinidad and Tobago (T&T), a developing country in the Caribbean from 1850 to 2010. Literature on EC and SI within this country and region is sparse. This article illuminates on research which reviewed the development of SI particularly in the secondary school sector. It identifies distinct phases of SI in T&T and proposes that these phases are linked to significant educational policy development eras within the country. A documentary-based research approach was employed. This investigation is significant because it documents the SI movement in T&T and provides an understanding of how the country experienced educational change.     

The village school context and principalship in Hong Kong: what do they contribute to leadership studies?

To enhance the cost effectiveness of primary schools, the government of Hong Kong imposed a regulation for operating primary one classes up to a minimum enrolment rate in 2003. This policy has forced a number of village schools to cease operation. During 2005–2006, 36 of them were involved in this enforcement, accounting for two-thirds of the total number of such schools, causing a possible extinction of them. This paper is part of a research project with the purpose of tracing the history and development of village schools in Hong Kong since the 1930s and 1940s. Adapting Bourdieu's concepts of habitus, capital and field, this paper examined the village school context of Hong Kong from a socio-historical perspective and examined how the context was related to leadership characteristics of village school principals. Related issues were also discussed. It is hoped that the study has suggested a direction for understanding principal leadership within different school contexts.     

Continuing the conversation: British and Japanese progressivism

This paper offers an account of the historic and ongoing international interchange between Britain and Japan in the field of progressive education. Concentrating on the last half-century, it takes two reference points from Roy Lowe’s writings in 1977 and 2006. Eveline Lowe Primary was a newly built model progressive school when documented by him in a seminal work on school architecture, later becoming a key point of interest for Japanese educationists. The British educational policy context against which this exchange of ideas and practices occurred was later documented by Lowe in a major book. Contemporaneous debates and events within Japanese society and government meanwhile provided the impetus for networks of research and transmission of progressive practices. The most recent turn in the narrative presented here demonstrates Japanese support for independent progressive practice continuing in the UK. Responding to an extensive historical research literature on transnational migration of educational ideals and practices this paper constitutes a micro-study that draws on personal memory, oral testimony, records of classroom observation on site and by means of video-conferencing, in addition to more formal documentation of conference proceedings and policy-making.     

A climate for self-efficacy: the relationship between school climate and teacher efficacy for inclusion

Teacher efficacy represents a key construct in exploring successful implementation of inclusive policy. Teachers’ impression of school climate is shown to relate to teacher efficacy; however, few studies pay due deference to its context/specific conceptualisation, with a particular lacuna in research noted in an Irish mainstream primary school context. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between school climate and efficacy for inclusion and whether this relationship impacts on perceptions of challenging behaviours, further identifying barriers to and supports for efficacious inclusive practice. Fifty-seven probated primary mainstream teachers in the Republic of Ireland responded to online questionnaires exploring perceptions of school climate, teacher efficacy for inclusion and challenging behaviours. Teachers’ perceptions of a supportive school climate related positively to their teaching efficacy for inclusion, in turn influencing their ratings of the severity of and their confidence in managing commonly experienced challenging behaviours in inclusive classrooms. Teachers looked within their school for support, few noting Educational Psychologists (EPs) as sources for support. These findings add weight to the importance of understanding the relationship between teachers’ perceptions of their school climate and their efficacy for inclusion, addressing the dearth of research in an Irish context. In particular, these findings underline the potential offered by an understanding of teachers’ beliefs to inform and enhance the role of EPs in supporting efficacious inclusive practice.     

Walking the leadership tightrope: building community cohesiveness and social capital in schools in highly disadvantaged urban communities

School leaders in highly disadvantaged urban communities across the globe walk a tightrope, caught between the needs of communities and the requirements of national policies. This article aims to enrich our understanding of the potential of school–community relationships. It examines the policy discourse on urban schools and the practice of community leadership. The policy context is one of UK and international concerns about divisions in society and the rise of political extremism: concerns which, in the UK, have led to a policy focus on community cohesion. The article offers a conceptual framework—a theory of action—as a possible road map for school leaders to manage through this complex and evolving arena of policy and practice. The template— developed through earlier work on urban schools—is underpinned by a focus on trust (as the lubricant to link communities together) and social capital (as a way of harnessing the ‘social energy’ of communities for positive good). The template is tested against the leadership of two school principals in challenging contexts in London and Greater Manchester. The author concludes that there is potential for schools to create space for the voices of the marginalised and disenfranchised to be heard. This analysis will resonate with school leaders serving disadvantaged communities in many international contexts and signals a new departure for leadership.     

Positional matters: school leaders engaging with national equity agendas

ABSTRACT

This paper claims a central role for school leaders (principals or head-teachers) in the enactment of social justice policy in schools, who act as key agents or ‘gate keepers’ for what counts as social justice in their contexts of practice. Social justice means different things in different contexts depending on where leaders – who use policy as an opportunity to advance what they think is achievable within the limits of available resources – are positioned in the field and how that defines their stances. Drawing on qualitative data generated through in-depth interviews with ten secondary school principals in two Australian cities, the paper analyses the engagement of school leaders with nationally prescribed equity-related policies. Our analysis shows that, depending on the institutional ethos and resources of schools and their own social justice dispositions, school leaders tend to take different stances towards nationally defined equity agendas. Their responses range from compliance to compromise to contest. The paper suggests that doing social justice in schools can never be unilateral, as policy documents suppose, but is characterised by context-informed policy translation, mediated by a range of interactive forces and interests.     

Capacity building for school development: current problems and future challenges

This article offers a theoretical discussion on the current problems and future challenges of school capacity building in early childhood education (ECE), aiming to highlight some key areas for future research. In recent years, there has been a notable policy shift from monitoring quality through inspection to improving quality through school capacity building in early childhood institutions in the global discourse for quality. Reflecting this policy shift and its implications on school development, ECE in Hong Kong is used as an illustrative example to deliberate the issues of school capacity building in Chinese educational contexts. We identify three challenging contexts: (1) low professional qualification and minimal teacher education resulting in a deficit approach to processional development, (2) absence of school-based professional learning culture for empowering teachers as internal agents of change, and (3) hierarchical culture within a school and between university and school hindering the process of school capacity building. Corresponding to these challenges, we aim to propose two suggestions, including (1) empowering teachers in ECE through school-based professional learning community and (2) promoting authentic external support in the process of university–school collaboration. Finally, we further propose specific directions for future research on school capacity building in ECE in Hong Kong. In doing so, it will contribute to knowledge-based development in school capacity building in Chinese educational contexts.     

Is There Anything Specific about Early School Leaving in Southeast Europe? A Review of Research and Policy

Studies on early school leaving (ESL) from countries such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia have been missing from the international early school leaving research map. As a contribution to remedying this, the article reviews research papers and strategic documents from these countries, guided by the general question whether there is anything specific about ESL in this region in comparison to the wider European research and policy context. The aspects of ESL examined include definitional similarities and differences, extent of ESL, dominant theoretical and methodological approaches, factors identified as impacting ESL as well as policy solutions. We find that Croatia and Slovenia are among the countries which have the lowest ESL rates in Europe. The findings of the reviewed research studies correspond to international research papers in terms of the following frequent risk factors for ESL: low economic and cultural family background, ethnic minority and migration status, type of school enrolled and motivation and academic achievement. There is a strong focus on Roma children early school leavers in all of the countries examined and Bosnia and Herzegovina stands out in the broader European context with the finding that girls from large, low socio-economic status families, who live more than three kilometres away from school, are at particular risk of ESL. In discussing ESL, the reviewed studies tend to emphasise individual and family characteristics rather than also broader social constraints as ESL determinants, a practice also reflected in policy documents which do not mention the role of broader social and economic conditions shaping early school leaving.     

Distributed leadership and middle leadership practice in schools: a disconnect?

This article reports on a small-scale collaborative research study on middle leadership (ML) in Iceland and Ireland. It explores the ML role using the theoretical lens of distributed leadership (DL). The majority of DL studies to date examine leadership as an organisational resource that can be cultivated and utilised to serve school improvement. This research, however, situates the teacher at the core of DL and commences a discourse on how MLs experience their leadership practice from a DL perspective. The empirical investigation is based on semi-structured focus group interviews across the range of schools in both education contexts. The findings indicate a disconnect between DL theory as outlined in the literature and ML practice as currently experienced in Ireland and Iceland. While a form of DL exists in both contexts, this is strictly at the gift of the Principal rather than a reciprocal relationship with teachers in relation to leading school activities. The findings also signal a need for a proactive approach in School Leadership Preparation Programmes and in Initial Teacher Education to facilitate school leaders and teachers in understanding and adopting a distributed mindset.     

Qualitatively recognizing the dimensions of student environmental identity development within the classroom context

This study qualitatively explored the process of student environmental identity development (sEID) within the highly social and structured context of elementary school science. Social practice theory was used as the lens to distinguish the dimensions of sEID that were visible during a curriculum-based, in-school program focused on the issue of pollution. Student narratives, collected from small group interviews and reflective journals, were prioritized to capture the process of students in context identifying as “being for the environment.” Data collected from 35 grade six students were qualitatively coded, a network diagram was used to visualize the relationships in the data, and a research vignette was constructed. Eight dimensions were recognized as contributing to sEID; the opportunity to be an environmental actor with peers, increased awareness of environmental threat, emotional responses, self-recognition for environmental action, perceived agency, changed behavior across social contexts, social recognition for identity actions, and personal meaning. While many of these dimensions have been directly or indirectly discussed in the research on adult environmentalists, shifting the emphasis from group membership to the individual student in context led to the addition of two dimensions—personal meaning and emotional responses. Recognizing the eight dimensions of sEID is an important contribution to the literature as students engaging in environmental action as a requirement of school is distinct from the existing research. Identifying the dimensions of sEID can support the intentional design of learning sequences that foster environmental identities in school and beyond.