Organizational learning facilitated by instructional leadership,tight coupling and boundary spanning practices

Three organizational learning mediation processes are proposed as mechanisms for organizational change in this article. These include instructional leadership, tight coupling and boundary spanning. Whilst each of these processes has received attention in the research literature, we propose that their power arises from their particular combination rather than the occurrence of each in isolation. We illustrate the ways in which these processes might combine to create an organizational learning environment required for the kind of changes needed to raise student achievement. We do this with reference to a case study of a New Zealand school that dramatically improved the learning outcomes of students in reading. We describe the practices of a new principal, who was relatively inexperienced in school management but experienced in curriculum leadership. The case study illustrates how through her instructional leadership the principal was able to span the boundaries of her organization so that within a relatively short space of time the school became a more tightly coupled system that learnt to improve the learning outcomes of its students.     

A Typology of Parental Involvement in Education Centring on Children and Young People: Negotiating familialisation,institutionalisation and individualisation

This article explores the widespread emphasis on parental involvement in education from the perspectives of children and young people. In contrast to the conceptualisation of children as variable social actors, policy initiatives to link home and school more effectively, and research-generated typologies of parental involvement, unthinkingly familialise and institutionalise children by ignoring any part they may play in parental involvement in their education. Drawing on data from our study of children's understandings of home-school relations, we develop and elaborate a typology that centres on the complex ways that children and young people talk about creating, acceding to, and resisting their parents' involvement in their education. The socially patterned differences between the children and young people's understandings and experiences demonstrate how the broad social processes of familialisation, institutionalisation and individualisation are, in fact, concretely lived and negotiated in variable ways. Nevertheless, there are also some commonalities in children and young people's resistance around notions of privacy.     

Assessing Research Compliance for Federally Funded Projects: The Good,the Bad,and the Publicly Accessible

Abstract

In 2016, Utah State University launched a program to ensure their campus’ federal grant recipients were in compliance with funder mandates to share any data or publications produced as a result of the award. This article discusses how a cross-institutional team of librarians and administrators evaluated the success of this program using online asynchronous focus groups (OAFG) in conjunction with a traditional survey. The challenges and successes of using OAFGs to assess library services are also examined. An OAFG gave participants greater convenience, flexibility, participation, and time to craft answers, eliminating some of the hurdles to traditional focus group participation.     

‘The city snuffs out nature’: young people’s conceptions of and relationship with nature

This paper reports a study of 384 13–14-year olds’ written responses to open-ended questions about their understanding of and relationship with ‘nature’. Using constant comparative method the responses were coded, categorised and themed. Most students held scientific conceptions of nature (excluding humans) and a utilitarian relationship with nature, a predominantly anthroprocentric worldview. A small number held aesthetic conceptualisations and an intrinsic value relationship: an ecocentric worldview. A substantial number of students however were neither anthroprocentric or ecocentric but rather expressed a conception of and relationship with nature which reflected aspects of Bonnett’s ‘human-related’ relationship (Bonnett, M. 2004. Retrieving Nature: Education for a Post-humanist Age. Oxford: Blackwell). The findings from this study challenge a simple binary approach in which students’ environmental worldviews would be analysed as either predominantly anthroprocentric or ecocentric. Bonnett’s ‘human-related’ relationship to nature reflects a more complex view of the world. Analysis revealed interesting differences, however, between students according to their urban/rural location, gender and school type.