Organisational communication and its relationships with job satisfaction and organisational commitment of primary school staff in Western Australia

The aim of this study was to investigate the relationships between aspects of organisational communication and dimensions of job satisfaction and general organisational commitment. Participants were 358 staff members from 35 government primary schools in the state of Western Australia, who completed a survey comprising the Organisational Communication in Primary Schools Questionnaire, the Teacher Job Satisfaction Questionnaire and a five item general organisational commitment scale. Factor analyses established 13 aspects of job satisfaction and 9 dimensions of job satisfaction. Multiple regression analyses were used to investigate interrelationships. The findings suggest several aspects of organisational communication were related to job satisfaction and organisational commitment. This article concludes with implications for future research with regard to communication and for the maintenance of optimal levels of job satisfaction and commitment in schools.     

The perception,management and performance of risk amongst Forest School educators

This article investigates how risk perception amongst teachers within an outdoor educational initiative, Forest School, both shape and are shaped by their understandings of childhood, pedagogy and their own professional identity. Drawing on a social constructionist perspective in theorising risk and childhood, the article argues that contemporary, hyper-sensitised concerns regarding children’s vulnerability emanate from both fears of the modern world, and the proclivity towards over-protection which these fears precipitate. Rather than treating this hyper-sensitivity as irrational or paranoid, the paper draws on socio-cultural theories and qualitative methods to interrogate how risk is perceived, managed and performed by teachers within an initiative which aims to reintroduce risk into children’s lives. The research found that while these teachers’ motivations to participate in Forest School were derived from a desire to expose children to formative risk-taking in the outdoors, the hegemonic cultural and institutional risk aversion which they were attempting to counter, aligned with their contested occupational identity, created tensions in how they managed and performed risk which militated against the full realisation of a Forest School pedagogy.     

Scaffolding teachers to foster inclusive pedagogy and presence through collaborative action research

Teachers can be influential change agents in transforming their schools if they regularly reflect on their pedagogical practices, looking for improvements that will help all learners reach their full potential. However, in many sub-Saharan African countries, teachers seldom get an opportunity to collaboratively reflect on their practices. Action research, as an in-service professional development strategy, can be an ideal means of empowering teachers to collaboratively reflect on and improve their pedagogy to be more inclusive. Drawing from collaborative action research projects conducted by teachers in two primary schools in Zanzibar, Tanzania, this article explores the role of collaborative action research in developing the capacity of teachers to inform improvements in their pedagogical practices. The findings show how the participating teachers, with scaffolding influence from a critical friend (research facilitator), developed professionally along their zones of proximal development by promoting their pedagogical and research skills to enhance the presence, participation and achievement of all learners in their schools. Based on the findings, the article shows both the advantages and disadvantages of using collaborative action research in teacher professional development in the study context. The article also discusses the significance of organisational learning in in-service professional development in order to foster inclusive pedagogy through collaborative inquiry among teachers.     

Teachers’ voice,power and agency: (un)professionalisation of the early years workforce

This article examines Slovak early years teachers’ concerns with conceptions of teacher professionalism. It suggests that there is a mismatch between understandings of professionalism, policy aspirations and the attitudes of teachers to their own professionalism, and that this mismatch fuels early years teachers’ sense of agency. These tensions between conceptions of professionalism, teaching practice and actual working conditions have led to a ground-up approach to self-governance within the early years teacher workforce. We analyse teachers’ discussions in an early years online forum of 12,500 members that was started and remains governed by the teachers themselves. It represents in itself a very particular attitude and response to the need to determine what it means to be a professional teacher. This analysis examines intersections of policy, quality and professionalism, and highlights considerations of power and voice, and the complexities of uncertainty and change. The article concludes with the suggestion that teacher attitudes, power and agency are impacted in unpredictable ways by the policy landscape.     

Understanding students’ experiences of professionalism learning: a ‘threshold’ approach

Professionalism is a core element of curricula in many disciplines but can be difficult to teach and learn. This study used audio-diary methodology to identify professionalism threshold concepts in a small group learning setting in undergraduate medicine and to understand factors that might facilitate students to ‘get’ such concepts. Fifteen students and seven tutors kept audio-diaries over two terms. Data were analysed qualitatively for content. The key themes were then cross referenced to threshold concept criteria (e.g. where language indicated that learning was troublesome, integrative or transformative). Seven potential threshold concepts were identified which centred on students’ developing professional identities including working with uncertainty, considering the bigger picture, not needing to know everything and professional culture. Reflection on workplace experiences within a small group helped students ‘get’ these concepts. The study concludes that threshold concepts and audio-diaries are useful tools for understanding lived experiences of professionalism learning.     

Am I a teacher? How educare givers in Taiwan construct their professional identity during socialisation into public preschools

A new job position, “educare giver,” which was created after kindergartens and preschools in Taiwan were integrated in 2012, has caused several problems such as ambiguity in the role of childcare givers and inequity in the division of labour. Studies have provided a limited scope and have not examined the identities and struggles of educare givers at the individual and organisational levels. This study investigated the effect of contextual factors on the professional identities of educare givers during their socialisation. The researchers adopted a qualitative research design and conducted in-depth interviews with 20 educare givers at public preschools. The findings reveal that educare giver identities are those as teachers, labourers, and teaching and administrative assistants. Contextual factors that affect the construction of their identities at the three stages of their socialisation are information channels, educational background, the recruitment process, titles, the attitudes of stakeholders, and job assignments.     

Designing and using an organisational culture inquiry tool to glimpse the relational nature of leadership and organisational culture within a South Australian primary school

This case study research found that the relational leadership and organisational culture at a public primary school situated in a high poverty location in South Australia was built upon the strength of the inter-relationships between the teachers, teachers and leadership, and between teachers and students. Supported by what we called ‘dynamic inter-relationships’ and a ‘commitment to ongoing growth’ manifesting as key themes across the qualitative survey data generated by the school’s participants, we found the individual strengths of staff served the ‘on-going formation of organisational life’. Cognisant of these disclosed relational underpinnings, the research provided recommendations to the school’s leadership team about how they could best progress their educational reform agenda. The findings affirmed an Appreciative Inquiry inspired approach designed for the research was ‘fit for purpose’ as it generated extensive qualitative data from the teachers and leaders, offering opportunity for deep interpretive analysis using hermeneutic methodology of the school’s relational leadership and organisational culture. The research findings were subsequently confirmed by the teachers and leaders through a dialogic presentation of the research findings as an accurate representation of the culture of their school.     

Don’t we care?: the ethics and emotional labour of early years professionalism

This paper argues that early childhood education and care (ECEC) has a legitimate aspiration to be a ‘caring profession’ like others such as nursing or social work, defined by a moral purpose. For example, practitioners often draw on an ethic of care as evidence of their professionalism. However, the discourse of professionalism in England completely excludes the ethical vocabulary of care. Nevertheless, it necessarily depends on gendered dispositions towards emotional labour, often promoted by training programmes as ‘professional’ demeanours. Taking control of the professionalisation agenda therefore requires practitioners to demonstrate a critical understanding of their practice as ‘emotion work’. At the same time, reconceptualising practice within a political ethic of care may allow the workforce, and new trainees in particular, to champion ‘caring’ as a sustainable element of professional work, expressed not only in maternal, dyadic key‐working but in advocacy for care as a social principle.     

Lost in translation? Emotional intelligence,affective economies,leadership and organizational change

Not until the late 1990s did the rational/emotional binary embedded in mainstream literature on educational leadership and management come under challenge. Now the emotional dimensions of organisational change and leadership are widely recognised in the leadership, organisational change and school improvement literature. However, the dissolution of the binary did not draw from feminist social theory, critical organisational theory, the sociology of emotions or critical pedagogy. Instead, the strongest influence in educational leadership and administration has been from psychological theory, management theory and brain science, mobilised particularly through Goleman's notion of emotional intelligence. This article undertakes a feminist deconstruction of two texts: one from organisational theory by Goleman and the other on educational leadership and school improvement, in order to explore how ‘emotion’ has been translated into educational leadership. As a counterpoint, I identify the gaps and silences, appropriations and marginalisation identified from feminist perspectives. I argue that the emotional labour of teaching and leading cannot be individualised because emotion is both relational and contextual.     

高校课程大纲的功能和要件:兼论我国大学课程大纲制度之现状

在高等教育发达的国家和地区,课程大纲是高校教师开课之初必须向选课学生提供的文件。本文在讨论高校课程大纲的功能和基本内容后,报告了我国两所重点高校相关调查结果。对N大学社会科学本科生专业课课程大纲使用情况的调查表明,该校教学中缺乏课程大纲制度和文化,严重影响了本科生和研究生的教育质量。对N和X大学部分教师的调查表明,90%受访教师认为大多数中国高校教师提供的课程大纲不符合国际规范。中国大学课程大纲现状,是其整体教师队伍尚处于前职业阶段的写照。