Session Information
26 SES 07 B, Leadership Development to Improve Education Results: Is it Really Working?
Round Table
Contribution
Snook, Nohria and Khurana (2012:xiii) said that teaching leadership is still at a nascent, emerging, embryonic, promising state. From this conclusion the Harvard Business School organise the conference where the best people in the field discussed this issue. This field of business leadership teaching is arguably older than the education leadership teaching field. If they are still at the promising phase, it is may be humble enough for education leadership to give significant attention to the state of education leadership teaching.
At this stage there are some strong indications that leadership matters as key for the improvement of quality education (Hallinger 2011, Levine 2005, Bush 2010 and 2012, Huber 2004). Academic results (to be equated with the profit for a business) are important measurable criteria which politicians and most stakeholders use to determine the quality of education in a country, down to the local school. The critical question for the presentation will be if the knowledge about what matters in leadership can be used and transferred with learning programs to make sure that more (preferably all principals) can enhance the improvement of the local school.
The Finish system has less diversity between schools than in schools and they achieve this without any large scale or official training for school leaders and by not following the OECD’s standard reform packages (Meyer and Benavot 2013). Uljens and Nyman (2013) explained that principals have a compulsory national educational leadership certificate but the decentralisation of decision making power to the lowest level is still with the principals.
If we train the school principals to follow the rules and criteria and guidelines so well that all of their schools perform better, does it mean they are leaders or rather administrators, performing their prescribed role and act? This question may be important if we think about the training or development of the people in these posts. Is training an act conducted on a manager and administer? Can leadership be trained or taught?
Gunter (2001), Gunter (2005), Fitzgerald and Gunter (2008) and Gunter and Thomson (2009) provides different lenses and critical perspectives about leadership and development. Hallinger (2011) also indicates with a model the complexity of leadership as influence on education improvement. These perspectives are among many which must be considered when development programs and approaches in complex contexts.
Huber (2004, 2011 and 2013) makes different contributions to the knowledge of leadership development. These contributions add the understanding the complexity and contextual relevance of any leadership development. The European context which rich in diversity including different historical, socio economic and religious aspects emphasise the need for more in depth and mega studies about leadership development. Moos, Johansson and Skedsmo (2013) explanation indicate that although the external context changed Norway, Sweden and Denmark did not changed that much in their leadership approach. The challenge may be to understand the contribution of leadership and specifically leadership development in the Asian countries which according to the TIMSS and PIRLS result are successful education systems. The next challenge is then to break through to new frontiers namely the developing world since these “underperforming” countries may also contribute to the knowledge about leadership development.
The aim of the round table is not to provide answers to many questions posed in this abstract but rather to serve as a platform to discuss some of the issues raised in the abstract from different perspectives. Europe is the central focus with perspectives from the United States and England (strong leadership development); South Africa - a developing country with strong influences from the English system and non-compulsory leadership programs and Cyprus.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Bush T 2012. International perspectives on leadership development: making a difference. Professional Development in Education, Vol. 38, No. 4, September, 663–678 Bush T, Kiggundu E and Moorosi P 2011 Preparing new principals in South Africa: the ACE: School Leadership Programme. South African Journal of Education, Vol 31:31-43 Fitzgerald T and Gunter H 2008. Contesting the orthodoxy of teacher leadership. International Journal of leadership in education, Vol. 11, NO. 4, 331–340 Gunter H 2005. Conceptualizing Research in Educational Leadership. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, Vol 33(2) 165–180 Gunter H and Thomson P 2009The makeover: a new logic in leadership development in England. Educational Review, Vol. 61, No. 4, 469–483 Hallinger P 2011 Leadership for learning: lessons from 40 years of empirical research. Journal of Educational Administration, Vol. 49 No. 2, pp. 125-142.. Hallinger P and Heck R H 2010 Collaborative leadership and school improvement: understanding the impact on school capacity and student learning. School Leadership and Management, Vol. 30, No. 2, 95 - 110 Huber S G 2004. School leadership and leadership development Adjusting leadership theories and development programs to values and the core purpose of school. Journal of Educational Administration, Vol. 42 No. 6, pp. 669-684 Huber S G 2011 The impact of professional development: a theoretical model for empirical research, evaluation, planning and conducting training and development programmes. Professional Development in Education, Vol. 37, No. 5, , 837–853 Huber S G 2013 Multiple Learning Approaches in the Professional Development of School Leaders – Theoretical Perspectives and Empirical Findings on Self-assessment and Feedback. Educational Management Administration & Leadership 41(4) 527–540 Jacobson S 2011 Leadership effects on student achievement and sustained school success International Journal of Educational Management, Vol. 25 No. 1, pp. 33-44 Leithwood K and Sun J. The Nature and Effects of Transformational School Leadership: A Meta-Analytic Review of Unpublished Research. Educational Administration Quarterly, 48(3) 387- 423 Meyer H-D and Benavot A 2013. Pisa, power and policy. The emergence of global educational governance. Oxford: Symposium books Moos L, Johansson O and Skedsmo G. 2013. Successful Nordic school leadership. In Moos L (Editor) Transnational influences on values and practices in Nordic educational leadership. Is there a Nordic model? Dordrecht: Springer Snook, Nohria and Khurana 2012 The handbook for teaching leadership. Knowing, doing and being. Los Angeles: Sage Uljens M and Nyman C 2013. Educational leadership in Finland or Building a nation on Bildung. In Moos L (Editor) Transnational influences on values and practices in Nordic educational leadership. Is there a Nordic model? Dordrecht: Springer
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