Session Information
15 SES 14, International Boundary-Crossing Study of Higher Education Institutions Working in Partnership with Schools to Improve Participation in Systems and Learning
Symposium
Contribution
This paper reports the final stage of a pilot action-research investigation into patterns of participation in decision-making by teachers and students in their Irish second-level school. Findings from the first stage were reported to school leadership, which showed some satisfaction in participation levels. However, teachers and students desired more meaningful engagement. Accepting this need, the leadership looked to accommodate improved involvement by implementing transformative strategies, informed by the evidence in the second stage of the research. This was difficult to achieve, owing to government-imposed austerity. The imposed cutbacks have caused the leadership to find it increasingly difficult to balance their roles. Restraints have also provoked: current industrial action, a lowering of staff/school morale and a growth in the number of two-parent working families. In the final stage of the action research teachers and students were re-surveyed to ascertain the impact of the change strategies. The paper documents a key impact was the development of a more collaborative approach, fostering mutual trust and openness between students, teachers, community and leadership. The paper also reveals how teachers and students understand this to have impacted on their learning. This pilot study warrants expanding, involving parents, school boards, more schools and learning outcomes.
Method
Search the ECER Programme
- Search for keywords and phrases in "Text Search"
- Restrict in which part of the abstracts to search in "Where to search"
- Search for authors and in the respective field.
- For planning your conference attendance you may want to use the conference app, which will be issued some weeks before the conference
- If you are a session chair, best look up your chairing duties in the conference system (Conftool) or the app.