Transitioning Towards Ethical Leadership: A Collaborative Investigation of Achieving Equity in Times of High-Stakes Accountability

Author(s):

Valentina Klenowski(presenting / submitting)Lisa Ehrich

Conference:

ECER 2015

Network:

26. Educational Leadership

Format:

Paper

Session Information

26 SES 02 C JS, School Leadership and Equity

Paper Session Joint Session NW 07 with NW 26

Time:

2015-09-08

15:15-16:45

Room:

395. [Main]

Chair:

Howard Stevenson

Contribution

This study investigated how school principals together with their leadership teams developed an ethical approach to leadership in a context of increasing performance-based accountability characterised by high stakes testing. The leaders employed critical inquiry and evidence-based practices to improve learning and teaching to achieve more equitable outcomes for all students. University researchers took on the critical role of assisting leaders to interpret and to reflect on their practices and their use of school achievement data to help plan intervention strategies for improvement and equity. Our study explored how the school leaders developed their particular approach to ethical leadership given their level of engagement with critical inquiry related to whole school action, values clarification, ongoing responses to collection and analysis of data and sustained team collaboration.

The transition towards ethical leadership involves educators at all levels collaborating with communities to ensure all students’ educational interests are met long-term (McNaughton, 2011). Starratt’s multi-dimensional framework (1996, 2004, 2009) that draws on three inter-related ethics of care, justice and critique underpinned the theoretical framework adopted in this study. Ethical leadership in this study focuses on equity that we defined as a social, relational practice, which is collaborative, inclusive and based on respectful relationships between student, teacher and parents. Ethical leaders who are successful in achieving equity do so through developing an inclusive organisational culture, where staff, students and parents are valued and treated with care and respect (Carrington, 1999). Ongoing and systematic inquiries about student learning (Comber & Kamler, 2009) address equity related issues and involve support from leaders who are guided by ethical principles and practices. The framework for this study built on the understanding that conceptions of equity in terms of fairness and inclusion challenge assumptions about ‘students in deficit’ and the second understanding that relates to conceptions of improvement and development to promote equity develop through ethical leadership.

This study focused on how leaders and their leadership teams in six government schools (1 primary and 5 secondary) transitioned over three years to develop ethical leadership approaches to promote equity for all students, and within their local communities. The prominence of high stakes testing and the associated pressures of accountability have the potential for “perverse” effects (Lingard & Sellar, 2013). Leaders have a key role to play in raising awareness about the importance of developing a moral community and engaging the school in working towards achieving such a community. As researchers we worked with each school and their leaders to analyse the data across the school sites applying the following research questions.

What are the ethical leadership practices?

How are the schools promoting equity in contexts of high-stakes accountability?

How has data analysis supported efforts for the development of curriculum and pedagogy that is fair and just?

Method

The research was designed as a multi-site qualitative study involving principals (6), their leadership teams, teachers and researchers collaborating to develop enabling pedagogies that address equity and fairness. Each school identified teams of teachers who employed iterative cycles of action research to build inquiry communities and networks. We chose the method of action research defined as a form of collective, self-reflective inquiry that aims to improve: the rationality and justice of one’s education or social practices and one’s understanding of such practices and the situations in which these are carried out (Kemmis & Mc Taggart, 1988). This practice-based research strategy was how we facilitated the conduct of critical inquiry at each school to assist participants to consider how to change their practices and to develop understandings of those practices given the particular conditions of each school and the prevailing accountability policy context. In this paper we focus on interview data that we collected over the course of the three years with each of the six school principals. The first round of interviews collected in the first year of the project explored the six principals’ understandings of ethical leadership and ethical leadership practices, the second round of interviews explored their views further with the inclusion of questions of how they balanced competing accountabilities in their work. The third round of interviews investigated whether principals changed either their thinking or their practices in relation to how they worked with staff and students in ethical and equitable ways. In each round of interviews the principals raised ethical issues that emerged during the year. The analysis of the data from this interview data set involved two interrelated levels: a micro-level analysis of the spoken words using constant comparative analysis (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) to identify common themes and those that were unique for particular principals and their given school contexts. At the macro-level an interpretative analysis of the interview data was informed by the principles of ethical leadership which include a focus on what is just and fair (Preston, 2007), relationships with others that are caring and respectful (Singer, 1993), moral communities that are competent, caring, collegial and educative (Strike, 2007).

Expected Outcomes

This study will report on how school leaders engage in ethical leadership to build equity in teaching and learning in a context of accountability. Further, the ways that school leaders promote and encourage ethical and equitable practices in their school communities and in their relationships with staff and students will be critically analysed. This paper will contribute to conceptual understanding by elucidating how leaders and teachers collaborate to interpret and use school data to develop responsive and inclusive curricular and pedagogic practices. A theorised account of ethical school leadership that builds on Starratt’s (2004) model will contribute significantly to knowledge in this field that is under-researched (Blackmore, 2010). A framework for ethical leadership will be produced that identifies the implications for school leaders and their leadership teams in how they might work to build a more ethical community by striving for balance and moral integrity, using a variety of data for decision making in developing an ethical organisational culture. The empirical findings will help to inform policy on the relationship between use of achievement data and responsive curriculum and pedagogy to promote equity and improved achievement. Evidence will include ethical leadership practices that involve creating a balance between different accountabilities through coherence (Mintrop, 2012), developing moral integrity and resisting practices such as “gaming” in a high-stakes accountability system, drawing on a variety and wider sources of school data to learn about the school’s situation and directions for the future and establishing structures and processes to support the development of ethical organisations.

References

Blackmore, J. (2010) Preparing leaders to work with emotions in culturally diverse educational communities. Journal of Educational Administration, 48 (5), pp. 642-658. Carrington, S. B. (1999). Inclusion needs a different school culture. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 3 (3), pp. 257 -268. Comber, B. & Kamler, B. (2009). Sustaining the next generation of teacher-researchers to work for social justice. In B. Somekh & S. Noffke (Eds) Handbook of Educational Action Research (pp. 177-185). London: Sage Publications. Glaser, B.G. & Strauss, A.L. (1967). The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research. New York: Aldine De Gruyter. Lingard, B. & Seller, S. (2013) ‘Catalyst data’: Perverse systemic effects of audit and accountability in Australian schooling, Journal of Education Policy, 28 (5), pp. 634-656. McNaughton, S. (2011). Designing better schools for culturally and linguistically diverse children: A science of performance model for research. New York & London: Routledge. Mintrop, H. (2012) Bridging accountability obligations, professional values and (perceived) student needs with integrity, Journal of Educational Administration, 50 (5), pp. 695-726. Preston, N. (2007) Understanding ethics. Leichhardt, NSW: The Federation Press. Singer, P. (1993). About ethics. In P. Singer (Ed.) Practical ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Starratt, R. (2009). Ethical Leadership. In B. Davies (Ed.) The essentials of school leadership. Los Angeles: Sage. Starratt, R. (2004). Ethical Leadership. San Francisco: Jossey Bass. Starratt, R. (1996). Transforming educational administration: Meaning, community and excellence. New York: McGraw Hill. Strike, K. A. (2007) Ethical leadership in schools: Creating a community in an environment of accountability. Thousand Oaks: Corwin.

Author Information

Valentina Klenowski (presenting / submitting)

Queensland University of Technology

Education

Kelvin Grove

Lisa Ehrich

Queensland University of Technology, Australia

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