Session Information
26 SES 10 B, New Approaches to Visualizing and Conceptualizing Educational Leadership
Paper Session
Contribution
The past decade has witnessed an increasing amount of studies on distributed leadership. Some researchers endorsed distributed leadership for its positive impacts on enhancing students’ learning achievement, school democratic culture, and teachers’ organisational commitment (e.g. Harris, 2013; Heck & Hallinger, 2009; Hulpia, Devos, & Rosseel, 2009; Leithwood et al., 2007). However, other scholars expressed their concerns of distributed leadership being misused to camouflage power conflicts, increase teachers’ workload, and become a new tool for managerialism (e.g. Flessa, 2009; Gunter, Hall, & Bragg, 2013; Lumby, 2013; Tian, 2016). These different and sometimes even opposite views and empirical findings have made distributed leadership a highly controversial topic.
One possible explanation to these contrast views might be the research perspective. According to Tian, Risku, and Collin's meta-analysis (2016), most of the exiting studies seemed to examine distributed leadership from the organisational perspective. Only few also accounted for how individuals exercised their agency in the leadership process. In order to acquire a more holistic understanding on distributed leadership, Tian et al. (2016) proposed the resource-agency duality model as the research framework for future studies. Tian (2016) later empirically tested and further developed this model by integrating social-cultural context and power as two key components in distributed leadership. The resource-agency duality model serves as the theoretical and analytical framework for the present study.
According to the resource-agency duality model, distributed leadership comprises two perspectives. From the organisational perspective, leadership as a resource is distributed in various tiers of the school hierarchy serving organisational goals. Under this view, school members, including formal leaders, teachers, students, and non-teaching staff, are key human resources for the school. Teachers, for instance, can be used as resources not only for leading teaching and learning, but also for supporting school development, sharing administrative workload, and conducting miscellaneous tasks (Tian, 2016; Tian et al., 2016). Distributed leadership, from this organisational perspective, seems beneficial because the more resources an organisation possess, the better performance it can achieve. Nevertheless, parallel to this organisational perspective, there also lies an individual perspective on distributed leadership which has been so far understudied(Tian et al., 2016). Under the individual view, leadership as an agency is distributed in school members’ actions and interactions helping them to attain personal goals (Tian, 2016). The individual perspective of distributed leadership acknowledges school members as professional agents whose actions and interactions are constantly guided by their personal values and goals (Eteläpelto, Vähäsantanen, Hökkä, & Paloniemi, 2013). Therefore, in the leadership process, school members are not merely the resources for the school but also active agents who constantly negotiate and interact with each other (Tian, 2016). Likewise, their personal goals and professional interests may support as well as compete against each another. Personal goals can also align or misalign with organisational goals (Leithwood et al., 2007). When school members exercise their agency in the leadership process, a highly complex web of legitimate and discursive power is created. Compared to the traditional heroic leadership, power relations in distributed leadership appear multidirectional and sometimes more difficult to detect (Tian, 2016).
The present study aims at comparing and contrasting Finnish and Chinese school leaders’, teachers’, students’, and non-teaching staffs’ different perceptions of distributed leadership by using a novel arts-based data collection method (Woods & Roberts, 2016). Do different school members perceive distribution of leadership in different ways? What are the common patterns of distributed leadership that can be identified? What are the similarities and differences in school members’ perceptions of distributed leadership between Finnish and Chinese schools?
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Eteläpelto, A., Vähäsantanen, K., Hökkä, P., & Paloniemi, S. (2013). What is agency? Conceptualizing professional agency at work. Educational Research Review, 10, 45–65. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2013.05.001 Flessa, J. (2009). Educational Micropolitics and Distributed Leadership. ResearchGate, 84(3), 331–349. https://doi.org/10.1080/01619560902973522 Gunter, H., Hall, D., & Bragg, J. (2013). Distributed Leadership: A Study in Knowledge Production. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 41(5), 555–580. https://doi.org/10.1177/1741143213488586 Harris, A. (2013). Distributed Leadership Matters: Perspectives, Practicalities, and Potential. Corwin Press. Heck, R. H., & Hallinger, P. (2009). Assessing the Contribution of Distributed Leadership to School Improvement and Growth in Math Achievement. American Educational Research Journal, 46(3), 659–689. https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831209340042 Hulpia, H., Devos, G., & Rosseel, Y. (2009). The relationship between the perception of distributed leadership in secondary schools and teachers’ and teacher leaders’ job satisfaction and organizational commitment. School Effectiveness and School Improvement, 20(3), 291–317. https://doi.org/10.1080/09243450902909840 Leitch, R. (2006). Limitations of Language: Developing Arts-Based Creative Narrative in Stories of Teachers’ Identities. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 12(5), 549–569. Leithwood, K., Mascall, B., Strauss, T., Sacks, R., Memon, N., & Yashkina, A. (2007). Distributing Leadership to Make Schools Smarter: Taking the Ego Out of the System. Leadership and Policy in Schools, 6(1), 37–67. https://doi.org/10.1080/15700760601091267 Lumby, J. (2013). Distributed Leadership: The Uses and Abuses of Power. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 41(5), 581–597. https://doi.org/10.1177/1741143213489288 Tian, M. (2016). Distributed leadership in Finnish and Shanghai schools. Jyväskylä Studies in Education, Psychology and Social Research 571. Retrieved from https://jyx.jyu.fi/dspace/handle/123456789/52197 Tian, M., Risku, M., & Collin, K. (2016). A meta-analysis of distributed leadership from 2002 to 2013: Theory development, empirical evidence and future research focus. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 44(1), 146–164. https://doi.org/10.1177/1741143214558576 Woods, P. A., & Roberts, A. (2016). Distributed leadership and social justice: images and meanings from across the school landscape. International Journal of Leadership in Education, 19(2), 138–156. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603124.2015.1034185
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