Session Information
32 SES 04, Facets of Leadership in Educational Organizations
Symposium
Contribution
The research project "Learning from the best: Leadership for Learning in Schools that won the German School Award" addresses the question of how school leadership is enacted in learning-effective schools. To provide an answer, a phenomenological research attitude (Gadamer, 1964/65) is used, which allows an openness in the approaches to the phenomena confronting the researchers. The research question is therefore not sought to be answered through given indicators, but through inductively developed categories – so called “Facets of Leadership”. These classifications are compiled to a register in which every “Facet of Leadership” completes the sentence “Leadership in learning-effective schools shows itself as…” The chosen formulation consistently orientates itself on what the researchers find out about the everyday actions of school leaders in the field. To explore this research goal, a qualitative-empirical research design that aims at providing a holistic picture in the sense of investigator triangulation, theory triangulation and methodological triangulation is used. To illuminate both the process and results of this study, a cluster of “Facets of Leadership” is presented. Among other important findings a document analysis of the application documents of the 28 examined schools shows that at the majority of the schools the borders between the schools and their environments dissolve to some extent. This not only shows itself through the fact that these schools are cooperating in manifold ways with institutions and individuals within their closer and further surroundings (Veith, 2016), but also by numerous efforts to “move the classroom into the real world” (Scharmer, 2009). The latter is reflected in measures like using out-of-school learning environments, volunteer social and political engagement, democratic structures and participating in co-designing of school environments. These observations correlate with those of the actions of school leaders in the schools and can be illuminated by different “Facets of Leadership” such as “opening doors”, “bringing together”, “involving”, “creating identification”, “enabling”, “shaping”, “inviting”, “connecting” and “creating closeness”. A further elaboration on these “Facets of Leadership” is used to highlight the quality of the context-related leadership (Day, 2010, Leithwood, 2012, Wiesner et al., 2016) which is observed in the schools that won the German School Award.
References
Day, C., Sammons, P., Hopkins, D., Harris, A., Leithwood, K., Gu, Q. & Brown, E. (2010). 10 Strong Claims about Successful Leadership. Nottingham: National College. Gadamer, H.-G. (1963/64). Die phänomenologische Bewegung. Philosophische Rundschau, 11 (1/2), 1-45. Leithwood, K. & Seashore Louis, K. (2012). Linking Leadership to Student Learning. San Francisco: Wiley & Sons. Scharmer, C.O. (2009). Theorie U. Von der Zukunft her führen. Presencing als soziale Technik. Heidelberg: Carl-Auer. Veith, H. (2016). Gute Schulen investieren in ihre Kultur. In: Beutel, S.-I., Höhmann, K., Pant, H. A. & Schratz, M. (Hrsg.), Handbuch Gute Schule: Sechs Qualitätsbereiche für eine zukunftsweisende Praxis (S. 116-129). Seelze: Kallmeyer/Klett. Wiesner, C., George, A.-C., Rauscher, E., Schratz, M. & Kemethofer, D. (2016). Schulleitung im Wandel: Neue Herausforderungen für SchulleiterInnen. SchulVerwaltung aktuell, 4, 100-102.
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