Session Information
32 SES 04, Facets of Leadership in Educational Organizations
Symposium
Contribution
If there is a connection between learning and educational leadership, educational leadership must be recognizable in the classroom. The research project, which investigates the phenomenon 'lead' at five winning schools of the German School Award, started with this thesis. In a first field phase, a school class was observed during a three-day participating observation and various talks with different actors throughout the school day were carried out. In a second field phase, the principals were observed for at least three days of participating observation and involved in various discussions. In addition, semi-standardized interviews were conducted with the principal, a group of teachers and a group of students. Among other research methods, vignettes (Schratz, Schwarz, and Westfall-Greiter 2012) were used. The research question of the project is: how does the phenomenon 'lead' show itself at pedagogically successful schools? The study demonstrated that 'lead' in the sense of educational leadership is a social process that can be understood as acting in networks. In doing so, the question often asked in Leadership for Learning Research (Townsend and MacBeath 2011) about the direct and indirect influence of principals is being dropped. Leadership for learning as a social process, as relational leadership (Uhl-Bien, Maslyn, and Ospina 2012), means that different actants (Latour 2001) influence each other with the aim of promoting learning or Bildung of students. The network theory of White (2008, 1992) can also be understood as a control and identity to attain disciplines by stories and stil. Leading as well as learning are never purposeless (MacBeath and Dempster 2009), but follow a normative purpose stories, as White said, make them visible and effective in the network. The presentation demonstrates how leadership can be understood as a social process in networks. The discussion is situated between structuralism and individualism and focuses on the concrete action of various actors.
References
Latour, B. (2001) Das Parlament der Dinge. Naturpolitik. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. MacBeath, J., Dempster, N. (2009) Connecting Leadership and Learning. Principles for Practice. London, New York: Routledge. Schratz, M., Schwarz, J., Westfall-Greiter, T. (2012) Lernen als bildende Erfahrung. Vignetten in der Praxisforschung. Innsbruck, Wien, Bozen: Studienverlag. Townsend, T., MacBeath, J. (2011) International Handbook of Leadership for Learning, Springer International Handbooks of Education. Heidelberg, London, New York: Springer. Uhl-Bien, ., Maslyn, J., Ospina, S. (2012) The Nature of Relational Leadership. A Multitheoretical Lens on Leadership Relationship and Processes. The Nature of Leadership. Second Edition, edited by Day, D., Antonakis J. Los Angeles: Sage. White, H. (1992) Identity and control : a structural theory of social action. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. White, H. (2008) Identity and Control: How Social Formations Emerge. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
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.