Session Information
26 SES 01 B, School Improvement and Development Through the Lens of Educational Leadership
Paper Session
Contribution
Leading school development has emerged as one of the key areas within school leadership research (Kovačević & Hallinger, 2019), and in recent decades there has been a growing interest in school leadership, both from institutions, in research and in policy-making. In particular, the interest has been linked to identifying what successful school leadership is in the sense of being effective in improving students' learning outcomes. A recent review of research (Hallinger & Kovačević, 2019) identified leading school change and improvement (LSCI) as one of the key themes or Schools of Thought that have emerged in the evolution of educational administration (EA) as a field of study. Moreover, Kovačević and Hallinger (2019) quantitatively document and synthesize the knowledge base on leading school change and improvement (LSCI) from 1960 to 2017. They show that there has been a largely increasing interest in the research field, LSCI, in particular the last four decades. Their analysis revealed four distinct and partly overlapping directions, or research traditions. Although these four traditions have their own characteristics, they complement and overlap each other. One, Instructional leadership for school improvement (ILSI) is defined by its focus on instructional leadership, influenced by principals' leadership related to that of students learning outcomes. Two, Transformational leadership for school improvement (TLSI) draws inspiration from transformational leadership that has been developed within private sector. This direction focuses on how leaders, primarily principals, create organizational conditions that can promote school development. Three, Shared leadership for change (SLC) direction shares a similar focus on how management can develop and maintain the same organizational conditions that create change. In contrast to TLSI and ILSI as researchers with a focus on distinct leadership styles, SLC researchers tend to adopt a less "uniform" conceptualization of the "source" to management. Four, School improvement (SI) is mainly associated with British and Northern European researchers and has been heavily influenced by school effectiveness studies. Writers within the SI direction seem to focus somewhat less on management but focuses more on school improvement.
Research based on reviewes largely contributes to theorizing within the field. But like Kovačević & Hallinger (2019) point out, the theoretical ideas must be tried out and tested empirically. This implies a great need for more empirical research within the field of LSCI. Thus, the current study aims to produce expanded knowledge within the field through examining empirical research contributions that in the period 2010–2020 are published in a selection of the most influential international journals in the field, in addition to central Nordic journals. The following research question is examined in 45 included articles: What are the characteristics of leadership in the development of schools, and what implications do the findings have for school leadership? Based on the included articles, there seems to be a consensus that the hallmark of leading school development is that leadership can be characterized as a collaborative activity. The articles are categorized into five leadership categories that represent various characteristics of leadership, new leadership tasks and various leadership expectations: Distributed leadership, leadership for learning, leadership in learning organisations, democratic leadership and leadership of organizational development. The categories have grown out of the empirical material. This means that the articles use the terms in their research presentation, either to describe theoretical features of leadership or as analytical concepts.
Method
The review can be described as a Rapid Review (Khangura et. Al, 2012) which is designed to create reviews in line with certain procedures. A strength of the science mapping methodology is its ability to handle large amounts of data extracted from an existing database of studies. A rapid review has limitations. However, the format has nevertheless been developed in a way that the same requirements for systematics and transparency that apply to any systematic review also apply to this. This review has three limitations: 1) it includes articles published in selected peer-reviewed journals; 2) it is limited to studies published between 2010 and 2020; and 3) languages are limited to English and the Scandinavian languages. The process of selecting articles for review was conducted through several steps. In the first step, we sorted out relevant studies based on title and abstract. In the second step, the 81 publications with potential relevance were read in full text. Six researchers assessed, independently of each other, the studies' quality and relevance. After step two, 45 studies remained, which are included in the review. As a basis for synthesis, the articles were categorized into five categories, which were described and prepared for a configurative synthesis (Gough et. Al, 2017). Configuration is about bringing the findings from the studies together so that they can show us potential connections and develop new knowledge. Each category is introduced by a brief definition.
Expected Outcomes
In sum, the 45 articles show a clear shift towards what Kovačević and Hallinger (2019) describe as shared leadership for change. We wanted to draw attention to leadership that takes place in the school organization or between levels in the education system, with the aim of obtaining knowledge that can help us to understand connections between leadership and school development. Studies show the connection between different leadership styles such as instructional leadership and transformational leadership and students' learning outcomes. Instructional Leadership provides knowledge about how successful leaders should lead to improve students' learning outcomes (Hallinger, 1990; Hallinger & Heck, 1996). Similarly, transformational leadership emphasizes how successful leaders should interact with their employees (Leithwood & Jantzi, 2005). The reviewed articles show that many researchers are now concerned with gaining knowledge about how leadership takes place in practice, and why, and not least how leadership can be understood from a different perspective than from the individual leader. This does not mean that the individual leader is less important than before, but that the research is more concerned with studying how leadership takes place within different school contexts. Acknowledging that society is changing fast requires, according to the OECD report "School Leadership for 21st century learning", school leaders who are both innovative and collaborative (OECD, 2013). It involves a shift in research focus from what school leaders ought to do to what they can do. A consistent finding seems to show that there is a clear shift in the direction of schools being developed through collaborative activities and development processes between leaders and teachers, and that leading the collective processes appears to be the most prominent leadership challenge.
References
Dalin, P. (1994). Skoleutvikling: teorier for forandring. Universitetsforlaget. Dalin, P. (1995). Skoleutvikling: strategier og praksis. Universitetsforlaget. Fullan, M. (2002). The latest ideas on school reform. Leading and learning for the 21stC, 1(3). Gough, D., Oliver, S. & Thomas, J. (Red.). (2017). An Introduction to Systematic Reviews. Hallinger, P. (1990). Principal Instructional Management Rating Scale. Sarasota, FL: Leading Development Associates. Hallinger, P., & Heck, R. (1996). The principal's role in school effectiveness: a review of methodological issues, 1980-1995. In K. Leithwood, J. Chapman, D. Corson, P. Hallinger, & Weaver, Hart (Eds.), The International Handbook of Educational Leadership and Administration. Kluwer. Hallinger, P. & Kovačević, J. (2019). A Bibliometric Review of Research on Educational Administration: Science Mapping the Literature, 1960 to 2018. Review of Educational Research 89(3), 335–369. Khangura, S., Konnyu, K., Cushman, R., Grimshaw, J. & Moher, D. (2012). Evidence summaries: the evolution of a rapid review approach. Systematic Reviews,10(1), 1-10. Kovačević, J. & Hallinger, P. (2019). Leading school change and improvement. Journal of Educational Administration 57(6), 635-657. Leithwood, K., & Jantzi, D. (2005). A Review of Transformational School Leadership Research 1996-2005. Leadership and policy in Schools. Special issue on "International Perspectives on Leadership for Social Justice", 4(3), 177-1999. OECD. (2013). Leadership for 21st Century Learning, Educational Research and Innovation. OECD Publishing.
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