Session Information
26 SES 12 B, Topics on Educational Leadership: Adaptive Leadership, Health and Wellbeing, and Middle Leaders
Paper Session
Contribution
Many people recognize that PISA examines what students know in science, reading and mathematics. But PISA also examines students’ wellbeing and covers both negative outcomes (e.g. anxiety) and the positive impulses that promote healthy development (e.g. interest, engagement and motivation). The OECD (2017) comparisons on wellbeing is an example of a growing international consideration for the young generations’ health and wellbeing. Within EU an expert group will in 2023 start to develop proposals on strategies for supporting wellbeing. However, there is yet no consensus on what the responsibility of schools and school leaders are. The curricula between countries differ.
Sweden is a country which has stipulated that health and wellbeing is the responsibility of schools and principals. The National School Act (SFS 2010:800) requires that schools must have multi-professional teams of doctors, nurses, counsellors, psychologist and teachers with competence in special education. These teams are to cooperate with the teachers and be involved in the regular school work. Since Sweden combines national regulations with a decentralized local responsibility for implementation, including a school level (with principals) as well as a municipality level (with superintendents and other leaders) the aim of the paper is to explore the leadership of this complex local curriculum making. The research question is:
- What are the leadership challenges in transforming the holistic approach of the national curricula, to local curriculum processes?
Until recently questions of health and wellbeing related to education has predominately been studied within the field of health education (see for example; Boot & de Vries, 2010; Carlsson, 2016; Jourdan et al. 2016, Kostenius, 2021). Within this research a whole school approach with a focus on professionals other than teachers, including school nurses, counselors and others, has been recognized. But few studies so far have had the focus on school leadership for learning, health and wellbeing (XX).
The primary focus of school leadership research has often been on instructional practices and what successful school leaders do to improve students’ learning in the classroom (Leithwood et al., 2019). For over a decade, these leadership practices have been central to school leaders’ work. In many countries, they have even been established as standards within preparation programs (Young et al., 2017) and linked to various leadership models such as distributed leadership, instructional leadership and transformational leadership (Gumus et al., 2018; Leithwood et al., 2019). It is stressed that teachers’ work is the most important factor in students’ results, and when wellbeing is added, that it improves the chances of student success (Leithwood et al., 2019). However, a holistic approach including multi-professional coordination and a multipurpose approach including different aims for schools is absent in most school leadership research. There is, however, a growing interest in complexity (Day et al., 2016; Hallinger, 2018; Hawkins and James, 2018). This paper brings together the research of principals with that on superintendents (se for example Moos et al, 2016; Ärlestig & Johansson, 2020; Sigurðardóttir et al., 2022). It explores the complexity of coordinating curriculum processes within and between different system levels.
The paper uses a curriculum theory perspective developed within Sweden (Dahllöf, 1967; 1999, Lindensjö & Lundgren 1986; XX). The focus is on the how the transformation of national curricula transforms into local curriculum processes. This takes place within and between two local system levels, the meso level (meso) and the micro level. The theoretical contribution of the paper is that it highlights the importance of coordination of curriculum processes within and between different local system levels. This in turn requires a coordinated leadership.
Method
The paper builds on three different projects. The first project started out as an evaluation project of a government funded effort to educate principals and their student health teams to become more health promoting. The education was given as a web course. During a year the participants worked through different modules and regularly sent in their reflections. These documents were analyzed from an inductive perspective, focusing on the coordination of local curriculum processes. It identified four different quality levels, from no coordination to pervasive coordination. This resulted in an analytical model for practical use which has been tested by more than thousand principals and is today used in the teaching of principals as well as other professions. It is a tool for developing the quality of health promoting curriculum processes. The findings were in a second project taken as a starting point for a follow up study of schools which had developed high levels of coordination. This positive selection was done to study more thoroughly what high quality health promoting processes looks like and how to get there. It included four case schools, in which interviews were made with the principal, the student health team and the teachers. Added to these a selection of principals at other schools with similar characteristics was interviewed. All together the study included 57 informants. All the interviews were transcribed and analyzed by the two researchers performing the study. What was identified was the importance of a strong leadership, coordinating all the curriculum processes to become synchronized. Schools are in many systems, like the Swedish, not working isolated from other local system levels. In the third study the focus was on the municipality level and the coordination of the curriculum processes within that system level as well as between the municipality and the schools. It was performed in several steps. First there was a positive selection of ten municipalities which had showed interest in the course and signs of a larger local coordination work. These ten were invited to send in a description of their work. From a document analysis four were selected as cases. In-depth studies of more documents and interviews with key persons were performed by the researcher. The results were presented to representatives from all the 10 municipalities at a digital webinar, calibrating and deepening the identified results.
Expected Outcomes
The results indicates that curriculum processes, in multilevel systems, need to be coordinated from a holistic approach including three aspects: The whole of the curriculum To establish high quality curriculum processes at the school level requires a turn regarding the schools’ mission, from teaching students to developing whole human beings. Questions regarding health and wellbeing can’t be side issues, but needs to be part of the teaching. Hence, a more holistic curriculum approach, working multi professionally is needed. If attention is shifted to the municipality level, aspects of students' health, well-being and development need to be part of the municipalities’ overall work for knowledge as well as values. The whole of the organization Coordinated curriculum processes includes everyone. In organizations that succeeds, a synchronization takes place between the different parts. In schools the processes need to be coordinated between the health team and the teachers. And these processes must, in turn, be vertically coordinated with the municipality level. Moving to the municipality level the curriculum processes also need to be coordinate both vertically and horizontally. At the municipal level, there is not only boards and superintendents but some form of central student health, quality workers, IT system personnel and many more. The whole of leadership To coordinate the processes the school leaders within and between different system levels need to coordinate their views and work. On the school level there are principals and middle, teacher team leaders and others. On the municipality level there are horizontally challenges to coordinate different and parallel managers, such as superintendents, heads of administration, student health managers and those responsible for quality work. Vertically, there are, depending on size, a varying number of superintendents and other managers who need to coordinate their work, in relation to principals and other actors at the school level.
References
Boot, N.M.W.M. and de Vries, N.K. (2010), “Implementation of school health promotion: consequences for professional assistance”, Health Education, Vol. 112 No. 5, pp. 436-447. Carlsson, M. (2016), “Conceptualization of professional competencies in school health promotion”, Health Education, Vol. 116 No. 5, pp. 489-509. Dahllöf, U. (1999). Det tidiga ramfaktorteoretiska tänkandet. En tillbakablick. I Pedagogisk Forskning i Sverige 1999, årg 4, nr 1 s 5-29 ISSN 1401-6788 Day, C., Gu, Q. and Sammons, P. (2016), “The impact of leadership on student outcomes: how successful school leaders use transformational and instructional strategies to make a difference”, Educational Administration Quarterly, Vol. 52 No. 2, pp. 221-258 Gumus, S. et al (2018), “A systematic review of studies in leadership models in educational reasearch from 1980 to 2014”, Educational Management Administration and Leadership, Vol. 46 No. 1, pp. 25-48. Hallinger, P. (2018), “Bringing context out of the shadows of leadership”, Educational Management Administration and Leadership, Vol. 46 No. 1, pp. 5-24. Hawkins, M. and James, C. (2018), “Developing a perspective on schools as complex, evolving, loosely linking systems”, Educational Management Administration and Leadership, Vol. 46 No. 5, pp. 729-748, In Educational Administration Quarterly 2016, Vol. 52 No. 2, 221–258. Jourdan, D. et al (2016), “School health promotion and teacher professional identity”, Health Education, Vol. 116 No. 2, pp. 106-122. Kostenius, C. (2021). School Nurses’ Experiences With Health Dialogues: A Swedish Case. The Journal of School Nursing, 1-12. Leithwood, K., Harris, A. and Hopkins, D. (2019), “Seven strong claims about successful school leadership revisited”. School Leadership and Management, Vol. 40. Lindensjö, B. & Lundgren, U. P. (1986). Politisk styrning och utbildningsreformer. Stockholm: Liber. Moos, L., Nihlfors, E., & Paulsen, J. M. (Eds.) (2016). Nordic superintendents: Agents in a broken chain: Springer International Publishing. OECD (2017), PISA 2015 Results (Volume III): Students’ Well-Being, PISA, OECD Publishing, Paris. SFS 2010:800 Skollagen. Sigurðardóttir, S. M., et al. (2022). Educational leadership regarding municipal school support services in Iceland. Educational Management Administration & Leadership. 1–21. Young, M., Anderson, E. and Nash, M. (2017). “Preparing school leaders: standards-based curriculum in the United States”, Leadership and Policy in Schools, Vol. 16 No. 2, pp. 228-271. Ärlestig, H. & Johansson, O. (2020). Educational Authorities and the Schools: Organisations and Impact in 20 States. Springer.
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