Session Information
26 SES 06 C, Researching Educational Leadership
Paper Session
Contribution
This study focuses on the action research process conducted in collaboration between school leaders and researchers while initiating, implementing, and carrying out a research project. The aim of the overall research project was to develop teachers’ collegial planning and preparation of lessons in two schools, and was conducted within the Swedish national research strategy programme ULF (Utveckling, Lärande, Forskning [Development, Learning, Research], and is a part of the government’s main goal to improve teachers’ and school leaders’ daily practice based on the scientific foundation and proven experience, which has been regulated in a Swedish Educational Act since 2010 (SFS 2010:800, chapter 1 §5). The research team is multidisciplinary and consists of researchers in didactics (more commonly known as pedagogy in English) and school leadership. While researchers in didactics focused on implementing a method for teachers’ collegial planning and preparation of lessons, we, as researchers on school leadership, focused on school leaders and their strategies to take the lead as well as pave the way, through an action research approach, for integrating the project in everyday practice in their local schools by increasing their improvement capacity (Blossing et al., 2015; Fullan 2002; 2014). Over time, we became concerned about issues of power and inequality in the relationship between us as researchers and the school leaders as practitioners, which we suspected influenced the collaboration. Even though it was not the initial purpose of the study, we included an exploration of the partnership arrangement in our collaboration. As we could not find consistent definitions of partnership in collaboration between researchers and practitioners (Rudge, 2018), we turned to Buick et al.’s (2016) study and their six strategies for developing equal partnership collaboration. We used these six strategies as an analytical raster as well as the theory of practice architecture (Kemmis, Wilkinson, Edwards-Groves, Hardy and Grootenboer, 2014) to examine our collaboration in terms of equality in ownership and partnership of the research project and have identified five critical aspects to consider when establishing collaboration between school leaders and researchers. The findings are reported in Forssten Seiser and Portfelt (2022).
This study will return to the initial purpose of our research collaboration with the school leaders and focus on our action research process. Through the lens of the theory of practice architecture, we aim to describe what happened within our joint action research processes in the two schools while carrying out the ULF project. The research questions are: How did the action research processes of school leaders and researchers in the two schools evolve? What enabled and constrained the action research processes?
Method
The entire setup of the collaboration is based on an action research approach and linked to the larger ULF project. Qualitative data is based on audio recordings of meetings between school leaders in the two schools and us as researchers. Participating school leaders were fully informed about the research project and all their rights as participants in accordance with research ethics, and have given their consent to participate in recordings, analyses, and reports of the findings. School A is a Swedish upper secondary school with 2,000 students and 260 staff members, and a school management team consisting of nine school leaders. The collaboration in school A included five principals, two school managers, and both authors. We met seven times over 14 months, resulting in 9.5 hours of recordings. School B is a Swedish high school with 530 students and 85 staff members. The collaboration in School B was conducted between the principal and one of the authors, who met six times over 12 months, resulting in 6 hours of recordings. The recordings were transcribed and then analysed using NVivo 11 software. Data were sorted based on relevance to the aim of the study and then the action research process was narratively described to correspond to the first research question. Turning to the first research question, data were coded into sayings, doings, and relatings in accordance with the theory of practice architecture (Kemmis, Wilkinson, Edwards-Groves, Hardy and Grootenboer, 2014). Analysis continued by focusing on the interrelatedness between different arrangements, or so-called practice architectures, surrounding the action research projects in the two schools, enabling and constraining what happened. The latter stage of analysis corresponds to the second research question.
Expected Outcomes
Findings reveal that the action research processes in the two schools turned out quite similar despite organisational differences. We, as researchers, initially took most of the initiative to present the research project, suggest actions, and plan what theories to use, how to analyse data, and how to present findings. Over time, the principals became more active and defined themselves as experts in their local schools. They revealed their confusion about how our collaboration was related to the didactic part of the project. It became clear that the principals of both schools and we as researchers had different understandings of the purpose of the research action process. The principals viewed our collaboration as a temporary try-out rather than the intended implementation of a new way to organise existing internal infrastructures of the local schools to enable teachers’ collegial planning and preparation of lessons. This led us researchers to review our initiation of the research project and question how it influenced our collaboration as well as the action research process. The action research process was constrained by social-political arrangements where we as researchers had interpretive priority, dominated cultural-discursive arrangements by the use of abstract concepts, and had the power to suggest material-economic arrangements, and enabled by cultural-discursive arrangements that enabled democratic dialogue between us as collaboration partners, social-political arrangements where we as collaborators constructed a common understanding of our collaboration, and material-economic arrangements that suited both parties. The findings address the importance of establishing a partnership based on equality before even starting up the actual collaboration and action research process, and developing a common understanding of what the focus of the collaboration is, and for what reasons. Doing so will enable an action research process that will be more meaningful for both parties and increase the improvement capacity of local schools.
References
Blossing, Ulf, Nyen, Torgeir, Söderström, Åsa and Anna Hagen Tönder. (2015). Local Drivers for Improvement Capacity – Six Types of School Organisations. Cham: Springer Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12724-8 Buick, F., D. Blackman, J. O’Flynn, M. O’Donnell, and D. West. 2016. “Effective Practitioner–Scholar Relationships: Lessons from a Coproduction Partnership.” Public Administration Review 76 (1): 35–47. https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12481 Forssten Seiser, Anette and Portfelt, Ingela. (2022). Critical aspects to consider when establishing collaboration between school leaders and researchers: two cases from Sweden. Educational Action Research, 2022, 1-16. https://doi.org.10.1080/09650792.2022.2110137 Fullan, Michael. (2002). The Change Leader. Educational leadership, 2002, 16-20. Fullan, Michael. (2014). Leadership & sustainability: System thinkers in action. Thousand Oaks, Corwin Press. Kemmis, S., J. Wilkinson, C. Edwards-Groves, I. Hardy, and P. Grootenboer. 2014. Changing Practices, Changing Education. Singapore: Springer Rudge, L. T. (2018). “A Self-Study of Factors Affecting the Collaboration between University and School Professionals.” International Journal of Teacher Education and Professional Development 1 (1): 21–35. SFS. 2010: 800. Skollag [School Act]. Stockholm: Utbildningsdepartementet.
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