Session Information
26 SES 07 A, Policy, Values, and Ethical Leadership – Diversity, Covariation, or Conflict
Symposium
Contribution
This paper reports the tensions between school principals’ values and interpreting and implementing new policy and rules during the pandemic in Victoria, Australia. Our research on successful school leadership has demonstrated the importance of values in shaping principal leadership (Day & Leithwood, 2007; Mulford, 2007). Successful leadership have a range of values that include basic values (respect for others and valuing others); general moral values (empathy, social justice, equity); professional values (personal responsibility, assumptions about student learning); and social and political values (all members of the school community need to be supported) (David et al. 2006) We all have values, but successful leaders can articulate them to their school community and demonstrate them through their behaviour and actions. To be authentic leaders, principals must show their values and behaviour are aligned. The pandemic created a new environment where technological, social, economic, and political forces combined to create new challenges for principal values. The impact of the pandemic in Australia was highly variable. Some states and territories were relatively unaffected while other states suffered significant disruption. In Melbourne, Victoria, the whole community were put under severe restrictions on movement and social interaction (Duckett, Stobart & Hunter, 2021; Macreadie, 2022). for long periods stretching over two years. Different authorities reacted by introducing new rules and policies that changed regularly. Unfortunately, authorities in each state of Australia developed their own rules, for example, closing state borders and restricting the movement of people. The Commonwealth Government also introduced new policies and rules that were often in conflict with state governments. In schools there were often inconsistencies of rules between government and non-government schools, and between school systems. Schools were closed and reopened depending in recommendations of different authorities. Principals became the main actors in interpreting the rules and guiding their students, teachers, and the broader school community through a new rules-based regime which was often in conflict with their values. The paper reports the tensions between values and implementation of rules more detail with numerous examples collected from interviews with principals.
References
Duckett, S., Stobart, A., and Hunter, J. 2021. What should be in Victoria’s school reopening plan. The Age, September 15, 2021 Macreadie, I. 2022. Reflections from Melbourne, the world’s most locked down city, through the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond Microbiology Australia 43(1), 3-4, doi.org/10.1071/MA22002 Day, C. Leithwood, K. (2007). (Eds.), Successful Principal Leadership in Times of Change. An International Perspective. Studies in Educational Leadership Volume 5, Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer. Gurr, D., Drysdale., & Mulford, B. (2005). Successful principal leadership: Australian case studies, Journal of Educational Administration, 43(6), 539-551. Mulford, W. R. (2007). Overview of research on Australian Educational Leadership 2001-2005 Australian Council of Educational Leaders (ACEL), Winmalee, N.S.W.: ACEL. Mulford, B., & Silins, H. (2009). Revised models & conceptualisation of successful school principalship in Tasmania. In B. Mulford, & B. Edmunds (2009). Successful school principalship in Tasmania. Launceston, Tasmania: Faculty of Education, University of Tasmania. Moos, L., Johansson, O., Day, C. (2011). (Eds.), How School Principals Sustain Success over Time. International Perspectives. Studies in Educational Leadership Series 14. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer. David G., Drysdale. L & Mulford, B. (2006) Models of successful principal leadership, School Leadership & Management, 26:4, 371-395, DOI: 10.1080/13632430600886921
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