Session Information
26 SES 02 B, School Leadership and Teacher Efficacy
Paper Session
Contribution
This paper describes an international research study undertaking a comparative analysis of the diverse futures orientations of school leaders in the context of the short and longer-term impacts of the pandemic. Based on the first phase of work undertaken by research-practitioners from Iceland, Ireland and Alberta (Canada), and Australia, this session will invite participants to engage with the survey tool and facilitation processes developed and to explore some of the detailed and rich findings that have emerged from the project over the past two years.
Despite the work of organizations such as UNESCO and the Comparative & International Education Society, the teaching profession and its organizations remain largely preoccupied by the present and find themselves largely in a reactive mode (Jónasson, 2016; Education Futures Partnership, 2022). Rather than deferring to so-called self-proclaimed “thought-leaders” (OECD, n.d.) in organizations such as the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, school leaders need to recognize how their work is influenced by “the productive power of ‘best-guesses as to the impacts and implementation of any number of policies” that “conjure anticipated futures with real effects in the present” (Sellar, 2015, 135). As well, the session will outline how the study has sustained its initial commitment to contribute to UNESCO’s Education 2050 Learning to Become initiative by taking up John Urry‘s invitation to “democratize the future“ since ultimately in our everyday lives “power should be viewed as significantly a matter of uneven future-making (Urry, 2016, p. 189).
Over the past two years the research team has engaged school leaders as co-creators of a survey instrument for comparing the variations in their experiences across a number of international jurisdictions in terms of the impact on their futures orientations. As well, it is hoped that the instrurment will act as a catalyst for empowering school leaders to have a voice in how the future is imagined and framed by increasingly influential policy actors such as the OECD and ministries of education (Zhao & Gearin, 2018) who are increasingly driven by the impulses of anticipatory governance (Flyverbom & Garsten, 2021).
Method
Foundational to this project are the findings of recent studies concerning the impacts of the pandemic on upper secondary principals in Iceland (Gestsdóttir et al., 2020; Ragnarsdóttir & Gestsdóttir, 2022; Ragnarsdóttir & Jónasson, 2022; Ragnarsdóttir et. al., 2022). This research identifies some of the impacts of the pandemic and applies these findings to understanding how disruption can be an opportunity for rethinking conceptions of school leadership including theories of change. Contributing to this study‘s evolution was a pilot workshop (June, 2022) that brought together 17 principals from Dublin, Ireland and Edmonton, Alberta with research practitioners from the University of Alberta and Dublin City University. In Iceland, November, 2022, a joint futures institute and graduate course (University of Iceland, 2022) further advanced the work. This institute saw the application of interdisciplinary futures thinking methodologies (Riel, 2018) to engage the 25 participants in processes that helped them to consider their pandemic experiences as an opportunity to “rethink from the future” (Murgatroyd, 2015). The institute opened spaces for participants to: • Collectively create conditions for conversation that enable school leaders to face the disruptions and opportunities of the future. • Offer opportunities to learn from diverse international and local contexts that shape the schooling and education systems of nations. • Apply the tools of social innovation and design thinking to learn from their diverse local and global contexts that shape school life and educational systems. • Critique a pilot of a survey instrument that contribute to the international comparison of the futures orientations of school leaders.
Expected Outcomes
The session will conclude by offering offer initial findings from both the Iceland institute and the pilot survey regarding how respondents see themselves both in the present moment and what they anticipate moving forward. For example, in the pilot survey, principals were offered six statements currently widely circulating in educational policy spaces (e.g. Build back better; Address learning loss; The only certainty is uncertainty). Respondents were invited to respond to two questions: Have you heard of these? How impactful/important are they to your work? As the respondents indicated, while these policy mantras were often advanced as expressions by policy-makers of particular preferred futures, there were wide variations in their perceived importance and impact on school leaders’ day-to-day work and longer-term concerns. As the study moves into year three and the research project continues to offer possibilities for school leaders to build their capacity and sense of agency: • to reflect on their diverse experiences with colleagues across the world as they respond to the long-term impacts of the pandemic on their schools and communities; • determine the degree to which they are energized or fearful of the future, given the volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous nature of the global landscape; • consider possible futures beyond the pandemic and reflecting on the future of the profession and its broader role in civil society.
References
Education Futures Partnership. 2022. What are Education Futures? https://education-futures-partnership.education/index.php/2020/01/23/what-are-education-futures/ Flyverbom, M. and Garsten, C. 2021. Anticipation and Organization: Seeing, knowing and governing futures. Organization Theory. 2: 1–25 Jónasson, J. 2016. Educational change, inertia and potential futures. Why is it difficult to change the content of education? European Journal of Futures Research 4:1, 1-14. DOI:10.1007/s40309-016-0087-z Miller, R. (Ed.) 2018. Transforming the Future: Anticipation in the 21st Century. Oxon, UK: Routledge / UNESCO. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000264644 Murgatroyd, S. 2015. How to Rethink the Future – Making Use of Strategic Foresight. New York: Lulu Press. OECD. n.d. OECD Future of Education and Skills 2030 Thought Leaders. https://www.oecd.org/education/2030-project/contact/thought-leaders/ Gestsdóttir, S. M. et al. 2020. Fjarkennsla í faraldri: Nám og kennsla í framhaldsskólum á tímum samkomubanns vegna COVID-19 19 Upper secondary education in Iceland during the COVID-19 pandemic. Netla – Veftímarit um uppeldi og menntun. Sérrit um COVID-19 og menntakerfið. https://doi.org/10.24270/serritnetla.2020.25 Ragnarsdóttir, G., & Jónasson, J. T. 2022. Stofnunareðli framhaldsskóla í faraldurskreppu. Ný reynsla og breytt umboð skólastjórnenda. Stjórnmál og stjórnsýsla The institutional nature of upper secondary education during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis: New experience and changed agency of school leaders. https://doi.org/10.13177/irpa.a.2022.18.2.6 Ragnarsdóttir, G. & Gestsdóttir, S. M. 2022. Togstreita og andstæð sjónarmið: Sýn kennara og skólastjórnenda á þróun og framtíðarmöguleika framhaldsskólans Conflict and colliding points of view: Teacher’s and school leader’s vision of the development and future possibilities of the upper secondary education, Netla – Veftímarit um uppeldi og menntun. https://doi.org/10.24270/serritnetla.2022.80 Ragnarsdóttir, G., et al. 2022. Starfsumhverfi framhaldsskólakennara á fyrsta ári COVID-19 heimsfaraldurs The working environment of upper secondary school teachers during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Netla – Veftímarit um uppeldi og menntun. https://doi.org/10.24270/netla.2022.12 Sam Sellar. 2015. A feel for numbers: affect, data and education policy, Critical Studies in Education, 56:1, 131-146, DOI: 10.1080/17508487.2015.981198 University of Iceland. 2022. Leadership in a New Era: New and Changing Issues, Challenges and Crises. https://menntavisindastofnun.hi.is/is/forysta-nyjum-timum-ny-og-breytt-vidfangsefni-askoranir-og-kreppur?%20%20fbclid=IwAR1HakeVWIvrI_yW273_IwFCqtL4c_M2wExFCEdyCyYpi59bG23MCvCkDow Urry, J. 2016. What is the Future? Cambridge: Polity Press.
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