Session Information
26 SES 12 A, Reframing Leadership and Leading in Education: Diverse Responses from Scholars Across the Field (Part 1)
Symposium to be continued in 26 SES 13 A
Contribution
In recent years, educational leadership has become part of an international lexicon associated with school improvement. Much of the current academic literature and educational policy positions leadership normatively, identifying it as a distinct area of research and study, uncoupled from the concept of management. This stance has become “one of the great unquestioned assumptions of our time” (Eacott, 2013:119). The importance of this distinction has, however, been a matter of debate for many years, with lack of conceptual clarity identified regarding the positioning around leadership, which can create tensions in practice. This is a complex, contested and vague area which exemplifies a confused theoretical and policy rhetoric in action. The conceptual opacity around this is compounded both by conflations of theory and practice, and by various claims of the potential indirect and direct influences that leadership is proposed to have, often made without empirical grounding (Torrance & Humes, 2015). In this paper, the lens of an ongoing Scottish research project, The Future of Headship, is used to explore various facets of that debate. The paper begins with two key questions: whether educational leadership and educational management can be described as separate fields; and whether educational leadership can be described as a separate field from leadership. The paper then highlights both the importance of researchers’ positionality and of their working assumptions around leadership. Some of the tensions in exploring the practice realities of headteachers and other formal leaders in school contexts are discussed - drawing on empirical data - before introducing the potential of the concept of ‘leading’, which combines a focus on the socio-emotional dimensions of leadership with the organising processes of day-to-day practice. Leading comprises social practice, involves risk-taking, embraces complexity and ambiguity (Eacott, 2011), and researching educational leadership involves paradox, dilemma and debate (Close & Raynor, 2010). It is argued in this paper that the downplaying of educational management is not particularly useful in the context of contemporary challenges, particularly when educational leadership is often concerned with conformity to what could be termed a ‘marketised ideology’ (Smythe, 2021). It is also proposed that if educational leadership is to stand distinct from management and from leadership in the public sector more generally, then its specificity to educational practice i.e., the relationship between leadership and learning, needs to be made explicit, understood and strengthened in theory, policy and practice (Branson & Marra, 2022).
References
Branson, C.M., & Marra, M. (2022). A new theory of organizational ecology, and its implications for educational leadership. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Eacott, S. (2011). Preparing ‘educational’ leaders in managerialist times: An Australian story. Journal of Educational Administration and History, 43(1), 43-59. Eacott, S. (2013). Rethinking ‘leadership’ in education: A research agenda. Journal of Educational Administration and History, 45(2): 113-125. Close, P., & Raynor, A. (2010). Five literatures of organisation: Putting the context back into educational leadership. School Leadership & Management, 30(3), 209-224. Smythe, S. (2021). Foreword. In S.J. Courtney, H.M. Gunter, R. Niesche & T. Trujillo (Eds.), Understanding educational leadership: Critical perspectives and approaches (pp xvii-xx). London: Bloomsbury.
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