Session Information
26 SES 01 A, Valuing the Context: External Consultancy as a Resource for School Leaders and Schools in Challenging Situations
Symposium
Contribution
School improvement consultancy becomes increasingly important for schools in challenging circumstances, and a growing number of schools in Germany seek the help of external coaches in their school improvement efforts (Dedering et al., 2013: 13). Researchers have, however, only recently begun to systematically study the specific conditions under which schools serving disadvantaged communities (SSDC) can improve. From the perspective of school ‘capacity-building’ (Marks et al., 2000), leadership plays an important role for schools to successfully initiate change (Leithwood et al., 2006; Sun & Leithwood, 2015). Such associations have also been documented for SSDC (e.g. Muijs et al., 2004). However, it remains largely unclear how external consultants can best help schools, and particularly their leaders, achieve their goals and become professional learning communities (Giles & Hargreaves, 2006). Extant research points out that the combination of teams from inside and outside the school system is particularly promising (Dedering, 2017), while being sensitive towards the schools’ unique structural and cultural conditions (Ainscow & Southworth, 1996: 247). We seek to answer the following research questions with specific reference to a model project that is currently conducted among 60 SSDC in one federal German state: (1) How and with what goals is school improvement consultancy designed and implemented at the schools? (2) How do school leaders and external consultants perceive their collaboration with each other at the start of the project?, and (3) How do school leaders evaluate the effect of the external consultancy one year later? Data were collected by 19 guideline-based interviews with external consultants and 15 interviews with school leaders that were conducted at the beginning of the project. In addition, we conducted a standardized online survey among the school leaders at the start of the project and in the following year. The interviews were analyzed using qualitative content analysis and typifying structuring of the interview material (Mayring, 2003). First results show that the consultants initially did not feel welcome at the schools, which may partly be attributed to the obligatory nature of their work in the project. As they showed only little orientation towards the specific situation of the SSDC, school leaders were overwhelmingly convinced that they could not be sufficiently supported by the external consultants. The contribution aims at a better understanding of the role of external consultants for improvement activities at SSCD, and sheds more light on how collaboration with school leaders may affect longer-term processes of school improvement.
References
Ainscow, M., & Southworth, G. (1996). School Improvement: A Study of the Roles of Leaders and External Consultants. School Effectiveness and School Improvement, 7(3), 229–251. https://doi.org/10.1080/0924345960070302 Dedering, K. et al. (2013), Wenn Experten in die Schule kommen. Schulentwicklungsberatung – empirisch betrachtet, Springer VS, Wiesbaden. Dedering, K. (2017), “Externe Schulentwicklungsberatung als Unterstützungsansatz”, Manitius, V. and Doppelstein, P. (Ed.s), Schulentwicklungsarbeit in herausfordernden Lagen, Waxmann, Münster, pp.159-175. Giles, C. and Hargreaves, A., 2006. The sustainability of innovative schools as learning organizations and professional learning communities during standardized reform. Educational administration quarterly, 42 (1), 124–156. doi:10.1177/0013161X05278189 Leithwood, K., R. Aitken, and D. Jantzi. 2006. Making Schools Smarter. Leading With Evidence. 3rd ed. Thousand Oaks: Corwin Press. Marks, H. M., K. Louis, and S. Printy. 2000. “The Capacity for Organizational Learning. Implications for Pedagogical Quality and Student Achievement.” In Advances in Research and Theories of School Management and Educational Policy: v. 3. Understanding Schools as Intelligent Systems, edited by K. Leithwood, 239–265. Stamford, CT: Jai Press. Mayring, P. (2003), Qualitative Inhaltsanalyse. Grundlagen und Techniken, Beltz, Weinheim. Muijs, D., Harris, A., Chapman, C., Stoll, L., and Russ, J. (2004). Improving schools in socioeconomically disadvantaged areas – a review of research.
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