Session Information
26 SES 12 C, Digital and Technology Leadership in the Scope of Education
Paper Session
Contribution
Educational leadership encompasses a multitude of tasks in diverse settings – a situation which has been rendered even more complex by recent technological developments (Håkansson Lindqvist & Pettersson, 2019). In this context, it is of interest how school leaders deal with the respective demands. Numerous studies focus on the role and relevance of school leaders in the integration of technology (for critical reviews see Dexter & Richardson, 2019; or Waffner, 2021). Much of this work approaches the theme from a classroom or student learning perspective, yet the employed frameworks also include other aspects such as a school’s vision of using digital technology or individuals’ mindsets or competences. One aspect that is dealt with differently in these frameworks is that of communication and cooperation. While it can be considered to be included in domains such as a school’s organization, administration or culture, as identified in the six frameworks presented by Waffner (2021), it constitutes a separate domain in the framework employed by Dexter and Richardson (2019). Communicating and cooperating with various stakeholders is one of the key tasks of school leaders and technological developments have opened up numerous new communication channels that have also been adopted by schools. In our contribution, we ask how school leaders in Switzerland use school websites in managing school-family relations, thereby focusing on communication as one area of school leadership which has received little attention in the context of technology integration.
To date, existing empirical work addressing school-family relations and digital media is fragmented and much of it focuses on specific tools, for example on text messages (Goodall, 2014) but also websites (Gu, 2017). Key insights include that due to their specific characteristics, digital technologies change the school-family relationship (Thompson et al., 2015) and have the potential for a more systematic inclusion of parents (Olmstead, 2013). School leadership issues are hardly explicitly treated in these studies. Therefore, in order to adequately address our research question, we draw upon concepts from the following three fields of research: (1) digitalization; (2) school leadership, and (3) school-family relations:
(1) Dealing with technological developments can be described in three broad phases (1) integration, where new technologies are integrated into routines without fundamentally altering them; (2) modification, where existing practices are enlarged or changed; and (3) transformation, which occurs when revolutionary changes take place (among others: Puentedura, 2013).
(2) Dexter and Richardson (2019) make use of a general model of effective school leaders’ practices (Hitt and Tucker, 2016 in Dexter & Richardson, 2019) when critically reviewing the integration of technology in schools. Their model consists of the five domains, namely: establishing and conveying the vision; facilitating a high-quality learning experience for students; building professional capacity; creating a supportive organization for learning and connecting with external partners. More generally, numerous authors stress that leading schools in the digital age requires leaders to not only integrate technology into the classroom, but also transform schools from an organizational and administrative perspective, therefore calling for digital leadership (among others: Schiefner-Rohs, 2016).
(3) The frame of reference for capturing school-family relations is Epstein’s (1987) model of overlapping spheres of influence on children’s learning. In the context of Switzerland, the respective responsibilities have traditionally been clearly separated and efforts towards a more partnership-oriented approach are limited (Egger et al., 2015).
Our contribution, therefore, aims to add to the fragmented knowledge on how school leaders manage digital communication in school-family relations in the context of Switzerland, a country with a highly decentralised school system. We will present data from an ongoing research project focusing on school websites, relying on data gathered through interviews with school personnel.
Method
In our project investigating school websites in German-speaking Switzerland, we adopted a multi-method approach based on three sources of data: (1) school websites (40 schools); (2) in depth, problem centred interviews (Witzel & Reiter, 2012) with school personnel (eight schools) and (3) short, semi-standardised interviews with parents (seven schools). This contribution focuses on the data gathered in the interviews with school personnel, mostly school principals. These interviews were conducted in person by two members of the research team and lasted between 33 and 100 minutes. They covered three areas, namely the background of the school’s website (history, maintenance, etc.); specific aspects of the current website as they were identified in the analysis thereof, and general topics such as the school’s approach to school- family relations and its integration of information technology. To achieve as heterogenous a sample as possible, we employed purposeful sampling with the aim of achieving maximum variation (Patton, 2015). In doing so, we considered the following variables for the first sample of 40 schools: location of the school (rural, intermediary, urban); structure of the school (number of locations); levels taught at the school (primary only, primary and secondary, secondary only). For the selection of the second sample of eight schools, additional features specific to the website were included, among them the linkage between the school and municipality website, the use of templates, and the presence of specific content, particularly information specifically directed at parents. After transcribing the recorded interviews, they were analysed using qualitative content analysis (Mayring, 2000). A system of categories constitutes the core element of any content analysis. The categories for our project were developed deductively, i.e., derived from specific concepts and models such as the previously mentioned framework for school leadership (Dexter & Richardson, 2019), and inductively, i.e., on the basis of the data gathered. In a first step, current practices were described by linking the reported activities to the various domains of school leaders’ practices. Furthermore, additional categories relating to broader technological developments were identified in the interview data. Finally, the findings were interpreted in view of school-family relations and their potential for further development.
Expected Outcomes
Frameworks in the context of school leadership and technology often focus upon pedagogical issues and neglect the area of communication. Furthermore, they are based on the perspective of technology integration, disregarding the potential for fundamental transformations that digital technology possesses. Addressing the specific task of managing school-family relations, our contribution analysed how school leaders use digital tools, particularly school websites. In doing so, we found that establishing and maintaining school websites relates not only to the domain of connecting with external partners, but also to a school’s vision or the creation of a supportive learning environment – all domains to be considered relevant for the effective integration of technology (Dexter & Richardson, 2019) or digital leadership more generally. Managing school websites can therefore be considered a crosscutting task, and as such highly pertinent when systematically examining the extent of change associated with digitalization in any school. In line with previous research, we found that the investigated sample of school leaders displayed a superficial rather than fundamental change (Avidov-Ungar et al., 2022) also when dealing with websites. This somewhat limited approach to leading schools through the ongoing fundamental changes has been identified by other authors (e.g., Schiefner-Rohs, 2016; or Waffner, 2021) who repeatedly identified the need to find answers to fundamental questions such as what the meaning of school is in the context of rapid changes or how it should be designed in times when content is available to anyone at any time and in any place. Systematically and strategically discussing school-family relationships might contribute to finding answers to these questions. However, this is not exclusively the task of school leaders, it also raises numerous questions such as what knowledge is needed to manage such changes or how school oversight needs to be shaped in these times of transformation.
References
Avidov-Ungar, O., Shamir-Inbal, T., & Blau, I. (2022). Typology of digital leadership roles tasked with integrating new technologies into teaching: Insights from metaphor analysis. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 54(1), 92–107. https://doi.org/10.1080/15391523.2020.1809035 Dexter, S., & Richardson, J. W. (2019). What does technology integration research tell us about the leadership of technology? Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 52(1), 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/15391523.2019.1668316 Egger, J., Lehmann, J., & Straumann, M. (2015). “Collaboration with parents isn’t a burden. It’s just a natural part of my work.” - Parental Involvement in Switzerland – An Analysis of Attitudes and Practices of Swiss Primary School Teachers. International Journal about Parents in Education, 9(1), 119–130. Epstein, J. L. (1987). Toward a Theory of Family - School Connections: Teacher Practices and Perent Involvement. In K. Hurrelmann, F.-X. Kaufmann & F. Lösel (Hrsg.), Prävention und Intervention im Kindes- und Jugendalter: Bd. 1. Social Intervention: Potential and Constraints (S. 121–136). De Gruyter. Goodall, J. S. (2014). School-Home Communication: Texting. Bath. University of Bath. https://purehost.bath.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/128944169/Submitted_version.pdf Gu, L. (2017). Using school websites for home–school communication and parental involvement? Nordic Journal of Studies in Educational Policy, 3(2), 133–143. https://doi.org/10.1080/20020317.2017.1338498 Håkansson Lindqvist, M., & Pettersson, F. (2019). Digitalization and school leadership: on the complexity of leading for digitalization in school. The International Journal of Information and Learning Technology, 36(3), 218–230. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJILT-11-2018-0126 Mayring, P. (2000). Qualitative Content Analysis. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 1(2), Art. 20, 28 paragraphs. http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0002204 Olmstead, C. (2013). Using Technology to Increase Parent Involvement in Schools. TechTrends, 57(6), 28–37. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-013-0699-0 Patton, M. Q. (2015). Qualitative Research & Evaluation Methods: Integrating theory and practice (Fourth edition). Sage. Puentedura, R. R. (2013). SAMR: Moving from Enhancement to Transformation. http://www.hippasus.com/rrpweblog/archives/2013/05/29/SAMREnhancementToTransformation.pdf Schiefner-Rohs, M. (2016). Schulleitung in der digital geprägten Gesellschaft. In H. Buchen & H.-G. Rolff (Hrsg.), Professionswissen Schulleitung (4. Aufl., S. 1402–1419). Beltz. Thompson, B. C., Mazer, J. P., & Flood Grady, E. (2015). The Changing Nature of Parent–Teacher Communication: Mode Selection in the Smartphone Era. Communication Education, 64(2), 187–207. https://doi.org/10.1080/03634523.2015.1014382 Waffner, B. (2021). Schulentwicklung in der digital geprägten Welt: Strategien, Rahmenbedingungen und Implikationen für Schulleitungshandeln. In A. Wilmers, M. Achenbach & C. Keller (Hrsg.), Bildung im digitalen Wandel. Organisationsentwicklung in Bildungseinrichtungen (S. 67–103). WAXMANN Verlag GMBH. Witzel, A., & Reiter, H. (2012). The problem-centred interview: Principles and practice. Sage. http://gbv.eblib.com/patron/FullRecord.aspx?p=1046516
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