Following an effort to investigate current issues and processes in educational policies and policy making in Poland in fast changing contexts, the session will share findings from a research project using Situational Analysis, relational mapping, document analysis, and qualitative methods. Funded by the Spencer Foundation, the multi-year project is entitled Investigating Educational Policy-Making and its Responsiveness to Challenges in the World. A Qualitative Research Study in 4 Transitioning Contexts: Georgia (USA), Poland, Czech Republic, and Wales. Findings highlight how research methods can focus our attention while modeling democratic and inclusive techniques. The paper will share how leaders are responding to important world challenges and whether leaders are exhibiting responsive educational leadership.

For years societies expected schools to fulfill various roles, even those that were contradictory. For example, we would like graduates of contemporary schools to be able to play in the market economy and at the same time to play the role of the critical evaluator of life around them and design processes that might change the world. 

These expectations set extremely ambitious aims for schools, principals and teachers. Educators are expected to deliver the necessary information and at the same time be leaders who offer perspectives for change, while also helping their students to develop new competencies.

We believe that headteachers, principals and the entire teaching staff cannot limit themselves to simply pass mainstream values on to their students, but should, instead, construct a new participatory pedagogy through which their students become active agents of social change. We believe they should become themselves, “responsive educational leaders” (Mazurkiewicz and Fischer, 2021). We define responsive educational leadership as the process, which seeks to react to local and global issues.  It is leadership, which is exhibited across all levels of educational institutions from principals to teachers and students to improve the conditions we see around us.

The context of the social change is well-known. We are facing wicked problems (Jordan, M., Kleinsasser, R. and Roe, M. (2014) that challenge our existence, safety and basic rights. Global warming and the ecological catastrophe, public health and pandemics, social inequality, social justice, cultural diversity, technology, war and refugees became important factors in school reality. Are we able to address these challenges? Or do we mistakenly believe school doors and windows can be closed to the world outside the building?

Educational policy can be seen as the backbone of the educational system and should be crafted by various stakeholders. Using a Situational Analysis (Clarke, A.E., 2005) approach we try to understand how we manage to translate challenges in the world, macro issues in our societies, and questions about purpose into the school and classroom reality.

Objectives:

The aim of the paper is to report on findings from a research effort to understand educational policies and policy making. Those systems are destined with the task of preparation of the next generation, and also with supporting societies in dealing with contemporary wicked problem (Jordan, et.al. (2014).

To do so we focus on 2 critical driving questions:

• How do educational leaders engaged in governance perceive the most important challenges found in the world outside of school? 
• How are specific challenges discussed and identified in educational policy documents, reports, and processes at the regional and national level in a fast-changing contexts?

Theoretical framework: This Spencer Foundation funded, multi-year project rests on three streams of research work. Previous research and writing put forward a framework entitled Responsive Educational Leadership (Mazurkiewicz and Fischer, 2021). A second area of work has come in research and writing on educational leadership in these different contexts (Mazurkiewicz, 2021). A third stream centers the methodology of the research effort as essential to both how we conducted the study and why we focused on policy positions, relationships and social arenas in the policy making process (Clarke, et.al., 2022). Methods Our methods relied on Situational Analysis (Clarke, Freise, Washburn, 2018) and pushed us to look at aspects of formal and informal governance structures, governmental and non-governmental writing, platforms, and positions, as well as their interactions. In the paper we will provide the opportunity to talk about educational change through the lens of specific research methodology choices. The studies use qualitative methods centered on situational analysis (Clarke, A. E., Friese, C., & Washburn, R. (2018) relational mapping (Evans-Jordan, S. (2023), focus groups, and individual interviews (Merriam, S., & Tisdell, E. (2016). Presentations will give participants a chance to hear and learn from each other about what have metaphorically been called blackholes, fault lines, and hotspots. The session will help move forward the effort to build critical, comparative international policy analysis (Crossley, M., & Tikly, L. (2004). Through this process we try to understand, which challenges are seen as the most important for modern societies, which competences are critical, and what do we know about the readiness of the educational systems to support students in their future struggle. 1. What is the main message of the documents? 2. What is there on the margins? 3. What is missing? What is not talked about? 4. How are issues and challenges defined? Analyzed documents were basic, formal, documents in use by the government(s) and adopted by a formal body responsible for education in the country. 1. The official Education Act (legislation on education), 2. Ministry’s Educational Priorities presented every year 3. Political parties’ programs 4. NGO recommendations for new government elected in 2023.

Educational policies play a crucial role in shaping the education systems and schools for responsive educational leadership. We believe that taking under consideration principals and teachers’ roles, and using appropriate data increases the quality of the policy-making, and allows systems to grow and flourish. Our findings reinforce that educational policy should be crafted with many voices and with active involvement of principals, teachers, and other educational leaders. Using a situational analysis (add reference) approach we work to understand how we manage to translate challenges in the world, macro issues in our societies, and questions about purpose of education into the school and classroom reality. Inquiry into policy and policy making in relation to the changes in social, political, and environmental arenas, highlighted the need for reimagining of purposes of education in an uncertain educational future. We identify gaps, issues and silences of educational policy in the context of Poland. Findings from this work occurred across two axes. First, conclusions appeared around how Poland is working to deal with global challenges, especially democracy, cultural diversity and inequality. Conclusions can also be stated based on the use of Situational Analysis which brought new perspectives on the stakeholders both inside and outside the educational environment working to influence policy. Finally, we share new understandings about processes and levers of these different contexts of the educational policy making. Complexity in educational settings is unpredictable (Wood and Butt (2014). If we are to develop the educational policy we expect, build the schools we hope for, with a culture of action we need, then we must be hopeful about education helping us take on the challenges in the world.

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