Susaining Improvements in Student Learning and Achievement: The Importance of Resilience in Leadership

Author(s):

Christopher Day(presenting / submitting)Olof Johansson Jorunn Møller

Conference:

ECER 2011

Network:

26. Educational Leadership

Format:

Paper

Session Information

26 SES 03 B,

Paper Session

Time:

2011-09-13

17:15-18:45

Room:

JK 25/138,G, 20

Chair:

Gerry MacRuairc

Contribution

Over the years, much has been written internationally about leadership purposes, values, practices and effectiveness. More recently, issues of succession planning, capacity building, distributed leadership, sustainability and systems leadership have been the focus of policy and policy related research. Yet relatively little research has focused upon how resilience contributes to the success of school leaders, principals in particular, in sustaining their values, motivation, commitment and sense of effectiveness over time in changing personal, social, organisational and policy contexts.

This paper aims at exploring leadership resilience for sustainable and improved learning and achievement for students. The strategies successful local school principals choose to fostering learning and sustained success at the local schools are analyzed through the theoretical framework of leadership for democratic education. It offers a lens to understanding associations between leaders who are driven by a belief in the basic values and rights of each individual; taking the standpoint of others into consideration; deliberation in making decisions; embracing plurality and difference; who promote equity and social justice and have a lasting impact on other people within and beyond the organization and a capacity for resilience.

Resilient leadership for improved learning for children is characterized by a clear sense of moral/ethical purpose related to how to create a learning environment in which all students and staff may not only feel they belong, but also in which they may be successful. Yet, such leadership requires that leaders are beacons of hope, engage in risk, distribute trust progressively in a wise and timely manner, and are able to be resilient and build the capacities of others to be resilient.

Method

The qualitative data were collected from principals in six of the coutnries in the ISSPP (International Successful School Principals Project) who sustained the success of their schools. Success was defined broadly in terms of improving academic, social and personal progress and achievement and attainments which are externally acknowledged. As part of an ongoing international cooperative research project, we revisited schools five to six years after our initial research with them to find out to what extent the principals who had stayed in the same school had been able to sustain their earlier success and whether changes in the external social and policy and internal environments had affected them. We interviewed successful principals and key members of their staff in schools in six countries, each with their unique political, social and educational traditions and each at a different stage of implementing the “New Public Management” agenda might be expected to reveal different perceptions of what success meant to them. We found that, although they adapted their leadership practices according to their judgments about how changes in external and internal conditions might be mediated, their core values remained constant and a source of their resilience.

Expected Outcomes

School leadership is a relational concept, and, in the six countries illustrated in this paper, is situated in democratic governance structures and policies that aim at educating students for citizenship in a democratic society. Though there are country and culture specific differences in the meaning of democratic, these are not radical. Leadership for democratic education includes recognizing the basic values and rights of each individual; taking the standpoint of others into consideration; deliberation in making decisions; embracing plurality and difference; and promoting equity and social justice. Our findings demonstrate that for successful leaders, there is no dichotomy between discourses and practices of social justice and working for high academic achievement on the parts of the students. On the contrary, leadership for improved learning for children is characterized by a clear sense of moral/ethical purpose related to how to create learning environments in which all students and staff may not only feel they belong, but also in which they may be successful. Yet, such leadership requires that leaders are beacons of hope, engage in risk, distribute trust and hope progressively in a wise and timely manner, and are able to be resilient and build the capacities to be resilient.

References

Beard, K. S, Hoy, W. K. & Hoy, A. W. (2010) Academic Optimism of Individual Teachers: Confirming a new construct. Teaching and Teacher Education, 26: 1136-1144. Beck, H., Giddens, A. and Lash, S. (1994) Reflexive modernisation: Politics, tradition and aesthetics in the modern social order. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Day, C. and Leithwood, K. (eds) (2007) Successful school principal leadership in times of change: International Perspectives, Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer. Day, C., Sammons, P., Leithwood, K., Hopkins, D., Gu, Q., Brown, E. with Ahtaridou, E. (2011) School Leadership and Student Outcomes: Building and Sustaining Success. Maidenhead: Open University Press. (In Press) Drysdale, L., Goode, H. & Gurr, D. (2009) An Australian model of successful school leadership: Moving from success to sustainability. In O. Johansson & L. Moos (eds) Sustaining successful school leadership, Journal of Educational Administration, Vol. 47 (6), pp. 697-708. Höög, J., Johansson, O. and Olofsson, A. (2009) Swedish successful schools revisited. In O. Johansson & L. Moos (eds) Sustaining successful school leadership, Journal of Educational Administration, Vol. 47 (6), pp. 742-752. Jacobson, S. L., Johnson, L., Ylimaki, R. and Giles, C. (2009) Sustaining success in an American school: a case for governance change. In O. Johansson & L. Moos (eds) Sustaining successful school leadership, Journal of Educational Administration, Vol. 47 (6), pp. 753-764. Møller, J., Vedøy, G., Presthus, A. M. and Skedsmo, G. (2009) Successful principalship in Norway: sustainable ethos and incremental changes? In O. Johansson & L. Moos (eds) Sustaining successful school leadership, Journal of Educational Administration, Vol. 47 (6), pp. 731-741. Moos, L., and Kofod, K. K. (2009) Sustained successful school leadership in Denmark. In O. Johansson & L. Moos (eds) Sustaining successful school leadership, Journal of Educational Administration, Vol. 47 (6), pp. 709 – 718.

Author Information

Christopher Day (presenting / submitting)

University of Nottingham

School of Education

Nottingham

Olof Johansson

Umeå university

Centre for principal development

Umeå

Jorunn Møller

University of Oslo

Dep. of Teacher Education and School Research

Oslo

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