School leadership in intercultural schools: researching the Greek-Cypriot context

Author(s):

Panayiotis Angelides(presenting / submitting)Christina Hadjisoteriou(presenting)

Conference:

ECER 2013

Network:

26. Educational Leadership

Format:

Paper

Session Information

26 SES 07 B, Inclusive and Intercultural Education

Paper Session

Time:

2013-09-11

17:15-18:45

Room:

D-307

Chair:

Lars Svedberg

Contribution

Objectives or Purposes:

Research on school leadership for intercultural education inCyprushas been scarce. What little research has been done has revealed the barriers to the development of school leadership for intercultural education that mainly derive from the content and structure of the Greek-Cypriot educational system (Zembylas & Iasonos, 2010). Hajisoteriou (2011) contends that because of the centralization of Greek-Cypriot education, the absence of a coherent intercultural policy developed by the Ministry of Education and Culture has undermined the development of coherent school policies by school leaders and their implementation by teachers.

In this context, this study aims to investigate the organisational principles that guide the development of intercultural policies at the level of primary schools. It explores the values, goals and operational strategies that guided the development of intercultural school policies in 20 primary schools inCyprus, which presented high enrolment rates of immigrant students. Our research focus raises a number of related questions, such as: (a) How do school leaders define the values and goals underlying their intercultural school policies?, and (b) What operational strategies do school leaders develop in their schools with regards to intercultural education?

Perspectives or Theoretical Framework: Intercultural education is mediated by school leadership and thus, by the school leaders’ interpretations of intercultural education (Leeman, 2003). The unique conditions prevailing in each school further shape the school-based curricula regarding intercultural education. Therefore, intercultural education meets or comes up against school politics and cultures. As leadership acts are expressions of culture, Schein (1985: 316-317) argues that ‘culture is created in the first instance by the actions of the leaders; culture is embedded and strengthened by leaders’. Therefore, we need leaders able to create inclusive cultures at their schools by responding to diversity and changing the structures in order to promote practice that aims to include all students.

Zembylas and Iasonos (2010) argue for the interrelationship between intercultural education approaches and leadership styles. They thus draw a link between conservative multiculturalism and transactional leadership; pluralist multiculturalism and transformational leadership; and, critical multiculturalism and critical and social justice leadership. They explain that school leaders, who share conservative multiculturalist views of diversity (meaning that they aim towards assimilation), usually adopt transactional leadership styles by focusing on the smooth running of their schools and putting emphasis on administrative issues in order to maintain the system. On the other hand, school leaders who favour pluralist multiculturalism (meaning that they ‘naively’ focus on the celebration of difference rather similarity), deploy transformation leadership styles. They thus work towards transforming the school culture in order to construct ‘a shared vision through respect, autonomy and the pursuit of higher goals are valued’ (p. 168). School leaders should, thus, foster critical multiculturalist approaches (meaning that they should interrogate power relations and structural inequalities) by collectively working towards values-led contingency models promoting a critical or social-justice leadership. Social-justice leadership style entails the critical intervention of school leaders in order to pursue the values of social justice, inclusion and democracy.

Method

Data sources, evidence, objects, or materials: The final sample included 12 female and 8 male head-teachers, while all the participants were more than 50 years old. The interview schedule referred to issues such as head-teachers’ conceptualisations of diversity and intercultural education that guided the leadership of their culturally diverse schools and the development of pertinent school cultures. All head-teachers were interviewed only once and for approximately one hour. The interviews were tape-recorded and fully transcribed. We firstly read our data in order to understand them better and in parallel we kept notes about our thoughts. After that, we began examining our data for groups of meanings, themes, assumptions and behaviours and tried to locate how these were connected within a theoretical model (Creswell 2003). Thirdly, we continued the process of analysis and we divided the data into categories. Each part was named. In the fourth stage we put all the names together in big groups to create areas of analysis. Finally, in the fifth and sixth stages of analysis, given that the categories were set and they seemed to be connected to the research questions, we began looking at our data in order to substantiate these categories with raw data.

Expected Outcomes

The corporate findings of this research indicate that the ways in which head-teachers (HTs) conceptualised diversity influenced their leadership roles regarding intercultural education. In more detail, HTs who deployed the cultural-deficit approach to diversity appeared to promote a transactional model of leadership. In this way, they aimed to sustain the so-called ‘unobstructed’ and ‘unproblematic’ operation of their schools, through the cultural assimilation of their immigrant students in the dominant cultural norms of their schools. On the other hand, HTs, who adopted cultural-pluralist manifestations, seemed to lend support to transformational leadership and thus school change in order to respond to cultural diversity.

References

Cambron-McCabe, N. & McCarthy, M. (2005). Educating school leaders for social justice. Educational Policy, 19, 201–222. Creswell, J.W. (2003). Research Design. Qualitative, Quantitative and Mixed Method Approaches. London: Sage Publications. Hajisoteriou, C. (2011). Listening to the winds of change: School leaders realizing intercultural education in Greek-Cypriot schools?. International Journal of Leadership in Education, DOI:10.1080/13603124.2011.605473, 1-19. Leeman, Y.A.M. (2003). School leadership for intercultural education. Intercultural Education, 14(1), 31-45. Lumby, J. (2006). Conceptualizing diversity and leadership: Evidence from 10 cases. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 34(2), 151-165. Marschall, C. & Parker, L. (2006). Learning from leaders’ social justice dilemmas. In: C. Marshall & M. Oliva (Eds.) Leadership for Social Justice: Making Revolutions in Education. USA: Pearson Education, Inc. Rusch, E. (2004). Gender and race in leadership preparation: A constrained discourse. Educational Administration Quarterly, 40(1), 16-48. Schein, E. H. (1985.) Organisational Culture and Leadership: A Dynamic View. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Trigg-Smith, R.A.C. (2011). Investigating headteachers’ impact on grouping practices: Justifying an analysis on how headteachers incorporate ideas of equity into grouping practices. Educate, Kaleidoscope Special Issue 2011, 28-44. Zembylas, M. & Iasonos, S. (2010) Leadership styles and multicultural education approaches: an exploration of their relationship. International Journal of Leadership in Education, 13(2), 163–183.

Author Information

Panayiotis Angelides (presenting / submitting)

University of Nicosia, Cyprus

Christina Hadjisoteriou (presenting)