Session Information
26 SES 03 B, Leadership Formation and Development
Paper Session
Contribution
Case-based instruction represents one of the most widely used techniques in leader education. There is evidence that discussion of cases and case attributes provide a potentially viable approach for leadership knowledge building (Avolio, Reichard, Hannah, Walumbwa, & Chan, 2009; Yukl, 2010). First, case-based, or experiential knowledge activities allow leaders to make sense of complex unfolding situations, understand the expectations of followers and formulate visions and new practices (Mumford, Peterson, Robledo, & Hester, 2012). Second, case-based knowledge appears to be relatively easily acquired by people, for example, through narratives that present actors engaged in problem solving (Kolodner, 1997). Although, research suggests that case-based instruction is essential for leadership knowledge building in terms of allowing leaders to make sense of complex problems and how to deal with challenging situations, the way in which leaders actually do so is given scant attention in the literature. A possible explanation for this is that the research on case-based instruction in leader education typically relies on surveys and interviews and not on observations or a micro-analysis of what is really happening when professionals work in authentic situations (cf. Mumford et al., 2012).
This paper explores how school leaders participating in leader education respond to and negotiate solutions to leadership challenges presented to them. Empirically this paper is grounded in a larger study of case-based instruction used in the National School Leadership Program in Norway, a program designed for new school leaders (Hybertsen et al., 2014). The case presented
to the students is about leadership challenges related to new public management and accountability as perceived by Norwegian principals (Møller, 2012). The case is shaped and illustrated through a narrative of a newly combined primary and secondary school. In the paper we explore and analyse how the participants discuss and deal with challenges presented in the case, i.e. how to improve students’ test results, how to respond to the critic from the teachers and the Teacher Union and how to respond to the expectations from relevant actors, including teachers, the municipality, politicians, and parents. The purpose of the paper is to gain knowledge about how school leaders approach and find practical solutions for managing the complex challenges framed in the case. Further, the aim is to comprehensively investigate the recourses in play and the ways that recourses are used and relate to each other in the participants’ efforts to find solutions to the challenges facing them. To pursue the purpose and the aim of this study we address the following research question: How do school leaders, in the context of working with a case in school settings, frame and respond to leadership challenges? We explore this within the context of a particular school.
The analytical framework of the present study is grounded in Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) (Engeström, 1999, 2001). CHAT offers an explicit set of analytical concepts for studying organizational phenomena, such as leadership related to organizational problem solving, as emerging constituents of object-oriented activity, giving virtue to the complex relations involved in their origin. Hence, a CHAT approach provides an opportunity to study in depth how school leaders frame and respond to leadership challenges and the ways in which solutions to problems presented to them become constituted in the interplay of individuals, purposes, and tools to the affordance and constraints of the context in which their work is nested (Aas, 2009; Vennebo, under review).
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Aas, M. (2009). Diskusjonens kraft: en longitudinell studie av et skoleutviklingsprosjekt der leseeksperter/forskere støtter rektorer og lærere ved sju skoler i utvikling av skolens leseundervisning. [The power in discussions. A longitudinal study of school development with reading experts/scientists supporting principals and teachers at seven schools in the development of the school's reading instruction]. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway. Avolio, B. J., Reichard, R. J., Hannah, S. T., Walumbwa, F. O., & Chan, A. (2009). A meta-analytic review of leadership impact research: Experimental and quasiexperimental studies. The Leadership Quarterly, 20, 764–784. Engeström, Y. (1999). Activity theory and individual and social transformation. In Y. Engeström, R. Miettinen & R.-L. Punamäki-Gitai (Eds.), Perspectives on activity theory (pp. 1–16.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Engeström, Y. (2001). Expansive learning at work: Toward an activity theoretical reconceptualization. Journal of Education and Work, 14(1), 133–156. Helstad, K. & Møller, J. (2013). Leadership as relational work: Risks and opportunities. International Journal of Leadership in Education, 16(3), 245–262 Hybertsen, I. D., Stensaker, B., Federici, R. A., Olsen, M. S., Solem, A., & Aamodt, P. O. (2014). Evalueringen av den nasjonale rektorutdanningen: NIFU, NTNU. Jordan, B., & Henderson, A. (1995). Interaction analysis: Foundations and practice. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 4(1), 39–103. Kolodner, J. L. (1997). Educational implications of analogy: A view from case-based reasoning. American Psychologist, 52, 57–66. Ludvigsen, S.R., & Digernes, T. Ø. (2009). Research leadership: Productive research communities and the integration of research fellows. In A. Sannino, H. Daniels & K. D. Gutiérrez (Eds.), Learning and expanding with activity theory (pp. 240–254). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mumford, M. D., Peterson, D., Robledo, I., & Hester, K. (2012). Cases in leadership education. Implications of human cognition. In S. Snook, N. Nohria & R. Khurana (Eds.), The handbook for teaching leadership. Knowing, doing, and being (pp. 21–33). Harvard: Sage Publication. Møller, J. (2012). The construction of a public face as a school principal. International Journal of Educational Management, 26(5), 452–460. Yukl, G. (2010). Leadership in organizations (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Vennebo, K. F. (under review). Innovative work in school development: exploring leadership enactment. Educational Management, Administration and Leadership.
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