Session Information
26 SES 05 A, Leadership for Learning – The Role of Principals in Enacting Policies
Symposium
Contribution
The role of principals has undergone a number of changes including new requirements, functions, competencies and challenges. The main attempts to frame school leadership that have been developed in the last forty years, however, can be condensed within a single “confluence model”. In this model four leading concepts can be identified: (1) Quality Management, (2) Effectiveness and Efficiency, (3) Development and Intervention (by changing patterns), (4) Value and Meaning. (Schratz et al., 2015; Wiesner et al., 2015). Since Pont, Nusche & Hopkins (2008) state that the further development of skills for effective school leadership is one out of four main levers to improve school leadership practices, not much research analysis is done so far about the competencies of school leaders of outstanding schools towards policy enactment (Ball et al., 2012). Bonsen (2010) as well as Huber and Muijs (2010) point out that school leadership is a key driver of the quality of schools, its development and transformation. We strive to this gap by introducing FieldTransformation360 to describe school leadership competencies. The proposed model fills a gap by introducing a practical approach to visualize and analyze school leadership qualities covering a wide range of competencies for social and situational actions. School leadership competencies thereby include rational, strategic, creative and identity processes. In the planned contribution we aim to introduce the theoretical framework of the Fieldtransformation360. Furthermore we have developed a self-assessment instrument for framing school leadership competencies based on the Fieldtransformation360. This tool will allows school leaders to reflect their strengths and development potentialities and help both academics and practitioners to move a step forward working for effective school development and improvement via a better understanding which competencies shape school leadership. As a first step we have collected data from approximately 120 persons to see whether school leaders differ in their self-assessed competencies or if there is a general profile for school leadership. First empirical finding indicate that school leaders differ on several points on their competence profiles. In our presentation we aim to discuss these differences with respect to leadership from the emerging future (Scharmer, 2009) and in relation to successful school leadership.
References
Bonsen, M. (2010). Schulleitungshandeln. In H. Altrichter, & K. Maak Merki (Eds.), Handbuch Neue Steuerung im Schulsystem (pp. 277-294). Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Huber, S. G. & Muijs, D. (2010). School leadership effectiveness. The growing insight in the importance of school leadership for the quality and development of schools and their pupils. In S. G. Huber (Ed.), School leadership - International perspectives (pp. 57-78) Dordrecht: Springer. Pont, B., Nusche, D. & Hopkins, D. (Eds.). (2008). Improving School Leadership, Volume 1: Policy and Practice. Paris. OECD. Retrieved on May 25th under http://www.oecd.org/edu/school/44374889.pdf Scharmer, C. O. (2009). Theory U: Leading from the Future as It Emerges. San Fransisco: Berrett-Koehler. Schratz, M., Wiesner, C., Kemethofer, D., George A. C., Rauscher, E., Krenn, S. & Huber, G. S. (2015). Schulleitung im Wandel: Anforderungen an eine ergebnisorientierte Führungskultur. In M. Bruneforth, F. Eder, K. Krainer, C. Schreiner, A. Seel & C. Spiel (Eds.), Nationaler Bildungsbericht Österreich 2015, Band 2: Fokussierte Analysen bildungspolitischer Schwerpunktthemen (pp. 221–262). Graz: Leykam. Wiesner, C., George A. C., Kemethofer, D., Schratz, M. (2015): School leadership in German speaking countries with an emphasis on Austria: a re-vision. Ricercazione, 7 (2), 65-90.
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