Session Information
26 SES 05 A, Leadership in Changing Circumstances
Paper Session
Contribution
Based on our research interest and theoretical underpinning our aim is to shed light on what facilitates and what constrains change at the upper secondary school level in Iceland as seen by school leadership and the main research question is: How do the school leaders see the various actors (including themselves) and factors interact in facilitating or constraining change?
Rapid social, political and technological developments affect our society. However, it may be argued that education, in terms of content and form, does not develop in phase with these changes. In the paper, we shed new light on the diverse actors at play in developing the upper secondary school level in Iceland as seen through the eyes of school leaders. In particular, how those actors were seen to facilitate or hinder (or sometimes both) various types of change. The data are discussed in the light of theories on both institutions and organisations which offer different perspectives for analysis.
The emerging literature on educational change is considerable and covers both the many dimensions and levels of change. Many scholars focus on the dynamics of educational change, i.e. how the interaction of the various actors seems to occur (Fullan, 2011; Hargreaves & Shirley, 2012; Malone, 2013; Smith, 2007; Thornton et al., 2012). The term, dynamics, is closely linked to processes of change and refers to complex social relations and interactions among the principal actors across system boundaries (Kauko, Simola, Varjo, & Kalalahti, 2012). Greenwood, Oliver, Sahlin and Suddaby (2008) argue that institutional logics shape the behaviour within organisations, and mould or constrain the dynamics of possible change between actors across boundaries, in all cases depending on the actors involved and where they are placed within the system. In the present paper we demarcate these boundaries as being between what we call, macro-, meso- and micro levels (Thornton et al., 2012).
Focussing on the leadership, Washington, Boal, and Davis (2008), distinguish between institutional and organisational leadership, which we find enriches our analysis. Institutional leadership refers to leaders of institutions, and is based on “embedded or constrained agency, influence or negotiated power” (p 720), and usually respecting the vision to promote and protect the core values of the school. Organisational leadership is when leaders act inside of organisations, which are not seen to be constrained by the institutional legacy. Such leadership is based on the ideas “of instrumental agency, hierarchical and charismatic power” (p. 720) that is used towards developing the school. These main characteristics of institutional or organisational leadership are being used to classify the themes emerging from our interviewees and their leadership strategy linked to the framework of their school.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative research in psychology, 3(4), 77–101. Fullan, M. (2011). Change Leader: Learning to Do What Matters Most. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Hargreaves, A., & Shirley, D. (2012). The Global Fourth Way: The quest for educational excellence. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. Kauko, J., Simola, H., Varjo, J., & Kalalahti, M. (2012). What could a dynamics perspective contribute to comparative research? (Vol. 59). Turku: Finnish Educational Research Association. Malone, H. J. (2013). Leading educational change: global issues, challenges, and lessons on whole-system reform. New York: Teacher Collage Press. Scott, W. R. (2014). Institutions and Organizations. Ideas, Interests and Identities. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Smith, L. (2007). Describing change. Thousand Oaks, California: Crown Press. Thornton, P. H., Ocasio, W., & Lounsbury, M. (2012). The institutional logics Perspective. A new approach to Culture, Structure, and Process. Oxford: University Press. Washington, M., Boal, K. B., & Davis, J. N. (2008). Institutional leadership: Past, present, and future. Handbook of organization institutionalism, 721–736.
Search the ECER Programme
- Search for keywords and phrases in "Text Search"
- Restrict in which part of the abstracts to search in "Where to search"
- Search for authors and in the respective field.
- For planning your conference attendance you may want to use the conference app, which will be issued some weeks before the conference
- If you are a session chair, best look up your chairing duties in the conference system (Conftool) or the app.