Generating change from below: what role for leadership from above?
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JEA-07-2016-0074 |
| Pages | 657-670 |
| Date | 04 September 2017 |
| Published date | 04 September 2017 |
| Author | Fiona King,Howard Stevenson |
| Subject Matter | Education,Administration & policy in education,School administration/policy,Educational administration,Leadership in education |
Generating change from below:
what role for leadership
from above?
Fiona King
School of Inclusive and Special Education, Dublin City University,
Dublin, Ireland, and
Howard Stevenson
Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
Abstract
Purpose –In recent years the benefits of distributed leadership have often assumed the status of an
unchallengeable orthodoxy. There is a general acceptance that leadership is best when it is dispersed.
In reality this is often little more than a form of “licensed leadership”in which those working in subordinate
roles can only exercise their leadership in tightly prescribed contexts. The purpose of this paper is to
investigate the contribution of teacher professional development to promoting a more optimistic vision of
teacher leadership and, ultimately, organisational change. It explores the role of leadership “from above”
in supporting classroom teachers to engage with and sustain change.
Design/methodology/approach –The study, which was situated in the Republic of Ireland, employed a
case study approach with 20 participants in five urban disadvantaged schools.
Findings –The paper seeks to demonstrate how a professional development initiative was used to promote
significant and sustained change in four of the five case study schools.
Research limitations/implications –It argues that in order to understand sustained change in schools it
is necessary to better understand the complex ways in which leadership from above can generate change
agency from below.
Originality/value –This paper offers a critical perspective in relation to mainstream distributed leadership
theory and practice.
Keywords Change, Teacher professional development, Distributed leadership, Licensed leadership,
Organic leadership, Teacher leadership
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
The concept of change in education is inextricably linked with the idea of school improvement.
This is often reflected in the scale and pace of policy changes as governments across the world
strive to enhance pupil outcomes (Ball, 2013; Bell and Stevenson, 2006; Rizvi and Lingard, 2009).
Improvement is increasingly characterised as raised performance in international assessments
such as PISA (Sellar and Lingard, 2013). In a globalised world where knowledge is seen as
central to securing competitive advantage then strong performance in internationally
bench-marked assessments has become a key objective of policy. However these policy changes
are taking place in a time of austerity and a culture of isolated privatism (O’Sullivan, 2011) which
may make implementation difficult. Central to the implementation process is the pivotal role of
leadership (Day et al., 2009) in managing change with much analysis about what leaders can do
to progress the school improvement agenda. Investing in teachers as change-agents through
supporting collaborative models of professional development may support school improvement.
Within this paper we conceive of professional development as the “processes, activities and
experiences that provide opportunities to extend teacher professional learning”which is
considered to be “the growth of teacher expertise that leads to improved student learning”
(New South Wales (NSW) Institute of Teachers, 2012, p. 3).
The objectives of this paper are threefold: first, to explore the possible role of leadership
in generating effective learning environments for teachers to engage with and sustain
Journal of Educational
Administration
Vol. 55 No. 6, 2017
pp. 657-670
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0957-8234
DOI 10.1108/JEA-07-2016-0074
Received 4 July 2016
Revised 9 April 2017
Accepted 8 May 2017
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0957-8234.htm
657
Generating
change from
below
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