Developing Leadership Capacity in English Secondary Schools and Universities: Global Positioning and Local Mediation

Wallace, Mike; Deem, Rosemary; O’Reilly, Dermot; Tomlinson, Michael

doi:10.1080/00071005.2010.529415

Cited by 5 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…Many would claim that in developing their organization’s culture they are not reflecting global trends but a personal and deeply held vocation. Nevertheless, it is unlikely that leaders in education are immune (Wallace et al, 2011). The evidence suggests wide-scale and similar cultural change across schools, colleges and universities in many parts of the world.…”

Section: Cultural Arenasmentioning

confidence: 99%

Leading Organizational Culture

Lumby¹

2012

Educational Management Administration & Leadership

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The literature on educational leadership and management has referred to culture since at least the 1970s. Despite the concept’s mention in over one-third of articles written in this journal, there has been little in-depth engagement with how leaders might influence it and the ethical issues involved. The article argues that leadership must engage with culture as a key mediator of power within organizations. Four levels of cultural activity are suggested: the cultural context created by global phenomena; the cultures of local communities; the organizational culture; and the sub- and counter-cultures within the organization. The article considers a bifurcation in the skills assumed necessary to respond to, on one hand, multi- or intra-culture and, on the other, organizational culture. The article suggests that the degree of perceived difference from norms dictates leaders' orientation to and engagement with culture, with cultural competence generally promoted only in relation to multicultural issues. It concludes that leaders are currently ill-served by encouragement to focus on aligning the organization’s members to a single, strong culture and that the persistent surface engagement with culture may perpetuate inequalities. The need to move leaders to engage more deeply with the power and complexity of culture is indicated.

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Section: Cultural Arenasmentioning

confidence: 99%

Leading Organizational Culture

Lumby¹

2012

Educational Management Administration & Leadership

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“…The monitoring of colleagues' work and passing on assessments to more senior colleagues are an example of a situation in which these tensions can emerge (Glover et al, 1998) as classroom observation by middle leaders has been seen by many departmental members as demonstrating a failure of trust and an implementation of a culture of surveillance (Wise, 2001). Wallace et al (2011) explore the challenges of developing leadership capacity in schools and universities and acknowledge initiatives in leadership development, discussing 'hard' levers such as accountability through, for example, performance tables, and 'soft' levers of which programmes run by the National College are an example. The head and deputy head respondents recognized the need to respond to policy imperatives and their role as agents of change, yet whilst the importance of middle leaders is implied in the discussion through the mention of distributed and collaborative leadership 'connoting collective endeavour towards transformational goals' (Wallace et al, 2011:32), the development needs of middle leaders are not discussed, hence our focus in this article.…”

Section: Middle Leadership Development In Secondary Schoolsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The perceptions of secondary school middle leaders regarding their needs following a middle leadership development programme

Thorpe

Bennett-Powell

2014

Management in Education

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The importance of middle leaders in bringing about improvement in schools is well recognized in the UK, as in many other countries, with the ever-present demand for raising standards and achievement. This article outlines some initial findings and discussion points emerging from the first stage of a project exploring how middle leaders in secondary schools in the United Kingdom perceive their leadership development needs, having recently completed a major middle leadership programme. An online questionnaire and semi-structured interviews were used to uncover the perspectives of middle leaders about aspects of their role in which they feel confident, their immediate development needs and what they perceive would help them to meet these needs. Most respondents felt confident in their role but, somewhat paradoxically, expressed a need for further development in their areas of greatest confidence, which may well reflect the increasing complexity of the role of the middle leaders in schools.

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“…For instance, student-centred policy which emphasises 'learners at the heart of the system' employs a range of discursive techniques that foreground institutions' responsiveness in meeting students' demands, as well as students' active role in the service they experience (DBIS, 2011). However, as Ball (1999) argues, policy discourses on reform modernisation and enhancement can be paradoxical: students are sometimes enacted as 'active learners' and citizens whilst contemporaneously identified as being regulatory stakeholders and consumers.Similarly, senior managers can be depicted as 'change agents' as well as faithful implementers of reform (Wallace et al, 2011).Generic policy goals are translated into institutional practices by a range of policy levers which help establish the pace and direction of reform. Within a market-driven HE context, there are some very immediate policy levers, the most significant being the transfer of costs onto 6 individuals students, the large-scale production of institutional performance data via key metrics and the entry of new providers (Brown and Carasso, 2013).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Similarly, senior managers can be depicted as 'change agents' as well as faithful implementers of reform (Wallace et al, 2011).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These changes also impact on senior managers who ultimately have to implement policy makers' directives, mediate between central and local policy and broker the institutional acceptance for reform and its specific institutional adaptation (Wallace et al, 2011. In a neoliberal policy environment, considerable focus is placed universities' outputs, not least the production of skilled and employable graduates. The logic of human capital theory (Becker, 1993) underscores considerable macro-level policy framings on the role and responsiveness of higher education institutions.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Student Engagement: Towards A Critical Policy Sociology

Tomlinson

2017

High Educ Policy

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This paper develops a critical policy analysis of the student engagement agenda, exploring its establishment as a key policy framework in HE and why it has developed such momentum.Based on a critical policy sociology approach, this article analyses the levels through which student engagement can be conceptualised: macro, meso and micro. At the macro level, the concept can be seen as partly aligned to the market-driven and massified institutional context and informed by New Public Management policy levers intended to enhance the performative value of contemporary universities. At the meso level, student engagement has been instituted by policies and practices evaluated by a range of performance measures that purportedly capture the efficacy of engagement practices. At a micro level, it presents issues around students' relationship with institutions in light of their changing role. If student engagement policy and practice is able to elevate students as active co-producers of self-directed learning, they may also potentially affirm their role as regulatory customers. Policy sociology; neoliberalism; performativity; engagement; studentship Introduction: problem and contextThe concept of student engagement has become firmly established in the lexicon of contemporary higher education (HE) policy and has informed much discussion on the 2 management of student experience (Kuh, 2010). However, it remains conceptually ambiguous, largely due to the multiple ways in which it can be conceived and the multiple contexts in which it is played out (Baron and Corbin, 2012). Student engagement has been defined broadly as the level of effort and investment students make towards their formal study, resulting from educationally purposeful provision that enriches their formal experiences. It is acknowledged that it is likely to have multiple components -for instance, Trowler (2010) has identified cognitive, emotional and behavioural dimensions, each of which are achieved through different facets of students' experiences. Much of the research and analysis has framed the issue in terms of the favourable institutional and pedagogic conditions that encourage students to make further cognitive investments in their higher education learning.A key concern preoccupying those involved in HE teaching and learning has been to develop institutional and pedagogic strategies that enhance student engagement (Coates, 2005). This is followed by endeavours to best capture how effective these are and how well they can be implemented and then measured. This tends to work from the premise that student engagement provision is inherently beneficial to students and that provision must be tailored to enrich its impact. Student engagement has therefore become viewed as a key lever towards the enhancement of institutional effectiveness and quality at a time when policy makers have emphasised the importance of maximising the formal benefits of participating in HE. This has also taken place during a period when, in many countries at least, the costs of participa...

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Developing Leadership Capacity in English Secondary Schools and Universities: Global Positioning and Local Mediation

Cited by 5 publications

References 26 publications

Leading Organizational Culture

Leading Organizational Culture

The perceptions of secondary school middle leaders regarding their needs following a middle leadership development programme

Student Engagement: Towards A Critical Policy Sociology

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