Teachers’ Perceptions of the Relationship between Inclusive Education and Distributed Leadership in two Primary Schools in Slovakia and New South Wales (Australia)

Abstract

The academic literature on the practice of inclusive education presents diverse and at times contradictory perspectives in how it is connected to practices of distributed leadership. Depending on the approach, on the one hand, inclusive educational practice may enable distributed school leadership, while on the other hand, it may allow for hierarchical management styles if staff members do not implement inclusive practices. This paper explores how school staff members perceive and understand the relationship between practices of inclusive education and distributed leadership in two public primary schools: one in New South Wales (Australia) and one in Slovakia. These two schools were identified by external informants as good practice examples of inclusive education. Using qualitative research methods based on interviews, this paper identifies two main understandings of this relationship. First, although distributed leadership may encourage the goals of inclusive education, it may in some circumstances also hinder their achievement. Second, distributed leadership can be constructed as an indispensable component of inclusive education, and this has implications for how the target groups of inclusive education are conceptualised. This paper also discusses the wider social and political contexts of the two primary schools and how in each case context significantly constrained and shaped understandings and practices of inclusion and distributed leadership in the practice of teachers and principals.

Theorising leadership for inclusion in the Irish context: A triadic typology within a distributed ecosystem

“…Distributed leadership is an ‘indispensable component of inclusive education’ systems (Miškolci et al, 2016: 53) and underpins how the Department of Education and Skills (DES) envisages how schools are led in the Irish context (DES, 2018). It has become the ‘normatively preferred’ educational leadership model of the 21st century (Bush and Glover, 2014: 559–560) and centralises the importance of relationships in the pursuit of school improvement (Harris, 2004).…”

Racial Inclusion in Education: An Australian Context

“…Even though the alignment of policies and laws with international standards has led to inclusion, different countries may use the same educational policy differently (Maclean 2017;Miškolci et al 2016). While a shared understanding about inclusive education is available at a theoretical level, several political and policy adoption realities have an impact at the operational level subjective to different educational contexts (Jahnukainen 2015).…”

Leadership, Inclusion, and Quality Education for All

“…The strong correlation between leadership, in its various guises, and school culture is well documented (Abawi & Oliver, 2013; Fullan, 2014; Piotrowsky, 2016; Spicer, 2016; Turan & Bektaş, 2013). Further to this, the link between distributed leadership practices (Spillane, 2005) and the effective implementation of inclusive school practices has also been established (Miškolci, Armstrong, & Spandagou, 2016; Mullick, 2013). It is also recognised that positional school leaders must have a philosophy and mindset that seeks to build distributed leadership capacity across their school, empowering others to lead (Morgan, 2008; Ross, Lutfi, & Hope, 2016).…”