Conference Agenda

This symposium contributes to decades of international research designed to understand and improve leadership practices across educational sites. In times where uncertainty for educational development prevails, the work of a group of educators described as middle leaders, whose remit is largely to support professional learning, brings hope to teaching development. Scholarship shows that the study of educational leadership is predominantly focused on the work, characteristics, and practices of school principals (Gurr & Drysdale, 2013). Yet among the web of leadership practices (Nehez et al., 2022), the leading and development practices of middle leaders are less prominent as a dedicated focus of research (Forde et al., 2019). Across the globe, middle leaders are increasingly recruited to support site-based education development of teachers in primary and secondary schools, preschools, and universities (Grootenboer et al., 2020; Vangrieken et al., 2017). Site-based education development, a term coined by Kemmis et al. (2024), is a central notion for capturing the actual situatedness (needs and circumstances of practitioners) that influence the practices for leading professional learning. This symposium draws together research conducted in Australia, New Zealand and Sweden seeking to redress the more limited body of research focused on middle leadership, particularly as it relates to the productivity of communicative practices employed when middle leaders lead education development in their own settings.

Middle leaders are variously defined across different educational jurisdictions and international contexts (Lipscomb et al., 2023); for example, they are known as first teachers or development leaders in Sweden, or instructional leaders, instructional teachers or middle leaders in Australia and New Zealand. Among their designated roles, it is generally understood that a main responsibility is to facilitate professional development and curriculum change initiatives (Rönnerman et al., 2018). In this symposium, presenters consider middle leaders as those educators responsible for leading, teaching, communicating and collaborating with teams of colleagues as they manage and facilitate professional development among their colleagues (Grootenboer et al., 2020). As previous research has shown, as middle leaders lead the learning of others, the framing and focus of their roles and responsibilities shift responsively across their leading practices requiring different relational intensities as they work alongside teaching colleagues and senior leadership (Edwards-Groves et al., 2023). This heightens the research attention needed to illuminate the sociality, so communicative interactional imperatives, of middle leading practices.

Capitalising on the ‘practice turn’ in education (Kemmis et al., 2014), the papers in this symposium utilise practice theories to explore the nature and influence of middle leaders’ communicative practices as they engage in their leading work. Broad questions for the collection of papers consider the relationship between middle leading practices (what actually happens), the sociality (the intersubjective and interpersonal), the situatedness (the site-ontological responsiveness) and the enabling and constraining conditions (or practice architectures) which influence the day-to-day practices of middle leaders. Practice theories attend assiduously to the site in both existential and ontological terms as being sited (in actual places where things happen), not just as a location in an abstract and universal matrix of space-time (Kemmis et al., 2014, pp. 214-215). In this light, the papers aim to show how middle leaders leading the practice development of their colleagues recognise and respond to the local contingencies ‘at work’ in the site. This reciprocally requires a theory of practice that treats middle leading practices as situated, socially, dialogically, ontologically and temporally constituted. This view of practices is important for considering, as the papers in this symposium do, ways the communication practices enacted by middle leaders are comprised of practices that promote and embody dialogue, relationality and responsivity.

This paper presents critique of the development of “co-leading” (Spillane et al., 2008) practices among principals’ and teachers’ in a distributed model for school improvement initiative implemented in primary schools in a Swedish municipality. “Co-leading” is a collaborative practice whereby principals and teachers, as middle leaders (Rönnerman et al., 2018), work in a distributed leadership model for school improvement. “Co-leading”, recommended in the state public inquiry report The Trust Delegation (Bringselius, 2018), draws on the theoretical framework of distributed leadership which values the mutual execution of leading (Spillane, 2006). The notion of distribution argues for others than formal leaders to have authority to lead (Liljenberg, 2015) in orientations focused on ‘power-with’ rather than ‘power-over’ (Møller, 2002). “Co-leading” is built on a foundation of trust, openness, transparency, tolerance and reciprocal accountability which require genuine collaboration and communication between the leaders. Importantly, ‘accountability’ means recognising the mutual relationship between answerability, responsibility, and capacity-building (Hatch, 2013). Over four years a distributed leadership model involving principals and teachers as “co-leaders” with site responsive assignments focused on leading school improvement was developed in the Stenungsund municipality. The project design, inspired by Ekholm’s (1989) infrastructure model based on Miles’ (1965) understanding of social life in organizations, involved principals and teachers as middle leaders being assigned tasks, responsibilities, and mandates to lead school-based activities for teachers’ professional learning. Critical reflection, evaluation, and analysis of participant feedback found that to make the distributed leadership practice work, requires leaders at all levels to take explicit accountability for their assignments. Lack of clear assignment descriptions tended to limit co-leaders work to simply passing on information and administration (Harris, 2014). Multiple dimensions of accountability were found, including: • Individual teachers’ accountability for instructional development. • Teaching staff’s collective accountability in educational practice development. • Individual “co-leaders” accountability in collective developing an improvement area. • “Co-leader” networks collective accountability in developing an improvement area. • Networks coordinators’ accountability for the development of “co-leaders” learning and leading of teachers’ learning. • Principals’ accountability in leading individual “co-leaders” and their network. • Head of schools’ accountability in leading principals’ learning and leading. Findings provide insight into ways the co-leader initiative has implications for designing professional learning through a systematic and collaborative process where co-leaders work together to develop mutual understandings of what reciprocal accountability must entail. Results also show that a successful distributed leadership practice including teachers builds capacity for middle leader development.

Bringselius, L. (2018). Styra och leda med tillit – Forskning och praktik. SOU 2018:38. Utbildningsdepartementet, Stockholm. Ekholm, M. (1989). Att organisera en skola. In, L. Svedberg & M. Zaar (Eds), Skolans själ (s. 17–36). Utbildningsförlaget. Harris, A. (2014). Distributed leadership matters: Perspectives, Practicalities, and Potential. Corwin. Hatch, T. (2013). Beneath the surface of accountability: Answerability, responsibility and capacity-building in recent education reforms in Norway. Journal of Educational Change, 14 (2), 113-138. Liljenberg, M. (2015). Distributing leadership to establish developing and learning school organisations in the Swedish context. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 43(1), 152-170. Miles, M. (1965). Planned Change and Organizational Health: Figure and Ground. Change Processes in the Public School, (p. 12–34). University of Oregon Press. Møller, J. (2002). Democratic leadership in an age of managerial accountability. Improving Schools, 5(1), 11-20. Rönnerman, K., Edwards-Groves, C., & Grootenboer, P. (2018). Att leda från mitten - lärare driver professionell utveckling [trans: Leading from the middle - Teachers driving professional development]. Lärarförlaget. Spillane, J. (2006). Distributed leadership. Jossey-Bass Spillane, J., Camburn, E., Pustejovsky, J., Pareja, A., & Lewis, G. (2008). Taking a Distributed Perspective: Epistemological and Methodological Trade-offs in Operationalizing the Leader-Plus Aspect. Journal of Educational Administration, 46(2), 189–213.

It is well established that middle leaders make a difference in school development (Edwards-Groves et al., 2019) but understanding their specific leading practices has remained less clear, particularly of those middle leaders who have both teaching and leading responsibilities in schools (Grootenboer et al., 2014, 2020). This paper examines the efficacy of dialogue conferences employed as a participatory approach to supporting middle leaders’ professional learning in a four-year research project investigating middle leaders practices in Australian schools. Dialogue conferences, also known as research circles or study circles, is a methodology rooted in Scandinavian traditions of democracy, collaboration and inclusion (Löfqvist et al., 2019; Rönnerman & Olin, 2012). In this study, dialogue conferences involving middle leaders were used as a collaborative approach for determining the day-to-day practices middle leaders enact when supporting teaching change in their schools. The dialogue conferences had three interrelated purposes: i) member checking, ii) professional learning and dissemination, and iii) data gathering. In this presentation, we focus on the first and second purposes to discuss ways dialogic conferences created conditions which validated the work of middle leaders and simultaneously promoted robust engagement in professional conversations and extended knowledge about nature of middle leading roles and responsibilities. Deductive thematic analysis, using the theory of practice architectures as an analytical framework, showed how participating in the dialogue conferences enabled middle leaders to enter and engage in a democratic dialogic space that valued different ideas, practices, experiences and opinions (Bahktin, 1981). Participants attributed value in the activities (guided, but not governed, by the researchers) that explored their understandings about their own leading practices; and, according to participants, to ‘challenge theoretical thinking’, ‘broaden understanding of professional practices’, ‘boost to confidence in using existing ideas about middle leading work’ and to ‘introduce a valuable new, expanded lexicon about middle leading practices’. To conclude, the dialogue conferences created cultural-discursive, material-economic and social-political arrangements that enabled middle leader participants to (a) extol the value of encouraging dialogue about their different leading practices; and (b) be reflexively encouraged the develop intersubjective understandings about their own ideas, presuppositions, knowledge and practices. Responding to Forde et al’s (2019) call for focused professional development for middle leaders, results demonstrate the value of dialogue conferences for rigorous intellectual engagement and knowledge generation.

Bakhtin, M. (1981). The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays by M.M. Bakhtin. M. Holquist (Ed). Trans. C. Emerson and M. Holquist. University of Texas Press. Edwards-Groves, C., Grootenboer, P., Hardy, I., & Rönnerman, K. (2019). Driving change from ‘the middle’: middle leading for site based educational development, School Leadership & Management, doi10.1080/13632434.2018.1525700 Forde, C., et al. (2019). Evolving policy paradigms of middle leadership in Scottish and Irish education: implications for middle leadership professional development. School Leadership & Management, 39 (3-4), 297-314. Grootenboer, P., Edwards-Groves, & Rönnerman, K. (2014). Leading practice development: Voices from the middle. Professional Development in Education, 41(3), 508-526. Grootenboer, P., Edwards-Groves, C. & Rönnerman, K. (2020). Middle Leadership in Schools. Routledge. Kemmis, S., Wilkinson, J., Edwards-Groves, C., Hardy, I., Grootenboer, P., & Bristol, L. (2014). Changing practices, changing education. Springer. Löfqvist, C., Månsson Lexell, M., Nilsson, M., & Iwarsson, S. (2019). Exploration of the research circle methodology for user involvement in research on home and health dynamics in old age. Journal of Housing for the Elderly, 33 (2), 85-102. Rönnerman, K., & Olin, A. (2012). Research circles - enabling changes in site based educational development. Paper presented at the Australian Association of Research in Education, Sydney, December, 2012.

This paper critiques middle leadership research, in particular the research presented in this symposium, that address and account for ways the different communicative practices of middle leaders in Australia, New Zealand and Sweden align and disalign - converge and diverge. It contextualises and capitalises on the growing body of international middle leadership research the site-based conditions under which middle leaders work in the different jurisdictions. In particular, the paper discusses the concept of communicative space, and the practices that middle leaders employ, as a productive way to promote teacher professional learning in schools. By drawing across the papers, remarks will be made about the need to understand the nature of how such a space is constituted as practice-in-action. In particular it aims to shed light on what space means in the creation of communicative spaces - as a practice architecture - which promote open productive dialogues, a notion often taken to be a catch-all phrase. It seeks to shed light on the importance of communication practices in middle leader work to extend beyond more common understandings of ‘collaborative learning’ (Fisher, 2013) and ‘communities of practices’ (Wenger, 2000). The discussion will highlight the nature of the spaces and the practices enacted by middle leaders, to consider how in the different international settings these spaces are created, nourished and sustained by the leading practices of middle leaders. The critique will directly highlight how each of the papers from the different national contexts enable and constrain communication through the practices of middle leaders as examined in the research. Questions will be posed the presenting authors related to further research.

Grootenboer, P., Edwards-Groves, C. & Rönnerman, K. (2020). Middle Leadership in Schools: A practical guide for leading learning. Routledge. Kemmis, S., Wilkinson, J., Edwards-Groves, C., Hardy, I., Grootenboer, P. & Bristol, L. (2014). Changing Practices, Changing Education. Springer. Rönnerman, K., Edwards-Groves, C., & Grootenboer, P. (2018). Att leda från mitten - lärare driver professionell utveckling [trans: Leading from the middle - Teachers driving professional development]. Lärarförlaget.