Conference Agenda

Overview

Contemporary principals lead schools amidst rapidly changing and complex contexts, many of which have long histories of persisting systemic and structural racial, economic, and social inequities. Research by members of the International Successful School Principalship Project (ISSPP) from 20+ countries over the last two decades has found that, regardless of differences in contexts and conditions, successful principals’ work is predicated upon educational purposes that entail but transcend the functional, founded on principles of social justice, equity, and inclusion.

In ISSPP research, schools are considered as adaptive social systems that sit at the nexus of policy, communities, and society. Researching school leadership amidst a complex and rapidly changing society requires conceptualisations and methodologies to be sufficiently robust and dynamic to capture the nuances of the ways that multi-layered influences in society, communities, and schools shape, and are shaped by, what successful principals do.

Drawing upon evidence from a sample of selected member countries, this symposium synthesizes ISSPP research findings over time and discusses how the newly developed ISSPP theoretical conceptualization and comparative methodologies enables the research to consider leadership as a multi-level phenomenon and capture the ways in which principals navigate within and between complex systems levels over time to grow and sustain success.

Research Questions

RQ1: How appropriate is complexity theory to furthering understandings of successful school leadership, and how will such understandings advance the application of complexity theory in social and comparative research in education?

RQ2: To what extent, and in what ways, do diverse socioeconomic, cultural, political systems, and professional contexts at different levels of the education system influence how schools operate to bring about valued educational outcomes, especially those serving high need communities?

RQ3: To what extent, and in what ways, is ‘success’ in schools perceived and measured similarly and/or differently within and across different countries?

RQ4: What are the key enablers and constraints for achieving school ‘success’ in different contexts within and across different countries?

RQ5: How do different key stakeholders within and outside the school community and at different levels of the education system define successful school leadership practices? What similarities and differences can be identified within and across different countries?

RQ6: What similarities and differences can be identified in the values, beliefs, and behaviors of successful school principals across different schools in the same country, and across national cultures and policy contexts?

In seeking to answer the urgent issues of defining how success is achieved and sustained in all schools, and especially those serving high need communities, the ISSPP research examines school leadership through the lens of ecological systems theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1979) which theorizes individual practices and development within the context of various dynamically interacting layers of social and ecological systems and uses the complexity theory (e.g., Byrne & Callaghan, 2013) to capture the processes and actions in which school organizations operate, develop, and thrive in an increasingly unpredictable, globalized world.

Methodology

The ISSPP utilizes a comparative, mixed methods design with a variety of data sources to bring multiple perspectives to bear in the inquiry. Sampling features principals who lead successful schools in their communities. Data sources within each case study include semi-structured qualitative interviews with the district/municipality, governors, principal, teachers, parents, and students, and a whole-school teacher survey. The comparative analysis of these data sources within and across different schools and countries enables trustworthiness and enhances rigor.

Session Structure

Part A of the symposium will begin with an overview followed by four paper presentations and audience discussion. It concludes with a discussion and an introduction to Part B of the symposium.

The introductory paper provides an overview that explains the new conceptual and methodological directions of ISSPP research, including how we rethink the knowledge and research contributions from ISSPP to the educational leadership field; why we reconceptualise the field with new theoretical positionings and framing of successful leadership research and how we research with new methodological directions that capture the dynamics of context and leadership (e.g. mixed methods approach, comparative perspectives within and/or across countries). In so doing, the paper provides a rationale for the use of ecological systems theory in research on successful school leadership, as they lead and manage the complex interactions within and between micro, meso, macro, exon and chrono level systems (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). The paper then unpacks the comparative design and multi-perspective, multi-level approach to conducting research that enables multiple causalities, multiple perspectives, and multiple effects to be charted. The new ISSPP comparative methodology is grounded in four conceptual and methodological considerations. First, context in education is multidimensional and fluid – encompassing not only multi-layered social ecological systems of education, but also how such systems influence each other to bring about change in values and behaviour over time. Second, how context matters and finds its scholarly roots in educational researchers’ intellectual, disciplinary, and professional insights, as well as their positionality and reflexivity from sociocultural and sociopolitical insider/outsider perspectives. Third, assessing the comparability of educational systems, practices, processes, and outcomes both within and across countries matters. Fourth, our approach not only recognizes differences in world views, forms of knowledge and practices between different cultures but also recognizes the reality that there are also important similarities in how children are motivated to learn, how committed and enthusiastic teachers teach, and how successful leaders create and sustain the contextually relevant conditions and cultures for the learning and growth of all children and adults in their schools. The comparative analytical process, theoretical positioning, and comparative mixed methods provide a coherent but contextually sensitive data analysis approach. In so doing, the ISSPP project goes beyond the mainstream “models” to theorize educational leadership in contexts with complexities and multiple layers of dynamic influences and to inform comparative research methodology in the educational leadership field of the future.

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Harvard university press.

Purpose This paper is a meta-synthesis of 20 years evidence about successful school leadership practices across nine countries. Specifically, this study answers the following four questions: • How was success defined in different contexts? • What were the successful principalship practices (SPPs) in relation to contexts? • How did national and local external and school contexts influence SPPs? • How did the above-mentioned phenomena vary over the years? Theoretical Perspectives This review began with the framework used by Leithwood and Day in their 2007 review of ISSPP publications, along with a coding scheme developed from that framework. The coding scheme has evolved as new findings emerged. These findings suggest the need for a more complex framework to illustrate the results, hence the adoption of Bronfenbrenner's ecological system theory (1979) and complexity theory (Morrison, 2010) as the theoretical perspectives. Methods Evidence for the review was provided by eighty-five articles and twenty-three chapters emanating from the International Successful School Principal Project (ISSPP) reporting 95 successful school cases from Australia, Cyprus, Israel, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Spain, the UK, and the USA. The study attempts to unpack the complexity in principal’s leadership and adds to our knowledge of how principals achieve and sustain student success in different national, local, and school contexts and over time by examining high-quality case study evidence from the largest, longest-running international research project in this field. We adopted the meta-ethnography technique (Noblit & Hare, 1988; Major & Savin-Baden, 2011) for this review. Findings Successful principals across all jurisdictions share common sets of core educational values, qualities, and practices, but enact these in different ways and over different time periods during their tenure according to context sensitive, context responsive judgements they make. Their efforts build academic culture, disciplinary climate, collective instructional capacity, collective leadership capacity, positive emotions, and ecological resilience of the school. Significance There has been a lack of robust reporting from qualitative studies on the relationship between contexts and school leadership. This paper aims to address this gap by reporting the patterns of how successful principals implement common leadership practices in different contexts, external and international contexts influence on them, and the strategies they use over time and in different phases. These findings provide guidance for practitioners and policy makers about professional development for principals focused on developing successful principalship practices common across many contexts and varied practices in response to different contexts and status of schools.

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Harvard university press. Morrison, K. (2010). Complexity theory, school leadership and management: Questions for theory and practice. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 38(3), 374-393. Noblit, W. G. & Hare, D. R. (1988), Meta-ethnography: Synthesizing qualitative studies. SAGE. Savin-Baden, M., & Major, C. H. (2007). Using interpretative meta-ethnography to explore the relationship between innovative approaches to learning and their influence on faculty understanding of teaching. Higher Education, 54(6), 833–852.

Purpose. The purpose of the paper is to contribute to insights about successful school principalship in a Norwegian context. The paper draws specific attention to the role of values and trust. Norway has a strong ideological tradition based on ideas of inclusivity and democratic values, and trust in professionals. The Norwegian school context is also characterized by local freedom by awarding greater autonomy to lower levels of governing, such as municipalities and local authorities. However, emerging accountability and quality assessment practices have characterized processes of change in the last two decades, and attention is increasingly being directed toward trusting what can be measured by results. The aim of this paper has been to examine how successful school principalship with a specific attention to values and trust is perceived and experienced by multiple actors in four case schools, identifying key socio-cultural, economic, and policy enabling and constraining factors. Theoretical framework. The ecological system theory of Bronfenbrenner (1979), and complexity theory (Morrison, 2010) serve as analytic framework, supplied with theory on leadership as practice (Wilkins & Kemmis, 2015) paying attention to the diverse arrangements which educational leaders are organizing through sayings, relatings, and doings for the benefits of student learning and wellbeing. Methods, Sampling, Data Sources, and Analysis. The study is multiple perspective and builds on the voices of principals, assistant principals, middle leaders, and students from four primary and secondary schools in Norway. The content analysis has been supplemented by a discourse analytical approach. Findings. The findings suggest that combined with trust in the profession, the values of students’ wellbeing connected with student learning and results are central factors in all the four cases. The involvement of multiple actors in school principalship seem to be an enabling factor, as well as designing well-functioning organizational structures. Constraining factors seem to be related to loose coupling in the school organization, especially in large upper secondary schools. Significance. The study is significant because it draws on data from Norwegian context. Norway has introduced of a new common curriculum in Norway which strengthens the consideration to values in education.

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Harvard university press. Morrison, K. (2010). Complexity theory, school leadership and management: Questions for theory and practice. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 38(3), 374-393. Wilkins, J. & Kemmis, S. (2015). Practice theory: viewing leadership as leading. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 47 (4): 342-58.

Purpose. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to theory and research about successful school principalship amidst contemporary complexities and uncertainties in the United States and beyond. The United States has recently experienced internal demographic shifts and global population migrations contributing to increased student diversity at tension with shifts toward increased commonality in curriculum and externalized evaluations. U.S. schools are also situated within a complex interplay among federal and state policies as well as a range of school and district contexts. Theoretical Framework. Ecological system theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1979) with complexity theory (Haggis, 2008, Morrison, 2010) serves as the theoretical underpinning for U.S. cases. Further, in light of the school and community contexts featured in the U.S. cases, data analysis is also informed by concepts from Bourdieu, namely habitus and cultural capital, and educational philosophy (e.g., Navajo indigenous philosophy). Methods The U.S. case studies in this paper utilize the ISSPP research methodology which was recently revised to include a comparative mixed methods approach to construct mixed methods case studies of schools in diverse cultural regions of the U.S, including Alabama, Arizona, Massachusetts, and Texas. Some research teams focus on public schools while others include religious schools; some schools are situated in districts that have tighter coupling with support within accountability mandates and district systems while others have more loose coupling whereby schools seek out programs and innovations on their own initiative. Data sources include semi-structured qualitative interviews with the district leaders, principal, teachers, parents, and students and school surveys in order to provide a more elaborated understanding of the phenomena i.e., school success and the principal’s leadership contribution to that success. Findings. Preliminary findings indicate the importance of values in students’ cultures, quality of life or wellbeing, and student growth and learning are common to the seven cases. Further, both principals developed teacher leadership capacity and collaborative structures to foster pedagogical changes, student learning, and academic outcomes. At the same time, the principals navigated and mediated rapid changes and tensions in demographics and policies at district, state, and federal levels. The principals’ personal and educational backgrounds contributed to the ways in which they balanced and mediated multiple influences and changes. The paper concludes with implications for research and leadership development. Significance. The study is significant because it features the U.S. context with its historical and contemporary complexities related to historical and contemporary inequities and compares to other national contexts.

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Harvard university press. Haggis, T. (2008). ‘Knowledge Must Be Contextual’: Some possible implications of complexity and dynamic systems theories for educational research. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 40 (1), 158-176. Morrison, K. (2010). Complexity theory, school leadership and management: Questions for theory and practice. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 38(3), 374-393.