Conference Agenda

This is a two-part symposium focussed on educational leadership preparation and development and draws upon research from members of the International School Leadership Development Network. The first part has four papers describing programs and ideas focussed on equity, inclusion and social justice, with the second part having four papers focussed on the future through discussion of exemplary existing programs and future trends. The papers in the symposium will eventually be published in an edited book along with other chapters.

School leadership is a priority in education policy internationally, as it plays the essential role in improving school outcomes by motivating teachers, building teacher capacities, and developing good school climate and conditions (Leithwood, Sun, & Schumacker, 2020). A major finding has been that effective educational leadership is important in enhancing quality and equity in schools (Pont, Nusche & Moorman, 2008; Kemethofer, Helm, & Warwas, 2022).

Schools in recent times have faced many challenges and there are many challenges ahead such as: the impact of the COVID pandemic; the rise of AI in schools; teacher shortages in many countries; and massive migration driven through refugee crises in many parts of the world. Along with environmental and humanitarian issues, we know that there is major issues to do with school quality and equity (United Nations, 2015).Leadership preparation development is crucial to building qualified and capable leaders for schools who can take responsibility for fostering students who can deal with the challenges of the world in the long run (Harris & Jones, 2020; Lozano, Garcia, & Sandoval, 2023).

In the face of these challenges, we think it is timely to have a futures focused discussion on educational leadership preparation and development. To facilitate this, we have reached out to members of the International School Leadership Development Network (ISLDN), one of the largest and longest serving international school leadership research networks, and through an interactive development process identified four broad areas of focus that will be covered through 14 papers:

- Teacher and middle leader preparation and development.

- Preparation and development of leadership for equity, inclusion and social justice

- School, community and university partnerships for leadership preparation and development.

- Leadership Training Programs for Future Leadership Development

For the two-part symposium at ECER, we have eight groups reporting on their research and writing.

Part A: School leadership preparation and development for equity, inclusion and social justice

Part B: Future focussed educational leadership preparation and development

This part is focussed on equity, inclusion and social justice, which have become important issues in recent decades and will continue to be the focus of social development globally through efforts such as UNESCO’s ambitious 2030 sustainable development goals (https://en.unesco.org/sustainabledevelopmentgoals). More research is needed to explore these areas in educational leadership development (Vogel, Reichard, Batistič, & Černe, 2021). In this symposium three papers directly address equity issues: Patricia Silva and colleagues describe the educational leadership preparation and development issues concerning social justice in the complex society context of Catalonia in Spain; Helene Ärlestig and Olof Johansson explore school leadership development in Sweden from a democracy perspective; and, Ian Potter explores leadership for equity in England and the Netherlands using the lenses of context and leader personality. The other paper do so but from a school-community partnership perspective with Alison Mitchell focussing on Scotland and a program that had school, community and university partnerships focussed on developing critically conscious school leaders and communities. All papers will consider implications for the future leadership preparation and development.

Leadership preparation is at a crossroads so that decisions taken now will have a lasting impact. One path is to continue education of managers who will develop skills to preserve the status quo. The other is to move toward transformative practices, address global issues, and adapt to a digital world that is becoming more diverse. Transformative leadership (Shields, 2017) and practices based on equity (Llorent-Bedmar, Cobano-Delgado & Navarro-Granados, 2019) are appropriate responses from school leaders and teachers to achieve an education that respects the rights of students. Leadership is presented as a practice full of challenges in the coming years. In a constantly changing world focused on the digital age (Navalpotro, 2023), globalization and diversity, school directors must be agile and have the ability to learn as priorities. Educational leadership preparation has acquired a fundamental role in defining future educational objectives, highlighting the skills and values necessary to face a society in constant evolution. Additionally, school leaders are expected to place inclusion and social justice at the center of their professional practices (Slater, Antúnez, Silva, 2021; Silva, Antúnez, Slater, 2022), promoting an environment where the voices of all stakeholders of the educational community are heard, and where sustainability and social responsibility are essential topics, along with the well-being of people and the preservation of the planet. These challenges require school leaders to develop increasingly specific competencies and maintain an open mind to address them. (Slater, Antúnez, Silva, 2021). The paper describes, analyzes, and interprets the professional practices of managers that focus attention on leadership preparation for the cultural and linguistic rights of students, as well as social justice and inclusion. Qualitative data provided by families, teachers and directors who work in highly complex schools in Catalonia are used. Preparation includes best practices of educational leaders, the organizational and didactic strategies implemented to serve students and their families in situations of vulnerability The role of directors and obstacles that they confront are identified to move towards an increasingly inclusive school. In line with Santos-Rego (2014) and Martínez, Fernández and de La Peña (2016), the importance of reviewing and using alternative, particular, and varied organizational models is highlighted to serve children and their families more efficiently.

Llorent-Bedmar, V., Cobano-Delgado, V., & Navarro-Granados, M. (2019). School leadership in disadvantaged contexts in Spain: Obstacles and improvements. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 47(1), 147-164. Martínez-Usarralde, M. J., Fernández-García, C. M., & Ayala-De La Peña, A. (2016). Yo acojo, tú agrupas, ella compensa": Análisis comparado de la política de integración del alumnado inmigrante en tres Comunidades Autónomas, Revista Complutense de Educación, 27(3), 1103. Navalpotro, J. (2023) Cero Grados: La dirección escolar en la era de la inteligencia artificial. Madrid: Edición Fundación Mecenas Educación y Cultura. Santos-Rego, M.A., Julia Crespo- Comesaña, J., Lorenzo-Moledo M., Godas- Otero, A. (2012) Escuelas e inmigración en España ¿es inevitable la segregación? Cultura y Educación, 24 (2), 193-205. Shields, C. (2017). Transformative leadership in education: Equitable and socially just change in an uncertain and complex world. Routledge. Silva, P., Antúnez, S., & Slater C.L. (2020). Towards Social Justice in Highly Complex Schools in Catalonia, Spain. Educational Management Administration and Leadership, 49(2), 336-351. Slater, C. L., Antúnez, S., & Silva, P. (2021). Social justice leadership in Spanish schools: Researcher perspectives. Leadership and Policy in Schools Journal, 20(1), 111-126

In almost all societies schools are seen as an important base for transferring knowledge and values on how today´s society works and develop from one generation to the next. To go to school is considered as an opportunity for the individual student to require knowledge and skills to be able to make individual choices and prepare enough skills for a coming employment or occupation. At the same time, we see research report describing schools with problems to attract students, competent teachers and get enough economical founding to support and meet the needs of all students. Besides transferring individual competence and skills, schools have an important task to foster citizens in relation to national policy and culture. Schools plays in that sense an important role in how the national state is understood and valued. Right now, there is globally an increased focus on nationalism with stricter border controls and a stricter view on what to teach in relation to the own countries history and todays governance systems and policy. At the same time, we have global problems related to climate change, war, and organized crime that affects all societies in one way or the other. New technology and AI opens possibilities that we have not seen before. Taken together national and global events and processes change culture, values and norms which directly impact schools and the younger generation. With these issues, we believe that future schooling needs to focus on sensemaking, values and ethics to meet coming challenges where the ambition to sustain and build democratic citizens are crucial. This requires that school leaders generate schools that combine academic learning with issues related to how we interact and work together as individuals as well as organizations and nations. A school where being together, and experience various perspective can build new generations that see the importance of cooperation to meet mutual challenges. This paper is a commentary that explores these issues and the leadership we will argue for is an authentic value-based leadership for democratic improvement focusing on creating an understanding and balance between individual and public good.

Ärlestig, H., Day, C., & Johansson, O. (2016). A decade of research on school principals: Cases from 24 countries. Dordrecht: Springer. Johansson, O., & Bredeson, P. V. (1999). Value orchestration by the policy community for the learning community: Reality or myth. In P. T. Begley (Ed.), alues and educational leadership (pp. 51–72). Albany: State University of New York Press. Johansson, O., & Ärlestig, H. (2019). Bringing Support Structures to Scale: The Role of the State and School Districts, Umeå University, Centre for Principal Development.

This paper explores the increasing imperative of political acuity in contemporary school principalship and the implications therein for professional development that will prepare school leaders to leverage social, political and technological dynamics that threaten future democratic education (Norris, 2023). Political literacy, as a leadership attribute, is promoted in many systems globally (GTCS, 2021), increasingly so through the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic that heightened and exposed political and systemic injustices. Amidst global turbulence, the development of politically literate principals, who will lead with cognizance of the extent to which educational policy can perpetuate intersectional inequalities, is essential. In short, the world needs principals with the courage and capacity to act as empowered contributors to future local and global policy trajectories (Brooks & Normore, 2010), especially if they are to help reconcile fundamental tensions within education policy and governance structures that privilege performativity or undermine democracy. This chapter is structured in three sections. First, it offers a critical review of contemporary literature around the preparation and development of political literacy in principalship, as a compelling objective to support a more democratic, stable and sustainable educational future. Second, the chapter presents data from a case study research-practice, (university/district) partnership: the Enhanced Political Cognizance program for aspirant school principals in Scotland. Enhanced Political Cognizance was designed to strengthen school leaders’ critical understandings and interrogations of the political foundations of education and social policy, developing the courage and capacity to advance and enact positive social change (Lash & Sanchez, 2022; Magill & Rodriguez, 2022) through their leadership praxis in and beyond their communities. While the Enhanced Political Cognizance program was evaluated positively, the individual leaders still wrested with contextual applications of their learning, which required personal courage, reflexivity and understanding of the “political nature in which they, their privilege and their institutions are positioned” (MacDonald, 2023, p. 2). The chapter concludes with reflections on the tensions experienced in enactment of political acuity in the case study system, the importance of practical application of academic learning through research-practice partnerships and implications therein for education leadership preparation and development globally, if we are to reimagine a democratic and sustainable educational future (Carney, 2022).

Brooks, J. S., & Normore, A. H. (2010). Educational leadership and globalization: Literacy for a glocal perspective. Educational policy, 24(1), 52-82. Carney, K. (2022). Review of Reimagining our futures together: a new social contract for education: by UNESCO, Comparative Education, 58(4), 568–569. GTCS. (2021). GTC Professional Standards for Teachers. [online] Available at: https://www.gtcs.org.uk/professional-standards/professional-standards-for-teachers Lash, C.L. and Sanchez, J.E. (2022). Leading for equity with critical consciousness: how school leaders can cultivate awareness, efficacy, and critical action. The Clearing house: a Journal of Educational strategies, issues and ideas, 95(1), 1-6. MacDonald, K. (2023). Social justice leadership practice in unjust times: leading in highly disadvantaged contexts, International Journal of Leadership in Education, 26:1, 1-17, DOI: 10.1080/13603124.2020.1770866 Magill, K. R., & Rodriguez, A. (2022). Intellectual leadership for social justice. Journal of Educational Administration and History, 1-22. Norris, T. (2023). Educational futures after COVID-19: Big tech and pandemic profiteering versus education for democracy. Policy Futures in Education, 21(1), 34-57. Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) (2021). Into the Future: Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence, Paris: OECD.

The aim of this presentation and paper is to explore the traits of leadership for social justice, drawing on the work to date within the International School Leadership Development Network (ISLDN), and referring to James et al’s (2017) writings on Ego States. In doing so, an argument will develop about the implications of this thinking for leadership preparation and development for school leaders and how such contemplations need to be contextualised. The paper has 6 parts as follows: 1. Introduction to the leadership for equity, drawing on the ISLDN literature on Social Justice Leadership and my own thinking around conceptualising equity 2. Introduction to the lens of Ego States in understanding how the personal psychology of a leader impacts on their disposition and approach to leadership. 3. An acknowledgement and consideration of the contextual factors that need to be brought to bear on analysing leadership behaviours. This is in order to recognise diversity of situation across the globe and cultural sensitivities are required when evaluating practice. 4. An exploration of case studies in two countries, providing empirical evidence from England and the Netherlands, where leadership for inclusive practices are examined. These case studies are from the ISLDN. 5. The perspectives framed in parts 1 - 3 above will inform a discussion of the data presented in part 4. 6. Implications for leadership preparation and development will be extrapolated and concluding recommendations made. Contributions to knowledge include: ● An intersectionality of psychology and sociological perspectives ● Bringing the concepts of equity and inclusion to the fore when exploring the notion of social justice leadership ● Comparing and contrasting two ‘European’ case studies of policy and practice in schools, and in doing so illuminating the contextual sensitivities when discussing ‘effective’ school leadership ● Providing some evidence-informed theoretical advice for school leadership preparation and development.

James, C., James, J. S. & Potter, I., (2017). An exploration of the validity and potential of adult ego development for enhancing understanding of school leadership, School Leadership and Management, 37(4), 372-390.