32. Organizational Education
Paper
Managing Uncertainties in Science Teacher Education Networks Through Organizational Routines
Karina Kiær1, Thomas R.S. Albrechtsen2, Tina Maria Brinks3
1UCSYD & SDU, Denmark; 2UCSYD, Denmark; 3SDU, Denmark
Presenting Author: Kiær, Karina;
Albrechtsen, Thomas R.S.
A core focus in Organizational Education is on organizational learning (Göhlich et al., 2018). We believe, that to understand learning in, by and between organizations it is also of significance to understand the dynamics of organizational routines (Becker, 2018; Kallemeyn, 2014). Early conceptualizations of organizational routines have concentrated on members following rules or standard operating procedures allowing organizations to cope with uncertainty and enable effective decision-making. As Elkjær (2018, p. 156) says about this position on learning through routines: “These standardized procedures are a central element in organizational learning, because it is through the search for solutions to problems that the standardized procedures may change and make ways for new routines. It is when organizations are able to rely on their routines without initiating search and learning processes that the organization has learned”. For more than 20 years there has been a development in the research field now described as Routine Dynamics. Many researchers in this tradition build on practice theory and process theory (Feldman et al., 2021; Howard-Grenville & Rerup, 2016). It is still limited how much the insights from Routine Dynamics have been applied in educational research in general and in research on educational organizations more specific, but we find some great potentials here (Merki et al., 2023; Wolthuis et al., 2022). The purpose of our paper is to discuss this potential applied to the understanding of how a national network of science teacher educators between different organizations is emerging and stabilizing. The creation of routines can be viewed as a “quest for certainty” or a way to manage and absorb the uncertainties emerging between organizations. Organizational routines establish expectations and anticipations for future actions (Feldman et al., 2022). Routines are dynamic and ongoing accomplishments. When routines break down or the unexpected happens members of the organization find ways to make sense of the situation in their performances and recreate the routines. We find it especially interesting to understand how this kind of organizing and coordination of such complex educational networks is done in practice.
The background of the paper is a 4-year longitudinal study (2023-2026) of an emerging interorganizational network of professional learning communities (PLCs) in the field of science teacher education in Denmark called Naturfagsakademiet (NAFA) (English translation: Danish Academy of Natural Sciences: https://nafa.nu/about-nafa/ ).The main objective of NAFA is to enhance knowledge sharing and knowledge creation among science teaching professionals at different educational levels, both teacher education and primary and lower secondary schools. A central part of this is the organizing of national and local PLCs at all the teacher education institutions on the six university colleges in Denmark. In NAFA a PLC is defined as a committed and systematic inquiring community between a group of educators, who share experiences and knowledge from practice through inquiry and reflective dialogues centered on students’ learning. We will use NAFA as a case to investigate the role of routines in managing uncertainties in network collaboration using concepts from Routine Dynamics as analytical lenses. The research question we want to explore in this paper is:
How can the application of concepts from Routine Dynamics contribute to the analysis and understanding of the management of uncertainties between educational organizations?
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThe research project is a longitudinal study and consists of an ethnographic part and social network analysis (SNA) part. The ethnographic part is investigating how routines in NAFA are enacted in different settings such as PLC meetings both online and physical (Neale, 2021; Ybema et al., 2009). The SNA part of the study examines the network structure of the PLCs in and between the university colleges. It is informed by both qualitative and quantitative data (Froehlich et al., 2020). Data from surveys are used in the SNA and will focus on observing analytical themes such as centrality, relationships between weak and strong ties, and holes within networks (Borgatti & Halgin, 2011). The SNA will zoom in on the collaboration within the network of PLCs in NAFA.
The empirical data we analyze in our presentation on the conference will be in the form of snapshots from this longitudinal study. We have collected different empirical data since the beginning of 2023 focusing, among other things, on the PLC meeting routines. In our presentation we will especially analyze and discuss videorecorded online meetings on the Teams platform to identify communication concerning the management of uncertainty and the negotiations of routines. From a process theoretical perspective we analyze how the members reflect on both the distant past and the distant future in the situated activity of the meeting as part of making sense of the network routines (Hernes & Schultz, 2020). The concepts from Routine Dynamics we will apply in our study for analyzing how members of NAFA are managing uncertainties in the network are part of a broader framework for understanding routines as an interplay between patterning and performing (Feldman et al., 2022). The concept of patterning means the process of reinforcing old and creating new patterns by taking action (p. 4). The way this process is performed will have implications on the expansions or contractions of future possible paths. Using the analytical concepts of repairing routines, expanding routines and striving for change proposed by Feldman (2000) and the corresponding concepts of flexing, stretching and inventing of routines developed by Deken et al. (2016) we show how change and continuity – and the unexpected and the expected – are part of NAFA and the way uncertainties between the participating organizations are managed.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsSome of our preliminary results from our study show the following:
In the NAFA network there has been decided to work with core themes in science education in and between the participating university colleges. In the NAFA program six themes are predefined over the whole period. Each year in May a new theme is launched, e.g. evaluation or technological ‘Bildung’. The theme period ends in March, where all PLCs meet on a network meeting and present their different ways of working with the theme. The themes are points of orientation and each PLC should be working with this theme and not others. Uncertainties emerge here in the form of how to finish and continue with elements from one theme in the transition to a new theme. This creates a need for expanding and stretching existing routines.
In our analysis we find different forms of artifacts used in the NAFA network to absorb uncertainty. These artifacts influence and represent the different PLC-routines in NAFA. They are circulating between the six university colleges. We find examples of how artifacts – such as reports and documents – are used to repair routines when something breaks down, because these are used as a kind of collective memory to show what has been decided earlier in the distant past. On the other hand, new artifacts are developed in the network in form a written agreements pointing to expectations for actions taking place in the distant future. In such cases artifacts help in the striving for change and the invention of new routines in the network. Artifacts are also paramount for enabling the PLC meetings between the university colleges such as the Microsoft Teams platform that limits uncertainties on where to meet.
ReferencesBecker, M. C. (2018). Organizational Routines and Organizational Learning. In L. Argote & J. M. Levine (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Group and Organizational Learning (pp. 507-520). Oxford University Press.
Borgatti, P. S., & Halgin, S. D. (2011). On Network Theory. Organization Science, 22(5), 1168-1181.
Deken, F., Carlile, R. P., Berends, H., & Lauche, K. (2016). Generating Novelty Through Interdependent Routines: A Process Model of Routine Work. Organization Science, 27(3), 659-677.
Elkjær, B. (2018). Pragmatist Foundations for Organizational Education. In M. Göhlich, A. Schröer, & S. M. Weber (Eds.), Handbuch Organisationspädagogik (pp. 151-161). Springer.
Feldman, M. S., Pentland, B. T., D'Adderio, L., Dittrich, K., Rerup, C., & Seidl, D. (Eds.). (2021). Cambridge Handbook of Routine Dynamics. Cambridge University Press.
Feldman, M. S., Worline, M., Baker, N., & Bredow, V. L. (2022). Continuity as patterning: A process perspective on continuity. Strategic Organization, 20(1).
Feldman, S. M. (2000). Organizational Routines as a Source of Continuous Change. Organization Science, 11(6), 611-629.
Froehlich, E. D., Waes, V. S., & Schäfer, H. (2020). Linking Quantitative and Qualitative Network Approaches: A Review of Mixed Methods Social Network Analysis in Education Research. Review of Research in Education, 44(1), 244-268.
Göhlich, M., Novotny, P., Revsbæk, L., Schröer, A., Weber, S. M., & Yi, B. J. (2018). Research Memorandum Organizational Education. Studia paedagogica, 23(2), 205-215.
Hernes, T., & Schultz, M. (2020). Translating the Distant into the Present: How actors address distant past and future events through situated activity. Organization Theory, 1(1).
Howard-Grenville, J., & Rerup, C. (2016). A Process Perspective on Organizational Routines. In A. Langley & H. Tsoukas (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Process Organization Studies (pp. 323-337). SAGE.
Kallemeyn, M. L. (2014). School-level organizational routines for learning: supporting data use. Journal of Educational Administration, 52(4), 529-548.
Merki, M. K., Wullschleger, A., & Rechsteiner, B. (2023). Adapting routines in schools when facing challenging situations: Extending previous theories on routines by considering theories on self-regulated and collectively regulated learning. Journal of Educational Change, 24(3), 583-604.
Neale, B. (2021). The Craft of Qualitative Longitudinal Research. SAGE.
Wolthuis, F., Hubers, M. D., Veen, K. v., & Vries, S. d. (2022). The Concept of Organizational Routines and Its Potential for Investigating Educational Initiatives in Practice: A Systematice Review of the Literature. Review of Educational Research, 92(2), 249-287.
Ybema, S., Yanow, D., Wels, H., & Kamsteeg, F. (Eds.). (2009). Organizational Ethnography: Studying the Complexities of Everyday Life. SAGE.
32. Organizational Education
Paper
Functioning of Multi-Academy Trusts (MATs) in England: Evidence from the field
Trevor Male
UCL IOE, United Kingdom
Presenting Author: Male, Trevor
Since 2002 the UK government has pursued a policy of granting ‘academy’ status to state-funded schools in England to become independent and free of local authority (LA) control. The original idea, formulated by the New Labour government elected in 1997, was to improve the quality of schools in deprived urban areas by establishing academies answerable directly to the Secretary of State for Education. Although there had been previous attempts to liberate state-funded schools from local government, notably the establishment of Grant Maintained Schools by the Education Reform Act 1988, LAs remained in control of governance. The notion of an ‘academy’ broke that mould and gave licence for alternative modes of provision and governance.
Academies are established as charitable (not-for-profit) companies, limited by guarantee, with a stated intent to be independent and autonomous. Each academy’ s governance structure included Members (who act in a similar way to the shareholders of a company and invested with the power to change the name of the company or wind it up). It is the role of members to endorse and safeguard the trust’s Memorandum of Association, to have an overview of the governance arrangements, to appoint other members and to add or remove trustees from the trust board. ‘Trustee’ is the name given to a member of the board of directors with responsibility for directing the trust’s affairs, for ensuring that it is solvent, well-run and delivering the expected charitable outcomes. The day-to-day management of an academy was to be conducted by the headteacher and their senior management team.
Despite concerted efforts to promote this policy through three successive Labour governments, there were only 207 academies in England in 2010 at the time a new coalition government was elected. The incoming Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove, was determined to end the latent power of LAs and sanctioned academisation as a fundamental principle of state-funded schooling. Rapid growth followed and by November 2023 there were 10,553 open academies, a total which included Free Schools, Studio Schools, University Technical Colleges, Special Schools and Pupil Referral Units (DfE, 2023).
The academisation process made a substantive shift during the following years away from single academy trusts to the establishment of multi-academy trusts (MATs) which lead groups of academies. Within MATs one academy trust is responsible for a master funding agreement, typically with a supplemental funding agreement for each academy. MATs have subsequently become a core feature of policy for state-funded school provision in England with governmental ambition still set at full academisation of the school systems, ideally by 2030. By November 2023 there were 1178 MATs, the vast majority of which have over three schools/settings, which manage 89 per cent of all academies.
One consequence of this process is a radical change in the relationships between stakeholders. Academies in MATs no longer have the right a governing body as the legal decision-making forum which is representative of their locality, headteachers are no longer the key actor on individual academy resources and practices and the influence of the local authority has been severely curtailed. Prior to 2002 each state-funded school In England was required to have its own governing body which demonstrated a balance between LEAs, parents and the teacher workforce. Their devolved budget from the local authority at that time included most recurrent expenditure, including staffing. The MAT now has total control over governance, with trustees determining policy and resource allocation. The reality if often not so stark, however, with most MATs having democratic approaches to individual academy provision. Nevertheless, relationships and the roles have been fundamentally changed.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThe purpose of this research undertaken and reported here is to investigate how MATs function and, in particular, the relationships between those not only prominent in the governance structure (Members, Trustees and employed senior leaders), but also school governors and individual academy staff.
Two research questions were developed from previous research by the author (Male, 2017, 2018 & 2019).
1. What operating structures and systems are evident in MATs?
2. How do participants (members, trustees, trust employees and local governing committees) perceive the effectiveness, efficacy and equity of those structures?
The data to be reported to this conference comes from the use of a questionnaire developed on Microsoft forms. The process of developing and trialling the survey began with a series of interviews undertaken with stakeholders during March 2023. Nine participants from MAT #1, including a Member, a trustee, two central trust employees, three headteachers and a school governor engaged in a semi-structured interview, conducted via Microsoft Teams, to questions developed through extensive literature reviews and previous author research. Analysis allowed for the development of a questionnaire which was piloted in June 2023 in MAT #2 with a trustee, two central trust employees (including the CEO), three headteachers and a school governor.
The pilot questionnaire and subsequent versions employed single answer questions for demographic data and Likert style questions with a standard five-point scale for the agree-disagree continuum (with a neutral point) which explored opinions of MAT operations and communications.
After feedback from participants in Trust #2, amendments were made to the questionnaire which was then issued to four further MATs. MAT#1 had 135 total responses; MAT#2 had 126 total responses; MAT#3 had 106 total responses; MAT#4 had 105 total responses. In all four sets it was clear that further amendments were needed as some respondents misunderstood the position of Member. Nevertheless, valid remaining survey responses were analysed and fed back to the four MATs.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsAt the time of this proposal being submitted the revised final survey is now being circulated to multiple MATs across England. The emerging data will be analysed and first reported to the ECER Conference in Nicosia. This will be the first set of independent data which explores the functioning of MATs in England. Until now, the move to academisation (and MATs) has been based on an ‘ideological stance’ and not on secure evidence (Male, 2022: 332). Various, often disputed, claims have been made by the Department for Education about the efficiency, efficacy and equity of MATs, but there has been no independent enquiry. The research to be reported here may bring some light to the situation experienced in practice by stakeholders in MATs.
ReferencesDepartment for Education (DfE), 2023 (November). Open academies, free schools, university technical colleges (UTCs) and studio schools and academy projects awaiting approval. Accessed 17 January 2024.
Male, T. (2017). Leadership issues in emerging multi-academy trusts (MATs). Paper presented to European Conference for Educational Research, Copenhagen (August).
Male, T. (2018). School governance and academisation in England. Paper presented to Commonwealth Council for Educational Administration and Management (CCEAM) conference – Malta, November
Male, T. (2019). Governance in multi-academy trusts (MATs) - Evidence from the field. Paper presented at European Conference for Educational Research, Hamburg, September.
Male, T. (2022). The rise and rise of academy trusts: Continuing changes to the state-funded school system in England. School Leadership and Management, 42(4), 313-333.
Ofsted. (2019). Multi-academy trusts: Benefits, challenges and functions. Accessed 17 January 2024.
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