26. Educational Leadership
Paper
Project Teams: Exploring Distributed Leadership in Russian Schools
Marina Tsatrian1, Konstantin Seregin2
1HSE University; 2HSE University
Presenting Author: Tsatrian, Marina;
Seregin, Konstantin
Distributed leadership is considered one of the most effective approaches to leading a school, as this approach assumes that management is not concentrated in the hands of one person - the school principal but goes beyond the boundaries of the school management team and extends to the school staff. There have been various studies on distributed leadership and its effects on the student learning outcomes all over the world. Our research focuses on the phenomenon of project teams as one of the forms of distributed leadership which started to emerge in schools of Moscow (Benoliel, 2021; Moiseev, 2021). In fact, large scale reorganisation of schools that took place in Moscow (launched in 2012) has lead to major shift and changes in the educational landscape and made impossible to lead the school the same way as before. Today about 80% of schools in Moscow have 5 and more buildings (the biggest school has 22 buildings), which poses new challenges for school principals and raises the question of rethinking the role of the principal.
The major debate and question arises: whether leading a school is solely a principal's task or it should involve deputies, teachers etc. as well (Benoliel, 2021)? The concept of distributed leadership assumes that a principal involves school members in leadership. What is more, such leadership is not confined to deputies but involves teaching staff as well (Azorín, Harris & Jones, 2019). In other words, new leadership roles are appearing at schools. Research shows that the emergence of “middle leaders'' in schools has a positive effect on both the educational outcomes of students and the work of teachers (Gurr, 2023).
Bush & Glover (2014, cited in Benoliel, 2021) claim that successful schools build their leadership via creating and developing interdisciplinary teams. The teams work on solving particular school issues which can be related to pedagogical issues as well as administrative. Emergence of the teams has a positive impact on school improvement as well as on the teachers’ involvement and motivation (Lu & Hallinger, 2018) Such teams allow principals to cover the taks, issues which could not be covered by school management team alone and at the same time are significant for improving students’ outcomes.
However, Hall, Gunter, and Bragg (2012) argue that often distributed leadership, delegation of decision-making, turns out to be a facade, an illusion created by the school management team. The question arises: are middle leaders truly included in leading a school and have their “say” in decision-making? If not, what is their main task? What purpose are teams created at school for?
Our team has lead a case-study research on project teams in schools of Moscow to find out the reasons behind emergence of the teams and to answer the following research questions:
What role do project teams play in school management? What issues do they address or focus on?
What does the organizational structure of schools with project teams look like?
What is the role of a school principal in relation to these teams?
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThe research aims at unpacking 5 cases of schools where this approach to distributing leadership was implemented. Convenience sampling was used to define the schools for the studies. The final sample comprised 5 schools of different sizes (schools having from 1840 - 5421 students, 8-18 buildings) and from different parts of Moscow (Tab. 1). The schools were in different stages of implementation of the approach in leading the school. In this way, three schools were developing project teams over years (4-7 years), while two other schools just launched the approach and were testing it.
School
Quantity of buildings (campuses)
Overall quantity of students
When project teams approach was implemented
The studies involved:
- analysis of Moscow educational system;
- analysis of the context of each school;
- interviews with principals, deputies, leaders of project teams and members of project teams. In other words we interviewed all the parties involved in project teams, because it was crucial to analyze the role of project teams through different lenses. During the interview principals were also asked to draw the organisational structure with project teams. Studies involved analysis of school documentation (project teams proposal templates and other documentation),
- in some schools we managed to participate in project proposal procedure and the final project listening (where teams were showing their results).
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThe research unpacked various strategies of leading a school using the project team approach. The organisational structure and the role of project teams in school management differed in schools as the purposes and prerequisites for their emergence differed as well. In all five cases, principals emphasized the importance of project teams in talent search and viewed them as a platform for the professional development of staff. However, it was not the main goal for many of them. Principals pursued different purposes: for some, it was seen as the only mechanism to distribute leadership and address school issues, while for others, it served as a means of quality assurance and staff retention. The research also highlighted changes in the role of the principal depending on the stage of implementation.
ReferencesBolden, R. (2011). Distributed leadership in organizations: A review of theory and research. International journal of management reviews, 13(3), 251-269.
Benoliel, P. (2021). A team-based perspective for school improvement: The mediating role of school management teams. Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, 14(2), 442-470.
Lu, J., & Hallinger, P. (2018). A mirroring process: from school management team cooperation to teacher collaboration. Leadership and Policy in Schools, 17(2), 238-263.
Moiseev, A. M. (2021). School project teams: creation, activities, support.
26. Educational Leadership
Paper
Distributed Leadership in Spanish Schools to Face Difficult Circumstances
Sandra Fernández-Núñez, Julián López-Yáñez, Marita Sánchez-Moreno
Universidad de Sevilla, Spain
Presenting Author: Fernández-Núñez, Sandra
Taken the results and conclusions of two case studies, the paper analyzes and discuss the differences and similarities of the way distributed leadership is promoted by the management teams of two successful secondary schools located in socioeconomically disadvantaged urban contexts (Hallinger, 2018; Moral-Santaella & Raso-Sánchez, 2023). These two schools face difficult circumstances, serving a population with low prerequisites and high ethnic and cultural diversity. However, in both cases, we can speak of success because the management team has been able to care for and to improve the well-being of their educational community without giving up on demanding the best possible academic results of their students. Their common goal is that the majority of students get the maximum benefits, in a broad sense, from their years spent at the school (Day et al., 2016). The study was conducted following the theoretical framework and research protocols of the International School Successful Principalship Project (ISSPP), a project that has conducted case studies on successful school trajectories in more than 25 countries for more than 20 years, identifying the role of school leadership in school success (Day et al., 2022).
Our study focuses on the management teams´ achievements and strategies of the two schools, rather than on the individual role of their principals. The 'management team' is a collegiate school management body with a long tradition in the Spanish educational system (Pérez-García et al., 2018). As the general roles and responsibilities of the management team are set by law, they are common to all schools; however, each school adjusts its internal functioning and its relationship with the other governance bodies to the specific context needs and organizational culture. These two schools also take advantage of the formal aspects of the regulatory macro-system, although they transform and adapt them to implement their own management strategy (Leithwood et al., 2020). What interests us in this study is to show how two different styles of organizing the management team can lead their respective schools to relative success in highly challenging contexts. The theoretical framework that underlies our conclusions focuses on leadership as a distributed phenomenon (Harris et al., 2022); the role of middle leadership (Bennett et al., 2007; Harris et al., 2019) in the Spanish educational system; and the specific organizational conditions affecting schools located in challenging contexts (González-Falcón et al., 2020).
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThe two secondary schools are state-owned (public schools) and both are located in impoverished urban areas with a high level of immigrants from countries outside the European Union (Morocco, Pakistan, Latin American countries). They serve families with limited economic resources, limited employment opportunities and low educational level, which represents a high risk of reproducing their precarious situation in their children. Diamantino Secondary is placed in Seville, Andalusia, while Migracions Secondary (anonymized) is located in Badalona, Catalunya.
The chosen methodology is the case study, which has been conducted using the recently redesigned multilevel perspective of the ISSPP project. The project protocols were updated in 2022, and translated and adapted to the characteristics of the Spanish educational system. This is a qualitative analysis methodology that collects information through primary and complementary instruments including the following:
For primary data (a) a questionnaire addressed to teachers; (b) semi-structured individual interviews with members of the management team, teachers and other agents from the internal and external school context (e.g. inspection supervisor, municipal education officer, etc); (c) group interviews with other members of the educational community (students and families); and (d) non-participant observation of the management team's day-to-day activities. For complementary data, the following documents were consulted among others: general annual plans; annual reports and other official school documents; inspection reports; reports on approved evaluation indexes; news published by the school or about the school.
Data analysis started with the transcription of the interviews. After transcription we proceeded with the process of coding the qualitative data by assigning labels that represent different themes. These themes or categories were elaborated both inductively and deductively, which allowed an in-depth analysis of each case and a comparative analysis of both cases. The information obtained from the interviews have been triangulated with data from the questionnaire addressed to the teachers and with the complementary sources of information.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsLeadership distribution is carried out under patterns that can be very different from school to school, so the scope and the agents involved can vary greatly. At Diamantino Secondary, the management team leaves a significant margin of autonomy to the school departments, and so to the respective heads. This way of managing motivates a broad involvement of the teaching staff in decision making (García-Martínez & Martín-Romera, 2019). The case is different at Migracions Secondary, where the management team is more reluctant to distribute leadership among other school community agents. However, relationships are completely horizontal among the members, and their roles are interchangeable. Strategic decisions are made primarily by the team, although, once made, the reasoning and communication to the rest of the faculty is detailed and transparent (Or & Berkovich, 2023), which facilitates their acceptance.
Besides, Diamantino serves the very high diversity of its students by organizing homogeneous but flexible groups in terms of academic performance, and by providing pedagogic and methodological resources to teachers who need them and want to apply them. The management team is responsible for maintaining groups with an ideal composition to facilitate learning, as well as to avoid disruptive behavior. By contrast, at Migracions the management of diversity is transferred to a team of course-level coordinators and, at the same time, the tutorial action is reinforced in order to offer a more personalized and direct attention to the students.
Both teams achieve, although by means of different strategies, a general climate of trust and collaboration in which both teachers and students participate (López-Yáñez & Sánchez-Moreno, 2021). In both cases the leadership scheme allows flexibility and encourages adaptation, including mechanisms and opportunities for reviewing the effects of their decisions. Thus, the management team might change its strategy to achieve the needed positive impact.
ReferencesBennett, N., Woods, P., Wise, C., & Newton, W. (2007). Understandings of middle leadership in secondary schools: A review of empirical research. School Leadership and Management, 27(5), 453–470, https://doi.org/10.1080/13632430701606137.
Day, C., Gu, Q., & Sammons, P. (2016). The Impact of Leadership on Student Outcomes: How Successful School Leaders Use Transformational and Instructional Strategies to Make a Difference. Educational Administration Quarterly, 52(2), 221–258. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013161X15616863.
Day, C., Sun, J., & Grice, C. (2023). Research on successful school leadership. In R.J. Tierney, F. Rizvi, and K. Ercikan, International Encyclopedia of Education (Fourth Edition) pp. 62-72, Elsevier, https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-818630-5.05024-7.
García-Martínez, I., & Martín-Romera, A. (2019). Promoting the pedagogical coordination through the middle leadership in secondary education. A systematic review. Bordón. Revista de Pedagogía, 71(2), 55–70. https://doi.org/10.13042/Bordon.2019.67324.
González-Falcón, I., García-Rodríguez, M. P., Gómez-Hurtado, I., & Carrasco-Macías, M. J. (2020). The importance of principal leadership and context for school success: insights from ‘(in)visible school.’ School Leadership and Management, 40(4), 248–265. https://doi.org/10.1080/13632434.2019.1612355.
Hallinger, P. (2018). Bringing context out of the shadows of leadership. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 46(1), 5–24. https://doi.org/10.1177/1741143216670652.
Harris, A., Jones, M., & Ismail, N. (2022). Distributed leadership: taking a retrospective and contemporary view of the evidence base. School Leadership & Management, 42(5), 438–456. https://doi.org/10.1080/13632434.2022.2109620.
Harris, A., Jones, M., Ismail, N., & Nguyen, D. (2019). Middle leaders and middle leadership in schools: exploring the knowledge base (2003–2017). School Leadership and Management, 39(3–4) 255–277, https://doi.org/10.1080/13632434.2019.1578738.
Leithwood, K., Harris, A., & Hopkins, D. (2020). Seven strong claims about successful school leadership revisited. School Leadership and Management, 40(1), 5–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/13632434.2019.1596077.
López-Yáñez, J., & Sánchez-Moreno, M. (2021). Network, community, organization. The school as the ecosystem of educational innovation. REICE. Revista Iberoamericana sobre Calidad, Eficacia y Cambio en Educación, 19(4), 31–54. https://doi.org/10.15366/reice2021.19.4.002.
Moral-Santaella, C., & Raso-Sánchez, F. (2023). The Meaning of Successful School Leadership in Disadvantaged Contexts in Spain: Approach from the International Successful School Principalship Project (ISSPP). Education Sciences, 13(10). https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13101007.
Or, M. H., & Berkovich, I. (2023). Participative decision making in schools in individualist and collectivist cultures: The micro-politics behind distributed leadership. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 51(3), 533–553. https://doi.org/10.1177/17411432211001364.
Pérez-García, P., López, C., & Bolívar, A. (2018). Efficacy of the Educational Leadership in the Spanish Context: The Perspective of Its Agents. NASSP Bulletin, 102(2), 141–160. https://doi.org/10.1177/0192636518774134
26. Educational Leadership
Paper
Transformational Potential in the Educational System: Distributed Leadership and Grassroots Innovations as Core Drivers of Change
Daria Tomasova1, Anastasia Andreeva2
1Higher School of Economics, Russian Federation; 2Higher School of Economics, Russian Federation
Presenting Author: Andreeva, Anastasia
Nowadays, the emergence of digital technologies has begun to radically reshape the institutional design of the educational sphere. At the same time, we witness a series of new demands for the educational sphere that arise due to labour market transformation, the demand for inclusiveness and bridging socio-economic gaps. As a result, the educational system still has additional potential for transformation.
We suppose that individual innovative projects or grassroots innovations can become an important development driver in the educational sphere under the conditions of limited resources and global challenges. Simultaneously, innovators in education often find themselves in a situation of resource shortage and high institutional pressure. They also tackle problems related to the lack of peer-to-peer support, as well as a lack of trust between different levels of management in the educational system (Niedlich et al, 2021). Another conjoint problem is the high degree of centralisation of the innovation policy in education [Wu, & Lin, 2020]. Global experience shows that exclusively unidirectional top-down transfer of initiatives through formal channels do not use the full potential of transformation innate to the educational system (Van den Boom-Muilenburg et al., 2022).
We seek to combine some of the issues discussed above in order to create the whole picture of how the landscape of education evolves. To discuss these issues we build upon the concept of grassroots innovations, and we combine it with the concept of distributed leadership to incorporate the aspect of co-creation by considering transformational potential in education. This theoretical lens presents a complex approach to explore when we have to link innovative push, institutional redesign, and urgent society demands in education to provide interactions between innovators and different stakeholders in the educational sphere.
First, we consider grassroots innovations as the initiatives embedded in the local context, they are closely linked to social initiatives. Another feature of grassroots innovation is that they often have a clear social impact and are launched as a response to social injustice and environmental problems (Raj, et al., 2022). A number of authors compare grassroots innovation with inclusive innovation - aimed at ensuring equal access to benefits for vulnerable categories (Tan, & Zuckermann, 2021). Thus, the potential of grassroots innovation relates to the speed and flexibility of responses to educational problems that public institutions cannot afford.
Second, we associate distributed leadership with the number of stakeholders’ viewpoints involved in the decision making process (Denis, et al. 2012) and with a plural leadership view on change (Canterino, et al., 2020). According to previous research, distributed leadership in education develop the professional capital and instructional capacity of teachers (Harris, & DeFlaminis, 2016), impact on teachers’ use of innovative practices (O'Shea, 2021), increase motivation for change, and contribute to more innovative solutions to school challenges (Snoek et al., 2019).
Consequently, public authorities in education need to behave less like traditional public bureaucracies and more like innovation animateurs, boosting new connections. To increase transformational potential, we should support collaboration and provide incentives for experimentation, encourage teachers, innovators and other stakeholders to become involved in educational change and to seize opportunities for diversification.
The aim of this study is to reveal how distributed leadership and community engagement provide necessary resources and expertise support for grassroots initiatives. We pose the following research questions:
-
To what extent may grassroots innovations be considered as a part of transformational potential within the educational system?
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Which formats of distributed leadership may support grassroots dynamism, fill the gaps, remove imbalances, and facilitate connections between different stakeholders in the educational space?
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What are the main impacts of community engagement on the sustainability, diffusion, and replication of grassroots innovations?
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThe empirical study is based on data obtained from the semi-structured interviews. Since the research was designed to study cooperative ties among innovators, the guides for the interviews covered the following topics. The first section contained items to elicit respondents' demographic information, including their professional status in the educational system, as well as the basic information about their innovative project in education. The second section contained items to reveal their motives and barriers for creating an educational project. The third section contained items to describe the exchange and dissemination of innovative ideas in the educational community, the stable and temporary partnerships, and the channels that innovators use to obtain resources, information and expertise.
In total, we established 4 different guides for different types of respondents.
The research setting chosen for the study consisted of teachers and administrators in schools, regional authorities in the educational sphere, individual innovators, and representatives of museums that carry out educational activities.
There has been much discussion about how to measure innovativeness and how to classify projects as innovative. Conventional measures of a firm's innovative activity are not relevant for educational organisations, especially for those within the formal system. The formal status of federal or regional innovative platforms seems to be an evident criterion, but this approach would exclude a lot of grassroots innovations and informal initiatives. Finally, we define educational innovation as a new local practice or approach in the educational process (new educational product, methodological process or approach to interact with the community of learners). Thus, we considered all organisations and individuals which implemented these new practices in the fields of general and extra-curricular education.
The research used a non-random sample. To improve the completeness and relevance of the data, we followed 4 principles:
we included representatives from both formal and non-formal education;
the geography of the study covered towns of different types and sizes within the same region;
at least 2 organisations participated in the interview process in each town;
at least 2 respondents participated in the interview process in each organisation.
The data were collected in 3 russian regions during the field expedition. We conducted 150 interviews with specialists from 65 organisations.
The collected data were processed using two-stage thematic coding. First, we identified descriptive codes and categorised them into five sub-themes. Then, we built second-level codes to describe the full range of practices concerning survival, strengthening and dissemination of educational initiatives.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsWe present the following three main results of our study.
First, we explored distributed leadership across and between organisations and even levels of education. We present the differences between internal and external ties.
Internal ties with partners within the educational system rely upon a joint commitment to similar problems and projects, mutual trust and understanding because of common values and experience. These ties strengthen educational initiatives in an exploitative way through in-depth methodological and contextual elaboration of existing educational products. At the same time, external ties provoke the emergence of new educational formats at the intersection of culture, technology, social and entrepreneurial spheres. All of this allows them to find new digital solutions for the educational process, build learning algorithms with the use of business frames, and implement elements of social design in educational activities. Thus, heterogeneity and cross-disciplinarity of knowledge, skills, and experience reinforce the overall level of the quality, diversity and creativity of educational initiatives.
Second, we explored existing formats and types of collaboration within the educational sphere.
Team work involves new participants in joint projects on the basis of common interests, independently of institutional structures.
Formal and informal professional associations reinforce intra-community trust and motivate young teachers.
Personal connections on different platforms. The authors of the projects provide assistance for newcomers in submitting a grant application, preparing for competitions, etc.
Event layer. This format provides an extensive and sporadic exchange of experience through events such as festivals, exhibitions, meetings after professional championships etc.
Third, we identified the role played by non-governmental organisations in these partnerships. They create communities to disseminate educational initiatives with a social impact. Such organisations interact with schools, universities, corporations, media and other influencers, forming an extensive network of leaders and ambassadors of change.
ReferencesCanterino, F., Cirella, S., Piccoli, B., & Shani, A. B. R. (2020). Leadership and change mobilization: The mediating role of distributed leadership. Journal of Business Research, 108, 42-51.
Denis, J. L., Langley, A., & Sergi, V. (2012). Leadership in the plural. Academy of Management Annals, 6(1), 211-283.
Harris, A., & DeFlaminis, J. (2016). Distributed leadership in practice: Evidence, misconceptions and possibilities. Management in education, 30(4), 141-146.
Niedlich, S., Kallfaß, A., Pohle, S., & Bormann, I. (2021). A comprehensive view of trust in education: Conclusions from a systematic literature review. Review of Education, 9(1), 124-158.
O'Shea, C. (2021). Distributed leadership and innovative teaching practices. International Journal of Educational Research Open, 2, 100088.
Raj, G., Feola, G., Hajer, M., & Runhaar, H. (2022). Power and empowerment of grassroots innovations for sustainability transitions: A review. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 43, 375-392.
Snoek, M., Hulsbos, F., & Andersen, I. (2019). Teacher leadership: hoe kan het leiderschap van leraren in scholen versterkt worden?.
Tan, W. L., Gangopadhyay, P., & Hauptman, O. (2021). Introduction to the special issue on “Grassroots and inclusive innovations: Conceptualizing synergies and complementarities”.
Van den Boom-Muilenburg, S. N., Poortman, C. L., Daly, A. J., Schildkamp, K., De Vries, S., Rodway, J., & Van Veen, K. (2022). Key actors leading knowledge brokerage for sustainable school improvement with PLCs: Who brokers what?. Teaching and teacher education, 110, 103577.
Wu, S., & Lin, C. Y. Y. (2020). Innovation and entrepreneurship in an educational ecosystem: Cases from Taiwan. Springer Nature.
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