Conference Agenda

Decision-making is a focal point for understanding how power relationships are configured within schools, between teachers and school leaders, and beyond schools, with central authorities or regional/local-level partners (Xia et al, 2020; Gurr, 2023). Organisational autonomy relates not just to the “outside world”, but also to the internal dynamics: the type of decision-making process and teachers’ opportunities to contribute at the organisational level vary across country contexts and institutions. A classical line of inquiry in educational decision-making rarely considers leaders and teachers’ role from an integrative perspective. In addition, a neglected factor is the broader system governance (Luschei, & Yeong, 2021; Paulsrud & Wermke, 2020) that shapes leaders and teachers’ opportunities to participate in decision-making. Agency, as a form of personal leadership, is expressed in different ways under varying institutional arrangements, including the possibility of engaging in collaborative leadership (Somech, 2010). Another key point is whether the opportunity to participate leads to effective collaboration with other decision-makers and potentially produce changes at the local level, or conservatism and dysfunctional practices (Day, 2020), where collaboration is just a paper exercise.

The papers in this symposium engage with external constraints and agency in the decision-making process. One paper engages with the “how” and the “why” of organisational governance, with a particular focus on leadership practices in low-autonomy settings. The central premise is that a comprehensive understanding of decision-making in such contexts must account for both the agency of school leaders and the structural constraints they face (Campbell, 2024). More significantly, effective leadership depend on the broader context of organisational purposes, social structures, constraints and specific tasks (Lakomski and Evers 2022; Harris 2020). This does not solely concern the variability of leadership as an organisational quality across different regions. Rather, it is about achieving the right balance between external structures and individual agency within distinct types of school systems.

The symposium also addresses a theoretical paradox: the disconnect between research on teacher and middle leadership, on the one hand, and research on distributed leadership, on the other. One paper explicitly explores the areas of overlap and tension between these strands of scholarship. Compelling evidence revealed a complex relationship between distributed leadership and power, a quite complex and unexpected outcome

Decision-making at the school level is further examined in relation to the right to tailored educational provision. The right to individualised educational provision is school-level collaborative planning that involves multiple stakeholders. Focusing on teacher agency as it unfolds within autonomy spaces, this contribution examines how teachers participate in decision-making. This dimension requires collaborative planning among educators, psychologists, medical professionals, families, and students. However, the participation of general/mainstream and special education teachers varies along a continuum, ranging from restricted to extended forms of involvement.

Decision-making is investigated in relation to several key aspects:

(1) organisational arrangements at the system level that shape opportunities for collaboration at the school level; (2) how teachers and school leaders participate in decision-making processes and how currently disjointed research strands can be reconnected; and (3) opportunities for teachers to contribute to pedagogical decision-making, such as the development of individualised plans or the adoption of AI-based tools.

A broad research question guides the symposium:

How are school leaders and teachers involved in decision-making across different school contexts, pedagogical tasks, and power relationships?

This presentation explores how governance structures shape school leadership practices in contexts with limited autonomy. In low-autonomy environments, principals often occupy dual roles, functioning as administrative enforcers of centrally determined regulations while striving to influence teaching and learning processes. Various governance features—such as low decisional power at the school level, high teachers’ autonomy and limited functioning budgets—impose tight restrictions on principals’ actions. This article uses qualitative data from the Global Education Monitoring Report (2024) while being informed by a larger qualitative data set. The method draws on a comparison of structures to highlight convergences. Despite challenges that are typical when the school autonomy is low, school leaders adopt interactive tactics, including informal negotiations with teachers’ and school boards, to reconcile top-down mandates with local school needs. The analysis reveals that fostering collaboration and coherence among staff is frequently contingent on persuasion and consensus-building/on the background of school wide successful practices, as formal authority with low principalship powers may be insufficient in hierarchical but loosely coupled systems. Ultimately, this study highlights that understanding leadership in low-autonomy school systems requires acknowledging the structural conditions that enable or constrain principals’ effective powers to influence teaching, organisational culture and decision-making. This study explores, precisely, the specific constraints, that is the “how” and “why” of organisational governance. At the same time, it focuses on the specific interactive practices school leaders adopt in low-autonomy settings. The primary research question is: How do principals navigate decision-making in their interactions with the external and the internal school world? The central premise is that, in contexts where school autonomy is low and access to human and material resources is insufficient, organisational barriers play a significant role. In such environments, the ability to act with creativity and personal initiative becomes even more critical than in systems with greater autonomy. A comprehensive understanding of decision- making in low-autonomy settings should consider both the agency of school leaders and the structural influences and constraints they face (Campbell, 2024). This article primarily examines the limitations imposed by governance structures, the specific interactions adopted by empowered leaders to overcome these.

Hallinger, H. 2018. Bringing context out of the shadows of leadership. Educational Management Administration & Leadership 46(1): 5–24 Harris, A. 2020. Leading school and system improvement: Why context matters” European Journal of Education, 55: 143-145. DOI: 10.1111/ejed.12393. Lakomski, G. and Evers, C.W. 2022. The importance of context for leadership in education. Education Management Administration and Leadership 50(2) 269-284. https://doi.org/10.1177/17411432211051850 Leithwood, K. 2023. “Integrated educational leadership”. In International Encyclopedia of Education (4th edition, Volume 4), edited by R.J Thierney, F. Rizvi and K. Ercikan, 73-81. Amsterdam: Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-818630-5.05028-4 Luschei, T.F. and Jeong, D.W. 2020. School governance and student achievement: Cross-national evidence from the 2015 PISA. Educational Administration Quarterly 57(3): 331–371 https://doi.org/10.1177/0013161X20936346 Pfeffer, J. and Salancik, G.R. 2003. The external control of organizations: A resource dependence perspective. Stanford: Stanford Business Books. Printy, S. and Liu, Y. 2021. Distributed leadership globally: The interactive nature of principal and teacher leadership in 32 countries. Educational Administration Quarterly, 57(2) 290–325. Ranson, S. 2011. School governance and the mediation of engagement. Educational Management Administration and Leadership 39(4): 398–413. Torfing, J., Peters, G.J., Pierre, J. and Sørensen, E. 2012. Interactive governance: Advancing the paradigm. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

This paper presents analyses of teachers’ participation in the construction and enactment of Individualised Education Plans (IEPs), drawing on empirical studies identified through a broader systematic literature review. The IEP is a legally mandated and pedagogically grounded instrument central to the education of students with special educational needs, reflected internationally in inclusive education frameworks. It formalises the right to individualised educational provision through collaborative planning among multiple stakeholders. Focusing on teacher agency as it unfolds within autonomy spaces, this contribution examines how teachers participate in IEP-related decision-making. Teacher participation in IEP processes can be understood as operating across two core dimensions: the construction of IEPs and their enactment in practice. Within each dimension, participation varies along a continuum from restricted to extended involvement. Restricted construction is characterised by teachers’ marginal or reactive roles in planning, where IEPs are developed primarily by specialists or external actors and presented to teachers as completed documents, limiting instructional authorship and ownership. Extended construction, in contrast, involves teachers as active co-authors, contributing classroom-based knowledge, engaging in collaborative goal-setting, and sharing pedagogical responsibility within supported team structures. Similarly, restricted enactment occurs when IEPs function largely as compliance artefacts, weakly connected to daily instruction and implemented superficially through generic accommodations, limited monitoring, and informal adjustments. Extended enactment reflects a shift toward using IEPs as living pedagogical tools, where goals meaningfully inform teaching, are continuously monitored and adapted, and are supported by professional learning, collaboration, and enabling school conditions. Building on these findings, we propose a two-dimensional model of teacher participation in IEP processes. Across the reviewed studies, three recurring types of participation emerge: compliance, pragmatic, and genuine participation. Compliant participation is characterised by formal involvement without pedagogical leverage, where IEPs function primarily as legal artefacts. Pragmatic participation reflects adaptive engagement under uneven systemic support, as teachers compensate for structural misalignments through compliance, improvisation, and informal collaboration. Genuine participation emerges where extended involvement in both construction and enactment aligns with collaborative structures, professional learning, and supportive leadership, allowing IEPs to function as pedagogically meaningful tools. Various contextual factors at both school and system levels shape these participation patterns. Interpreted through an agency–autonomy lens, the findings suggest that expanding teacher responsibility alone does not strengthen pedagogical agency. Rather, meaningful participation depends also on organisational environments that stabilize/mediate agency and allow teachers to align legal obligations with instructional purposes.

Bray, L. E., & Russell, J. L. (2018). The dynamic interaction between institutional pressures and activity: An examination of the implementation of IEPs in secondary inclusive settings. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 40(2), 243–266. https://doi.org/10.3102/0162373718756189 McKay, S., Kearney, A., & MacArthur, J. (2018). Supporting teacher agency when planning and implementing inclusive classroom programmes. Set Research Information for Teachers, 1, 34–41. https://doi.org/10.18296/set.0100 King, F., Bhroin, O. N., & Prunty, A. (2017). Professional learning and the individual education plan process: implications for teacher educators. Professional Development in Education, 44(5), 607–621. https://doi.org/10.1080/19415257.2017.1398180 Kozi̇Koğlu, İ., & Albayrak, E. N. (2021). Teachers’ attitudes and the challenges they experience concerning individualized education program (IEP): A mixed method study. Participatory Educational Research, 9(1), 98–115. https://doi.org/10.17275/per.22.6.9.1 Schulte, B. (2023b). The Policy-Practice Nexus as ‘Politics of Use’: Professional Autonomy and teacher agency in the classroom. In Policy implications of research in education (pp. 39–57). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36970-4_3 Timothy, S., & Agbenyega, J. S. (2019). Insider perspectives on catalysing the development and use of individualised education plans. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 26(2), 160–174. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603116.2019.1642401

Sub-paper had to be withdrawn.

..