Conference Agenda

Students from disadvantaged backgrounds are less likely to enroll in higher education, and those who enroll are less likely to graduate. Although this can partially be attributed to a lower level of academic preparation and financial constraints, there is evidence that the lack of information, support, and encouragement also play an important role in schooling decisions (Dynarski et al., 2021; Carrell and Sacerdote, 2017; Bettinger et al., 2012). This paper evaluates the effects of two interventions designed to tackle these frictions on disadvantaged students’ postsecondary educational trajectories. Finding effective ways of promoting postsecondary opportunity for all students is important as this can dramatically improve their life trajectories.

The evaluation was carried out using a large-scale randomized control trial (RCT) implemented in Chile during the 2021 academic year (March – December). 81 schools were randomly allocated to a pure control group, 74 to an information-only treatment group and 74 to an information-and-mentoring treatment group. Students in the information-only group received an information package in their senior year of high school highlighting funding opportunities and the benefits of attending higher education. Students in the information-and-mentoring received the same information package and a sub-sample of them were randomly allocated to a mentorship program designed to guide students throughout the college application process. To evaluate the results, we used administrative data and all students were invited to answer baseline and exit surveys.

Our results are threefold. Firstly, we find that providing information alone improves students’ understanding of the higher education system but does not make a difference in their probability of applying to, or enrolling in, college. In contrast, providing information and mentoring increases students’ probability of registering and taking the college admission exam by 12.8 percentage points, of applying for funding by 10.3 percentage points, and of enrolling in higher education by 4.7 percentage points. Finally, the design of the RCT also allows us to study spillovers of the mentoring program on the classmates of treated students. Although we do not detect changes in enrollment in higher education in these students, we find that they become 5.1 percentage points more likely to register for the college admission exam and 5 percentage points more likely to take it. We will study social spillovers in greater detail with a second wave of our mentoring intervention.

Schools have an essential role in students’ trajectories and school counseling can address inequitable postsecondary opportunities (Owen, L. & Westlund, E., 2016), especially in countries as Chile where the higher education system is complex. This program is an example of how schools can improve students’ postsecondary educational trajectories and promote equity through reducing the lack of information, support, and encouragement. To strengthen counseling capacities of the participating schools, in 2022 the same information-and-mentoring intervention was implemented, this time through training teachers, counselors and leaders for them to deliver the program to their students.

Identity-based data collection in the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) began in the 1960’s due to community advocacy for recognizing and dismantling systemic discrimination. Over the years commitments for such collections increased. In 2006, as a result of a Board motion, the introduction of the Student and Parent Census occurred. As of 2023, the Census has been administered four times and collects identity and school experience data for all students across the TDSB. However, while this data can be very useful, it also presents the possibility for perpetuating colonial patterns of control, surveillance, and damage centered narratives of communities. Communities are experts and holders of valuable knowledge - and hold their own stories (Wilson, 2008). The space researchers occupy is not to discover new narratives for communities, but to uplift systemically silenced narratives to facilitate a platform for change-oriented policy making. To work towards this goal and policy focus, the TDSB Research Department is re-envisioning large scale system surveys, data stewardship and governance practices associated with such data collection. Questions the team are exploring include - how to collectively build a system wide survey where all communities see themselves represented? How can community members and researchers collaborate on research questions, data analysis, and knowledge mobilization efforts? Where is there room for change within system policies and provincial legislation to validate Indigenous and community-based data governance models?

Through this ongoing work, the team aims for large scale identity-based data collection to amplify marginalized voices, expose systemically silenced narratives, and facilitate a platform for change-oriented policy making, but also to provide opportunities for educators, researchers, and system leaders to (un)learn about themselves in relation to students and strive for a cooperative future in disrupting systems and structures that have maintained inequities. To ground the teams work, five guiding principles sit as foundational:

Centering Community

Recognize, Confront, and Disrupt all Structures of Oppression

Use Critical Research Methods and Intersectional Analyses

Decolonize Research Practices

Lobby for Action-Oriented Outcomes and System Accountability

This paper presentation will elaborate on the application of the above noted guiding principles; sharing reflections on the census consultation and pilot process, the important space community occupies in applied research, as well as begin sharing experiences with participatory data analysis, such as: how schools are involved in the co-analysis of student identity-based data and school experience data; and, how these efforts shape professional learning and school improvement planning processes. Specifically showcasing how collaboration is leveraged to increased opportunity for shared inquiry, insight, innovation and professional learning. Through the guiding principles noted above and collaborative work to follow, the Census team hopes to explore where there is room for change within system policies and provincial legislation to include Indigenous and community-based data governance principles and practices. The team welcomes dialogue on building a community-centered approach to data interpretation, narrative building, and community data governance.

Lytle and Cochran-Smith (1992) describe the concept of “Teacher research” as a powerful way for teachers to understand how they and their students construct and reconstruct the curriculum. In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in pre-service teacher research in teacher education (Van Katwijk, et al., 2021). In the framework/curriculum for teacher education in Norway, one of the skills students must develop is to: “alone, and in collaboration with others, use relevant methods from research and development work, for continuous development of their own and the school's collective practice, as well as carry out limited research projects under supervision”. And during their 4th year in teacher education they all have to plan and report on a R&D (research and development) project, and in their 5th year they do their master degree project. In this study, we have investigated how Norwegian prospective teachers understand the concept of teacher research, and how they feel ready and prepared for taking on this role when they begin their professional life. The sample consists of Norwegian student teachers at the end of their fourth or fifth year of teacher training, so they all have completed an R&D project, and some have submitted their master's thesis. The data material consists of responses to a questionnaire (n=23) and two focus group interviews (n= 9), asking about their understanding of the consept “teacher research” and how they see themselves as one when starting to work as a teacher. The analyzes show that there is great variation in how the students understand the concept of being teacher research, but they all have a common understanding of the contribution of teacher research in the school. They also agree on which parts of teacher training have been important for being a teacher researcher, but there is variation in whether teachers see themselves as a future researcher or not. The latter is linked to lack of confidence about their competence, or they think it will a questions about time. Still ¾ of the participants in the study are and the support and culture among leaders and colleagues in the school they come to. They say that if there is a culture for this, where there is support from managers and colleagues, then this is something they would certainly consider doing as part of their work. The latter is independent of the experience of being sufficiently prepared or not. This is a small study, with a limited number of participants, but it gives an indication that future teachers see researching their own practice as important for their students, so regardless of whether they feel sufficiently prepared or not, this is something they can imagine participating in. But it requires that the school they go to has a culture for this. They have ideas for what they can think of to research, and they think that they can be a resource for the school when they come up with new ideas and thoughts about good teaching.a

Objectives

Literacy coaches are crucial for school improvement, but research on the roles of literacy coaches in the school improvement process has been insufficient. The objective of literacy coaching programs is to enhance teacher effectiveness, but many people have misunderstandings about the best methods to achieve this goal (Kissel et al., 2011). Literacy coaches are teachers with many years of instructional experience. They work with teachers and principals to improve classroom instruction and school performance. Literacy coaches, through managing teacher training programs, contribute to school reform (Lightner et al., 2021). Research has proved that literacy coaches have the potential to impact how teachers teach and how students learn (Hunt, 2019), but there has not been enough research on how literacy coach can facilitate the process of school improvement. Thus, the purpose of this study is to understand literacy coaches’ roles and effects in the Chinese school context to contribute to theory development and practice improvement.

Research questions

The main research question of this research is: What are the roles and effects of literacy coach in Chinese schools?

Theoretical framework

Literacy coaches’ roles include collaborating with school principals, classroom observation, teacher training, offering resources, and identifying effective instructional practices based on data collected from students (Kho & Ismail, 2021). Literacy coaches also have influence on student improvement and student performance (L’Allier et al., 2010). Literacy coaches are imperative in shaping a positive school culture, which contributes to school reform. However, as is the case in other countries, Chinese literacy coaches are facing role ambiguity. By investigating the roles of literacy coaches working in non-post-secondary settings, Zhang and Yuan (2019) discovered that the literacy coaches in China are not clear about their professional identities. Therefore, it is essential to explore the roles and perceived effects of literacy coaches in Chinese schools.

Methods and data sources

A qualitative research method was used to answer the research question. Twelve teachers and school leaders from schools with three different academic performance levels participated in interviews. Each interview lasted for 45–90 minutes. A comparative analysis method was used in the data analysis.

Findings

This study identified that literacy coaches have the important roles of setting direction, training teachers, evaluating the school curriculum, explaining textbooks and learning targets, polishing the class, collecting resources within the district, and helping the development of turnaround schools. Literacy coaches have a positive influence on district education improvement through enhancing teachers’ teaching quality and coordinating system resources.

Significance

This research provides a whole picture of how literacy coaches play their roles in the Chinese educational context. At the same time, the influence of literacy coaches has been identified within the Chinese educational environment. This study provides a reference for education systems around the world of how to improve education quality through cultivating high-quality literacy coaches.

Connection to the conference theme

Literacy coaches have the potential to impact how teachers teach and how students learn, so research about literacy coaches’ roles and effects will help to promote school effectiveness and improvement.

Framing

Vocational Education and Training (VET) schools are increasingly required to undergo continuous changes in order to effectively prepare students to become the next generation of skilled workers in business and industry. New requirements in the business community, from educational policy, employers, and social partners, create a need for continuous change and adaptation of educational programmes and school organization (Coates et al., 2013; de Jonge et al., 2020).

In our project we investigate what is required for VET school leaders to lead change processes. Research in the field of school improvement is concerned with what is required to create lasting positive improvements in schools (Askell-Williams & Koh, 2020; Fullan, 2020). Likewise, our project focus specifically on the sustainability of school improvement projects, understood as 1) the long-term implementation of project activities, and 2) the development of the schools’ change capacity.

Research questions

Which factors contribute to the successful leadership of school improvement initiatives in VET schools?

How can school-university partnerships guide school leaders in leading school improvement initiatives?

Context

In the research and development project ‘Sustainable Culture for Change’, we work with 12 VET schools in Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia. Through established school-university partnerships, we contribute with continuing professional development of school leaders, especially focused on using formative evaluation models to strengthen the sustainability of the school improvement initiatives.

Methods and data material

The study is inspired by action research methods, which involve intervening in the practice that we are simultaneously researching (McIntosh, 2010).

The study builds on a literature search and longitudinal data collected throughout the past four years of collaboration. We use qualitative data such as interviews, observations, and documents in combination with simple quantitative survey data.

Findings

First, only a small number of studies found in our literature search deals with management of change in VET schools. The studies available highlight several factors important when VET school leaders are leading change initiatives. Among others, they highlight planning, staff involvement, evaluation, and organizational conditions (Bell, 2008; Clayton et al., 2008; de Jonge et al., 2020; Mitchell, 2004; Petridou & Chatzipanagiotou, 2004; Schneyder, 2002).

Building on years of collaboration with VET school leaders, our study shows how researchers can work with school leaders with a focus on the above-mentioned factors to support the sustainability of their school improvement efforts.

We will present the interventions designed and implemented in the development part of our project and reflect on the lessons learned from our work with the VET school management teams.

Educational importance

Our findings are important for school practitioners leading change initiatives as well as researchers and consultants working in collaboration with schools, supporting continuous school improvement.

Connection to the conference theme

We connect to the conference theme in the areas of leadership education and capacity building, leading sustainable and collaborative school improvement, and the professional development of leaders in collaboration between researchers and school teams.

Purpose: I present an empirical example demonstrating how a system’s educational infrastructure (Spillane et al., 2019) can shape the way teachers frame problems and solutions in their classroom, thus moving toward more equitable treatment of minoritized children.

Focus of inquiry: I offer a representative example of a disciplinary moment in a diverse International Baccalaureate (IB) elementary classroom, describing how an IB teacher - informed by her system and context - responded to hearing the racial slur “boy” on the playground. The teacher concluded that the problem was students’ lack of historical context. Her solution was to fold into the next unit an explicit discussion of race and language, relying on her IB training along with resources from her broader environment.

Perspective(s): Previous scholars have demonstrated a system’s educational infrastructure can change teachers’ beliefs and practices (e.g., Shirrell et al., 2019; Spillane et al., 2018). I consider the potential of a system’s infrastructure to challenge how teachers perceive and discipline the behavior of diverse groups of students.

Methods: This paper is informed by a larger ethnographic and comparative study, where I partnered with four elementary schools situated across two systems (Montessori and International Baccalaureate) and two national contexts (Washington, DC and Toronto). I examined how these systems and environments interacted with one another, and with the way children are treated and taught in classrooms.

Data Sources: I employed four methods of data collection: 1) participant observation in 1-2 focal classrooms per school; 2) video-cued focus groups with students, teachers, and school and system leaders; 3) semi-structured interviews with focal teachers and school leaders; and 4) a review of school and system documents.

Results: The IB system helps shape teachers’ framing of problems and solutions in their classrooms through a robust, yet skeletal, educational infrastructure. On the one hand, the IB system guides teachers using training, standards, and networks that promote the system’s desired outcome of intercultural understanding and respect. On the other hand, the IB system operates transnationally, and so it encourages teachers to fill in its instructional framework using local context, culture, and criteria. I will discuss how this teacher relied on both her IB supports and a Teaching Tolerance (now Learning for Justice) resource from her broader environment when framing and addressing the problem of the racial slur.

Educational importance of this research: As society grapples with the ongoing effects of multiple pandemics (Ladson-Billings, 2021), there is much discussion surrounding how to rebuild educational systems for equity (e.g., Policy Analysis for California Education, 2021). This research contributes to that discussion, considering how we might leverage system supports and designs in ways that change the perceptions and practices of those working with children, so that they become increasingly anti-racist.

Connection to the conference theme: This paper is aligned to a congress sub-theme regarding leading education systems that promote social justice. I consider how IB's educational infrastructure supports a transformation in perception and pedagogy for IB teachers. This infrastructure then has potential to help IB teachers and schools move toward increasingly antiracist practice.

Problem of Practice

Schools and school systems do not effectively provide students labeled with disabilities equitable opportunities to learn in mainstream classrooms (Ainscow et al., 2019). Moreover, the marginalization of these students is compounded by other dimensions of identity (e.g., race, ethnicity, home language) (AUTHOR, 2020).

Research Focus

This project addresses this problem of practice by focusing on the core question: How can a school system engage in a research practice partnership with a university to support systemic transformation that advances effective, accessible, and inclusive education?

Theoretical Framework

The theoretical framework grounding this research practice partnership (RPP) is the sociocultural learning theory of communities of practice (AUTHOR 2023; Wenger, 1998). Educational leaders - from individual schools to networks of schools - can promote organizational transformation by productively and innovatively leveraging communities of practice (AUTHOR 2013; 2016).

Modes of Inquiry

Research-practice partnerships (RPPs) offer a promising approach to structuring resources to support these educational leaders by helping them navigate sociocultural and organizational differences (Penuel & Gallagher, 2017). This project describes an emergent RPP between one public school district in the United States and a university.

Evidence

This paper analyzes (a) historical documentation to explore correlations amongst district-level special education policies, school-level service delivery models, and school-level student learning outcomes, and (b) interviews, observations, and documentation to show how the shift in special education policy at the district-level is affecting school-level service delivery models.

Findings

We are finding that district-level policy efforts to advance equitable opportunities to learn failed to lead to effective service delivery models within schools to provide effective, accessible, and inclusive education for students labeled with disabilities as well as across other dimensions of identity. We developed a working theory of action to confront this longstanding problem in a novel manner. Over the first year this RPP seeded a constellation of three communities of practice:

- An RPP Design Team, comprising five individuals (three from the district (central office administrators) and two from the university (one core faculty, one core research assistant), serves as the hub.

- School-based Inclusion Planning Teams are empowered to implement the theory of action in an adaptive manner in their local context.

- A cadre of regional inclusion coaches act as brokers between the Design Team and the Inclusion Planning Teams.

Significance

We are learning lessons about shaping the architecture of these communities of practice in manners that optimize organizational transformation. This project illustrates ways to productively leverage networking amongst actors who are positioned in disparate organizations. A desire to collaborate and a recognition of a common problem are not enough. A clear theory of action coupled with flexible structures to implement this iteratively are needed.

Connections to Conference Theme

Supporting systemic transformation to advance effective, accessible, and inclusive education, this RPP connects directly to the conference focus on professional learning that improves school effectiveness. Further, it aligns with the subthemes of (a) improvement efforts that are collaborative and sustainable and (b) promoting equity, inclusion, belonging, diversity, and social justice.

Well-being or positive mental health is important during all stages of a person’s growth and development, but especially during childhood and adolescence (Hargreaves & Shirley, 2021). Despite this, it is not always evident what well-being might mean in an educational context or how educators can best support well-being or mental health in an environment predominantly focused on cognitive development and achievement. Hargreaves and Shirley (2021) suggest that educators are more “likely to grasp the value of well-being when it’s not there, when we witness all the signs of being ill instead” (p. 28). The moral imperative belongs within the school system to create conditions that address mental health promotion for all students and minimize conditions that contribute to or exacerbate mental illness in children and youth.

In this project, we build upon recommendations from the Alberta Child and Youth Well-being Action Plan (2022) and the Government of Alberta's Mental Health in Schools Pilot initiative to develop a mental health evaluation framework that will engage and support school leaders, classroom teachers, and school-support staff in the implementation of school-based mental health initiatives. This framework is also intended to be utilized by school authority leaders as part of their ongoing quality assurance and continuous improvement of mental health supports and services.

A convergent mixed methods design was used to create the mental health evaluation framework through examining the current landscape of mental health supports and services in schools in Alberta. Data was collected through a review of 60 government-funded mental health pilot project proposals, an environmental scan of relevant organizational websites and documents to describe current mental health supports and services and their evaluation, and a review of scholarly and grey literature to identify indicators of effective practice for a robust mental health continuum of supports and services. In addition, as members of the research team we worked in collaboration with representatives from the community which formed the Community Partner Engagement Committee, consisting of: (a) members of Indigenous communities, (b) school superintendents, (c) principals, (d) teachers and other school staff involved in supporting and promoting mental health (e.g., school counsellors), and (e) families and individuals with lived experience in mental health conditions. We drew on the extensive research on enabling conditions (Rickinson et al., 2022), implementation drivers (Sims & Melcher, 2017), and impacts (CASEL, 2020), as well as stories gathered through dialogue with our community partner advisory (Figure 1).

Figure 1

Analytic Framework for the MHSP Proposals

Previous research on the effectiveness of school-based mental health promotion has recognized that there is a tendency towards individualized, short-term, discrete approaches that focus on symptom change rather than reworking problematic relationship patterns or confronting structural inequalities (O’Toole, 2017). This study offers a unique perspective on improving school effectiveness through purposeful dialogue between government, policymakers, academic researchers, educators, and the wider school community resulting in the development of a mental health evaluation framework that will support school leaders and educators in the implementation of mental health initiatives through a systemic approach.

This paper offers a model to support the scaling of Special Assistance Schools, that are increasingly popular in a post-covid world, through targeted coaching and a professional development framework with clear aspirational expectations. Whilst research into these schools has increased in the last few years, the focus tends to be on the impact on students rather than the leadership structures that enable the work (Brunker & Lombardo, 2021; Corry et al., 2022) . We will present how a School Principal of an Independent, fee free, inner-city Melbourne Special Assistance School (sometime referred to as a flexi school), worked in an intentional way to identify and rapidly build capacity in her middle and senior leadership team.

Doing education differently, has become the rally cry of 21st century educational leaders. Human centred, Innovative, Enterprising and Entrepreneurial are key words are scattered through glossy prospectuses and across school websites. The reality is for most educational institutions, despite two years of enforced experimentation in pedagogy and learning environment, business as usual with little real change in how schools operate beyond some specialised programs (Watterston & Zhao, 2023).

The flexi-school context is a high-pressured environment, with numerous critical incidents, teaching, educational intervention and wellbeing staff work together; as part of a multi-disciplinary team to create learning opportunities for young people who are disengaged from the traditional system of education. The Principal was keen to develop an organisational focus through a lens of aspirational futures for the students, often a challenging task in a space that attracts staff who focus on care and acceptance, rather than growth and learning. She knew there would need to be change the culture and expectations of both staff and the students in order to make the necessary shift. As an experienced school leader, the Principal knew she couldn’t implement and sustain change alone.

Using a dialogical and reflective process, we collaborated to combine bespoke leadership training and individual coaching, enabling the Principal to identify, recruit and build a middle and executive leadership team able to support a distributed leadership model and her change agenda. Through moving away from a flat, almost non-existent leadership structure, to one with clear and tiered responsibilities, the school was able to develop a culture based on clear expectations of learning, grow and care, offering a robust and relevant curriculum for students. Succession planning was actioned and opportunities for shadowing and learning from the internal school experts exists for professionals from a myriad of professional backgrounds – education, social and youth work and allied health.

The process of an intentional leadership development process, that includes targeted coaching and tailored leadership awareness offers significant benefits for school leaders with a strong improvement, high expectations and master plan for growth and expansion.

Working in partnership with external expertise in educational leadership and coaching supports change, enables rapid pace setting and benefits the career trajectories of aspiring and emerging, middle and senior leaders which furthers the improvement agenda of the school and offers a model for other similar settings.