Conference Agenda

Internationally, a growth towards more autonomy for school boards is visible, as can be seen in western countries like Sweden, United Kingdom, and US (e.g., Honingh, Ruiter, & van Thiel, 2020). The Netherlands serve as a prominent autonomous example: school boards are publicly funded, but privately run (e.g., Waslander, 2010). The policy theory is that boards are much better placed than national authorities to make decisions that fit contextual needs and can therefore better promote educational quality in their schools. However, this assumption is not supported by empirical research. Honingh et al. (2020) conclude that boards vary considerably in context, composition and scope of their autonomy, which makes it very difficult to understand how boards can contribute to educational quality. This symposium contributes to the meager body of empirical knowledge, by focusing on the ways Dutch school boards and schools under their authority seek to optimise functioning. We performed three studies in secondary education: 1) how is professionalisation of school actors promoted externally and internally; 2) do school boards show relevant components of governance, and 3) how is distributed leadership established within several layers of organisations. Our studies provide policy guidelines in line with the conference theme.

The Dutch Ministry of Education and affiliated organisations apply many Professionalisation Incentives (PI) to improve the professional competences of various actors in secondary education. However, Dutch school boards are highly autonomous. Therefore, central authorities can only indirectly stimulate professionalisation. Actually, these large amount and wide variety of external PI could potentially lead to detrimental differences in utilisation between school organisations and between actors.

The research questions are:

1) What are the characteristics of external PI targeting administrators/supervisory boards, school leaders and teachers in secondary education?

2) How do experts and actors consider the awareness, utilisation and goal attainment of these PI?

3) How is professionalisation of actors initiated in daily practice?

The literature shows that potentially effective features for teacher professionalisation are a clear focus on subject content and pedagogical content knowledge, active learning by teachers, coherence with their own teaching practice and school policy, a longer duration and collective participation (Desimone, 2009). Less research has been done for the professionalisation of school leaders and others in leadership positions; especially targeted and small-scale professionalisation activities are probably most effective (Krüger, 2017).

We listed all governmental PI and characterised these as (a combination of) communicative, financial or legal policy instruments (Onderwijsraad, 2007). An expert consultation (open interviews with an online survey and additionally a focus group discussion) and a national online survey with 300 respondents were conducted to collect data.

Our results show that the majority of the 20 PI targeting administrators/supervisory boards are exclusively communicative (50%) or communicative-legal (25%) in nature. The 20 PI directing at school leaders are mainly purely communicative (75%), whereas 20% are at least partially legal. The 26 PI aimed at teachers are more divers: 46% are financial, 38% communicative, and 12% a combination of both.

Experts regard communicative PI as somewhat familiar to the target group and of limited use and effectiveness. The added value is mainly in the professionalisation courses and learning programmes linked to platforms. Communicative-legal PI, such as professional images and standards, are widely known, usable and potentially effective. Purely financial PI aimed at teachers are not very well known, used and effective: e.g. additional study funding and halving tuition fees resulted only in limited increases in teacher training enrolments. However, experts rate induction programmes, a communicative-financial PI, as (very) well known, reasonably used and quite effective since these provide better supervision and reduce drop-out rates of starting teachers.

The survey reveals that the vast majority of actors have professionalised themselves formally and informally over the past two years. Nevertheless, governmental PI aren’t motivators for professionalisation, since the respondents are familiar with only a few PI, mostly financial. 'Previous experiences' appears to be a stimulus for all actors when choosing (new) professionalisation activities.

The importance for policy of this study is that maintaining a wide variety of PI in a decentralised education system may be quite ineffective. We recommend governments to use a continuous system of incentives with a clear coherent line to stimulate professionalisation.

In the Netherlands school boards are held accountable for the educational quality in their schools (Waslander, 2010) and, therefore, aim to lead the educational organization towards maintaining and/or improving such quality. Yet, school board members can only influence organisational outcomes in an indirect way, as it takes several steps for board policy or interventions to trickle down through the organisation into classroom practices. In this process, school leaders, middle leaders, and teachers play a major role. In order to be successful in such steering activities, school boards are expected to attend to three key components of governance:

• Their level of rational decision-making: using pdca-cycles (Deming, 1986) helps an organisation to work in a systematic way, basing decisions on evidence that is available.

• Their ability to actualize a high level of social capital within the organisation, consisting of

a. Internal social capital: the existence of a widespread and solid alliance of organisational members fosters organisational performance. Three dimensions are identified (Nahapiet & Ghoshal, 1998): a strong network of stakeholders in which the flow of information is high and relevant (structural), high levels of mutual trust (relational) and a joint vision (cognitive);

b. External social capital: the existence of strong relations with actors from outside the organisation ensures the receipt of relevant information, openness for innovative ideas and securing stakeholder legitimacy (Saatcoglu & Sargut, 2014);

• Their level of strategic HRM and professionalisation: high quality and professionalised staff and teachers enhance educational quality (Scheerens & Bosker, 1997).

Research question:

To what extent are the components of governance established within Dutch school boards and what role do school board characteristics play in actual steering processes?

A multi-method study is conducted containing both a survey study (approximately 300 respondents, ranging from executive board members, members of supervisory boards, school leaders, and middle leaders) and a case study in which 9 boards were studied through in-depth interviews on establishment of the components of governance within the organisations. Per board, five actors were interviewed (see above and teachers).

Results of the quantitative analyses show that boards and their schools report having fairly high levels of rational decision-making, social capital, and HRM and professionalisation. Results of a multiple regression analyses (on board member data) show that if board members have high levels of internal social capital student achievement in schools tend to be higher. Cluster analyses resulted in four types of boards. Yet, although school boards are different, these clusters do not relate to differences in student achievement. The case study outcomes showed a more refined picture. The three components of governance were not visible in all contexts and in all policy domains. Yet, social capital seemed conditional for being successful in reaching organisational aims: good contacts within and outside the organisation enhance alignment and joint focus of workers within the organisation. Further, the local context, organisational behavior, and organisational complexity seemed to play a major role in the steering processes. Large organisations seemed to actualize the three components of governance somewhat better.

In the Netherlands, educational organisations are responsible for the maintenance and development of educational quality in their schools (Honingh et al., 2022). The general management of the organisation is in hands of executive board members. By definition, executive board members have an indirect form of influence on educational processes, as they do not provide education themselves. Research into the extent to which and the way school boards affect the quality of education therefore requires insight not only in leadership practices of executive board members, but also on how this is processed in the organisation and the actions of a broader group of actors. It seems crucial to understand the role of distributed leadership in the organisation.

Distributed leadership is characterized by people taking on leadership tasks in both formal and informal positions (Spillane, 2006). In this way, leadership is not considered as a characteristic of a person, but as leadership practices that are established in the interaction between leaders, others and the situation. Gronn (2002) refers to leadership as collective action. In this view, organisational members enter into a collective agency, coordinating their actions based on their own values and plans, those of colleagues, and their sense of belonging to a group (Hulsbos et al., 2012).

The research question is:

How is distributed leadership focusing on educational quality established in educational organisations in Dutch secondary education?

We focus on which leadership practices are used by actors ¬at different layers in educational organisations – executive school board members, school leaders and middle leaders – and on how responsibilities, tasks and roles in the organisation are distributed. It is of our special interest how processes are aligned within organisations and what role mutual contacts and communication play in this.

We conducted a multiple cases study, including six educational organisations. Per organisation, we interviewed seven actors: the executive board member, school leaders of two schools, and per school two middle leaders. Thus, a total of 42 interviews were conducted. The in-depth Interviews were structured using four vignettes. We developed the vignettes to include dilemmas linked to educational quality, including both cognitive and non-cognitive learning outcomes (e.g. civic education), internal quality assurance, and organisational disturbances. Interviews are transcribed verbatim, and subsequently, transcripts were thematically summarized. Based on the detailed summaries for each organisation we analysed differences, similarities and exceptions among actor groups (within cases) as well as between organisations (between cases).

Currently, we are analysing the interview data. Preliminary results show differences between educational organisations in combination with different contextual needs and expectations. Some organisations implemented aspects of distributed leadership to a larger extent than others. We also see differences in the degree of alignment of processes, such as information and communication processes. The study will be finished before the ISCEI in January 2024 where we will present our results.