Conference Agenda

The main objective of this research was to explore teacher perspectives of the role of creativity in education, with specific focus on how it is defined, understood and employed across the Irish education system. The focus of this paper is to identify the challenges and opportunities for nurturing creativity as school leaders, while also examining whether creativity contributes positively to school effectiveness and improvement. Creativity plays an increasingly important role in our economic, personal and civic lives (Robinson, 2016). Innovation is integral to how we live our lives while creativity contributes positively to our wellbeing and to the good-functioning of democratic societies (Likar et al, 2015). While creativity creates novel approaches and ideas, critical thinking evaluates and judges statements, ideas and theories (Vincent-Lancrin, 2019). Increasing focus on creativity and critical thinking in our broader societies has resulted in the emergence of educational policies (see OECD, 2019, 2023) and measures (such as PISA 2022 Creative Thinking assessment) to increase awareness and enhance its implementation across education systems internationally.

This study adopted an in-depth qualitative methodology drawing on semi-structured interviews to explore the role of creativity in education. A total of 11 teachers (9 female/2 male) working across the education system (primary/post-primary schools) participated in the research and thematic analysis was undertaken to identify key themes and topics emergent from the data. Sources this paper include previous research, policy documents and analysis of the CreatEd study dataset.

Findings from this study identify the critical role school leadership plays in facilitating, supporting and nurturing creativity across our education systems. Trust, agency and empowerment are critical to leading creativity in educational practices and pedagogies. Confident and secure leadership was identified as playing an integral role in nurturing the optimal conditions where creativity could flourish and thrive. However, there was a tension between pushing boundaries and “not going too wild”. The absence of guidelines on creative practices and approaches in schools resulted in a fear of getting it wrong, which was especially pertinent when “keeping the inspector happy”. School culture was especially important whereby comfort and safety was identified as especially important to creating dynamic spaces promoting collaboration and contributing to more creative learning environments.

Findings from the CreatEd study identify key themes of particular educational importance for theory (the importance of broadening our definitions and understanding of creativity in education), for practice (creating safe spaces where creative practices and pedagogies can be nurtured and supported) and for policy (to support teacher and school leader agency in promoting creativity in schools).

This paper posits whether creativity for school effectiveness and improvement proffers transformative possibilities not only in enhancing pupil/student learning, but for our wider societies. Quality professional education for leaders and teachers emerged as a key theme from the CreatEd study, with specific implications for policy and practice to support teacher and school leader development.

Background

This study focuses on school leaders’ pedagogical leadership while initiating and conducting local school improvement using action research. The study has been conducted within a one-year advanced continuing education course at Karlstad University during 2021 - 2022. The course was directed towards school leaders within Swedish municipal adult education, MAE, requested from the Swedish National Agency for Education. The reason for this request is that since 2010, a Swedish Educational Act is regulating that all education should be based on scientific foundation and proven experience (SFS 2010:800, chapter 1 §5). This requires accessible research on school improvement and more focus on school leaders as pedagogical leaders. There is however no coherent definition of school leaders’ pedagogical leadership (Grice, Forssten Seiser & Wilkinson, 2023) and no research on Swedish MAE from a school improvement perspective (Fejes & Loeb Henningsson, 2021).

The course was developed to meet these challenges. The entire course was set up as an action research project and aimed to collectively, as well as individually, develop MAE school leaders’ pedagogical leadership while initiating local school improvement, based on local challenges, by using action research. In the end of the course, the school leaders wrote individual popular science articles about their local action research processes and reflected on their pedagogical leading practice’ influence on other practices and how altered pedagogical leading practice may enable local school improvement processes.

Aim, theoretical framework, and research questions

The aim of the study is to describe the MAE school leaders’ pedagogical leadership along their local action research processes to improve their schools through the lens of theory of practice architecture. The research questions are: How did the MAE school leaders’ pedagogical leadership evolve in their action research processes on their local school? What aspects of their pedagogical leadership enabled and constrained their action research processes?

Method

Qualitative data consist of eight school leaders’ individual written reports. Data were coded into sayings, doings and relatings in accordance with the theory of practice architecture (Kemmis, Wilkinson, Edward-Groves, Hardy and Grootenboer, 2014). Analysis focused on the interrelatedness between arrangements related to sayings, doing and relatings, in which practice architecture and its enabling as well as constraining traits emerged.

Preliminary findings

Findings reveal a practice architecture in which enabling and constraining traits lie in the school leaders’ view on themselves as pedagogical leaders, how they relate to the legal act to lead education based on scientific foundation and proven experience and, how they understand action research as an approach to school improvement. More precisely, relating pedagogical leadership equivalent to instructional leadership constrain the action research processes and school improvement. Contrasting, relating pedagogical leadership as setting the arrangements for professions to be co-owner of the action research process enables school improvement. Results are discussed in relation to Kemmis’ (2023) idea of the mosaic of leadership.

Findings will be used for improvement of future advanced continuing education courses for school leaders’ professional learning.

In Switzerland the formal role of school leadership was in most regions only introduced about 30 years ago (Hangartner & Svaton, 2013), changing traditional roles and responsibilities in the organization and development of schools. Today, in German-speaking Switzerland, school leadership and management responsibilities can be described as a (somewhat) shared mandate and thus the subject of negotiation between school board, school leaders and teachers. Findings on the nature, perception and extent of this shared responsibility in practice are limited, despite international empirical findings suggesting that the distribution of school leadership and participation of different stakeholders in decision-making processes are relevant for school organization and school development (Ärlestig et al., 2016; Capaul, 2021).

This study aims to investigate the leadership-related collaboration between school leaders, school board members and teachers in a school in German-speaking Switzerland with the following research questions guiding the research:

1. How are responsibilities/competencies between school board, leaders and teachers officially regulated?

2. How is the assumption of responsibilities and competencies shaped in practice?

3. How do actors perceive the distribution of responsibility, competencies and roles?

Collaborative practices and perceptions are being investigated using a distributed leadership perspective (Diamond & Spillane, 2016), understanding leadership as interaction between individuals, their mutual influence and the situation.

Data is collected using a multi-method approach, so as to ascertain insights into the “official” distribution of tasks and responsibilities based on legal regulations and school-specific policies, as well as to provide insights into lived experiences and stakeholders' perspectives. The following sources were used:

1. Official documents on the distribution of responsibilities and accountability. Cantonal legal texts serve as a basis, supplemented with location-specific elaborations and regulations.

2. Data from approximately 15 interviews with school leaders, board members and teachers on perceptions of leadership practices, decision-making processes and responsibilities.

3. Shadowing-type observational data from day-to-day school activities of school leaders and teachers.

Initial findings suggest that while the legal framework in the Canton of Argovia implies a distribution of responsibilities in school leadership, with school principals being entrusted with operational leadership, the school board assuming strategic leadership and teachers being encouraged to engage in school development tasks and take on responsibilities at the whole-school level, this is partially perceived only as orientation or guidance. In practice, legal frameworks are executed differently, even among leaders at the same school. The legally anchored distribution of strategic and operative leadership between the school board, school leaders and teachers varies and may be impacted by degrees of trust amongst the various actors.

International findings highlight the importance of studying school leadership in practice, to «enhance the current evidential base», contribute to the «future development of distributed leadership» (Harris & DeFlaminis, 2016, p. 141) and gain a better understanding of how current and future qualification and professional development measures can be adapted and improved to strengthen school leaders and teachers in assuming and distributing leadership. The findings of this contribution can serve to inform international research on leadership practices and professional development measures for teachers and school leaders.