Beyond the Rhetoric: Sustaining Social Justice Leadership in Two Education Systems

Christine Forde

University of Glasgow SCEL

Christine Forde is Emeritus Professor at Glasgow University where she held a personal chair in Leadership and Professional Learning in the School of Education. Her research interests include leadership, headship preparation, professional learning and accomplished teaching. Current research projects include working with an international network on social justice leadership, teacher expertise and on leadership, governance and small systems and publishes regularly in academic journals in these areas. An important part of Professor Forde’s work has been working with policy communities to develop policy, strategies and programmes. Most recently she was involved in a range development for the Scottish Government, A Framework for Educational Leadership in Scotland, the General Teaching Council Scotland, Professional Standards; and for the Scottish Educational Leadership College on headship preparation programmes. She is currently working with the Scottish College for Educational Leadership and the Centre for School Leadership in Ireland. Professor Forde is a Fellow of the International Professional Development Association and a Honorary member of the Scottish Educational Research Association.

Deirdre Torrance

University of Edinburgh

Dr Deirdre Torrance is Honorary Fellow of the University of Edinburgh where she was Director of Teacher Education Partnerships, as well as Director of the Masters in Educational Leadership and Management, including the national headteacher preparatory programme Into Headship, and also programmes to develop teacher leadership and middle leadership. Previously, Deirdre worked across different school sectors and then held the post of 3-14 Educational Adviser and subsequently the post of Quality Improvement Officer with the City of Edinburgh Council before taking up a career in higher education. Her PhD, completed in 2012, investigated ‘Distributed Leadership In Scottish Primary Schools: Myth or Actualities?’ Deirdre has published widely on issues related to distributed leadership, teacher leadership, social justice leadership and professional learning. She is currently part of the ISLDN international research project on social justice leadership. In addition, Deirdre is currently contributing to the BELMAS review of leadership and management in the UK, in particular relation to the Scottish review.

Fiona King

Dublin City University

Fiona King is an assistant professor in the School of Inclusive and Special Education, Institute of Education, Dublin City University (DCU) in Ireland. Fiona’s research interests include leadership for inclusion, social justice leadership, teacher leadership, collaborative practices, teacher education and teacher professional learning.

Abstract

Inclusion and equity are common policy concerns in Scottish and Irish education. However, there is a considerable challenge in sustaining the practice of social justice leadership in schools to realise these policy aspirations. This is a comparative paper using findings from Scotland and Ireland for phase two of the International School Leadership Development Network (ISLDN) research strand on social justice leadership (Angelle, 2017). These two systems are of similar size and have a shared heritage, where education is central to national identity and where there is increasing pupil diversity. There are differences in policy making and governance structures between the two systems which have significant implications for principals exercising social justice leadership. Scotland has a tiered centralised system with national and local authorities (Torrance and Forde, 2017). In contrast, Ireland has a decentralised system with dispersed governance arrangements (King and Travers, 2017).

The purposes of the survey have been to test findings from the case studies and to gather comparable data from the two systems. The paper reports briefly on design and sampling issues found in using a common questionnaire in different educational systems. Using rating scales, quantitative data was collected on principals’ perceptions of the facilitating and hindering factors in the exercise of social justice leadership in schools. This data for each system was statistically analysed to identify system trends and then further analysed to make comparisons. Qualitative data was collected on principals’ understandings of social justice leadership, the influences that shaped these and their perceptions of their role as a social justice leader. Through interpretive reading the data for each sample was systematically categorised (Miles and Huberman, 2013) and then compared. The paper concludes by considering how principals, as social justice leaders, might be supported through policy and governance.

References

Angelle, PS. (2017) (ed.) A Global Perspective of Social Justice Leadership for School Principals. USA: IAP.

King, F. & Travers, J. (2017). Social justice leadership through the lens of ecological systems theory. In Angelle, PS (ed.) A Global Perspective of Social Justice Leadership for School Principals. USA: IAP, 147-165.

Miles, MB. Huberman, AM. and Saldana, J. (2013) Qualitative data analysis. 3rd Edition. London: Sage.

Torrance, D. and Forde, C. (2017) Policy and Practice in Social Justice Leadership in Scotland. In Angelle, PS. (ed.) A Global Perspective of Social Justice Leadership for School Principals. Information Age Publishing, 147-165.

Authors

Christine Forde (University of Glasgow SCEL)
Deirdre Torrance (University of Edinburgh)
Fiona King (Dublin City University)
Joe Travers (Dublin City University)

Topic Area

Project

Session

S3A » Theatre Presentation (10:10 - Saturday, 7th July, The Chapel)

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