Lejf Moos, John Krejsler, Klaus Kasper Kofod and Bent Brandt Jensen
Aims at conceptualizing and investigating the meaning of good school principalship within the space for manoeuvring that is available within the context of Danish comprehensive…
Abstract
Purpose
Aims at conceptualizing and investigating the meaning of good school principalship within the space for manoeuvring that is available within the context of Danish comprehensive schools. The paper aims to present findings from case studies of two Danish schools within the frame of reference.
Design/methodology/approach
Outlines the educational context for the Danish schools and gives a short account of the point of departure for the analysis. The perspective in this study is that leadership is about communication, decision making and community building at several levels in schools. In the beginning of the project a series of interviews with stakeholders in those schools was conducted. That formed the basis for the accounts of the first two schools. Later on a number of key stakeholders in the schools were observed and interviewed and that is the basis for the account of the third Danish school.
Findings
The findings show that whilst there is a high degree of consensus amongst the schools and the stakeholders, there are also different points of view. Also shows a pattern of successful leadership communication and community building.
Originality/value
An investigation of the importance and contribution of the principal to the quality of education in Denmark.
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This chapter provides an ethnographic look at higher education strategic planning through the lens of Williams College’s 2018–2020 effort to develop a 20-year plan for the…
Abstract
This chapter provides an ethnographic look at higher education strategic planning through the lens of Williams College’s 2018–2020 effort to develop a 20-year plan for the institution. The critical analysis of Williams’ multi-community engagement contributes to studies of higher education and to literature in the sociocultural anthropological field of “policy as a practice of power” by applying core tenets of the field to strategic planning analysis. Drawing on 12 months of participation-observation and documentary research, the investigation brings into focus Williams’ heterarchical leadership structure and the negotiation practices that contributed to establish the legitimacy and appropriation of William’s strategic plan values. The chapter also shifts toward a contextualized perspective of strategic planning, highlighting campus community divides and the practices that contributed to bridge these fault lines and foster trust during the Fall 2019 campus-wide outreach process. Through the chapter, the analysis re-interprets beliefs of strategic planning and implementation as a top-down, normative imposition, and brings an ethnographic lens to reveal practices of negotiation, convergence, and value appropriation.
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Rose M. Ylimaki, David Gurr, Lawrie Drysdale and Jeffrey V. Bennett
Populations in the United States and Australia are also becoming increasingly culturally diverse. In the United States, for example, it is projected that between 1990 and 2050…
Abstract
Populations in the United States and Australia are also becoming increasingly culturally diverse. In the United States, for example, it is projected that between 1990 and 2050, the percentage of the US population of Hispanic origin will be almost triple, growing from 9% to 25% (making them the largest minority group by far) and the percentage Asian population will be more than double, growing from 3% to 8%. During the same period, the percentage of Black population will remain relatively stable increasing only slightly from 12% to 14%; while the percentage of White population will decline sharply from 76% to 53%. Australia has a long history of skill- and humanitarian-based migration policy. This has resulted in a culturally diverse society, especially in parts of the capital cities of the states and territories. This emphasis looks likely to continue in the future, and will continue to change the Australian society as the humanitarian needs change across the world.
Silvia Edling and Anneli Frelin
In this chapter, the issue of social justice in teacher education is addressed from a Swedish perspective. The chapter begins by briefly describing the Swedish educational context…
Abstract
In this chapter, the issue of social justice in teacher education is addressed from a Swedish perspective. The chapter begins by briefly describing the Swedish educational context in schools and teacher education, with a specific emphasis on the task of educators and teacher educators to promote social justice and as a consequence to this counteract various forms of social violence: such as violation, including bullying, harassment, and discrimination. The second section introduces evidence on fruitful strategies for counteracting social violence in school, based on a national research study that takes into account international research. Following this, we exemplify how these findings are interlaced the pedagogies of teacher education in Sweden. The chapter ends with thoughts on such pedagogies in an international context, and a brief conclusion.
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Signe Skov and Søren Smedegaard Bengtsen
In Denmark, there has been, over decades, an intensified political focus on how humanities research and doctoral education contribute to society. In this vein, the notion of…
Abstract
Purpose
In Denmark, there has been, over decades, an intensified political focus on how humanities research and doctoral education contribute to society. In this vein, the notion of impact has become a central part of the academic language, often associated with terms like use, effects and outputs, stemming from neoliberal ideologies. The purpose of this paper is to explore how humanities academics are living with the impact agenda, as both experienced researchers and as doctoral supervisors educating the next generation of researchers in this post-pandemic era. Specifically, the authors are interested in the supervisor-researcher relationship, that is, the relationship between how the supervisors navigate the impact agenda as researchers and then the way they tell their doctoral students to do likewise.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors have studied how the impact agenda is accommodated by humanities academics through a series of qualitative interviews with humanities researchers and humanities PhD supervisors, encompassing questions of how they are living with the expectation of impact and how it is embedded in their university and departmental context.
Findings
The study shows that there is no link between how the supervisors navigate the impact agenda in relation to their own research work and then the way they tell their doctoral students to approach it. Within the space of their own research, the supervisors engage in resistance practices towards the impact agenda in terms of minimal compliance, rejection or resignation, whereas in the space of supervision, the impact agenda is re-inscribed to embody other understandings. The supervisors want to protect their students from this agenda, especially in the knowledge that many of them are not going to stay in academia due to limited researcher career possibilities. Furthermore, the paper reveals a new understanding of the impact agenda as having a relational quality, and in two ways. One is through a positional struggle, the reshaping of power relations, between universities (or academics) and society (or the state and the market); the other is as a phenomenon very much lived among academics themselves, including between supervisors and their doctoral students within the institutional context.
Originality/value
This study opens up the impact agenda, showing what it means to be a humanities academic living with the effects of the impact agenda and trying to navigate this. The study is mapping and tracking out the many different meanings and variations of impact in all its volatility for academics concerned about it. In current, post-pandemic times, when manifold expectations are directed towards research and doctoral education, it is important to know more about how these expectations affect and are dealt with by those who are expected to commit to them.
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Khushboo Raina and Puja Khatri
The purpose of this paper is to explore the available literature on engagement of faculty members teaching in higher education institutions and present forth a strong foundation…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the available literature on engagement of faculty members teaching in higher education institutions and present forth a strong foundation for researchers of the same area to gain insight into the available literature and prospects of faculty engagement.
Design/methodology/approach
Exploratory study has been conducted using different keywords to draw a list of relevant research papers on Google Scholar and several online databases like Emerald Management, EBSCO Host, Elseiver, etc.
Findings
Various definitions of the major constructs have been captured from which dimensions have been explored. Identification of dimensions and factors has been done by performing extensive literature review. Studies so conducted on the major construct have been tabulated to present a comprehensive picture. Universities across the world have been studied to find out differences with respect to India in terms of their higher education system and practices related to faculty.
Originality/value
The paper is original and holds significance as not much literature is available on faculty engagement in published domain and higher education has become an area of keen interest in present times. This paper will give a strong foundation of literature to future researchers who want to pursue their studies in this area.
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Fred Luthans, Ivana Milosevic, Beth A. Bechky, Edgar H. Schein, Susan Wright, John Van Maanen and Davydd J. Greenwood
This collection of commentaries on the reprinted 1987 article by Nancy C. Morey and Fred Luthans, “Anthropology: the forgotten behavioral science in management history”, aims to…
Abstract
Purpose
This collection of commentaries on the reprinted 1987 article by Nancy C. Morey and Fred Luthans, “Anthropology: the forgotten behavioral science in management history”, aims to reflect on the treatment of the history of anthropological work in organizational studies presented in the original article.
Design/methodology/approach
The essays are invited and peer‐reviewed contributions from scholars in organizational studies and anthropology.
Findings
The scholars invited to comment on the original article have seen its value, and their contributions ground its content in contemporary issues and debates.
Originality/value
The original article was deemed “original” for its time (1987), anticipating as it did considerable reclamation of ethnographic methods in organizational studies in the decades that followed it. It was also deemed of value for our times and, in particular, for readers of this journal, as an historical document, but also as one view of the unsung role of anthropology in management and organizational studies.
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Jan Merok Paulsen, Olof Johansson, Lejf Moos, Elisabet Nihlfors and Mika Risku
The purpose of this paper is to analyse the superintendent position, its relation to the local political system and the function as superior of principals in the school district…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyse the superintendent position, its relation to the local political system and the function as superior of principals in the school district in order to illuminate important district-level conditions for student learning. Influences from historical legacies and policy cultures are investigated by means of cross-country case analyses.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is based on data from national surveys of superintendent leadership in Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway.
Findings
A key point is the observation of a mix-mode system of hard and soft governance. Municipalities, schools, teachers and pupils are – in different degrees across the Nordic countries – subjected to external evaluation and assessment by central control agencies, where the streams of reports, assessments and performance data are assembled. However, shifts in the governance systems are only modestly reflected in the self-reports on the superintendents’ role. Overall, superintendents in the cases express a self-preferred leadership style as professional learning facilitators who focus on pupil orientation, which positions the superintendent in “crossfires” between conflicting stakeholder demands.
Research limitations/implications
The paper reinforces the importance of superintendent leadership in local school governance. It underscores the importance that superintendents facilitate learning conditions for school leaders, teachers and students, which we see as a promising path for further research.
Originality/value
The paper provides empirical evidence regarding superintendent leadership situated in local social and political contexts within the Nordic countries. The cross-country analysis illuminates how path-pendent historical legacies mediate current reform trends.
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Concepts of values-based leadership posit that school principals’ professional practice must be informed by values to ensure coherently purposeful activities. Contingency models…
Abstract
Purpose
Concepts of values-based leadership posit that school principals’ professional practice must be informed by values to ensure coherently purposeful activities. Contingency models stress the contextual dependency of professional practice and the need to match activities to local opportunities and constraints. The purpose of this paper is to reconcile both positions from an integrative perspective and to illustrate examples of “values-based contingency leadership” (Day et al., 2001).
Design/methodology/approach
Analyses draw on survey data from 56 German schools in order to relate professional values stated by the principals as well as organizational features of their schools to teacher ratings on leadership behaviour (n=910). Instead of scrutinizing singular variables in isolation, a typological approach serves to identify value profiles as well as organizational configurations. Analyses of variance are applied to examine the combined effects of both factors on leadership behaviour.
Findings
Interactional effects in the sample indicate that contextual influences are not homogenous across differing value profiles of principals who operate under equal conditions. Descriptive patterns of leadership behaviour within each organizational configuration reveal how principals accentuate leadership activities according to their value profile.
Research limitations/implications
Due to the low statistical power of the small sample, findings are clearly exploratory in nature. However, replication and extension studies seem fruitful, as effect sizes of value-context interactions are consistent with theoretical assumptions and not artificially inflated by common-source variance.
Originality/value
This paper elaborates and exemplifies the moderating role of values in contextual influences on leadership behaviour. It also provides deeper insights into the content and structure of professional values advocated by school principals.