Modeling School Leadership across Europe: in Search of New Frontiers

217 Pages·2014·1.72 MB·English

by  Petros Pashiardis (auth.)

Petros Pashiardis E ditor
Modeling
School
Leadership
across Europe
in Search of New Frontiers
Modeling School Leadership across Europe

Petros Pashiardis
Editor
Modeling School Leadership
across Europe
in Search of New Frontiers
Editor
Petros Pashiardis
Professor of Educational Leadership
Graduate Program in Educational Studies
Open University of Cyprus
Nicosia , Cyprus
ISBN 978-94-007-7289-2 ISBN 978-94-007-7290-8 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-7290-8
Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg New York London
Library of Congress Control Number: 2013950609
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To my wife Georgia for all the adventures
we have been through
(and those to come)
To my sons Constantinos and Alexis for
being adventurous, and
To the best handmade Latte Macchiato ever
I love you all.

Pref ace
This is a book in the area of Educational Leadership and Systems Thinking dealing
with developments in both theory and practice of this fi eld. The idea for this book
evolved from a European-funded piece of research on “School Leadership and its
Impact on Student Achievement” (LISA), as well as from another project exploring
the relationship between the leadership style(s) school principals adopt, their epis-
temological worldviews, and their beliefs about the contextual and governance
structures in which they operate (exact title of the project, “Uncovering the Complex
Relation Between Principals’ Leadership Style and Epistemological Beliefs and its
Implications for School Leadership Training,” Pro-LEAD), funded by the Cyprus
Research Promotion Foundation.
As the key intermediary between the classroom, the school and its community,
and the educational system as a whole, effective school leadership is essential to
improve the effi ciency and equity of schooling. However, school leadership does
not operate in a vacuum. Many countries have made schools more autonomous
while centralizing standards and accountability requirements and (at the same time)
demanding that schools adopt new research-based approaches to teaching and learning.
In line with these changes, the roles and responsibilities of school leaders have
expanded. Given the increased autonomy and accountability demanded of schools,
leadership at the school level is more important than ever.
The organizational arrangements for schools have changed signifi cantly over
time due to profound changes within the societies they serve. The Pashiardis-
Brauckmann Holistic Leadership Framework which is explored in this book takes
into consideration not only the context and system levels but also (and primarily)
the school level. This framework can also serve to signal the essential character of
school leadership as the focal point around which teaching and learning take place.
More specifi cally, this book, through the framework:
• Provides guidance on the main characteristics, tasks, and responsibilities of
effective school leaders
• Produces data-based descriptions of school leaders’ modes of institutionalized deci-
sion making (i.e., provides them with guidance as to their degrees of freedom)
vii
viii Preface
• Creates defi nitions of school leaders’ networks of responsibility
• Indicates the benefi ts for school leaders in becoming familiar with system roles
and not only school issues (interrelation of system, context, and day-to-day
school management)
• Stresses the situational and ambiguous relationship of the education system and
the school when it comes to building up stimulating and inspiring collaborations
in order to strive for excellence and equity
• Attempts to fi ll the identifi ed gaps in research by exploring the relationship
between the leadership style(s) school principals adopt, their epistemological
worldviews, and their beliefs about the contextual and governance structures in
which they operate
A s can be inferred from the above, this book aims at providing school leaders
with a pair of lenses in order to assist them to examine the big picture and by doing
so, increasing their level of awareness with regard to systemic as well as to local
leadership. We increasingly recognize that the complexity of educational problems
cannot be resolved by one “super” principal alone but through coordinated activities
of educational leaders at different levels inside and outside the school system.
However, it was decided that this book will focus on principals, as they (still) remain
in the very heart of a school. Based on the processes and learnings described, readers
can begin their own journey; in essence, they can use our research instruments, as
they try to recontextualize them to school and system level criteria in their own
countries. Basically they can develop and carry out their own similar study at the
microlevel.
Thus, in Chap. 1 , we provide a description about the origins of the LISA and
Pro-LEAD projects, and we explore how the two projects were conceptually con-
ceived. For the LISA project, the main goal was to promote cooperation and col-
laborative research activities between school leaders and researchers in a learning
environment at a European level. The effort was to fi nd out how lower secondary
school (gymnasium) principals perceive their role, preferred leadership style, and
their effectiveness in enhancing the overall quality of education. For the Pro-LEAD
project, the main goal of the research was to explore the relationship between the
leadership style or styles (as presented in the P ashiardis-Brauckmann Holistic
Leadership Framework ) school principals adopt, their epistemological worldviews
(i.e., holistic beliefs about the nature and acquisition of knowledge), and their
beliefs about the contextual and governance structures in which they operate (i.e.,
situational governance).
Then, in Chap. 2 , we explore the conceptualization and development of the
Pashiardis-Brauckmann Holistic Leadership Framework . This chapter offers a
thorough review of the current leadership literature about what we know and about
what matters with regard to the effect of school leadership on student achievement.
A description of the three “Ss” is provided as well: Situational and dynamic gover-
nance, Situational leadership, School variables. Then, we continue with a presenta-
tion of the state of the art with regard to what we know about what works and what
doesn’t for enhanced student achievement, and we further explore the modeling of
Preface ix
the Pashiardis-Brauckmann Holistic Leadership Framework , in an effort to provide
an integrated leadership perspective.
Chapter 3 offers a thorough description of the methodological approach for both
the LISA and Pro-LEAD projects. Here we explain why we used a mixed-method
approach for both projects. We offer a step-by-step description of how we pro-
ceeded providing some insights from the cooperation between researchers and prac-
titioners. Then, for the Pro-LEAD project we present, in particular, the combination
of questionnaire and think-aloud data which can provide converging evidence for
the different beliefs individuals possess. We make the argument that validating
questionnaire quantitative data with the think-aloud qualitative data strengthens any
conclusions that might be drawn from either data set alone. Furthermore, we
describe the use of advanced data analysis techniques which enabled us in the test-
ing of different theoretical models in order to identify the complex and dynamic
relationships among leadership styles, epistemological worldviews, and beliefs
about contextual and educational governance structures again, utilizing the
Pashiardis-Brauckmann Holistic Leadership Framework.
In Chap. 4 , we describe the procedures for the validation of the Leadership Styles
of the P ashiardis-Brauckmann Holistic Leadership Framework . The leadership
radius was validated in the eight countries (Cyprus, England, Norway, Germany,1
Slovenia, Hungary, Italy, and the Netherlands) participating in the research for both
projects, as a second-order factor indicated by fi ve fi rst-order factors that corre-
sponded to each one of the leadership styles extracted from the Exploratory Factor
Analysis. These include (1) Instructional Style, (2) Participative Style, (3) Personnel
Development Style, (4) Entrepreneurial Style, and (5) Structuring Style. Then, some
comparisons and analyses between and within countries are attempted. This analy-
sis aims at comparing the relative level of each leadership style across all countries
and explores possible similarities and differences.
Chapter 5 examines a mediated effects model incorporating intervening (cli-
mate) variables at the school level in order to explore school principals’ infl uence on
student achievement through the P ashiardis-Brauckmann Holistic Leadership
Framework . In this way, we are aiming at identifying the mechanisms through
which leadership infl uence seeps through to student learning. For the purposes of
our project, a number of school climate variables were used as mediating variables
between the principal’s leadership styles and student achievement. Both the explor-
atory and the confi rmatory factor analyses pointed towards a model comprising
seven such mediating factors. The seven factors extracted were labeled as follows:
Professional Development Opportunities , Evaluation and Feedback , Teacher
Commitment , Parental Involvement , T eaching and Learning Practices , Student-
Teacher Interactions , and Student Expectations .
1 P lease note that Germany comprises 16 states which are collectively referred to as Länder . Each
state has its own state constitution and is largely autonomous in regard to its internal organization.
Whenever reference to Germany is made in this book, the reference implies only the state of North
Rhine-Westphalia, which participated in the LISA project.