David Giles

Re-culturing a university department: a case study:

At a time when any number of academics might be forgiven for being distracted by performance-based accountability regimes, some stories and experiences can be found of strong relational and collaborative cultures existing within educational institutions. Indeed, the relational ethos and team priority developed within a particular university department has not only stood the test of time, but is seen as helpful in enabling the individual and collective responsibilities of academic staff. This paper explores leadership re-culturing practices that seek to further enable this continuing relational endeavour. Using a case study approach, the perceptions and experiences of faculty members were drawn on specific re-culturing practices and their influence on the formation of a relational culture within the department. These practices often involve a degree of improvisation and are formed as both proactive and reactive responses to the present ideological context and challenges. What appears to be sustained aspirationally is the leadership’s intent to establish a relational organisational culture which underpins the department’s educational endeavour. This paper seeks to identify a range of leadership practices that influences and re-cultures academics’ individual and collective endeavour within a university department. Such leadership practices focus on open collegial dialogue towards the priority and practice of collaborative relational endeavour in higher education.

Pedagogical approaches for developing relational sensibilities in educational leaders

This paper draws from phenomenological research exploring the nature of relationships in education, collaborative research exploring alternative pedagogies in educational leadership programmes and postgraduate students’ experiences of leadership. These inquiries have been brought together with the aim of outlining two pedagogical approaches which evoke an appreciation of, and contemplative stance towards, the relational sensibilities within the lived experiences of practising, emergent and aspiring educational leaders. Relational sensitivity and sensibilities are essential to how leaders show what matters in their immediate context. Relational sensibilities appear to have an enduring and ontological presence within experiences of leadership. Examples include a leader’s attunement, nous, tact and improvisation. In addition, sensibilities include how leaders remain resolute having made a moral judgement. Two pedagogical approaches that deepen leader’s relational sensibilities are outlined. One includes the interpretive and hermeneutic use of experiential stories in inquiries of leadership as a phenomenon. A second pedagogical approach, an appreciative appraisal, involves the application of Appreciative Inquiry to the life-centric nature of an individual’s professional practice. It is critically important that leadership courses engage leaders in pedagogical approaches that engender a deepening appreciation of relational sensibilities in their everyday lives. This concern underpins the need for those in leadership to revisit their everyday humanity as this leads to action sensitive praxis.

A storyline of ideological change in a New Zealand primary school

Purpose – This article aims to report on the findings from a research project that explored a school’s changing ideological storyline with the appointment of a new Principal and the Board of Trustees’ intention to move towards a strengths-based approach to education. Following the school’s dialogue and decision-making over a three-year period enabled the identification of a range of competitive processes between the dominant and an emergent ideology within the school. Design/methodology/approach – Using an ideological framework proposed by Meighan et al. (2007), the research focussed on the development and maintenance of shared understandings within each ideology. For the purpose of this article, the participants have been limited to those in school governance, the school’s senior leadership team and some teachers across a three-year period. Data were gathered through semi-structured interviews, online surveys and informal observations and analysed through interpretive and hermeneutic processes. Findings ...

Being “in” assessment: the ontological layer(ing) of assessment practice

Purpose – Current discourses on educational assessment focus on the priority of learning. While this intent is invariably played out in classroom practice, a consideration of the ontological nature of assessment practice opens understandings which show the experiential nature of “being in assessment”. The purpose of this paper is to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – Using interpretive and hermeneutic analyses within a phenomenological inquiry, experiential accounts of the nature of assessment are worked for their emergent and ontological themes. Findings – These stories show the ontological nature of assessment as a matter of being in assessment in an embodied and holistic way. Originality/value – Importantly, the nature of a teachers way-of-being matters to assessment practices. Implications exist for teacher educators and teacher education programmes in relation to the priority of experiential stories for understanding assessment practice, the need for re-balancing a concern for profe...

Designing and using an organisational culture inquiry tool to glimpse the relational nature of leadership and organisational culture within a South Australian primary school

ABSTRACT This case study research found that the relational leadership and organisational culture at a public primary school situated in a high poverty location in South Australia was built upon the strength of the inter-relationships between the teachers, teachers and leadership, and between teachers and students. Supported by what we called ‘dynamic inter-relationships’ and a ‘commitment to ongoing growth’ manifesting as key themes across the qualitative survey data generated by the school’s participants, we found the individual strengths of staff served the ‘on-going formation of organisational life’. Cognisant of these disclosed relational underpinnings, the research provided recommendations to the school’s leadership team about how they could best progress their educational reform agenda. The findings affirmed an Appreciative Inquiry inspired approach designed for the research was ‘fit for purpose’ as it generated extensive qualitative data from the teachers and leaders, offering opportunity for deep interpretive analysis using hermeneutic methodology of the school’s relational leadership and organisational culture. The research findings were subsequently confirmed by the teachers and leaders through a dialogic presentation of the research findings as an accurate representation of the culture of their school.

Whatever It Takes! Using a Component Theory Approach with Public Secondary School Principals "Doing Schooling Differently".

ABSTRACT Purpose: The research seeks to capture the ‘special character’ of schools as seen through the eyes of the Principal and to introduce alternative understandings of ideological praxis’ to challenge and unsettle the dominant ideology and logics of secondary schooling with consequent school design implications in South Australia. Design/methodology/approach: Using an ideological framework based, the research focussed on the common shared understandings across each school pertaining to each ideology. Data were gathered through semi-structured interviews and analysed through interpretive and hermeneutic processes. Findings: The findings show the tensions, subtleties and nuances of two dominant and competing ideologies: a dominant discourse of individual schooling purpose for student mobility and economic productivity and an emerging public purposes ideology of education for good citizenship, sustainable futures and the public good. The dominant neoliberal public policy ideology and the associated historical design logics of conventional schooling is challenged and reconstituted by the experience, expertise, courage, determination and moral purpose of the principals in this research. Originality/value: This article opens specific ideological understandings held by the Principals that have moved all of the schools towards pedagogical excellence and a repurposing of their organisations for the students’ sake.

Understanding emancipatory forms of educational leadership through schooling justice work: an action research study into second chance schooling development

ABSTRACT Concerned about the phenomena of early school leaving in our region, we are two teachers who initiated and developed a new school from the ‘ground up’ to re-engage young people disenfranchised with schooling back into formalised learning. Using critical action research methodology over a three and a half year developmental period, this endeavour involved us in exercising particular dimensions of leadership to engineer a sustainable second chance school. Twelve years after its development, the school continues with enrolments of over 100 senior secondary students in recent years. The schooling justice work we pursued during the developmental period drew us into ‘emancipatory’ leadership work that called us to be; (1) teacher activists embracing social entrepreneurial strategies imbued with (2) relational sensibilities, and (3) architects of socially just school design informed by (4) critical praxis within a university led professional learning community. The ‘second chance school’ has re-engaged over 1000 students back into formalised learning since its inception and has offered pathways into post-school tertiary study, apprenticeships and training for the majority of these students.

Revisiting student's learning experiences appreciatively

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to focuses on the use of Appreciative Inquiry (AI) to acquire and analyse students life-centric experiences in an undergraduate early childhood course entitled, “Philosophy in Action”. The course has as a foundational belief that a teachers sense of identity is central to effective teaching. As such, this research sought to capture the essence of the connection between students’ beliefs about early childhood teaching and the real world of practice. Design/methodology/approach – Using an AI approach peak performances were analysed for causes of success and emergent themes, after which provocative propositions and an action plan were co-constructed. Findings – The findings of this research evoke discourse around the influence of the student-teacher relationship as a means of enhancing life centric learning experiences in educational programmes. Originality/value – The authors wondered whether an AI approach to a course evaluation might open themes that show a taken-f...