Gerald Grace

School Leadership: Beyond Education Management. An Essay in Policy Scholarship.

School Leadership Studies: Beyond Education Management Leadership and Management: Locating the Concepts Critical Perspectives on School Leadership Fieldwork and Analytical Approaches The Power of Relations of School Leadership: Change or Continuity? Headteachers: Curriculum and Educational Leadership Management, Markets and Schoool Headship Moral, Ethical and Professional Dilemmas The Dilemmas of Catholic Headteachers Women and Educational Leadership The Past and the Future of Educational Leadership Politics, Markets and Democratic Schools.

Research and the Challenges of Contemporary School Leadership: The Contribution of Critical Scholarship

There is a widespread policy assumption that school leaders such as headteachers and governors need to have ‘raining courses’ which are constituted by a growing corpus of Education Management Studies (EMS) if they are to achieve successfully current schooling goals of ‘effectiveness’, ‘quality’, ‘excellence’ and ‘value for money’ Another body of work which attempts to address these issues in a wider cultural framework and which may be called Critical Leadership Studies (CLS) is regarded as interesting for those studying for higher graduate qualifications but hardly relevant for everyday school busyness. While EMS is constructed as ‘practical’and therefore a necessary constituent of the National Professional Qualification for Headteachers and other training courses for school leaders, CLS is constructed as ‘academic’ and more suitable for the EdD seminar. It will be argued here that both cultural analysis and recent research shows this to be a simplistic and reductionist view with dangerous policy consequences. Critical scholarship in education has much to offer to those meeting the everyday challenges of school leadership. In particular, feminist critical scholarship offers oppositional models to both traditional and market forms of patriarchal school leadership.

Educational Studies And Faith-Based Schooling: Moving From Prejudice To Evidence-Based Argument

Much of the political and public debate about faith-based schooling is conducted at the level of generalised assertion and counter-assertion, with little reference to educational scholarship or research. There is a tendency in these debates to draw upon historical images of faith schooling (idealised and critical); to use ideological advocacy (both for and against) and to deploy strong claims about the effects of faith-based schooling upon personal and intellectual autonomy and the wider consequences of such schooling for social harmony, race relations and the common good of society.  This paper will attempt to review some of these controversies in the light of recent educational and research studies. Particular attention will be given to research investigations of Catholic schooling systems in various cultural and political contexts, studies which are largely unknown outside the Catholic community.  In addition to reviewing educational studies of faith-based schooling, the paper will offer critical appraisal of the main arguments in the debate and it will also outline a possible research agenda for future inquiry in this sector of educational studies.

Renewing spiritual capital: an urgent priority for the future of Catholic education internationally

Abstract When researching the responses of 60 Catholic school leaders to their demanding work in English inner-city secondary schools, I encountered evidence of a deep vocational commitment. These headteachers were clearly drawing upon a spiritual and religious resource that empowered them and which gave them a sustained sense of mission, purpose and hope in their educational work. In the research report which followed, I referred to this sustaining and inspirational factor as ‘spiritual capital’. What I did not do, as some critics have pointed out, was to provide an adequate historical and theoretical elaboration to this concept that might be used in future research and academic writing. This is an attempt to remedy that omission and to provide a more detailed understanding of what spiritual capital is, and of its crucial relevance for the future effectiveness and integrity of the Catholic education mission worldwide.

Catholic social teaching should permeate the Catholic secondary school curriculum: an agenda for reform

Abstract International research shows that the curricula of Catholic secondary schools are increasingly becoming dominated by the pressures of conforming to the requirements of nation states. These requirements are generally expressed in economic and utilitarian terms and evaluated by criteria of measurable outputs. As a result of these pressures, Catholic secondary schools are in danger of losing a distinctive religious and educational cultural programme expressed in a distinctive Catholic school curriculum. It is suggested in this article that a serious permeation of Catholic social teaching is crucial, not only for the intrinsic importance of its subject matter but also as a means to resist total cultural incorporation into state-mandated curricula. Particular attention is given to the educational potential contained in Pope Benedict XVIs encyclical, Caritas in Veritate (2009).

On the international study of Catholic education: why we need more systematic scholarship and research

Abstract There is a considerable contradiction in the field of Catholic education. On the one hand, the Catholic educational system is the largest faith-based educational mission in the world, having over 200,000 schools and over 1000 universities and colleges, while on the other hand, very little systematic scholarship and research exist to assist, evaluate and professionally develop this great enterprise as it faces the many challenges of the contemporary world. This article argues for more systematic study of and research in Catholic education in all its forms and suggests an agenda for future investigation.

Changes in the classification and framing of education in Britain, 1950s to 2000s: an interpretive essay after Bernstein

Using the concepts of classification and framing and other relevant writings by Basil Bernstein, an attempt will be made to construct a theorised account of changes in the socio‐political context of education in Britain; of the mode of governance in education and of the constructs and practice of educational leadership from the 1950s to the present day. These changes will be examined in three political‐ideological periods in British educational history to show how Basil Bernsteins assertion that ‘pedagogic communication is a relay for patterns of dominance external to itself [The Structuring of Pedagogic Discourse, vol. IV, Class, Codes and Control (London: Routledge, 1990), 169] is mediated in each historical period by the classification and framing relationships existing in the nexus of state, economy and schooling.

Faith school leadership: a neglected sector of in‐service education in the United Kingdom

This paper argues that the professional development and in‐service educational needs of faith school leaders have been neglected by mainstream providers of continuing professional development programmes in the United Kingdom. Given the substantial presence of Church of England and Roman Catholic schools and colleges in the UK system and current plans for an increased number of Muslim, Jewish and Christian Evangelical schools, some positive response is necessary. The distinctive needs of faith school leaders (Christian, Muslim and Jewish) require the provision of continuing professional development and in‐service courses that look seriously at the specific challenges of faith school leadership in contemporary conditions.

Mission Integrity: Contemporary Challenges for Catholic School Leaders: Beyond the Stereotypes of Catholic Schooling

It is often assumed that issues to do with Catholic school leadership are relevant only to Catholics and are therefore marginal to mainstream research and literature in the field of educational leadership. This misconception probably arises because of two pervasive and stereotypical views of the nature of Catholic schooling.

Faith Schools: Democracy, Human Rights and Social Cohesion

This article argues that faith-based schools are a necessary feature of democratic and pluralistic societies and a legitimate expression of human rights as constituted in the European Convention in Human Rights (2000). It further argues that if the rights of parents to have a real choice for faith-based schools (regardless of ability to pay) are to be actualised, then state funding for such schools is required. The article concludes by saying that current arguments that faith-based schools are generative of social or community conflict have no basis in existing empirical research. These arguments, when examined, are not evidence based but rather based upon polemical and prejudiced assertions which give a superficial reading of the causes of community conflict, as in the case of Northern Ireland.