Tanya Fitzgerald

Interrogating Orthodox Voices: Gender, Ethnicity and Educational Leadership.

Research in educational leadership and management, while comprehensive in its scope and direction, has considerable imbalances that have contributed to what Blackmore (1999) has termed the monoculture of the powerful. The focus on the apparent intractability of leadership as a male domain and ways in which women have negotiated the gendered nature of their professional lives has provided opportunities for debate and the emergence of (oppositional) discourses that account for womens ways of knowing and leading. Yet, as this article argues, these discourses of privilege and opportunity have not accounted for trajectories of ethnicity and diversity. The critique of Western ethnocentric notions of leadership presented in this article is informed by debates on issues such as gender and educational leadership that have produced meta-narratives that explore and explain women and mens ways of leading. One of the troubling aspects of Western leadership theories is the claim that the functions and features of leadership can be transported and legitimated across homogenous educational systems. Despite changes that have been made in definitions and descriptions of educational leadership to provide a focus on gender, there is the implicit assumption that while educational leadership might be practised differently according to gender, these discourses essentially remain both raced and classed. Thus, the construct of educational leadership needs to be more broadly theorised in order for cross-cultural discourses to emerge.

Contesting the orthodoxy of teacher leadership

Terms such as ‘leader’, ‘manager’, ‘teacher’ and ‘student’ prevail in most schools and, accordingly, school hierarchies are viewed as rational ways of organizing teachers and their work that institutionalize authority. We are deeply concerned that the term ‘teacher leadership’ has crept into educational vocabulary and there has not been sustained and robust debate either about the term or its use and misuse in schools. Although one of the positive aspects that this term signals is the possibility of more participation in schools, the enduring contradiction is that leadership remains hierarchical and connected with organizational purpose. More specifically, teacher leadership is a seductively functionalist way in which teacher commitment to neo‐liberal reform has been secured.

Changing the deafening silence of indigenous women's voices in educational leadership

The critique of western ethnocentric notions of leadership presented in this paper is informed by debates on issues such as gender and educational leadership that have produced meta‐narratives that explore and explain women and mens ways of leading. One of the troubling aspects of western leadership theories is the claim that the functions and features of leadership can be transported and legitimated across homogenous educational systems. Despite changes that have been made in definitions and descriptions of educational leadership to provide a focus on gender, there is the implicit assumption that while educational leadership might be practised differently according to gender, there is a failure to consider the values and practices of indigenous educational leaders. Thus, the construct of educational leadership needs to be more broadly theorised in order for knowledge of indigenous ways of leading to emerge.

The continuing politics of mistrust: performance management and the erosion of professional work

For the past two decades schools and teachers in New Zealand and elsewhere have been the subject of and subjected to intense public scrutiny of their performance and professional activities. In effect, policy solutions have cast teacher and school performance as a ‘problem’ to be solved/resolved via the intervention of the State. Consequently, the policy remedy has been the introduction of audit mechanisms such as systems of performance management to define, regulate and control teaching and teachers. That is, the State has directly intervened in the professional work and activities of teachers based on the flawed assumption that teachers cannot be trusted and therefore require the intervention of the State and its agencies to ensure their performance is aligned with organisational objectives. And while one of the hallmarks of a profession and professional practice is adherence to a set of prescribed standards, performance management has rendered teachers accountable to the State, not professional peers. And, as this article outlines, this has served to de‐professionalise teaching and teachers’ work.

Walking between Two Worlds: Indigenous Women and Educational Leadership

Theory and research in the field of educational leadership and management has grown exponentially in the past decade. I am troubled however by the apparent primacy of ethnocentric ways of knowing, acting and leading. And while we might heed Dimmock and Walker’s call for a cross-cultural approach to leadership and management, located at the periphery are bodies of knowledge for/about Indigenous ways of leading and being led. This article reports on a three-year research project conducted in New Zealand, Australia and Canada for/with Indigenous women. Evidence points to the triple bind Indigenous women face due to exigencies of race and gender and the two worlds they occupy; the Indigenous and the non-Indigenous.

The future of leadership research

There is an emergent field of effective leadership of schools that is the product of recent policy strategies regarding the relationship between the state, public policy and knowledge. It is argued in this paper that this is producing a centralised branded form of effective leadership for the commissioning and delivery of provision that is essential to the further extension of the market into public education. Consequently, the future of leadership research is related directly to a technical form of knowledge production that produces evidence to support ongoing reform. While the situation looks gloomy the authors examine strategies for those who believe in educational leadership research to use to both challenge and to generate alternatives. They argue for doing intellectual work and being a public intellectual so that what ‘counts’ as leadership and good practice research is challenged and questioned in ways that both counter and provide alternatives to deeply entrenched conservative interests regarding public services.

Leadership learning: a development initiative for experienced New Zealand principals

Purpose – During the 2000‐2004 period, one New Zealand tertiary institution provided a management development programme for experienced secondary school principals. Aims to determine the extent to which the learning had been sustained beyond the formal programme Design/methodology/approach – A postal questionnaire was administered to 80 participants seeking responses to questions concerning the programme and whether the learning had been transferred to their organisations. Findings – Empirical data suggested that while the programme was highly valued and there was a high degree of willingness to sustain the learning, this is only possible if school boards actively support principals to engage in critical reflection by providing time and opportunity. This research project provides evidence of the need for principals to participate in advanced management development in order to stimulate their own leadership learning. Originality/value – Findings from this research will be of benefit to policy makers, employing authorities and principals.

Women leaders in higher education : shattering the myths

1. Telling Lives 2. Troubling Myths 3. Patterns and Pathways 4. Women Leading 5. Dangerous Terrain 6. Whispers of Change

Leading Learning: Middle Leadership in Schools in England and New Zealand.

MiE, Vol 20 issue 3 In this article, our attention is on what is called ‘middle leadership’ in schools in England and ‘middle management’ in New Zealand. Our concern is that despite almost two decades since the introduction of site based management in both countries that devolved significant responsibility for the leadership of learning to those teachers in the ‘middle’ of the school hierarchy (Fitzgerald and Gunter, 2006), little is known about how this leadership of learning is exercised and how teachers might be professionally developed for this role (Gunter, 2001; Visscher and Witziers, 2004). And, more importantly, the untested assumption has been that those with formal leadership responsibilities (such as Head/Principal) have been the leaders of learning in schools (Hallinger and Heck, 1996). Although the literature on teacher leadership and/or distributed leadership (see for example Frost and Harris, 2003; Harris and Lambert, 2003) calls for an increasing awareness by teachers of their leaders’ role within their own sphere of influence (the classroom), there is a paucity of evidence that shows how this leadership of learning is accomplished.

Spaces In-Between: Indigenous Women Leaders Speak Back to Dominant Discourses and Practices in Educational Leadership.

My intention in this article is not to solely ‘talk up’ or ‘talk back’ to troubling dominant discourses about, and practices in, educational leadership, but to authenticate and legitimate Indigenous women’s voices through theorising their leadership realities and by situating such knowledge in the cultural spaces that they occupy. Accordingly, this article leads with the voices of Indigenous women that shape the theoretical discussion. Finally, I offer alternative ways of seeing the relationship between community, schools and leaders from Indigenous perspectives.