2.1 Trying to be collaborative, inclusive and distributed?

Discussion

This reading begins with an act of self-critique, which is informed by involvement as a middle leader within the school on the SBI and with groups external to the school. Having identified issues in her own practice, the author joins a local group engaged in collaborative inquiry and action research. In developing the project, she establishes a group and opens up the possibility of them choosing their focus of activity. Both the identified issues seem meaningful to the SLG, and the disruption they create within the system suggests they are in some ways transformatory. However, the capacity of senior leaders in the school to constrain the change and disrupt the ideas of the young people (and the SBI team) underlines that the leaders have control of the tools of persuasion, compulsion and power. The teacher’s reflections upon her own failings in maintaining and supporting the SLG also highlights some of the internal political challenges within the group itself and that she faces in trying to bring about change in her setting.

This tale seems both inspiring and dispiriting. It reflects a number of issues that are evident in relation to student voice and to involving them in the decision making and reflective process of a school. The resistance of teachers and school leaders to the group echoes a common theme in student voice literature that children and young people are seen as lacking competence in some way. Consequently, since adult leaders retain power over the spaces to be heard, they exclude voices that they see as not acceptable, relevant or intelligible. Despite the efforts of the teacher to facilitate leadership amongst the students and facilitate interactions with the staff, the goals and structures of activities are framed by the institution and as a result seem to reinforce existing school power relations and keep the children on the boundaries (Pearce & Wood, 2019). Perhaps unsurprisingly, the students are not really allowed to be members of the community of practice. They are perhaps allowed a temporary position of peripheral participation, as discussed at the end of Section 1.

It seems particularly relevant to reflect on issues of power in this context. Children and young people may seem to be on the extreme edge of this issue when considering professional collaboration and enquiry. But this tale can also be understood as being relevant to those others that are frequently placed on the margins of the school’s decision-making processes (e.g.: the support staff, the maintenance staff, the food preparation staff; parents and families). For instance, a study of 5 school principles in the United States (Flores & Kyere, 2021) identified how they recognised the power of relationships when engaging with parents, the need to resist deficit thinking about families, and that working with families was an issue of equity. They all believed that without a trusting relationship with parents they lost an opportunity to build on the strengths and resources families brought with them. Leading a community can be understood as both a moral and intellectual activity (Starratt, 2007), engaged in an examination of who we are, and our relationships and responsibilities to the natural, cultural, and social worlds. In this context leadership is about restructuring and re-culturing, it is an authentic practice, involving the development of the people around us, building their capacity to explore new possibilities and support others. It is up to the leader(s) to decide if this includes everyone in that community of enquiry.