4 Inclusive Leadership for agency and institutional change
Ryan (2006) suggests that Inclusive leadership involves being an advocate and educator of people, supporting critical consciousness and dialogue, with a focus upon classroom practice and learning. He suggests that it involves seeking to be inclusive in the decisions one makes, the policies and strategies one establishes, and by working across the whole school. This is something which the headteacher in a study about an Elementary school in the United States would probably agree with (Hoppey & McLeskey, 2013). He saw his role to be about ‘growing people’. This required building relationships, encouraging reflection, and providing school-based professional development. He particularly valued the role of mentoring and the individual and collective growth which arose through a focus on topics that mattered to the staff. This included working through university-based professional development seminars. Significantly, he did not see this involvement with outside ‘experts’ as being about providing answers. He saw it as being about questions, inquiry, reflection and ‘being honest with ourselves’. Subsequently, he encouraged teachers to connect their plans to wider school plans. Through such processes he sought to encourage teachers to assume various leadership roles which were not formal but sustained a collaborative culture of learning that focused on improving practice. He was looking to develop more leaders, rather than followers. This required ongoing support, helping people to overcome their natural resistance to change, their frustration at doing something new and being faced with the scepticism of others. He saw it as a moral purpose to improve the lives of people in the school and to buffer people from external pressure.
The challenge is not just about growing the people within the setting, of course. As discussed previously it involves a great many other people and institutions of influence. For instance, a study of 25 schools in Spain (Crisol-Moya et al, 2022) looking at families’ views on the actions of school leadership teams, highlighted the need for schools to be open to all families and responsive to their needs. They sought mutual exchange, active participation, and the feeling of belonging. Even more broadly, an action research study in a secondary school in Cyprus (Charalampous & Papademetriou, 2021), explored the obstacles faced by a leader and how they can transform them into opportunities for creating an inclusive environment. Working with the school leadership team and teaching staff, they not only recognised that the headteacher, the teachers and the carers of pupils were obstacles but so too was the Ministry of Education and Culture. Building upon the school leadership style, they sought to promote a bottom-up change, seeking to shift from a pyramid of hierarchy (Figure 8) to a pyramid of collaboration (Figure 9). They recognised that in cooperation with the headmaster, intermediate leaders could be key players in changing the culture of the school. Exemplifying the effectiveness of this process, across the year of the intervention the staff identified a change in the school environment and greater support for inclusive ways of working. At the heart of this was role played by feedback. So let’s explore this a bit more deeply.
Activity 7 Round and round we go?
Read about Feedback loops: Schenke, W., van Driel, J., Geijsel, F. & Volman, M. (2017) ‘Closing the feedback loop: a productive interplay between practice-based research and school development through cross-professional collaboration in secondary education [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] ’, Professional Development in Education, 43(5), pp. 860–880.
This study explores interplay between practice-based research and school development in 19 projects undertaken in Dutch secondary schools. Read from Results on p866 to the end of Conclusion and Discussion on p875. As you are reading ask yourself the following questions in relation to your own personal and professional experiences.
- What effective examples have you of
- a.productive interplay?
- b.short-term feedback loops?
- c.long-term feedback loops?
- What made these examples effective?
- What barriers were part of these examples?
Discussion
When reflecting on this activity the course author recalled a vignette from a study in Singapore Primary Schools. This seemed to exemplify both productive and unproductive interplay:
Janet had been working as a teacher for fifteen years. She recalled an incident in her previous school when she was a novice teacher. She commented on the professional relationship with her mentor: ‘My previous mentor was trying to guide me, but at the same time she was restricting me. When I proposed something, her first reaction would be “no” and then she would list down problems I would face if I enacted the idea’. Janet proposed an idea to support students with lived experiences. However, her formal mentor was hesitant in supporting the idea. The initiative was delayed until her head of department heard about it and encouraged her to proceed with implementation. The school principal endorsed her proposal. Janet’s colleagues helped to promote the idea with their students and to organise learning trips (part of this initiative) and the initiative was finally commenced with students’ interests.
The same study included a model of the collaboration evident across the four schools which enabled the implementation of change (see Figure 10). Teachers tended to begin the collaboration process to implement Initiatives by sharing resources, practices, or strategies. This paved the way for them to focus on challenges and how they could enable the initiative. Through the collective process, they continued to resolve emerging issues, with the aim of improving the effectiveness of what they were trying to achieve. As they became more certain about the potential effectiveness of their change, they began spreading the idea to more teachers. Throughout this process though, the teachers had required affective support. For example, teachers reported increased workload and feeling discouraged when things did not go as hoped. Some talked about feeling isolated if only a few of them were involved in an initiative. They recognised therefore the importance of supporting peers emotionally throughout the collaboration process. This was not a complex form of support though. It could be as simple as mutual verbal encouragement and discussing the possible benefits of their work. Such support not only reduced a possible sense of isolation but also helped them to stay motivated.
