JELPP – Volume 38 (2024)
Māori leadership and early childhood educational leadership in Aotearoa: A critical literature review
Tracy Dayman1, Alison Warren2, Sandra Tuhakaraina2, Lesley Robinson2 and Emma Haruru2,1University of Canterbury, Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha New Zealand, 2Te Rito Maioha Early Childhood New Zealand
Abstract
Five early childhood teacher educators in Aotearoa New Zealand explored a range of literature to respond to the question: What does literature tell us about Māori leadership and how are our findings relevant to leadership in early childhood education (ECE) in Aotearoa? The process of finding and reviewing literature sources about Māori leadership led us to think critically about how Māori values, concepts, and customs have been diminished or sustained in fields such as education and business. ECE in Aotearoa is shaped by the bicultural curriculum Te Whāriki and underpinned by obligations to Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Although education and leadership structures and processes in Aotearoa are overwhelmingly produced within Westernised perspectives, ECE curriculum and practice foregrounds Māori ways of knowing, being, and doing. Through the literature review process, we shared insights and critical discussions that enriched our perceptions of leadership by and for Māori, and of relevance to ECE leadership through shared values. The literature reviewed provided examples from education and business settings where Māori leadership grounded in values of whanaungatanga/reciprocal relationality originating in Māori traditional beliefs and societal structures has been sustained, remembered, and reclaimed through processes of navigating and negotiating present-day colonised contexts. Literature also provided examples of official programmes and policies that seek to acknowledge and enhance Māori leadership in education.
Leadership for social justice: A study of directors of the National Pedagogical University of Mexico City
Enrique Farfán Mejía1, Mariana del Rocio Aguilar Bobadilla2 and Charles Slater31Universidad Pedagógica Nacional México, USA, 2Universidad Pedagógica Nacional México, 3California State University Long Beach USA
Abstract
Leadership for social justice is a goal and a challenge for the National Pedagogical University (UPN) in Mexico City. The purpose of this study is to examine the role of UPN directors in the context of leadership for social justice. The focus of the study is on those who are responsible for preparation and continuous training of teachers (García, 2006; Jiménez, 2009). The research design was qualitative based on subjective interpretation from the meanings generated by the participants (Bisquerra, 2014). It describes and analyses the experiences of five directors of school units through in-depth interviews where both the person and the environment are of interest.
The findings were reported in the voices of the directors. Supportive factors included teamwork through building consensus and recognition of achievements, commitment to students, and critical awareness. The obstacles to leadership included the quality of facilities, vertical management, job uncertainty, the challenging profile of the students, and inter-institutional relations. This study of leadership of directors of UPN has the potential to strengthen the management of the UPN school units and enhance institutional objectives to promote inclusion and guarantee the right to education. It also has implications for the study of social justice leadership in other educational contexts.
Pathways to school improvement: Discovering network patterns of school principals
Miguel M. Gonzales1, Tiber Garza2 and Elizabeth Leon-Zaragoza31University of Nevada Las Vegas, USA, 2Florida International University, USA, 3University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, USA
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to examine the network effect of school principals as it relates to school improvement. Network practices of school principals are compared to an innovative practice for improving networking practices. Through descriptive statistics and chi-square goodness of fit, we illustrate the difference between what school principals do concerning their networking practices for school improvement compared to an innovative ideal approach for using network working for school improvement. Findings indicate there is a statistically significant difference between school principals’ networking practices in comparison to ideal networking practices for school improvement. There are also differences between who school principals seek out for ideas and who they seek out for feedback concerning their school improvements. Further discussion informs how the next generation of school principals can be equipped with innovative skills for tackling 21st-century school improvement issues.
Problematising “World Class” public education policy in South Australia: Insights for education policy makers
Andrew Bills1, Nigel Howard1, Sarah Hattam21College of Education, Psychology and Social Work, Flinders University, South Australia 2University of South Australia Education Futures, South Australia
Abstract
This policy-interested South Australian public education case study problematises how the Chief Executive (CE) and members of the Education Department’s Senior Executive Group (SEG) understood system and school improvement from 2018 to 2022. We applied Carol Bacchi’s, “What’s the Problem Represented to be?”(WPR) policy analysis framework to unearth the policy assumptions underlying the Department’s overarching policy ensemble called “World Class,” initiated across South Australia’s public primary and secondary schools. WPR reveals heightened centralised technologies of command and control directed at teacher and leader work to achieve McKinsey defined World Class status by 2028.
We find school improvement policy solutions were engineered through “managerially enforced complexity reduction” techniques within the paradigm of the Global Education Reform Movement (GERM). These techniques impacted policy prescriptions, performance management technologies, school improvement plans, curriculum materials for schools, and promoted NAPLAN as the ultimate measure of the good school, the good teacher, and the good principal. NAPLAN is the National Assessment Program—Literacy and Numeracy used in Australia and takes the form of an annual standardised assessment for students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9.
Most concerningly, we find the policy logics of World Class worked to incentivise inequality across public schools through diminishing the purposes of public education and the professionalism of educators. We conclude arguing for the democratisation of existing departmental structures within iterative inquiry-based approaches to policy formation and practice to better attend to public education purposes.