Schools-as-learning

1
Schools-as-learning communities and New Public
Management

• The role of organisational structure in
  mediating tension
• Dr A.M. Bowker
  amb72_at_cam.ac.uk

2

• Former teacher and head of department in
  high-performing English schools
• Ideas presented in the paper are part of my
  doctoral research (supervised by Professor J.
  MacBeath)
• Research agenda investigating the conditions for
  teachers to teach well from a Theory Y (McGregor
  1960) perspective.

3
methodology

• Quasi-ethnographic 2 weeks in each school
• 3 high performing schools over 75 A-C grade at
  GCSE (16 year olds), in SE England.
• Different selection and governance
• Community comprehensive (all pupils in the
  catchment area)
• Foundation Grammar school (pupils that pass 11
  exam)
• Independent school (fee-paying not subject to
  National curriculum and government strategies)

4
Aim conceptual framework

• How do organisational structures in
  high-performing schools support the development
  of the school as a learning community?
• E.g. Shared office talk of
  previous lesson mutual trust,
  collaboration

5
New Public Management (in England)

• Individual responsibility
• Risk-minimisation (e.g. educational triage)
• Transmissive teaching (e.g. closely defined
  syllabi and teaching strategies)
• A focus on measurable outcomes
• Detached relationships, related to performance
  (e.g. commodification of pupils)
• Competitive working relationships seen as key to
  create improvement
• Trust based primarily on systems of monitoring
  and motivation (theory X) (also see Elliot, 2001,
  O'Neill, 2002)
• Customer-supplier relationships with the
  environment (e.g. parents)
• Conformity, associated with external control and
  risk minimisation (Thrupp Willmott, 2003)
• Strong heroic leadership (e.g. superhead )
• Critics e.g. Ball (2001) Thrupp and Willmott
  (2003) Alexander (2003)
• NPM e.g. Hood (1991) Enteman (1993)
  Fergusson (2000)

6
Schools-as-learning-communities

• Shared responsibility among all members
• Considered risk-taking and experimenting to
  improve teaching and learning
• Social constructivist thinking reflective
  practice, prevalent and dominant
• A focus on activities which improve every
  members educational experience
• Mutual care respect
• Working relationships that tend to be
  collaborative, but embrace diversity, and seen as
  key to improvement
• Mutual trust (theory Y)
• Partnerships with the environment (for example,
  parents)
• Diverse interests and talents embraced
• Distributed leadership
• e.g. Jeffrey, B. Woods, P. (2003) Mitchell and
  Sackney (2000) Sergiovanni (1999) Retallick et
  al (1999) Fielding (1999)

7
Analytical framework

• New Public Management (New Managerialism)

• Schools-as-learning-communities

1. Shared responsibility among all members
2. Considered risk-taking and experimenting to
   improve teaching and learning
3. Social constructivist thinking reflective
   practice, prevalent and dominant
4. A focus on activities which improve every
   members educational experience
5. Mutual care respect
6. Working relationships that tend to be
   collaborative, but embrace diversity, and seen as
   key to improvement
7. Mutual trust (theory Y)
8. Partnerships with the environment (for example,
   parents)
9. Diverse interests and talents embraced
10. Distributed leadership

• Individual responsibility
• Risk-minimisation (e.g. educational triage)
• Transmissive teaching (e.g. closely defined
  syllabi and teaching strategies)
• A focus on measurable outcomes
• Detached relationships, related to performance
  (e.g. commodification of pupils)
• Competitive working relationships seen as key to
  create improvement
• Trust based primarily on systems of monitoring
  and motivation (theory X)
• Customer-supplier relationships with the
  environment (e.g. parents)
• Conformity, associated with external control and
  risk minimisation
• Strong heroic leadership (e.g. superhead )
• Hood, 1991

8
Analytical themes

• Responsibility and responding
•  Attitudes to risk
•  Sources of change
•  Teacher development
•  Style of relationships
•  Assumptions about motivating improvement
•  Assumptions about trust
•  Relationships the environment
•  Conformity, diversity and systems
• Leadership opportunities

9
Initial observations concerning culture

• Schools-as-learning-communities negotiating NPM
  agenda
• Discernable well-known good practices from
  effective schools literature e.g. Strong shared
  sense of the schools philosophy
• However origins differed
• Longevity of some teacher-careers (30 years)

10
Key Findings

• Two related features of organisational structure
  emerged in strong association with aspects of the
  learning community
• Enablement of informal practices
• Facilitation of teachers to form ties
  (Granovetter, 1973 1985) of different strengths
  across their own community and beyond

11
Informal interactions wiggle room

• Space for informal interactions to flourish
• Issues dealt with immediately (cf formal
  protocols)
• High frequency of such interactions led to
  regularly reinforced school norms
• BUT highly dependent on voluntarism, difficult
  to manage or contrive

12
Role of Strong Ties promoting efficient response
and action.

• Strong ties staffroom and shared offices.
• Greater social trust,? risk-taking
  followership
• Mutual care and respect ?sharing of
  responsibility
• Shared language and values ? decreased response
  time increased potential leadership.
• Strong ties create strong boundaries
• Bonding (between equals) form of social capital
  (Szreter 2004)

13
The Role of Weak Ties acquiring information and
disseminating innovation

• Weak ties occasional meetings and chats
• Bridge group boundaries
• enhances teachers learning,
• engaging the environment,
• embracing diversity
• promoting collaboration
• Bridging linking forms of social capital

14
ExampleBCS whole school training day

• Structure provided A forum to learn from/teach
  others, to informally get to know others.
• ? promoted learning community ideals of mutual
  trust, embracing diversity, reflective practice,
  collaboration, distributing leadership.
• Schools level bonding capital
• departments level bridging capital

15
Increasing social capital why here?

• Putnam (2000) Increasing social capital
  beneficial.
• Network
• share norms of reciprocity,
• built through repeated interactions,
• onus on most powerful to create sense of fairness
  
• Why here?