Degrees of School Democracy: A Holistic Framework

• In Event: Roundtable Session 18.
  In Roundtable Session: A Nested View of Democratic Leadership and Community: Agents of Change for the Public Good

Abstract

This paper explores the idea of degrees of internal school democracy through an analytical framework developed by the authors. A distinctive feature of the framework is the way in which it represents the essential interconnection of both holistic meaning and inclusive participation in democratic community. The framework is designed to be an analytical instrument for use in research and a supportive tool stimulating reflection on where a school is and where it can develop to become more democratic. The framework was developed on the basis of the authors’ prior theoretical work (in particular the concept of holistic democracy) and analysis of data in three schools (a democratic school, a Waldorf school and a sponsored inner city school). The value of focusing on how degrees of democracy could be explored emerged from a study of the efforts of the inner city school to distribute leadership and develop emergent leaders amongst newly qualified teachers in order to increase innovation in pedagogy, enhance students’ thinking skills and increase their attainment in tests and examinations. The question of whether this constituted an intensification of performative culture or progress in the direction of democratic professional participation led to further work comparing and contrasting the inner city school with two very different types of school in order to illustrate the varying degrees of democracy and to develop the framework presented in this paper. The data came from case studies and data collection visits by the authors to the three schools.
The analytical framework comprises a set of contrasting features relating to two organisational ideal types: the hierarchical, rationally focused bureaucratic school and the holistically democratic school. In order to establish the basis for the second ideal type, the concept of holistic democracy is summarised in the paper before explaining the methodology and setting out and discussing the framework in detail. The paper concludes with reflections and illustrative questions that arise from the discussion and indications of the framework’s current and potential applications. The framework can be used not only for research purposes but also to help enhance democratic professional, student and community participation: it is a resource for collaborative development by practitioners and others, offering a vehicle for school communities to reflect together on where they are as a school and where they would like to be. Hence the framework can be developed for local contexts, cultures and groups, and used and adapted by practitioners, students, parents, community members, school partners and sponsors and others involved in schools, as well as being tested and further refined by researchers.

Authors

• Philip Arthur Woods, University of Hertfordshire

• Glenys Woods, University of the West of England