Cultivating Collective Efficacy in Schools Facing Accountability-Driven Sanctions

• In Event: 26.080 - Roundtable Session 8
  In Roundtable Session: 26.080-5 - The Roles of Collective and Self-Efficacy in School Leadership

Abstract

This paper explores how leaders and teachers at three schools that have recently exited accountability-driven sanctions experience collective efficacy. Collective efficacy is an important school property for student achievement but has not been closely examined in the context of accountability pressures. Collective efficacy emerged as an important part of the schools’ improvement trajectories. Preliminary analyses suggest that in these schools collective efficacy is related to inter-collegial trust, shared understandings of problems and solutions, creative use of resources, and collective responsibility for all students’ growth. Particular attention is given to the leaders’ roles in cultivating these conditions. These findings are particularly instructive given that schools facing accountability-driven sanctions often lack the antecedents for collective efficacy previously documented.
1d: Accountability, Efficacy, Leadership

Author

• Mary Frances Jones, University of Illinois at Chicago