Parents and Community Involvement in Education Through Teacher Leadership

• In Event: 60.083 - Roundtable Session 19
  In Roundtable Session: 60.083-18 - Teacher Leadership for School and Community Transformation

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to analyse the potential benefits of parents and community involvement in education through teacher leadership in secondary education, drawing from teachers’ accounts. Education has the capacity to transform realities in a process by which people from the communities give a central role to teachers (Giroux, 2001). Within this framework, it is relevant to consider that educational research has demonstrated that learning is related to what happens into schools, neighbourhoods and families, being the result of communicative interaction between the learner and all people with whom she or he interacts: peers, teachers, relatives, friends, and others (Aubert, et al. 2008). Given this, research has already explored the connections between leadership and communities and its impact in effective and successful leadership (Kenneth, et al. 2010). According to Ganz (2010) there is a need to enhance leadership effectiveness through ongoing adaptation, learning, and sharing of knowledge; effective solutions require social mobilization of the whole community. In this line, teacher leadership is understood as a process by which teachers influence on colleagues, principals and others (Frost, & Harris, 2003) having a key role in creating new forms of leadership enabling teachers to strengthen relationships between home and school (Howey, 1988). The communicative methodology is used in the research topic addressed in this paper, which stresses the egalitarian dialogue between researchers, end-users and other stakeholders involved in realities being studied (Gómez, Puigvert & Flecha, 2011). Preliminary results shed light on the ways in which teacher leadership is promoting parents and community involvement in secondary education. In depth-interviews and communicative focus groups are conducted in diverse secondary schools to provide evidences of teacher leadership enabling parents and communities to be involved in education, an element that has been partially addressed in this field. As a result, an approach to teacher leadership and school improvement based on dialogue is reinforced to enable interaction among teachers, parents and communities. Within this approach teacher leadership is promoting the creation of shared spaces that include and engage parents and other community members. Advancements in the field of teacher leadership by using an integrative approach are encouraged addressing its effectiveness for school improvement with the involvement of parents and communities. Recently, the European Commission has funded the TEACH-IN, a two years project to develop a comprehensive understanding of teacher leadership and how to implement it in secondary schools and communities in successful ways, promoting school improvement and social transformation.

Author

• Gisela Redondo-Sama, University of Cambridge