Blending Leadership for Learning in Aboriginal and Indigenous Communities

• In Event: How School Leaders Impact Student Learning and Achievement: Leadership Principles, Models, and Effects Revisited

Abstract

Objectives
The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that ‘blending’ shared leadership processes with knowledge of particular curriculum priorities in the professional development of school leaders holds the promise of enhanced student achievement. Using two instances where school leaders with others inside and outside the school have enacted the blending process, the paper shows how school leaders impact positively on the achievement of Aboriginal and Indigenous children in the Australian context.

Perspectives
Leadership, no matter the setting in which it is exercised, always involves three central concepts: purpose, context, and human agency. Consistent with this understanding, in this paper we discuss the significance of contextual influences on leadership and the need to acquire a contextual literacy capacity as leaders engage with others in the pursuit of desired ends.

Data sources and results
The two data sources are ‘leadership for learning numeracy’ and ‘leadership for literacy learning’. In the first of these, an ethnographic approach was used to develop case studies that show how leaders in schools with small numbers of Indigenous children ‘blend’ leadership for learning in small remote Indigenous schools. The blending process worked horizontally, whereby the principal consistently worked with a small staff to develop a relevant and consistent numeracy program throughout the school. In some of the smaller remote schools there was also evidence to show that “blending” practices of leadership and learning extended beyond school leaders and staff to include community members in developing numeracy programs to meet the needs and interests of the community as well as the requirements of school curriculum policy documents.

The second data source, leadership for literacy learning, demonstrates how the inclusion of community members in the “blended” leadership for learning model is beneficial in enhancing Indigenous children’s reading. Throughout the 18-month Principals as Literacy Leaders with Indigenous Communities project, principals and Indigenous leadership partners (members of the community often employed by the school as liaison officers) enacted shared leadership in designing, implementing and evaluating placed-based reading action plans to enhance reading the literacy achievement of their Indigenous students. The role of the Indigenous leadership partner was to work with principals and teachers inside the school and also to connect with families and community members about reading with children. An outcome of the project was the increased appetite inside and outside the school for teaching Indigenous children to read in ways that were inclusive of both Indigenous and western ways of learning and knowledge.

Conclusions and Implications
The significance of the research is twofold: that the notion of blending leadership and learning is increasingly seen to be at the forefront of the role, responsibilities and accountabilities of school leaders; and that the notion of who counts as a leader of learning has shifted from teachers and school leaders to include families and communities in more than tokenistic invitations by schools for parental involvement. The blending of school leaders, teachers, families and communities collaborating in authentic partnerships is vital if we can truly claim the impact of leadership on children’s achievement.

Authors

• Greer Johnson, Griffith University

• Colin Neil Dempster, Griffith University

• Bev Fluckiger