Extending Middle Leadership Roles: Factors That Support and Inhibit Sustainable Change

• In Event: Sheraton Roundtable Session Ten
  In Roundtable Session: Leadership Across Multiple Roles Within Schools and Districts (Table 2)

Abstract

This paper reports empirical research on the extent to which a combination of internal and external factors supported or inhibited sustained change among groups of middle leaders from a range of schools undertaking a one-year school-focussed, externally-led professional development programme. The research revealed that, despite the short-term change afforded by the success of the programme, longer term change involved management of on-going challenges to existing professional identities, relationships and practices; and that this was assisted or inhibited by relationships between teachers’ personal dispositions, change capacities and capabilities, and the cultures of the schools in which they worked. The research developed an empirically grounded analytical framework for researching sustained change. The findings have implications for the further development of school-university collaborations.

Authors

• Christopher W. Day, University of Nottingham
  Presenting Author

• Christine Grice, University of Sydney
  Presenting Author