Multiple Logics of Curriculum Leadership: How a Large Public School District Manages Institutional Complexity

• In Event: Sheraton Roundtable Session Ten
  In Roundtable Session: Instructional Leadership Supports for System Coherence and Achievement (Table 1)

Abstract

A growing literature demonstrates that public school leaders and teachers inhabit organizational environments replete with demands from multiple institutional logics—a phenomenon that organizational sociologists call institutional complexity. When multiple logics within an organization carry competing or incompatible demands for action, leaders must find ways to reconcile their demands or, at the very least, minimize the conflict among them. The purpose of this case study was to describe the logics of curriculum leadership in a large public school district and how district leaders made sense of their multiple demands. After describing three distinct logics of curriculum leadership within the district—logics of uniformity, participation, and performance—we discuss the tensions among them and consider how leaders sustained them despite incompatibility.

Authors

• Jonathan W Cooney, University of Northern Colorado
  Presenting Author

• Michael Ian Cohen, University of Northern Colorado
  Presenting Author