Leveraging Complex Systems for Flourishing Lives: Leadership in a Faith-based Singapore School

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Thursday 4:15 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Leadership Without Walls: Virtual, Vocational, and Cross-Cultural Contexts

Abstract

The paper examines how a faith-based primary school in Singapore supports low-income students within a high-stakes, performance-driven education system. Using Complex Adaptive Systems Theory, this qualitative study explores how leaders iteratively shape a dynamic support ecology to foster holistic development and inclusive student experiences. Interviews with stakeholders from the school and its co-located social service arm surface key leadership insights for promoting student flourishing: 1) cultivating a student-centered culture of care; 2) building relational trust across nested sub-systems; 3) leading adaptively as bricoleurs who draw on local knowledge and relationships; and 4) designing socio-cultural infrastructures. The finding suggests how leaders might leverage complex school ecologies to enact sustainable, equity-driven change amid systemic academic pressures.

Authors

• Kar-men Cheng, National Institute of Education - Nanyang Technological University

• Yancy Toh, National Institute of Education - Nanyang Technological University

• Siao-see Teng, Nanyang Technological University - National Institute of Education

• Uma Natarajan, National Institute of Education - Nanyang Technological University

• Peter Seow, National Institute of Education - Nanyang Technological University