Demography, Sustainability, and the Challenges to Educational Leaders

• In Event: Insights Into Educational Leadership: Perspectives From the United Kingdom

Abstract

Objectives

The paper describes how four specific demographic issues – epidemiological transition, urban transition, age transition, and rich and poor transition - affect policies for sustainability in economic, social and environmental situations, and thereby impact upon the work of educational leaders.

Evidence and perspectives

The paper draws on evidence and perspectives from demographic research, sustainable development, and educational leadership, to examine (i) how epidemiological transitions affects rich and poor countries differentially and exacerbates inequalities; (ii) how worldwide urban/rural transitions affect social sustainability by placing pressure upon urban environments, and why urban communities are affected by climatic change and rising sea levels more than rural communities; (iii) how ageing populations place pressure upon the wealth creating and communal aspects of society. Finally, (iv) it shows how rich and poor countries differ in their growth rates, causing both social tension and environmental crises.

Conclusions

The paper argues that such demographic transitions have direct impact upon school systems and their leaders. In many developed countries these impacts include (a) reduced revenues from taxation, producing financial and resource constraints upon educational systems; (b) a greater direction of professional work, affecting the ability of educational leaders to exercise autonomous judgement in individual contexts, (c) the production of greater competition between institutions for declining numbers of students, and (d) the political influence of greying populations and ethnic issues upon educational policy and practice. Many of the same issues are seen in less developed countries, but they are exacerbated by the effects of expanding populations. The result, this paper suggests, is necessarily a re-consideration of many of the purposes of educational leadership.

Significance

The scholarly significance of the paper lies in the original manner in which it takes an issue of global concern, that of demography, and through a detailed analysis of a number of impacts in this area, demonstrates how these affect and challenge the lived experience and purposes of the leaders of educational institutions.

Author

• Michael Paul Bottery, University of Hull