Leading Social Justice ... in a Scotland Where Everyone Matters?

• In Event: 60.017 - Social Justice Matters in School Leadership and Management: Research-Based Illustrations From the United Kingdom

Abstract

Objectives or purposes: In 1999, Donald Dewar as First Minister in Scotland published Social Justice… A Scotland Where Everyone Matters. This policy focus on social justice is evident in efforts to improve Scottish education and school leadership is regarded as one of the key means of realizing such ambitions. The Standards for Leadership and Management (GTCS, 2012) privilege social justice as a key educational value upon which school leaders’ practice must be based.

The purposes of this paper are to:
• analyse the construction of social justice in Scottish educational policy
• analyse the nature of school leadership and its role in social justice in Scottish educational policy
• consider the implications for the development of policy and practice of school leadership in Scotland.

Perspective(s) or theoretical framework: The paper is situated within critical policy analysis where a distinction can be drawn between the intention and the consequence of policy making (Taylor, 2006). Here the focus is firstly, on the intentions embedded in policy and secondly, on the way in which discourses have evolved to position the relationship between school leadership and social justice. The study draws on two approaches: content analysis (Weber, 1990) and discourse analysis (Fairclough, 1992).

Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry: This study draws from critical discourse analysis to map out the construction of ‘social justice’, ‘school leadership’ and the relationship between these two ideas. The analysis was conducted at two levels: (1) a content analysis examining the recurrence of the concept of social justice and associated ideas; and (2) a semiotic analysis looking at the ideological construction of social justice. Conceptual mapping is used to explore the relationship between these ideas.

Data sources, evidence, objects, materials or the equivalent for theoretical or methodological papers/presentations: The data sources include a range of educational policy documents published since 1999, which is seen as a watershed with the establishment of the Scottish parliament and the McCrone Enquiry on the Teaching Profession (SEED, 2000). The data sources include: (1) teachers’ contracts and professional standards; (2) curriculum policy; (3) quality assurance frameworks; and (4) reviews of the curriculum and teaching profession.

Results and/or substantiated conclusions or warrants for arguments/point of view: The results indicate that a number of co-existing themes can be identified: (1) inclusion and mainstreaming; (2) protected characteristics; (3) poverty and exclusion; and (4) equity in outcomes. In school leadership, there is a clearer line of development particularly around distributive leadership and leadership and learning. Ideas of social justice and leadership only come together sporadically. Further, there is little sense of ‘social justice school leadership’ set in a wider socio-political context or even in the micropolitics of the school.

Scientific or scholarly significance of the study or work: Scotland is an example of a small educational system where 95% of provision remains public and with non-selective schools. There has been little experimentation with patterns of schooling and different forms of leadership. This study illustrates the way in which educational policy is a key area in the project of ‘nation building’ and where social justice forms part of the public discourse and yet where an achievement gap remains.

Authors

• Deirdre Torrance, The University of Edinburgh

• Christine Forde, University of Glasgow

• Tom Hamilton, General Teaching Council for Scotland