Models for the Distribution of Instructional Leadership in Effective High Schools Serving Low-Income Communities

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 12
  In Roundtable Session: Alternative Models of Leadership

Abstract

This study examines how senior leaders in three effective high schools in Chile understood the department as a structure for distributing instructional leadership. From in-depth interviews with school principals and the head of the curriculum unit, we identified three alternative models: devolving instructional leaderships to departments, centralizing instructional leadership and distributing pedagogical tasks to teachers organized into flexible groups, and planned distribution of instructional leadership between senior leaders and department heads. These models differ in how teachers’ professional capital and senior leaders’ role in steering the work that takes place within departments are addressed. The theories of action that are espoused for managing departments as structures for teacher collaboration and improvement explain these differences.
Keywords; distributed instructional leadership; departments; school improvement

Authors

• Monica Cortez, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Valparaiso

• Carmen Montecinos, Universidad Catolica de Valparaiso

• Barbara Zoro, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Valparaiso

• Isabel Zett, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Valparaiso