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Does decentralisation enhance a school’s role of promoting social cohesion? Bosnian school leaders’ perceptions of school governance

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Abstract

This study seeks to understand whether and how decentralised school governance in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) enhances the schools’ role of promoting social cohesion. This includes increasing “horizontal” trust among different ethnic groups and “vertical” trust between civilians and public institutes. The study examined secondary school leaders’ perceptions regarding school board influence on social cohesion policies and practices, their interactions with school board members, and their accountability to the school-based governing body. The results show that school leaders and school boards, supposedly representing the interests of local stakeholders, did not appear to be actively engaged in the deliberate process of promoting social cohesion. While school directors tended to view themselves as being independent from the school boards, ethnically diverse school boards provided important support to proactive school leaders for their inter-group activities. Given that the central level is not providing initiatives to promote social cohesion and that BiH citizens appear to generally support social cohesion, decentralised school governance has the potential to improve social trust from the bottom up. To promote participatory school governance, the study recommends that BiH school leaders should be provided with opportunities to re-examine and redefine their professional accountability and to assist local stakeholders to improve their involvement in school governance.

Résumé

La décentralisation renforce-t-elle le rôle de l’école en faveur de la cohésion sociale ? Perceptions de directeurs d’établissement bosniens sur la gouvernance scolaire – La présente étude a tenté de cerner si et comment la gouvernance scolaire décentralisée en Bosnie-Herzégovine renforce le rôle de l’école en faveur de la cohésion sociale. Cette interrogation porte notamment sur l’accroissement de la confiance « horizontale » entre les différents groupes ethniques et de la confiance « verticale » entre les citoyens et les institutions publiques. L’étude a permis d’analyser les perceptions de directeurs d’établissements secondaires quant à l’influence du conseil d’établissement sur les politiques et pratiques de cohésion sociale, à leurs interactions avec les membres de ce conseil, et à leur redevabilité envers l’organe directeur ancré dans l’établissement. Les résultats révèlent que les directeurs d’école et les membres du conseil d’établissement, qui sont supposés défendre les intérêts des parties prenantes locales, ne semblent pas engagés activement dans une démarche délibérée en faveur de la cohésion sociale. Et si les directeurs ont tendance à se considérer comme indépendants des conseils d’établissement, ces derniers, lorsque leur composition est multiethnique, apportent un important soutien aux directeurs qui se montrent proactifs dans leurs activités inter-groupes. Du fait que le gouvernement central n’organise pas d’initiatives en faveur de la cohésion sociale, et que les citoyens bosniens semblent généralement adhérer à celle-ci, la gouvernance scolaire décentralisée peut potentiellement améliorer la confiance sociale à partir de la base. Dans le but de promouvoir une gouvernance scolaire participative, l’étude recommande que les responsables des établissements bosniens aient la possibilité d’analyser et de redéfinir leur redevabilité professionnelle, et d’aider les parties prenantes locales à accroître leur participation à la gouvernance scolaire.

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Notes

  1. In this paper, the term “ethno-national” is used to refer to the peoples in BiH.

  2. In BiH, the official languages are Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian, and these include two alphabets: Latin and Cyrillic. Although spoken expressions of the three languages are almost identical and used to be noted as one system of language called “Serbo-Croatian”, the ethno-national leaders often insist on the distinctiveness of their languages.

  3. The Dayton Agreement is a peace agreement negotiated in November 1995 at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, United States. It was formally signed in Paris on 14 December 1995.

  4. Gross enrolment rates include the number of over-aged children in a specific level of education. Net enrolment rates for secondary education are not available in BiH. For both primary and secondary education, the gender gap in school enrolment is negligible (1 to 2% difference). While the primary school enrolment rate has remained stable since the 1990s, secondary school enrolment has increased from around 70 per cent to the present rate of 90 per cent (World Bank 2012), indicating the increasing significance of the impact of secondary schools in BiH society.

  5. In terms of administraton, BiH is divided into the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (51% of the territory) and the Republika Srpska (49% of the territory). Brčko, which was a subject of dispute, was proclaimed a district. Thus, Bosnia and Herzegovina has two so-called entities and Brčko District.

  6. The international supervisory mission took the form of the Office of the High Representative (OHR), which represents the international body of the Peace Implementation Council (PIC), created in 1995 to oversee the civilian implementation of the Dayton Agreement.

  7. In this paper, the term “school director” refers to a person who holds the senior management position within a school. In BiH, and in the wider context of Central and Eastern Europe, school leaders, principals or heads are customarily called “school directors” (Goddard 2004).

  8. A potential participant from Canton 10 agreed to be interviewed but became unavailable at the last minute.

  9. Upon presenting quotes, some of them were slightly modified from the original transcripts for clarity.

  10. The square brackets in the quotations are the author’s addition.

  11. In 2011, a state-level professional association was created for secondary school directors as well as for primary school directors. These associations were established for the purpose of building school directors’ capacity by offering opportunities to exchange ideas and experience (OSCE 2005b).

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Acknowledgement

The field data-collection work was funded by a grant from the Toyota Foundation (D10-R-42). I would like to thank the Foundation for their generous support.

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  1. Department of Education, Faculty of Human Sciences, Sophia University, 7-1 Kioi-cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, 102-8554, Japan

    Taro Komatsu

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Correspondence to Taro Komatsu.

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Note: This article is based on the author’s PhD thesis with some modifications.

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Komatsu, T. Does decentralisation enhance a school’s role of promoting social cohesion? Bosnian school leaders’ perceptions of school governance. Int Rev Educ 60, 7–31 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11159-014-9406-4

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