Abstract
What will be clear from the previous chapters is that educational middle leading (like any practice), is a site-based practice. Also, there has been a consistent thread concerning middle leading as focused on curriculum and professional development. These two key features will be the focus of this chapter. To ground this discussion, the chapter opens with an outline of site ontologies as a philosophical and theoretical foundation for site-based educational development (Kemmis et al., 2014). This leads into a presentation of an argument that educational development, even in response to external mandates, has to be conceived of as local and site based, and built on a critical perspective. Middle leading practices are crucial to this conception of educational development, and a case is then made for this view with support and examples from the empirical studies. Finally, critical participatory action research (CPAR) is presented as a way of practicing middle leading (in conjunction with colleagues), that supports and sustains site-based educational development that is responsive to the needs of the local community.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
By classroom, I mean any space (which could be a room, an outdoor location or even a virtual space), where teachers and students gather with the explicit purpose of learning some specific material or to explore a particular topic—i.e. not just classrooms in school buildings
- 2.
This change was instigated by the government and saw Year 7 students being shifted from primary schools to secondary schools
- 3.
Of course, many principals do engage in some classroom teaching, but this is often spasmodic and difficult to sustain. The definition of middle leaders employed in this book includes those who have an acknowledged leadership position and are actively involved in classroom teaching—if a principal has a significant teaching role then they would be considered as a middle leader by this definition.
- 4.
Again, if the teacher had a significant role in developing and sustaining the practice architectures that enable and constrain the teaching practices of their colleagues, then by definition they would most likely be a middle leader.
- 5.
For a compelling and fascinating complete account, I encourage the reading of the book by Carr and Kemmis (1986)
- 6.
For some accounts of CPAR projects that involved students, see Kemmis et al. (2014a)
- 7.
This figure is very similar to Fig. 4.1
- 8.
Of the 5 studies that underpin the arguments in this book, these two specifically involved action research.
- 9.
The data shown below is not the original data but rather it is made up, but does represent the distribution of questions at the time.
References
Carr, W., & Kemmis, S. (1986). Becoming critical: Education, knowledge and action research. Milton Park: Routledge.
Grootenboer, P., Edwards-Groves, C., & Rönnerman, K. (2014). Leading practice development: Voices from the middle. Professional Development in Education, 41(3), 508–526.
Grootenboer, P., Edwards-Groves, C., & Choy, S. (2017a). Practice theory and education: Diversity and contestation. In P. Grootenboer, C. Edwards-Groves, & S. Choy (Eds.), Practice theory perspectives on pedagogy and education: Praxis, diversity and contestation (pp. 1–21). Singapore: Springer.
Grootenboer, P., Rönnerman, K., & Edwards-Groves, C. (2017b). Leading from the middle: A praxis-oriented practice. In P. Grootenboer, C. Edwards-Groves, & S. Choy (Eds.), Practice theory perspectives on pedagogy and education: Praxis, diversity and contestation (pp. 243–263). Singapore: Springer.
Habermas, J. (1987). The philosophical discourse of modernity (F. Lawrence, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Kemmis, S., & Grootenboer, P. (2008). Situating practice in practice: Practice architectures and the cultural social and material conditions for practice. In S. Kemmis & T. Smith (Eds.), Enabling praxis: Challenges for education (pp. 37–62). Amsterdam: Sense.
Kemmis, S., Edwards-Groves, C., Wilkinson, J., & Hardy, I. (2012). Ecologies of practices. In P. Hager, A. Lee, & A. Reich (Eds.), Practice, learning and change (pp. 33–49). London: Springer.
Kemmis, S., McTaggart, R., & Nixon, R. (2014a). The Action research planner: Doing critical participatory action research. Singapore: Springer.
Kemmis, S., Wilkinson, J., Edwards-Groves, C., Hardy, I., Grootenboer, P., & Bristol, L. (2014b). Changing practices, changing education. Singapore: Springer.
Rönnerman, K., & Salo, P. (Eds.). (2014). Lost in practice: Transforming Nordic educational action research. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
Rönnerman, K., Edwards-Groves, C., & Grootenboer, P. (2015). Opening up communicative spaces for discussion ‘quality practices’ in early childhood education through middle leadership. Nordic Journal of Studies in Educational Policy, 2015(3). https://doi.org/10.3402/nstep.v1.30098.
Schatzki, T. (2002). The site of the social: A philosophical account of the constitution of social life and change. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.
Schatzki, T. R. (2012). A primer on practices. In J. Higgs, R. Barnett, S. Billett, M. Hutchings, & F. Trede (Eds.), Practice based education (pp. 13–26). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
Schön, D. (1983). The reflective practitioner. How professionals think in action. New York: Basic Books.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Grootenboer, P. (2018). Site-Based Staff Development Practices. In: The Practices of School Middle Leadership. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0768-3_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0768-3_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-13-0766-9
Online ISBN: 978-981-13-0768-3
eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)