| 1. |
- Gyllander Torkildsen, Lisbeth, 1971, et al.
(författare)
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Translating ideas for school development into changed leading practices
- 2017
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Ingår i: Nordic Educational Research Association (NERA) 2017, Copenhagen Denmark.
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This paper draws on, and extends, insights from previous parallel case studies of leading and teacher’s professional learning conducted in Sweden, Norway and Australia. Previous studies examined the role of leading practices in the circulation and transformation of key educational ideas (Wilkinson, Olin, Lund & Stjernstrom, 2013). The research focused on how leading practices travel within and between educational sites, transforming the discursive, material and social conditions for learning and teaching practices in schools. Scandinavian new organisational literature, on how ideas travel globally, was used as a frame. The ongoing research focuses on new developments in organizational literature and translation studies, as well as research conducted amongst middle leaders in Norway and Sweden. This paper examines how key educational ideas circulate, are transformed and translated with varying degrees of success by middle leaders into educational practice. In particular, it analyses the process of translation, that is, how ideas travel, are made legible to individual practitioners, and translated into local practices. The focus is on the translator`s understanding and competence in the process of knowledge-transfer where he/she plays an active role. Røvik (2015) claims that there are certain rules that inform the translation processes and that these rules are contextually dependent. The rules thereby need to be developed and investigated at the local site. There has been sparse empirical research conducted on this issue as well as on the related issue of how different translations rules are “deliberately chosen or just followed” by translators. Insights into these questions have the potential to enhance understanding of how translations of ideas into local practices in local sites may be (mis)guided, (mis-)interpreted or (mis-)understood. Based on insights from translation theory and previous studies of middle leaders, we explore the following questions: •How do middle leaders ‘translate’ new ideas into leading practices? •How are middle leaders informed/influenced and inform/influence the translation process through their leading practices? Focus group interviews are being conducted with middle leaders (process leaders in Swedish schools and principals and development leaders in Norwegian schools) in two municipalities where new school development reforms have been implemented. Using middle leaders to support and enhance school development, is part of the reform. The new ideas is being translated through their ways of understanding and acting in the their schools. We will look for differences and similarities in the translation process expressed through the middle leaders’ ways of describing their role as leaders in the change processes. These descriptions will be compared with the general rules described by Røvik (2015), thereby addressing the lack of empirical work mentioned earlier. Translation theories have not been much used in Nordic education empirical studies, even though there are some exceptions (Lund & Moksnes, 2013; Røvik et. al. 2015). This study adds to this new body of knowledge, thereby contributing with a new perspective on questions on change processes in schools, making it possible to understand local variation and general rules as two sides of a coin.
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| 2. |
- Nehez, Jaana, 1974-, et al.
(författare)
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På väg mot uppdrags- och processdrivna organisationer : Uppföljning av införandet av processledare i förskolor och skolor i Helsingborg
- 2017
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In a previous report, 2013, results from questionnaires and interviews showed how a new middle leader role among preschool teachers and teachers had been implemented 1,5 years after a course focusing on leading processes. The course took place in one school district in the city of Helsingborg, Sweden. The present report tells the story of what has happened within the 13 schools and 13 preschools and with the 62 middle leaders three years after the first report.The middle leaders were originally called process leaders. Their main function was to stimulate and guide their colleagues in developmental work, in close cooperation with principals. They have been working as administrative assistants, mentors to colleagues, leaders of improvement projects and consultants for larger school development. During the years an emphasis on micro tasks together with colleagues, have further developed to include an emphasis on macro tasks for the whole units. The preschools are all still using the process leaders, while nine of the schools have chosen other options. Some schools use first teachers (a government sponsored teacher role) as middle leaders instead. Some schools have stopped using middle leaders all-together since they do not fit principals’ view of an efficient and strict organisation. The staff at half the units do not consider process leaders as useful as before, while the staff at the other half of the units view them as just as or even more useful.Middle leaders are one facet of organisational change in the school district. The introduction of process leaders correspond with an increased tendency for 6 staff to engage in different change projects. This coincides with the organising of a task and process driven organisation for both routine work and development. During interviews at four sites, we noticed and named the emergence of such organisations. Teachers are assigned tasks (communicated with the rest of the staff) directly from the principal. Most preschool teachers and teachers have had tasks within specific areas, in which they are resources for their colleagues. Middle leaders, more often than their colleagues, have coordinating tasks.The four sites show considerable improvements in staff attitudes in relation to cooperation, perceived job relevance of in-service training, developmental projects and evaluation, and most of all support when having problems in class and needing help in order to achieve change. There is also an increase in the perception of empowerment in work correlated with an increase in taking on tasks. This was registered by staff questionnaires, which also measured individual teacher efficacy, and collective efficacy within staffs. Over the three years, these two measures have got a higher correlation, especially for preschool teachers. Thus, teachers let their own self-efficacy be more influenced by cooperative achievement at the sites, or vice versa.No special factor was especially outstanding in influencing collective efficacy. Instead, the numbers and direction of change played the most important role. Many negative changes in attitudes correlated with decreased collective efficacy. Both positive and negative changes correlated with no change in collective efficacy, while many improvements in measured factors predicated improved collective efficacy. What worked as enhancing or depressing on collective efficacy seems to be a contextual and local affair.Certain generative mechanisms were found to have important impact on the emergence and growth of task and process driven organisations. The generative mechanisms are: staff opens for visibility, cooperation across borders, improved deliberative structure of meetings, better coupling between leadership and staff, getting staff ownership from many tasks and wide participation in activities, more systematic developmental processes, improvements visible for children and students, in-take of news from other sites and research. These mechanisms also express meaning to staffs’ use of the concept ‘process driven’. In many of these processes especially process leaders used artifacts and templates learned during the course. Our analyses indicate that an important facet of task and process driven organisations were that a temporary developmental organisation was drawn up and modelled. Similar structures were not in place, or malfunctioned, in the operative organisation for routine work. © 2017 Nehez, Gyllander Torkildsen, Lander, Olin & Blossing.
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| 3. |
- Nehez, Jaana, et al.
(författare)
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På väg mot uppdrags- och processdrivna organisationer. Uppföljning av införandet av processledare i förskolor och skolor i Helsingborg : Towards new task and process driven school organisations. A follow-up study of the introduction of process leaders in pre- schools and schools in Helsingborg.
- 2017
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In a previous report, 2013, results from questionnaires and interviews showed how a new middle leader role among preschool teachers and teachers had been implemented 1,5 years after a course focusing on leading processes. The course took place in one school district in the city of Helsingborg, Sweden. The present report tells the story of what has happened within the 13 schools and 13 pre- schools and with the 62 middle leaders three years after the first report. The middle leaders were originally called process leaders. Their main function was to stimulate and guide their colleagues in developmental work, in close co- operation with principals. They have been working as administrative assistants, mentors to colleagues, leaders of improvement projects and consultants for larger school development. During the years an emphasis on micro tasks to- gether with colleagues, have further developed to include an emphasis on macro tasks for the whole units. The preschools are all still using the process leaders, while nine of the schools have chosen other options. Some schools use first teachers (a government sponsored teacher role) as middle leaders instead. Some schools have stopped using middle leaders all-together since they do not fit principals’ view of an efficient and strict organisation. The staff at half the units do not consider process leaders as useful as before, while the staff at the other half of the units view them as just as or even more useful. Middle leaders are one facet of organisational change in the school district. The introduction of process leaders correspond with an increased tendency for staff to engage in different change projects. This coincides with the organising of a task and process driven organisation for both routine work and development. During interviews at four sites, we noticed and named the emergence of such organisations. Teachers are assigned tasks (communicated with the rest of the staff) directly from the principal. Most preschool teachers and teachers have had tasks within specific areas, in which they are resources for their colleagues. Middle leaders, more often than their colleagues, have coordinating tasks. The four sites show considerable improvements in staff attitudes in relation to cooperation, perceived job relevance of in-service training, developmental projects and evaluation, and most of all support when having problems in class and needing help in order to achieve change. There is also an increase in the perception of empowerment in work correlated with an increase in taking on tasks. This was registered by staff questionnaires, which also measured individ- ual teacher efficacy, and collective efficacy within staffs. Over the three years, these two measures have got a higher correlation, especially for preschool teach- ers. Thus, teachers let their own self-efficacy be more influenced by cooperative achievement at the sites, or vice versa. No special factor was especially outstanding in influencing collective effi- cacy. Instead, the numbers and direction of change played the most important role. Many negative changes in attitudes correlated with decreased collective efficacy. Both positive and negative changes correlated with no change in col- lective efficacy, while many improvements in measured factors predicated im- proved collective efficacy. What worked as enhancing or depressing on collec- tive efficacy seems to be a contextual and local affair. Certain generative mechanisms were found to have important impact on the emergence and growth of task and process driven organisations. The generative mechanisms are: staff opens for visibility, cooperation across borders, im- proved deliberative structure of meetings, better coupling between leadership and staff, getting staff ownership from many tasks and wide participation in activities, more systematic developmental processes, improvements visible for children and students, in-take of news from other sites and research. These mechanisms also express meaning to staffs’ use of the concept ‘process driven’. In many of these processes especially process leaders used artifacts and tem- plates learned during the course. Our analyses indicate that an important facet of task and process driven organisations were that a temporary developmental organisation was drawn up and modelled. Similar structures were not in place, or malfunctioned, in the operative organisation for routine work.
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| 4. |
- Nilsson, Annika, et al.
(författare)
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Utmaningar i välfärdens stuprör : Stöd till integrering för ungdomar med begränsad läs- och skrivkunnighet
- 2017
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Att lära sig svenska är ett av de viktigaste målen för asylsökande ungdomar med begränsade läs- och skrivkunskaper. En effektiv språkutveckling är en förutsättning för en god integration i det svenska samhället. För att kunna stödja dessa ungdomars arbete med att utveckla sina egna resurser, krävs bland annat att lärare, coacher, handläggare, socialsekreterare och andra professioner som arbetar nära ungdomarna, arbetar tillsammans utifrån ett resursperspektiv. Genom ett sådant gemensamt arbetssätt kan de underlätta för ungdomarna att erövra handlingskapacitet och förändra sina livsvillkor. Ett sådant arbetssätt ställer nya krav på samverkan mellan kommunala förvaltningar och olika professioner, liksom på samverkan mellan praktik och forskning.I projektet Integration Unga Analfabeter arbetar forskare tillsammans med praktiker inom skola, socialtjänst och arbetsmarknadsförvaltning i Helsingborgs stad, med att åstadkomma en sådan samverkan. I projektet tar vi fasta på kompletterande teoretiska perspektiv för att ställa ungdomarna och deras resurser i centrum. Vi prövar också metoder för att få professioner att samverka och bedriva utveckling på nya sätt.
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