Leadership Management - Term Paper Example

Insert Leadership management Abstract AN INVESTIGATION EXAMINING THE EXTENT TO WHICH ORGANIZATIONAL POLICIES PRACTICE TAKE ACCOUNT CULTURAL AND GENDER DIFFERENCE WITHIN THE SCHOOL AS AN INSTITUTION. Culture could mean a trend, intellectual product, creativity as such like music, drama and many others .It could also be the different beliefs of a group of people, a community or on a large scale a society. Aside from all the described meaning culture is part of us as it shapes the way we reason, behave and relate with others around us, it also gives us an explanation as to why things should be conducted in a done in particular way. Gender, on the other hand, represents the expected attributes and behaviors of the male and female being, this is culture, thus culture and gender are clearly related since these expectations are beliefs, and as explained above beliefs make up culture. I will be looking at assessment practice within my institution which is a mixed-sex, comprehensive school in East London. The tracking system recently changed from being a system whereby teachers entered a value indicating whether they felt students were on course, likely to fall short, or likely to surpass their end-of-key-stage target. Under the new system, teachers are asked to submit a level that they feel the student is currently working at. In my current role, I have to analyse the data and ensure that effective intervention is put in place for underachieving students. As a consequence of my role I have realised that the decisions teachers are making when inputting working at levels, are based on a wide variety of reasons, some of which appear unsound. In short, there seems to be a lack of consistency across the school with the result that confidence in the process is low. My research then aims to investigate the subject matter in more detail and to make recommendations for effective assessment practice. I aim to look at three departments within my school, and how their responses to the new school policy differ both within those departments and compared to each other. I feel that three departments are manageable within the context of a small-scale study and I am doing it in my own organization because of the ease-of-access it affords me. The number of female teachers in most schools is very small. Although this can moderately be related to the fact that hefty groups of women joined universities and opted for academic careers only recently, this glass ceiling for women is partly as a result of the overriding masculine culture that thrives generally in society (Orodho, 2009). If schools are to accomplish their formulated mission of conveying knowledge and education, social order must be maintained.  However, education provides an important socializing context, such that students’ informal interactions in schools are an influential aspect of their socialization into restricted gender roles. Women account for the large majority of teachers in primary and lower secondary education, culture here lies as the explanation for this, a trend that has been there for a very long period now. Women have created a tendency to often resort to social roles, believing that they can effect change by either showing or educating and evading the managerial and leadership positions. Less male teachers in our secondary and primary schools means few male role models, it will be quite easy to find a male student comparing teaching jobs to women. Thus, our cultural trends in most ways still promote gender stereotyping and often we are unaware and making the gender difference gap bigger than it already is. My study on organizational polices and the extent to which they take account of gender and cultural based difference is to determine if school at all has any form of power in effecting change on the two topics .Most people spend half their lives studying, so education becomes the major whip in designing the shapes their future lives will take. As an education major at some point I will be an educator and my knowledge will have an impact on some teacher or student, this project is the starting point toward my inflicting positive change as a leader and an educator. Through this I will get to know what might be missing and ways in which I can bring in positivity and change. My approach will be informed by Gronn (2003), and his work on Best Practice. I will look at the variety of Educational Leadership and Management responses to the new regime from subject leaders. I also intend to keep in mind the question of whether in their attempt to reduce ambiguity by introducing a new orthodoxy, the unintended consequence has been to increase it through the complexity of response that leaders have to change (Lumby, 2003). Since I already have the research topic at hand, the research audience determined in this case will be teachers and the heads of educational institutions. The information got from this research could be used to effect positive change in institutions. The next step is to determine the feasibility of my research and that will require me to make a prior visit to the school X to get permission from the principal as that will give me the go ahead to continue with my project. Doing a large scale research might take a long time and use a lot of resources, thus my intent is to focus on a particular group and in this case high school students on their last year of study. The reason for using this group is because I want to know their experience after having been through a system that runs in a particular way and how it has affected their lives. At this stage I am planning to gather data through semi-unstructured interviews with department heads, senior management responsible for assessment, and a selection of subject teachers. In addition, I will utilise questionnaires. Lastly, I aim to scrutinise the minutes of meetings where relevant ( Lore, Bennet, Cartwright & Newton, 2005). Apart from the students I also intend to involve the teachers and the principle of that school with different sets of questions to determine how their performance in their respective roles affected the students approach to cultural and gender differences. An article on a blog spot on human practices stated that research has shown that on average girls perform better than boys in public examinations. If this is the case then why are there very few females on the lead, in managerial positions and as presidents? Giddens(1976) noted that “Society only has form, and that form only has effects on people, in so far as the structure is produced and reproduced in what people do". This shows that even if we blame culture for being what it is, we created it, thus it is up to us to conform culture to our own liking rather than keep complaining. Thus, I set out on this project to determine how much effort is already being put out there in the school institutions so as to be able to determine how many more needs to be added. In addition to the module literature, I have conducted a literature search using the key terms; ‘assessing pupil progress’ and ‘assessing student progress’. The boundaries of the search were then limited to articles published in academic journals from 2000- 2011. This produced a manageable list of 18 research reports for me to use as a core body of literature. My initial ideas for the research questions that I will use to frame the project in more detail are: a) How are professionals making judgments on what levels students are working? b) How are subject leaders responding to the new tracking system? c) How are the Senior Leadership Team supporting and leading this change? In a school situation despite there being leaders and managers the learning system of governance is more appropriate approach. From course material study guide, “learning system of governance and leadership is more likely to generate significant and sustainable change than strong leadership and tight directive systems.” (Craig & James, 2007). Leadership is to have the ability to create vision and values that can provide a direction and a focus for colleagues at work and also to have a sense of right or wrong to define the boundaries f acceptable action. But who is that perfect that they expect you not to be at fault? No one. In reference to the course study guide (part 1) says that: leadership and management will often involve exercise of influence by one person or the other. “it is rarely possible to find writers talking about leadership without invoking influence as a partner”.Gronn (2003a). Society has a format created by people which has a great influence on people. Giddens (1976) says: “the structure within which we live and work in, shape our action and is in turn shaped by it”. From study guide, we realize that ways in which others perceive one will affect the way they are seen as suitable leaders, this, in turn, affects their performance. A leader who is perceived to be good will naturally find confidence from the good comments and strive to maintain it and vice versa. Thus, if a school as an institution puts down a particular kind of group based on their sexes and makes conclusions that they are not suited in certain posts, that on its own already sticks into one’s mind instilling the fear not to perform. Such cultures in school should be abolished and it is up to the leaders to ensure that no sort of discrimination gender or otherwise is allowed in schools. This brings the issue of leadership and management, whether there are particular approaches to exercising leadership that appear more effective than others. As I had explained earlier, leadership is only possible with influence, thus a school should stress the need for a learning culture to develop the staff maturity. Acknowledging the fact that distributed leadership makes more sense in a learning environment as the group is very big for one persons’ eye and he needs people to help him or her manage the school. Teachers then come into the bracket creating the distributed form of leadership, though it should be put in mind that distributed leadership does not necessarily mean democratic leadership or equality, the position is based in the head teacher and distributed through the teachers. In my perception the fact that distributed leadership makes more sense in a learning environment as the group is very big. Principals play a fundamental and comprehensive role in setting the pace for learning institutions that are affirmative and productive workplaces for teachers and vivacious education environments for children, but existing knowledge on the most appropriate ways to build up these effectual leaders is inadequate (Blalock, 2003). Therefore, different questions come to mind, the major one being distributed leadership or positional leadership: which one has more effect in influencing cultural change and gender differences? Thus, the project purpose is to determine the answer or the solution to the above question. References Blalock, H. and Blalock. (2003). Methods in social science Research, Newyork McGraw-Hill Publishers. Lumby, J. (2003) Distributed leadership in colleges: leading or misleading Lore. A, Bennett. N, Cartwright. M. & Newton, W. (2005). Researching Educational Leadership and Management. Milton Keynes: Open University. Orodho, A. J. (2003). Essential of Education and Social Science Research Methods. Masola Publisher. Craig, J. C., Joseph, G. & James, M. (2007). Contemporary sociological theory. Washington DC: Wiley-Blackwell. Gronn, P. (2003). The new work of educational leaders: changing leadership practice in an era of school reform. London: Sage Publishers. Giddens, A. (1993). New rules of sociological method: a positive critique of interpretative sociologies. London: Stanford University Press. 2nd Edition. Read More