INT. J.

LEADERSHIP IN EDUCATION,

2000,

VOL .

3,

NO .

2, 93 120

Em a n c ipa tor y l e a d e r s h ip
DAVID CORSON

This study introduces emancipatory leadership as an approach that educational administrators might adopt in settings of great diversity; and in other contexts too. As a background to the concept, the study presents a critical discourse analysis that suggests how easily distorted communication can arise in formal administrative settings when the interests of those with some stake in the matter under discussion are not represented among the participants. In this case, Board of Trustee members were highly successful in debating and reaching suitable conclusions when the agenda items concerned their own close interests. However, when the meeting agenda broached the affairs of an out-group with no known patronage on the Board, distortions in communication and small injustices became common; and the out-groups interests were compromised. The article also includes a case study of a group of emancipatory leaders at work. It concludes by suggesting some features of emancipatory leadership that might improve administrative practice in education.

In tr od u c tion On first encounter, the phrase emancipatory leadership looks like an oxymoron: a contradiction in terms. How can words like leadership and leader (German: die Fuhrung and der Fuhrer), whose verbal rules of use have linked them with some of the most oppressive activities in human history, be emancipatory in anything more than an ironic sense? Even Peter Drucker, the management guru who helped establish the cult of corporate leadership in North America, neatly ironicized his own concept of leadership by admitting that: Leadership is all hype. Weve had three great leaders this century Hitler, Stalin and Mao (Olive 1999; C6). Indeed, despite attempts to rehabilitate leadership by styling the concept in other ways, it still tends to resist any ready and sympathetic collocation with phrases like human emancipation, human freedom, or human autonomy (for some of the other leadership styles advanced see: Duke (1996), instructional; Leithwood et al. (1996), transformational; and Macbeath et al. (1996), interactive). I first began to think about these matters when I came into contact with the reforming educational ideas of Paolo Freire, whose mission was to
David Corson is Professor in the Department of Theory and Policy Studies at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto. He has taught in universities in Canada, England, Australia and New Zealand; and has been a teacher at primary and secondary levels, a curriculum officer, and a school and system administrator at compulsory and postcompulsory levels. He is the author of around twenty books, and General Editor of the Encyclopedia of Language and Education in eight volumes. His website is: http://www.oise.utoronto.ca/ ~ dcorson
International Journal of Leadership in Education ISSN 1360-3124 print/ISSN 1464-5092 online 2000 Taylor & Francis Ltd http: //www.tandf.co.uk /journals

94

DAVID CORSON

encourage people to become fully self-aware and active political subjects. In my teaching and academic life, I have been much influenced by Freires educational philosophy. In 1972, I began an adult and adult migrant literacy programme, for an Australian State, which was one of the countrys first such programmes (Corson 1977). Freires Pedagogy of the Oppressed published in the same year, was given to me then by a friend. In fact, it was the only text on adult literacy available to me at that time. Although Freires ideas were difficult to re-apply, from the slums and rural villages of Brazil and Chile to the affluent and quite different Australian context, his work became a guiding philosophy for me. And his ideas have been influential in my thinking and teaching ever since. Freires pedagogy gives priority to the use of dialogue as the essential accompaniment to literacy education. In this way, he sees literacy work as a way of giving voice to the oppressed, but also as a way of making them the controlling agents in their own lives. He asks adult literacy students, and other people of little power, to talk about generative themes that they choose for themselves from their own experiences. These themes are based on things in their lives that trouble or delight them. Later, the actual words that adult literacy students begin to read and write are chosen from the words that crop up in their generative themes. His reasoning here was that no curriculum is neutral, especially one selected by people remote from the circumstances of learners themselves. A dialogic teaching approach gives the learners more control over their own curriculum. It allows them to become the teachers of their own experience and culture, who choose and direct the themes that provide their own courses of study. Their literacy teachers the leaders are then able to use these themes as a basis for the literacy work that they do with students, who are motivated and interested by the relevance of the curriculum to their lives. When used over time, the pedagogy is certainly empowering for oppressed groups of people. At the same time, Freires conception of pedagogy always leaves room for a teacher or a leader of some kind, who then acts as the empowered and empowering facilitator. My idea of emancipatory leadership goes a little further than this, although it is quite consistent with Freires philosophy. I am more concerned to see the empowered ones withdraw functionally from the setting, under certain conditions, especially from a setting that involves people whose culture the empowered ones might not really understand, or cannot possibly understand. The thing that intrigued me most, as a practising administrator of a large and socioculturally diverse educational programme, was that when people make decisions on behalf of others, certain unintended things tend to happen. Often we are less able to treat peoples interests fairly when the people we are dealing with are a little different from ourselves, in culture, language, or social class. Often too, we are less able to be fair when we deal with the interests of people who are not present at the time. Later in this article, I introduce emancipatory leadership in more detail, outlining its operation and suggesting it as an approach that educational administrators might adopt in contexts of great diversity; and on other occasions too. Before doing so, I use critical discourse analysis to explore

EMANCIPATORY LEADERSHIP

95

some of the things that can take place in educational decision making under the following two conditions: when the people concerned are different from the decision makers in some important respect; and when the same people are not present at the time the decision is taken. Cr itic a l d is c ou r s e a n a l y s is The analysis of educational discourse is now covered widely in the literature. It is perhaps the most thriving area of educational research. Waite (1997) reviews the literature on teacheradministrator discourse, while Davies and Corson (1997) cover the wider range of work on discourse between teachers and students, between students themselves, and between administrators, teachers, and other community members. Critical discourse analysis goes beyond conversation analysis (Heap 1997), and beyond other forms of discourse analysis (Norton 1997), by focusing directly on macro and micro power factors that operate in a given discursive context. The following is a sketch of the aims of critical discourse analysis (see Fairclough (1985), Wodak (1995)): (a) to explore hidden relationships between a piece of discourse (a text) and wider social and cultural formations; (b) to show how this text is shaped by relations of power and struggles over power; and (c) to reveal links between discourse, ideology, and power, especially things that are hidden from those who benefit from them. A critical discourse analysis usually involves most of the following: (i) (ii) (iii) (iv) (v) (vi) an interest in uncovering inequality, power relationships, injustices, discrimination, bias, etc, an investigation of language behaviour in natural language situations of social and cultural relevance (public institutions, media, political discourse, etc.); interdisciplinary research addressing things too complex to deal with inside the boundaries of a single field of study; inclusion of an historical perspective on the research study; researchers who take sides in order to improve the lives of people in some way; and research that changes social practices and emancipates people.

In education, almost any kind of text is a good basis for this sort of research: an item of school or district policy; a fragment of teacher or student talk; a passage from a textbook; a newspaper story discussing educational issues, etc. An extract from a curriculum document, written to guide the practices of teachers, is one example of a text for doing critical discourse analysis (Corson 1998). Critical discourse analyses addressing educational topics are still rare in the literature. Fairclough (1993) offers one example. He looks at the efforts

96

DAVID CORSON

of entrepreneurial academic administrators to package and market their wares as if they were mere commodities for buying and selling. The texts for his discourse analysis are the actual advertisements placed in newspapers by universities. In recent decades, in the UK, these advertisements for courses of study and for academic positions have begun to include novel descriptors for the operation of universities. And the way that these descriptors are presented seems to distort the cherished functions of those institutions by highlighting the superficial and the marketable, while playing down weaknesses in educational substance. Fairclough reports that these highly promotional advertisements have become distasteful and alienating for those who confront them on a daily basis, especially people inside the institutions. He uses his analysis to discuss the contemporary marketization of the discourses of universities in the UK. Elsewhere, Wodak (1995) studies power, discourse, and styles of female leadership in school committee meetings. The actual texts of these meetings are the texts of her studies. After considering the relationship between power, hierarchy, and interaction in public institutions, she records and examines administrative discourse in three schools where statutory committees have been established to conform with a school/community partnership law. In these hierarchical institutions, female principals adopt discursive strategies to justify, legitimize, and achieve their administrative agenda. While these strategies contrast with one another, they also contrast with the discourses found in social institutions beyond the school, and they give insights into gendered management styles used in educational organizations. Prosodic analysis For this study, I have borrowed methodological tools from conversational analysis, notably its transcript symbols. By giving more than usual attention to prosodic analysis (the use of stress, pitch, rate of speech, interruptions etc.), the study highlights prosodys important role in scaffolding discourse and elaborating messages. The symbols used are explained below.

Transcripts and Transcript Symbols. The symbols are a modification of those developed for conversation analysis which uses transcripts of naturally occurring talk as a practical strategy for understanding social life. They are thought to capture the minimum number of features of talk that persons seem to apprehend and respond to in conversations. They have the virtue of leaving the transcripts reasonably intelligible to non-specialists. They also replace normal punctuation.
// When one speaker begins while another is still speaking, two oblique lines mark the place at which the overlap begins. The next utterance in the transcript begins at that place in the relevant passage.

EMANCIPATORY LEADERSHIP

97

//. . . // =

(1.1) (.) ::: ... CAPS

><
heh arh () [] (( ))

If there is a second set of oblique lines in a passage, then the next but one utterance in the transcript begins at the second marked place in the passage. When one utterance runs on from a prior utterance without a break, an equal sign links the two utterances. When a speaker runs together parts of a single utterance without a break the same sign is also used. Timed intervals within or between utterances are shown by numbers in parentheses marking seconds and tenths of seconds of the interval. For discernible intervals of less than one tenth of a second a dot is placed in parentheses. A cross indicates a rising intonation which may not necessarily accompany a question. When a sound is extended or prolonged, colons mark relative length; the more colons the longer the extension. These signs indicate that the part of the utterance they enclose is spoken more quietly than the rest. Talk that is louder than the surrounding talk is marked by capital letters. Sections of an utterance that are delivered more quickly are enclosed between greater than and less than signs. Laughter, chuckling, fill-ins, etc., are represented by using sound particles that are close to the sounds made. Parts of an utterance that are stressed are underlined. Parentheses enclosing a blank space show talk that was inaudible or left out for some other reason. Square brackets surround a change made in a name for the sake of anonymity. Double parentheses surround a description of a sound or an activity supplied by the transcriptionist.

Like the interpretation of all features of language, the reading of prosodic information depends upon context. As there are no firm rules for determining the meaning of a word or expression, there are no firm rules either for interpreting prosodic features. The meaning of any given prosodic feature is at least as culture-bound and context-bound as the meaning of a word in a language. As Wittgenstein (1953) argued, the meaning of a word is its use. So, too, the meaning of a prosodic feature is its use in some language game (Corson 2000a). In interpreting prosody, people combine their theory-filled understanding of conventions of use with patterns of meaning in the text, and argue from that evidence towards a more certain grasp of the semantic intentions underlying that use of language. The use of prosody adds greatly to the semantic evidence available, but it is only one of the many sets of available signs that shape a discursive event and the power forces at work within it. Discourse and power The intricate link between discourse and power is central to all of this, because any exercise of power by human actors is affected by the

98

DAVID CORSON

discursive nature of power itself. As Foucault (1972, 1977, 1980) observes, history constantly teaches us that discourse is not simply that which translates struggles or systems of domination, but is the thing for which and by which there is struggle: discourse is the power which is to be seized (1984; 110). Indeed, Foucaults views on the links between power and discourse have become most influential: rather than a privilege that an individual person possesses, power is a network of relations constantly in tension and ever-present in discursive activity. It is exercised through the production, accumulation, and functioning of various discourses. Discourse here is the fickle, uncontrollable object of human conflict, although no-one is outside it completely, or sufficiently independent of discourses to manage them effectively. The conflicts that take place, however, over and around discourse, can be one-sided if the balance of power consistently favours some groups over others. So the study of power is best located at the point where the dominating activities of the powerful are played out in real and effective practices. For Foucault, then, the development of particular forms of language meets the needs of the powerful, and in doing so it depends upon a particular exercise of power through discourse practices. But, as often as not, it meets those needs without any direct exercise of discursive influence by the powerful. Accordingly, future studies of administrative discourse might extend further into some of the many areas that Foucault identifies. These include the discourses that arise within the organization itself, like the decisions and regulations that are among its constitutive elements, its means of functioning, along with its strategies, its covert discourses and ruses, ruses which are not ultimately played by any particular person, but which are nonetheless lived, and ensure the permanence and functioning of the institution (1980; 38). This studys critical discourse analysis examines how power is exercised through language in a meeting of school administrators and community representatives. In particular, it asks about the distorting influence that ideology has on the proceedings in a formal school meeting. And it asks how that distortion, that ruse, shows up in the discourse itself. Id e olog y A common criticism of other approaches to the analysis of discourse, is that as methods for doing social science research they do not grapple with the important areas of ideology and power that are at the heart of social issues (Heap 1997). As mentioned already, critical discourse analysis goes beyond other forms of discourse analysis by focusing directly on macro and micro power factors that operate in a given discursive context. In this study, I am giving ideology itself a higher profile, because its links with power make it very relevant to the analysis of administrative texts. Here, I am using ideology to refer to any system of ideas, expressed in discursive practices, that distorts reality in order to serve the interests of a privileged individual or group.

EMANCIPATORY LEADERSHIP

99

This use of ideology can operate at a macro level, and so affect a large political community, or it can operate at a micro level, and affect a smaller group, like the single school council examined in this study. Often we are quick to spot ideology at work in macro contexts, but we overlook its influence at the micro level, especially when we are dealing with the interests of people who are not members of the in-group of the moment. Modern ideology studies also look at language from both the macro and the micro vantage points. In the macro approach, questions are asked about the development of political narratives and their effects. These narratives seem to take on a power of their own, so that relations of domination appear legitimate through the stories told to justify the exercise of power by the people who hold it. For example, Jean-Pierre Fayes study of narratives of National Socialism that were developed during the Weimar period in Germany shows how effective these stories were when circulated within their limited sphere of operation and structured space (Thompson 1984). Any power in the battle of words that took place under Weimar, lay with the languages of German nationalism, anti-semitism, and militarism. Their distorting effect on group and individual mind, and their ultimate manifestations in human behaviour, need no rehearsing here. By contrast, the micro approach looks at the language of everyday life and the taken-for-granted meanings that mundane discourse distributes among men and women. In this study, I am looking more at this everyday form of discourse. Often this mundane language shapes and supports the distorting effects of ideology, if we allow it to do so, and often mundane language manages to do all this even when speakers themselves are reluctant to participate in acts of injustice, and are unaware that they are doing so. And mundane discourse, of course, never escapes the influence of wider political narratives and the ideologies they create. Ideology operates to distort human communication, along with our ability to reason effectively in power relationships. There are three main distorting functions that ideology is said to serve (after Giddens 1979): type 1 the representation of sectional interests as universal: in other words, by defining interests specific to a group so that those interests are perceived as universally valid (e.g. this is a Christian country, therefore . . . ); the denial or transmutation of contradictions: in other words, by reformulating fundamental system contradictions as more superficial issues of social conduct (e.g. these are just detailsmere teething problems); the naturalization of the present through reification: in other words, by defining present or past organizational realities as the way things are and objective, so that alternatives seem unworkable or unrealistic (e.g. weve always done things that way here, and no one has ever complained before).

type 2

type 3

100

DAVID CORSON

In the discourse text examined in this study, an example of the type 3 function of ideology is discussed. A boa r d of tr u s te e s in pr oc e s s The context for this study is a monthly meeting of a Board of Trustees in a secondary school. In New Zealand, a radical devolution of power away from national level has given school decision-making responsibility to Boards of Trustees elected for every school in the country. These school councils are made up of staff and community representatives. For this study, the Board responded to a letter, giving permission to tape-record its next meeting for research purposes. My letter to the Board set out the aim of the research: to analyse the formal discourse of the meeting with regard to linguistic and paralinguistic features. This letter guaranteed anonymity in the later use of discourse transcripts. I recorded the meeting while present in the Board room, using a pressure-zone microphone feeding into a cassette recorder. A stenographer made transcriptions shortly afterwards, helped by copies of the Boards minutes and other documents circulated for the meeting. I checked the transcripts back to the original sound tapes and added prosodic notations which also were checked against the original by a third party. Later, I gave five of the Board members the final transcripts and interviewed them, in order to cross-check what was going on and other matters of background relevant to the three episodes. These extensive interviews also critically informed the discourse analysis itself. They provided a triangulation of different perspectives on the data, and on my own interpretations of those data. Later still, I edited identifying material from the tape, and several groups of graduate students in my doctoral qualitative methods course listened to it, while reading the transcriptions. Their critical comments and insights have enriched the interpretations. The Board meeting was held late in the afternoon of a school day in a room used regularly for the purpose. It was furnished with armchairs, comfortably spaced around a rectangular table that allowed eye contact; the pressure microphone was in the centre of this table. The people present and their roles are as follows. The real names have been replaced with pseudonyms. The asterisks indicate the five members whom I interviewed later: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Doug * Mary * Aileen * Dulcie Andy * Pam * Fred Shastra Board Chair Board Secretary Principal Associate Principal Vice Principal Parent Representative Co-opted by the Board Community Education Representative Elected Teacher Representative

EMANCIPATORY LEADERSHIP

101

9 10 11

Rangi Jason Moana

Elected Parent Representative Elected Student Representative Minority Parent Representative (does not speak)

The meeting lasted about two hours, with a short break for tea and coffee. The episode analysed here lasts for only about six minutes. Although it is relatively self-contained as an item of business in the meeting, three previous episodes of discourse taken from the same meeting are relevant to it for the light they throw on the Boards ability to handle matters fairly. First, the Board showed itself quite fair and impartial in dealing with matters that affected the whole school itself. Second the Board was capable of dealing fairly with matters that affected two teachers in the school, who were represented on the Board itself (Corson 1995). Third, immediately before this episode, the Board had already approved a request to hire out the schools facilities to an early childhood education organization that had professional links to the school community. In the episode presented here, the members are dealing with another request to hire the schools facilities. But this time, they are dealing with the interests of an outgroup, who are not represented on the Board. Historical and ideological background to the episode New Right educational policies are influential in many places. One effect of these policies is to produce a commodification of educational aims, of administrative activities, of curriculum design, and even of everyday pedagogical practices. In some constituencies, these aspects of education have been allocated a price-value. They have been turned into commodities in the wider marketplace (Corson 2000c). By introducing new ways of describing the workings of social institutions, using terms drawn from the world of business and commerce, New Right discourses attempt to realign the functions of those institutions. This is an aspect of what Habermas (1985) portrays as an on-going colonisation of the lifeworld by economic forces. Exacerbating the problem is the fact that education almost everywhere is now set firmly within capitalist social relations. Seen on so grand a scale, this tight coupling of capitalism with all aspects of social life is a relatively recent development. The pure, free-market, economic arrangements, so essential to capitalism, were limited in their effects as long as capitalism was kept a little separate from government. As the historian Eric Hobsbawm (1989) observes, from the 1930s to the 1970s the intellectual supporters of pure free-market economics were an isolated minority, apart from businessmen whose perspective on the world always makes it difficult for them to distinguish the best interests of their society from the best interests of their particular firm or industry. But all this has changed in recent decades. Even government itself has been captured in many places by free-market

102

DAVID CORSON

views that are much less restrained than in the past. And these views have been quite successful in shallow political terms, sustaining the Thatcher-style governments in the UK from 1979 to 1997, the Reagan and Bush administrations in the USA, and similar adventures in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The attractiveness, and the facile political success of these policies, can be seen from the way that even governments led by parties traditionally more to the left have followed similar policies in all the above countries. Accordingly, many present-day politicians, and the intellectuals who advise them, have begun to believe that for governments to succeed, the whole world is best viewed as a business, and best interpreted in business terms. As a result, citizens living in societies where this ideology is dominant are forced to live their lives within the ideology whether they want to or not. This is because public policy and the world itself are saturated by it. The guiding metaphor for this limited and limiting world view seems to be that all human beings inhabit a marketplace where the quality of something is decided according to the price it can fetch, rather than according to any intrinsic and real qualities it might have. This distortion of reality is having a harmful impact on human social relations, especially on the bonds that exist between people. These bonds today are valued more often by the standards of economic transactions than by the more lasting ties of culture or community. The unfortunate effect of all this is to project a respect for bland sameness onto the social world, rather than a respect for the actual diversity that the social world contains (Corson 1998; 2000a). So despite appearances to the contrary, capitalism has become one of the most assimilationary cultural forces the world has ever seen. And it is prospering even more under the new freedoms and open message systems that are spreading in todays world. Paradoxically, any variation in provisions that all the many new voices of diversity are winning is quickly lost by the pressure towards assimilation that unrestrained capitalism creates. One size fits all is becoming the rule, not the exception. In New Zealand and elsewhere, schools have been recast, in official discourse at least, as institutions more like businesses and less like the educational agencies they conventionally are. In effect, this discourse has promoted a commodification of education in line with government policies aimed at making schools more financially self-sufficient, and less of a perceived burden on the financial elites that benefit most from them. Since schools in New Zealand are now forced to attract funding and students, even to support many basic educational operations, they are pushed into sharp competition with one another. Institutions that previously collaborated for the general good, are made into competitors in an educational marketplace. In the transcripts of the Board meeting examined here, an earlier episode highlighted the professional dilemma that arises for educational administrators when they encounter these New Right discourses (Corson 1995). In that earlier episode, there was evidence at many points that administrative tension was growing in the school because

EMANCIPATORY LEADERSHIP

103

of a clearly perceived dilemma: the professional commitment of the educationists themselves to wider educational aims was affected by the need to meet what teachers perceived as unreasonably narrow financial objectives, out of fear that failure to meet those narrow objectives would reduce income and the overall educational effectiveness of their programme. This professional dilemma is the direct effect of an intruding (type 1) function of ideology (see above), imposed by government at system level. The interests specific to particular groups in the community, namely agencies of business, industry, and commerce who quite properly advance and favour market-place ideals and practices in their own interests, are extended beyond these sectional areas into previously unrelated areas where educationists rightly feel that those interests have much less weight and ethical claim. This results in interpersonal tension, expressed in the discourse of the Board meeting, over royalties, fees for service, and other funding issues. And the discourse reveals the teachers and the administrators as guardedly hostile to the values of the marketplace. Like dedicated teachers everywhere, they have spent their careers helping students look beyond the price-tag, searching for the real values that lie beneath the surface of things. Now they are asked to shape their educational practices according to shallow values that distort the real importance of their activities. All this creates conflicting interests among participants who see themselves trapped within the web of an ideology to which they do not subscribe, but whose discursive influence they must tolerate in important areas of their lives. Into this environment of competition and resentment comes a request of the Board of Trustees to hire some of the schools facilities, on a long-term basis, to members of a fundamentalist sect. Fundamentalist sects in Australasia are less common, much less influential, and more marginalized as social institutions than the more institutionalized ones that operate in many parts of North America and elsewhere, where their temporal power can be extensive. In Australasia, where agnosticism in matters religious is rapidly becoming the norm rather than the exception, fundamentalist sects receive less social respect, and in New Zealand in particular, where the indigenous and the immigrant Polynesian cultural minorities are a little more supportive than the rest of the population of fringe religious groups, fundamentalist sects can be the target of intolerance. The text: Community use of facilities The hiring of this schools premises to community groups is a well established practice. In this episode, the request came in a letter sent to the Secretary, following face-to-face discussions with the Secretary and the Caretaker (Janitor). The sect wants to lease some of the schools facilities for Sunday worship over one or two years. The meeting continues.

104

DAVID CORSON

289 CHAIR: 290 291 SECRETARY 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 PRINCIPAL: 306 SECRETARY: 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 CHAIR: 314 315 SECRETARY: 316 317 PAM: 318 SECRETARY: 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 PRINCIPAL: 327 328 SECRETARY: 329

An now there was another (.) request > I think < as well (0.5) // Ill keep quiet this time= Yes there is (0.2) its from the [Praise the Lord Congregation] ((reads)) ( ) "we ( ) are part of an international church movement with over two hundred centres ( ) at present we are meeting at [Freetown] School and have outgrown our facility and are looking to move to larger premises (.) after prior discussion with [the principal] of your college and on the inspection of your hall and other buildings (.) we would like to apply for the use of your facilities (.) i.e. hall and adjoining kitchen the drama room and two classrooms (.) although these two rooms do not necessarily need to be attached to the h all" ((stops reading)) ((laughter)) ((ironic interjections)) Thats good because // theyre not= We offered them room thirty ve but we didnt offer any other room ((continues reading)) "we will require these facilities every Sunday with a view to commence on or near the twenty second of July ( ) we understand that we are liable for any damage and have both public liability and contents insurance to cover any such occurrence"= Or act of God ((loud laughter)) ((ironic interjections)) ((still reading)) "we do not see this as a problem as the children have trained supervision at all times" (.) ohhh= ((still reading)) "we ( ) thank you for the positive response ( ) so far from both the caretaker and the secretary and look forward to working closely with them in the future" ((stops reading)) ((aside)) they dont know what the caretaker and the secretary were saying to each other about it ((continues reading)) "we look forward to your reply (.) yours faithfully ( ) Pastor" (.) And they want it for one to two years // every Sunday= Yes (.) and theyre prepared to lease it=

EMANCIPATORY LEADERSHIP

105

330 SHASTRA: 331 332 PRINCIPAL: 333 SECRETARY: 334 PRINCIPAL: 335 336 SECRETARY: 337 338 VOICES: 339 SHASTRA: 340 341 SECRETARY: 342 SHASTRA: 343 344 345 SECRETARY: 346 347 348 PRINCIPAL: 349 350 351 352 353 354 SECRETARY: 355 356 357 358

What time > I mean < is it the whole day going into the evening n= We used to have the [Revival Centre] here didn they Yes n that was for the whole day (.) And the=were got=the rooms got more and more rooms that they had and things went missing nd= And kids went all over the school // and the staffroom and // everywhere All over the school=kids running=yess ( )

Weve got places that already alarmed havent we in the school= Exactly= and I think that wd jeop- that would jeopardise heh our security system for one thing let alone any other (.) // problems that might crop up Twenty three calls at the weekend (.) the alarm systems ((gasps of surprise)) How m::=yeah that was a fairly lucrativ::e operation last time but::t if you let out your hall every Sunday for two years (.) > I mean < you really are uh I can think of a clash the rst Sun thsecond Sunday that theyre th ere=its Science (.) at least theyre paying I suppose // its the Science //Technology Roadshow= Yeah (0.4) this is where I have to say something=they even had the cheek to ask for it at half the normal rates (.) because it was a community thing (.) ((murmurs from several voices))

359 V/PRINCIPAL: Theyre go-going to be some problems in that we 360 already have a commitment to one or two 361 organizations who have made prior bookings for the 362 hall for a long period of time umm that would not be 363 available for the exam period because once the exams 364 um::m desks and so on are set out theres a major 365 operation to get those out back in and so on um and 366 that will apply (.) or coming up anyway weve got the 367 school exams at the start of Term Three and they will

106

DAVID CORSON

368 369 370 371 372 373 374 375 376

go over a weekend-we will have um::m two to three weeks for um public examinations and remember that this year we are also having the bursary and scholexams and so on within the school and not up at a::hh [the university] so that would take out at least two or three weekends a::hh for that (.) if we were going to hire it it would have to be on the understanding that on certain times for certain things it would not be available on the Sunday (.) um::m // yes

377 A/PRINCIPAL: You mean things like the School Ball // and 378 PRINCIPAL: 379 380 381 382 383 384 385 386 387 388 389 390 391 392 SHASTRA: 393 394 395 396 SECRETARY: 397 398 CHAIR: 399 400 FRED: 401 402 403 404 405 406 407 408 Well thats r ight an and also therell be the inter-secondary atheletics=I just think it restricts us too much in the use of the hall=because (.) you have to think about (.) > I mean < sometimes that place is cleaned on a Sunday as w ell umm it just I just think that two years to know that yr hall and yr classrooms every day are actually (.) used I just dont honestly (.) think that=well my view is that umm that is too much of a commitment of our facilities to some some other organization (.) and I can remember back to the [Revival Centre] days when there were enormous problems there um with and we were very pleased when they said // they were going // I can remember Mmm (.) mm it could be added that we dont want to commit a future Board heh ahhh ((laughter)) They ahh also wanted to come along to the meeting tonight to plead their case but I fobbed them off (0.5) Well they might stack the next Board elections yknow (inaudible comments and interjections) Ive struck criticism ahh (0.5) along the lines of um::m we dont hire our facilities enough > you know < =organizations want t use classrooms on a regular basis=that kind of thing=for meeting rooms (.) and when you point out what they w would have to be responsible for and that really the the use of the facility for the community at large tends to prepreclude um::m (.) such block bookings for a particular ahh section so that you have the utmost mobility for

EMANCIPATORY LEADERSHIP

107

409 410 411 CHAIR: 412 413 RANGI: 414 FRED: 415 CHAIR: 416 417 418

the community at large (.) then um I think::k they have to be declined (3.0) Further com ment=discussion? (1.5) would someone like to::o (.) put a mot ion (0.5) Ill move that the application be decl ined = Second= Seconded by [Fred]=any further discussion? (1.0) motion is that the application from the (.) [Praise the Lord] (1.5) Church or whatever they are=be declined (.) > All those in favour please say Aye < =

419 MANY VOICES: Aye= 420 CHAIR: 421 422 CHAIR: 423 PAM: 424 CHAIR: 425 PRINCIPAL: 426 427 428 SECRETARY: All those against say No= ((coughs)) Carried= Are we going to give them reasons // why // Yes= Yes (.) I think so like the the the longg commit the long-term // commitment already done that=((background murmurs))=

429 V/PRINCIPAL: > I think we should put it I think we should put it in 430 writing < ((murmurs of agreement)) > so that they 431 know where we stand with it < 432 CHAIR: 433 FRED: 434 Think it cuts across other activities of the school= The work of the school must come ((murmurs of agreement)) rst=

108

DAVID CORSON

Th e fol l ow -u p in te r vie w s Clearly many events, feelings, and attitudes provided a backdrop to this episode, and contributed to it. Later interviews allowed these things to be pieced together, after five of the participants had an opportunity to read the transcripts, to reflect on the episode, and to give their interpretation of the events it touched upon. The most influential thing affecting the way the request was handled seems to have been the manner in which the representatives of the sect presented themselves to the schools staff in their preliminary meetings (297298; 318323). Although they were seen as respectable people, according to the Secretary they were also seen as demanding, blunt, rude, and hasty. This created a strong feeling of antipathy which worked against them and their request. It went directly into the discourses of the school, colouring official attitudes to the request; and it showed up later in the presentation made to the Board by the Secretary, and indirectly by the Principal, as I indicate below. Prior to the meeting, the Principal saw the request as a matter of slight importance that would quickly be dismissed. In the interview, she admitted that the schools experiences with the earlier sect did colour her attitudes on this occasion. Meanwhile, the Secretary, who was both school secretary and secretary to the Board, said that she was also opposed to the request, hoping it would not succeed, because of her dislike of the people involved and because of the hidden expenses and inconveniences that such hirings create. The previous experience with a religious group was foremost in her own mind, although she could not say whether or not this affected the way she perceived the representatives of the second sect, on meeting them in person. Clearly, though, unhappy memories of the earlier sects use of the facilities created most of the prejudice against this request. Also, in his interview, the Chair confirmed that he is not just intolerant of fringe sects; he is intolerant of religious groups of all kinds, and he acknowledged that this sometimes affects his objectivity in dealing with them. Even the Vice Principal responsible for room bookings, who showed some readiness to compromise (373376) and then to correspond on the matter (429431), was less than impartial, as it turns out. He said he was influenced by his memories of an experience the previous weekend, hiring the school hall to a society for caged birds, and then entering the room the next day to find it full of shit and feathers. Finally, from the evidence of the episode itself, it is clear that other Board members were genuinely opposed to the request because of the long-term commitment. This was helpful in allowing the request to be turned down without any voiced opposition, especially when the sect provided so easy a target as a fringe minority outgroup. A most telling contextual factor, which almost seems to summarize the episode, was voiced by the Chair in his interview with me: They had no patronage on the Board.

EMANCIPATORY LEADERSHIP

109

Th e c r itic a l d is c ou r s e a n a l y s is How did all this show up in the discourse itself? The interactions in this episode show a remarkable transformation from the earlier episodes (Corson 1995): a sharp deterioration in the even-handedness of arguments and comments. In particular, the sects request is countered through an ideological challenge supported by an array of unjust verbal practices. Again, this (type 3) function of ideology occurs when a person or persons define present organizational realities or practices as naturalistically necessary, so that alternatives seem unworkable. Several Board members generalize, from their unhappy experience of an earlier arrangement with another fundamentalist sect, to argue against approving this request (332338; 387391). They do so on grounds that are not challenged by others, because of the distorting power of the manoeuvre outlined below, although the grounds are spurious. In other words, their argument is that the same factors that caused difficulties for the school in the earlier instance would recur if this unrelated request were approved, since in all relevant respects one religious sect is the same as another. This claim is not proven and it is not likely to be, because it depends on predicting that outcomes in the future would be the same as in a dissimilar past. While none of the members speak up, on behalf of the fundamentalist sect, against the argument, several reinforce it with negative points which create a bandwagon effect of opposition. In the debate, no-one raises any points in favour of the request or suggests any compromise that might appeal to the sect as a positive response. The leadership shown by all the Board members, as individuals and as a group, denies fair treatment to this outgroup. Well before the ideology begins to do its work, there is clear evidence that this request and its authors face prejudices that smooth the way for the distorting ideology to function as it does. There are a number of key verbal and prosodic contributions that scaffold the discourse in such a way as to make opposition seem unwise or risky, and to encourage collusion in a conspiracy of distorted communication into which those around the table are drawn. The discourse itself seems to structure subsequent discourse, and the distortion goes unchallenged. Indeed, several of those occupying the various leadership roles around the table take the lead in reinforcing the prejudiced handling of the request. How does this happen? The scaffold 1 The Secretary of the Board steps out of her official role of objectivity to use an ambiguity in the text of the sects letter to play for a laugh at their expense (300303). She signals that she is not disinterested in this matter. She solicits comments on the ambiguity by putting a raised intonation on her words kitchen and hall (300, 303) and by deliberately pausing in her reading (303).

110

DAVID CORSON

2 On cue, several participants deliver laughter and ironic comments (304). 3 The Principal reinforces these with an audible aside. She becomes an accomplice in the Secretarys mocking treatment of the letter (305). 4 The Chair adds a frivolous interjection. Though witty, it makes fun of the sects very identity and harms their case. His remark is much more powerful because of his own influential position, and his clever use of humour. In a more informal verbal context, it might be an appropriate remark to make; but it is inappropriate for a leader to make in a setting where he is formally responsible for adjudicating rival interests and claims. Rather than offering an impartial lead, he tilts the Boards discourse towards his own prejudices instead (313). 5 Several participants reinforce the Chairs expression of mild derision (314). 6 After the Secretary pauses again in her reading (316), Pam adds an ironic exclamation (317) perhaps renderable as I am impressed. 7 The Secretary inserts an extremely hostile aside into her reading of the letter, adding the absent caretakers view to her own, in a new layer of opposition (321323). At this point, the Chair, the Principal, or one of the other leaders present, might have drawn attention to the Secretarys prejudiced reading, in some tactful and subtle way. Her action here was not at all typical, because this was the one time in the meeting when she stepped out of her objective role, as the appointed servant of the Board. At this point, it should have been a relatively simple thing for someone to remark on her rather obvious interest in the matter under discussion. 8 With the groundwork for the ideology laid, the Principal introduces it and solicits corroboration with a raised intonation (332). 9 The Secretary responds, providing the first in a chain of enthusiastic statements building and supporting the ideology (333). 10 Overlapping or contiguous contributions reinforce the distortion until it becomes a forecast of school chaos, complete with alarm bells ringing (339347). 11 With her chuckle Shastra signals that she for one is aware of the cynical game the Board is playing, but she contributes to it nonetheless (342). 12 The Secretary interrupts Shastra, highlighting the number of alarms (345) and getting the response from the Board that she expects (346, 347). 13 The Principal brings discussion back to the point. With her word lucrative (348) and the phrase at least theyre paying (352) she implies how much the New Right ideology is influencing the way she thinks about her professional practice. Her reference to the Science and Technology Roadshow paying for their hire gives the Secretary grounds for another interruption (351354). 14 The Secretary interrupts with a very hostile choice of words (355357). Implicative verbs entail tacit and involuntary acceptance of the speakers view of the truth or falsity of what the verbs are saying. The Secretarys claim that they even had the cheek to ask for it at half the normal rates does this sort of work.

EMANCIPATORY LEADERSHIP

111

15 The three administrators suggest some genuinely undesirable consequences of agreeing to the request (359391). They back one another up in overlapping contributions. 16 The Secretary makes an ironic characterization of her own actions fobbing off (being evasive with) the sect, when they had asked to plead their case in person (396, 397). Her intervention at this point in the meeting is very prejudicial, because it occurs soon after the only moment in the debate where some form of compromise action is foreshadowed (373376) and it pre-empts other members from suggesting that the sect be allowed to vary their request, or to put their point of view more fully. 17 A more emancipatory leader might have noted the Secretarys admission of evasiveness here, and asked the Board to discuss ways of giving the sect the voice they are seeking. Instead, the Chair offers a humorous allusion to a problem that has affected a few other Boards of Trustees in the countrys schools, when they have been captured by sectional interests (398). Its effect here is to discourage others from giving the leadership that he does not give himself. 18 By now the request is tacitly defeated. The Chair calls for further discussion, and then pauses (411). This is the moment when a more emancipatory leader on the Board might have rescued it from the injustice it is about to perpetrate. Had the sects interests been represented in any way, a single voice of protest might have changed things here. In fact, the Chair does provide a fleeting opportunity, but, with no intervention coming, a motion to decline the request becomes a formality. Rangi moves it sotto voce and Fred hurriedly seconds it (413, 414). 19 In hurrying the motion through, the Chair gives a mild display of impatience, hinting at his own attitude to the sect (416, 417). 20 By the time several members realize they have been less than fair in dealing with the request (423, 429431), the opportunity to treat the matter more fairly has been lost. Indeed the Secretary reveals that she has already pre-empted the Boards decision by giving her own reasons to the sect (428). Yet none of the Board members comments audibly on this remarkable irregularity, or on the way they have been manipulated throughout by the Secretary. 21 Final recourse to in-group solidarity is found in a distorting formula phrase (433) that brands the request as the property of an out-group. This scaffold distorts the communication by moving it away from a debate in which the best argument advanced has the best chance of succeeding, because only one argument has had the floor. And the distortions seem to structure the power arrangements in the debate, affecting both the verbal and the prosodic contributions that participants seem willing to make. The prejudices of one or two key members of the Board shape the discourse, and turn the discussion away from impartiality. Yet none of the empowered leaders in the context seems ready to challenge the distortion directly or in any other way.

112

DAVID CORSON

Em a n c ipa tor y l e a d e r s h ip What this critical discourse analysis reveals is how people are positioned from moment to moment by the discursive arrangements in which they are placed. It shows how the unwary can be seduced and controlled by the constant flow of signs they experience in the verbal and non-verbal discourse of group interaction. It also suggests how leaders, through their activity or inactivity, can prejudice school policies and practices in ways that disempower fringe individuals and groups. In this episode, we see a group of people at work who had already proved themselves quite capable of undistorted and fair decision-making in other episodes, especially where their own close interests were at stake. In other words, we see people here who know how to create discursive settings for themselves where features like truth, sincerity, meaningfulness and justifiability all obtained (Habermas 1985). So these are hardly people incapable of doing the right thing by others. On the contrary, they are as ethical in their conduct as the next person, and perhaps a little more skilled than most in dealing with ethical matters, because half were elected by others as their representatives, and half had been appointed to positions of responsibility in a high school. Yet, in the course of this episode, they still allowed themselves to be drawn into an ideological conspiracy that results in a small but flagrant injustice. What went wrong? A key factor allowing the Board to overlook its obligation of fairness is captured in the chairs final words: the out-group had no patronage on the Board. Without this representation, their case received no supporting discourse to balance and counter the distortions. Even the contents of their letter were used against them in powerfully distorting ways. In short, the out-group had no opportunity to insert their own discourse their own signs, and the relevant rules of use that give meaning to those signs into the discourse of the episode, in such a way as to prevent the distortion from doing its work. In this instance, the out-group was a fundamentalist sect, but it could have been the members of some other minority, or simply some group of non-professionals, or of parents whose reasons and accounts were not well represented among the Board members. In other words, it could have been any group of people positioned differently by the narratives of their life experiences. Clearly, the best way to meet the requirement of fairness, in this case and in the generality, would be to encourage the minority outgroup to attend the meeting in person and present their case. Elsewhere I take this point much further, describing practices for incorporating diversity into school decision-making bodies, and ways of making school administration more critically open (Corson 1998). A second-best approach would be to invite some member of the Board to act as an advocate for the groups interests, as already happens on this Board when the teacher representatives act as advocates for other teachers. As I mention below, this is the kind of representation John Rawls (1972, 1993) would recommend. But advocacy of this kind is difficult to handle well when the advocates are not inside the cultural experiences of those whose interests they serve. And this is a

EMANCIPATORY LEADERSHIP

113

fundamental weakness not just of administrative ethics in schools, but of conventional approaches to ethics and social justice generally. Administrative ethics and social justice For a decade I have been discussing the two editions of the text The Ethics of School Administration by Strike, Haller and Soltis (1988, 1998) with my graduate class: diversity and the ethics of educational administration. The text, with its very good case studies, provides a useful introduction to the rationale behind the various ethical principles that bear upon the work of school administrators. But, unfortunately, that book and its material pull up well short of the really complex ethical issues that affect schools in contexts of great human diversity, which is schools almost everywhere these days. The reason for this is that the endpoint of the authors discussion is the principle of equal respect for persons, with its requirement that we treat other people as ends rather than as means, as free and rational moral agents, and as moral agents of equal value. Like most people, including me, Strike, Haller and Soltis see this as the most fundamental ethical guideline. The authors show very well how this principle has to be weighed against other principles, like the principle of benefit maximization or of equal treatment, in part because other ethical principles presuppose respect for persons. But the issue that I take up with their book is that it never questions whether an application of that principle is really possible in practice, when dealing with peoples of diversity. The authors position here is similar to the one to which Rawls is committed, which is a cornerstone of conventional ethics: that no individual can be treated as the means to the ends of society. Working from this, Rawls sees social justice as the content of an agreement that rational people would reach under conditions that do not allow for bargaining power to be translated into advantage. In other words, social justice decisions need to be made in an impartial way by decision-makers who do not benefit unreasonably themselves from choosing as they do. It is this choice process itself that concerns me here. Laudable though the Rawls position is, it is mainly an elaboration of the Golden Rule from the scriptures, which advises us to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. And most of the worlds religions have a similar injunction. Yet even this cornerstone of beneficence from the worlds scriptures has a dark underside, as George Bernard Shaw cautions: Dont do to others as you would have them do to you; their tastes might be different. This is a wry twist to the Rule, but there is more than humour in this rider from Shaw (Corson 2000b). He reminds us that we cannot easily see the world from the point of view of most other people, because they are positioned very differently from ourselves by their experiences; and we are taking a risk if we assume our different cultural positions are compatible, or even mutually understandable (Corson 1997). When we as decision makers are culturally removed from those whose interests our decisions affect, we are not really accountable for our actions, because we lack the necessary information to choose prudently. It is at this point that the ethical ground

114

DAVID CORSON

rule of ought implies can comes into effect: We cannot be held to account for something over which we have no influence. And we cannot always make well-informed and fair decisions on behalf of others, in anything like the neat way that Rawls envisions, and in anything like the impartial way that the principle of equal respect for persons recommends. In other words, usually it is very difficult to determine in advance what fair treatment would be, in a given context, if one is not a participant in the discursive practices of the context, and knowledgable about all the cultural and historical influences that shape that context and position people within it. This is especially so in matters of communication between culturally different groups, where it is not easy to create a context freed of selfinterest and bias, because each of us is burdened with the bias of the groups that we are already attached to, and few can be neutral in judging the interests of their own group against interests that are not their own. We cannot easily step outside the interests that our socialization creates for us, because it is these very interests, and the similar interests of those who share a similar socialization, that we feel ourselves obliged to defend. We cannot escape our social positioning for long, if at all. Elsewhere, I say a little more about alternative practices for schools. I recommend critical policy making as a way for the future (Corson 1999). However, in the present case, when the elected teacher-representatives or school administrators were speaking on behalf of other teachers, they were representing insights, interests, and values that were very familiar to them. Yet the more distant that people become in culture, language, and class from those whom they choose to represent, the more difficult it becomes for them to advocate fairly and consistently, especially when their decisionmaking takes place in camera, as in this episode. Often administrators are placed in the difficult position of having to advocate and adjudicate simultaneously in intercultural matters spanning complex areas where really they are no more than novices themselves. Educational leaders do try to cope with sociocultural complexity, but often they lack the means for developing intercultural and interclass dialogue. As often, they are without the culturally precise insights needed to make well-informed decisions. However, by still proceeding to make their own decisions, administrators create settings for human beings that require those same human beings to be moulded into a pattern which usually only the administrators themselves have chosen. Even the equal respect they hope they are showing those others is often nothing of the kind. Drowned in this sociocultural complexity, the professionals are often defeated before they begin, because they are asked to plan in advance, from the interests of their own dominant group, what arrangements would be chosen by other people whose interests might not be understood readily by anyone who is not from the relevant class, sex, or culture. For schools in communities of great diversity, another leadership approach suggests itself. The idea of emancipatory leadership seems a desirable complement to the other approaches to school leadership, like those mentioned in the first paragraph of this article. Below I sketch the activities of some school administrators who practised a more emancipatory approach to their leadership activities, in a school that serves a highly

EMANCIPATORY LEADERSHIP

115

diverse population (Cazden 1989, May 1994, Corson 1998). Perhaps a good way to educate people about emancipatory leadership would be to assemble a body of such case studies of emancipatory leaders at work: in other words, to use the critical practice of critical practitioners as the substance of a critical theory of educational leadership. This seems one way forward. Perhaps it is the only way, because I find myself agreeing with Howard (1992), who argues compellingly that leadership, like creativity or discovery, cannot be taught: it can only be learned. A case study of emancipatory leadership in action Coming from an oppressed community himself, the Principal at Richmond Road school knew that traditional forms of schooling act in a hegemonic way: they maintain inequalities for children from diverse backgrounds by making them conform to the dominant culture, which the students tend to do without much protest, inside the all-controlling structures of schools. He wanted to reduce these pressures to conform, and he used this idea to develop his approach. The social conditions of community deterioration and dislocation that surrounded Richmond Road prompted the reforms. But the Principal himself was the catalyst for change, by showing his willingness to build the knowledge and ideas of others into the schools thinking. Through his own critical openness, he freed the staff to look for issues in the schools problem context. He asked them to raise problems, and to take the lead in discussing them in formal meetings. He consistently asked staff to look for critical alternatives in their practices, to break away from the constraints of monocultural or dominant ways of doing things. Over many years, the staff decided everything according to what was best for the children, as individuals and as members of different cultural groups. This became the overriding normative principle for the school. While manifesting a democratic decision-making framework, and an established consultation process with the local community, the school did all this in a setting that built upon its pupils contacts with their own cultures, and it strengthened those links. Consultative bonds radiated in every direction, connecting individuals, ideas, and groups. In fact, these bonds were valued as the point and purpose of the schools policy and planning. The school became organic to its cultural community. To increase the alternatives available to children from diverse backgrounds, the school tried to celebrate group collective identities and to lay constant stress on fairness for everyone, especially for those of little power. Richmond Road also became a learning community for adults. They learned about teaching, about other cultures, and about themselves. Community-based education became a practical reality, and professional development moved forward as well, through teacher workshops and conferences, contact with up-to-date theory, worthwhile staff meeting discussions, and critical policy development. Meanwhile, the environment for academic development did not suffer as a result. May (1994) offers extensive data confirming that the students academic progress was as good as or better than comparable students elsewhere.

116

DAVID CORSON

Richmond Road raised expert knowledge to a level that is rare in schools. In one sense this meant capitalizing on external professional expertise by letting it work in the schools interests. They took advantage of rule changes in the wider system, and as a school they took an activist role in provoking emancipatory changes that would benefit their students. But in a more important sense, their respect for relevant knowledge meant recognizing the value of the expertise of the staff and the community. Once the schools meetings had identified a relevant problem, the professionals and the community targeted the field of the problem, then policy action was proposed, and implementation followed. Through this process, the staff became used to adopting a theorized approach to their practice. They developed collaborative expertise at the same time, and worked always to keep communication lines open between themselves.The school also gave priority to keeping communication lines open with other people who had an interest in the schools development. Early in the history of the reforms, the staff created an open door policy for the community. They worked to reduce the usual gap that stands between parents and teachers, by giving parents a sense of their own status and efficacy. As a result, parents felt drawn to contribute to the teaching and other activities. So community interests at Richmond Road were consulted, not fobbed off. In fact, the community was highly engaged in running things and deciding directions. All the major changes were community driven, because it was the schools objective to elevate those with little power. Members of the community were involved in matters of governance, with real power to direct the school in the communitys interests, and to mediate in difficulties that arose for children from diverse backgrounds, or even among community members. This policy included appointing professional and ancillary staff drawn from the local cultural communities, giving them status in the school, and involving them directly in school governance. Using an emancipatory form of leadership with his colleagues, the Principal gave them full discretion in trialling, adopting, and discarding different arrangements. When a successful model was identified for grouping the students vertically in bilingual and bicultural units, the innovators slowly encouraged interest in their ideas among other staff. They then established other similar approaches, doing this without the Principals direct involvement, and allowing teacher discretion over structural details within units. The school allowed its structural changes to flow through into pedagogical changes. In summary, through community negotiation and professional education at Richmond Road, the professionals completely re-organized the school. They created a flat and more egalitarian management system. By negotiation, they lessened undesirable structural constraints, like those that prevented staff from diverse backgrounds from being hired, or community members from having a strong voice in governance. In this emancipatory setting, staff from backgrounds of diversity began to model relations of equal status. Racist words and phrases disappeared from the language of the school. The different language varieties used by the students became more valued. And the ideology of always treating children all the same came to be seen as a racist value, rather than an expression of justice.

EMANCIPATORY LEADERSHIP

117

Some features of emancipatory leaders Working from the example offered by the Board of Trustees, and from this more positive one at Richmond Road, here are just a few of the features that seem to typify this style of leadership.

Emancipatory leaders know when they are out of their depth in complex sociocultural areas: they acknowledge the greater expertise of community members or their colleagues in certain situations, especially those linked to concerns for diversity; and they act accordingly. Emancipatory leaders can tell when they need to extend the circle of decision makers to include others whose interests might be at stake: they know when the in-group of the moment has severe limits placed on its understanding, or when it could be prejudiced in its views. Emancipatory leaders try to make their own presence a matter of small importance to the context of debate and decision-making: they step down from the chair, and they withdraw from centre stage by deliberately limiting themselves to making consultative contributions to debate, perhaps by offering their opinions last, rather than first. Emancipatory leaders remove the effects of their own power from the process of decision-making: they make it clear that they will accept any decision that is the outcome of a democratic consensus, and that they will try as much as possible to do so without voicing their reservations after the fact, or acting on any negative feelings they might have. Emancipatory leaders agree to leave the implementation of a decision in the hands of those chosen for that task by the group.

Furthermore, administrators concerned to make decision-making as democratic as possible could use this emancipatory form of leadership for many group-based decision-making activities. For example, it is consistent with a lot of the administrative work that goes on in the contexts of professional collegiality and equality that already exist in higher education settings. Clearly, this form of leadership asks a lot in goodwill from an administrator. However, in my own experience, the rewards that come from free and open participation under these conditions, and the reflected goodwill that leaders see displayed in other people, certainly make it worthwhile. And just having a goodwill, as Kant (1785) advised, is the necessary starting point for ethical reasoning. Nor can any good result without care and compassion. At the same time, emancipatory leadership is not really suited to routine administrative action. There are many routine decisions that administrators in schools need to take quickly, and on their own authority. People often find it oppressive if valuable time is spent debating things of little importance, especially when this means that critical issues are being overlooked. So administrators also need an agreement from their colleagues about areas where they can feel free to take unilateral decisions, and where they can expect to be supported in those decisions. At the same time, using emancipatory leadership seems a good way to reach that sort of agreement too.

118

DAVID CORSON

Con c lu s ion How would emancipatory leaders have handled the episode analysed in this study? In the first place, they would have been quick to spot the difference between this sects request and the schools experience with the earlier sect. Aware of the risk of ideological distortion, they would have asked themselves, and the Board, if anyone had information about the new sect that would clarify its activities, its level of trustworthiness as a user of the schools property, its precise needs, and so forth. They would not have allowed the Secretary to step out of her role as an objective servant of the Board in the way that she did, hopelessly distorting the debate in the process. Also, before things got out of hand, they would have asked the Chair and other members to handle the request more respectfully. Emancipatory leaders would then recognize that the issue could not be dealt with fairly in the absence of the sect or its representatives. At a later meeting, the sect might present its case and be allowed to discuss all the real objections to the request that Board members had. In this way, the Board would see the sect more as human beings deserving fair treatment, rather than as members of some troublesome out-group. Ideally, the Boards decision would be made with the sects representatives present, so the fairness of the process could be apparent to all. The emancipatory administrators would have no greater voice in this process than any other Board members; and they would accept the decision of the Board and take steps to implement it as best they could. Again, this episode records only a small act of injustice. Any importance it has lies in the evidence it gives about distorted processes of decision-making more generally. Similar processes are very common in administrative situations where outsiders interests are at stake. Indeed the discursive events in which all administrators take part draw them regularly into mundane acts of partisan decision-making. Often their own sociocultural positioning, received in the discourses of the dominant culture, religion, class, or sex, allows them to rationalize small acts of unfairness, especially when tight choices have to be made in the busy schedules of the loosely coupled administrative systems that they manage. Yet studies of power in the theory and practice of educational administration are rather silent about these fundamental factors that have always privileged the sectional interests of school administrators themselves, as long as schools have existed. I am offering emancipatory leadership as an alternative to this oversight. Ac kn ow l e d g e m e n ts This article was first presented as a Public Lecture in the Noted Scholars Program of the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia in July 1998. The author wishes to thank the faculty members and students who improved it with their comments and questions.

EMANCIPATORY LEADERSHIP

119

Re fe r e n c e s
Cazden, C. (1989) Richmond Road: a multilingual/multicultural primary school in Auckland, New Zealand. Language and Education, 3, 143166. Corson, D. (1977) 50,000 Tasmanians? The adult literacy program. Australian Council for Adult Literacy Occasional Papers, 1, 36. Corson, D. (ed.) (1995) Discourse and Power in Educational Organizations (Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press). Corson, D. (1997). Reclaiming reality: laying the ideology of cultural compatibility. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 21, 105111. Corson, D. (1998) Changing Education for Diversity (Philadelphia, PA: Open University Press). Corson, D. (1999) Language Policy in Schools (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum). Corson, D. (2000a) Language Diversity and Education (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum). Corson, D. (2000b). Social justice, language policy and English only. In R. D. Gonzalez (ed.) Language Ideologies: Critical Perspectives on the Official English Movement (Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English). Corson, D. (2000c). The eclipse of liberal education in the twenty-first century? Educational Review (in the press). Davies, B. and Corson, D. (eds) (1997) Oral Discourse and Education (Boston, MA: Kluwer). Duke, D. L. (1996) Perception, prescription and the future of school leadership. In K. Leithwood, J. Chapman, D. Corson, P. Hallinger, and A. Hart (eds.) International Handbook of Educational Leadership and Administration (Boston, MA: Kluwer), pp. 841872. Fairclough, N. (1985) Critical and descriptive goals in discourse analysis. Journal of Pragmatics, 9, 739 763. Fairclough, N. (1993) Critical discourse analysis and the marketization of public discourse: the universities. Discourse & Society, 4(2), 133168. Foucault, M. (1972) The Archaeology of Knowledge (London: Tavistock). Foucault, M. (1977) Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (New York: Pantheon). Foucault, M. (1980) Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 19711977 (New York: Pantheon). Foucault, M. (1984). The order of discourse. In M. Shapiro (ed.) Language and politics (New York: New York University Press), pp. 108138. Freire, P. (1972) Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin). Giddens, A. (1979) Central Problems in Social Theory (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press). Habermas, J. (1985) The Theory of Communicative Action, Vol. 1, Reasoning and the Rationalisation of Society (New York: Heinemann). Heap, J. (1997) Conversation analysis methods in researching language and education. In N. Hornberger and D. Corson (eds) Research Methods in Language and Education (Boston, MA: Kluwer), pp. 217226. Hobsbawm, E. (1989) The Age of Empire: 18751914. (New York: Vintage Books). Howard, V. A. (1992) Can leadership be taught? Paideusis, 6(1), 316. Kant, I. (1785 [1949]) Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals (Chicago: Henry Regnery). Leithwood, K., Tomlinson, D. and Genge, M. (1996) Transformational school leadership. In K. Leithwood, J. Chapman, D. Corson, P. Hallinger, and A. Hart (eds) International Handbook of Educational Leadership and Administration (Boston, MA: Kluwer), pp. 785840. Macbeath, J., Moos, L. and Riley, K. (1996) Leadership in a changing world. In K. Leithwood, J. Chapman, D. Corson, P. Hallinger, and A. Hart (eds) International Handbook of Educational Leadership and Administration (Boston, MA: Kluwer), pp. 223250. May, S. (1994) Making Multicultural Education Work (Clevedon, Avon: Multilingual Matters). Norton, B. (1997) Critical discourse research. In N. Hornberger and D. Corson (eds) Research Methods in Language and Education (Boston, MA: Kluwer), pp. 207216. Olive, D. (1999) Ideas and trends. Financial Post, Thursday, 18 February. Rawls, J. (1972) A Theory of Justice (Oxford University Press). Rawls, J. (1993) Political Liberalism: John Dewey Essays in Philosophy (New York: Columbia University Press).

120

DAVID CORSON

Strike, K. A., Haller, E. J. and Soltis, J. F. (1988) The Ethics of School Administration (New York: Teachers College). Strike, K. A., Haller, E. J. and Soltis, J. F. (1998) The Ethics of School Administration, (Revised edition) (New York: Teachers College). Thompson, J. B. (1984) Narratives of national socialism: an analysis of the work of Jean-Pierre Faye. In J. B. Thompson (ed.) Studies in the Theory of Ideology (Cambridge: Polity Press), pp. 205231. Waite, D. (1997) Power and teacher administrator discourse. In R. Wodak and D. Corson (eds) Language Policy and Political Issues in Education (Boston, MA: Kluwer), pp. 4352. Wodak, R. (1995) Power, discourse and styles of female leadership in school committee meetings. In D. Corson (ed.) Discourse and Power in Educational Organizations (Cresskill NJ: Hampton Press), pp. 3154. Wittgenstein, L. (1953) Philosophical Investigations (Oxford: Blackwell).