Facilitating curriculum

changes in school

Whole school development &

the role of school principal
 Group discussion
In your school, what are the major
difficulties you have encountered in
curriculum improvement?
How does the school authority tackle
them?

Time: 20 minutes
 Values and beliefs
People uphold different values and beliefs:
aims and goals of education
means of education
willingness to involve
etc.
This variation: not only the societal level
also in school
(see for example, Finnan & Levin, 2000)
 Reflection
Many researches indicate the existence of school culture
(Hargreaves, Sarason etc.)
At the school level, it is not difficult to identify some
distinctive cultural traits, particularly in well-established
schools
But do teachers all agree with the values and beliefs of
the “dominant school culture”?
What is your observation?
Such differences among sub-groups in school
can also be found in societal level.

Chinese culture:
do all the chinese uphold the same values
and beliefs in all areas?
The concept of culture, whether used to describe
schools or larger societies is not easy to define. It
is something that surrounds us, gives meaning to
our world and is constantly being constructed
both through our interactions with others and
through our reflections on life and our world.
Culture is so implicit in what we do that it dulls
our knowledge that it is there.

(Finnan &Levin, 2000, p.88)

The seemingly contradictory fact that culture is
both conservative and ever changing. On the one
hand, culture is essentially conservative,
protecting people from that unknown, providing
answers to what would otherwise be unanswerable.
On the other hand, culture is also ever changing. It
adapts to influences from other cultures and from
changes in the physical, social and
political environment.
(Finnan &Levin, 2000, p.88)
At the societal, school culture is more
appropriately termed the culture of schooling. It is
at this level that culture appears to be most
conservative and resistant to change, because it
exists primarily at an abstract, generalized level.
The culture of schooling creates and perpetuates
the image members of our society call forth when
they think of education, schools and schooling.

(Finnan &Levin, 2000, p.89)

The shared culture of schooling is responsible for the stability is the
size and design of classrooms, in the persistence of school activities
and practices that have characterized schooling since the beginning of
the twentieth century and in the egg crate structure vividly described
by Lortie. The culture of schooling perpetuates a view of schooling in
which teachers are responsible for the transmission of knowledge and
culture and for shaping the minds of children. For this reason, the
public is most comfortable when the teaching’learning process is
dominated by a teacher and textbooks. Many people assume that
learning can occur only when the teacher orchestrates it from the front
of the class.
(Finnan &Levin, 2000, p.89)
We use the term “school culture” to describe the
unique culture of each school; this is culture at the
local level. A school’s culture accounts for why it
feels, looks, sounds and smells different from any
other school.
(Finnan &Levin, 2000, p.89-90)
Unlike the culture of schooling, school culture is
constantly changing. It accommodates a continuous influx
of new people (administrators, faculty, students, parents),
new directives from the district and from state and federal
agencies, and new directions recommended by
professional organizations, institutions of higher education
and unions. School cultures may not change in the ways
external change agents want, but they do change.

(Finnan &Levin, 2000, p.90)

Teachers and administrators working in schools
serving at-risk children often feel inferior to their
colleagues in more affluent school.

(Finnan &Levin, 2000, p.91)

In many schools, the culture allows for
considerable variation among teachers on how and
what to teach. This does not usually arise from a
respect for diverse teaching strategies but from
limited discourse among teachers and a lack of
communication with parents on effective teaching.

(Finnan &Levin, 2000, p.92)

Teachers and administrators often actively and passively
resist externally imposed change because the proposed
changes do not fit their school culture, are not well
designed or are not presented in an understandable way.
There are schools, however, that encourage and foster
change and continuous improvement, especially if the
change build on the strengths of the existing school culture.

(Finnan &Levin, 2000, p.92)

But individuals who join the school as staff, parents and students also
have personal histories which reinforce school culture through self-
selection. The involvement of participants in a school is hardly a
random event. Students from fairly homogeneous and neighborhoods
attend schools that reflect community values, aspirations and
expectation. Even when choosing public schools outside their
neighborhoods and private schools, families select school
environments that reinforce their beliefs about what schools should do.
School staff to choose environment and practices that they feel most
attracted to and comfortable with.

(Finnan &Levin, 2000, p.92)

It is important to acknowledge school culture explicitly because it has
consequences for both stability and change. We have emphasized the
stability and conserving nature of school culture, in that it is like a vast
web of intricate and interlocking ideas, values, beliefs and practices
that protect the school from change. Both societally and locally it
protects participants from external pressures for change because of its
comprehensive and ubiquitous nature. Pressures for change tend to be
piecemeal can only pierce a small part of this protective web, while the
vast remainder remains intact. In this respect school culture serves as a
barrier to change and effectively fends off attempts to transform the
school.

(Finnan &Levin, 2000, p.93)

 Micropolitics in schools
So far we have only discussed the problem of
cultural differences.
In reality, politics in school may further aggravate
the problem.
For details, we can look at the work by Ball (1987),
Henderson & Hawthorne (2000) also
 Conflicts:
originated from
ideological differences
"refer to matters of value and philosophical
commitment."
vested interest
"refer to the material concerns of teachers as
related to working conditions: rewards from
work, career and promotion; access to and
control of resources in the school
 Conflicts:
self interest:
"refer to the sense of self or identity
claimed or aspired to by the teacher, the
sort of teacher a person believes
themselves to be or want to be (e.g.
subject specialist, educator, pastoralist,
administrator."

(Ball, 1987, p.17)

Key concepts of the micro-political
perspective
power
goal diversity
ideological disputation
conflict
interests
political activity
control
(Ball, 1987)
 Conflict perspective
Baldridge (1971): main tenets:

1. conflict theorists emphasizes the fragmentation of

social systems into interest gps. each with its own
particular goals
2. conflict theorists study the interaction of these dif.
interest gps. and esp. the conflict processes by which
one gp. tries to gain adv, over another
 Conflict perspective
3. interest gps. cluster around divergent values and
the study of conflicting interests is a key part of
the analysis
4. the study of change is a central feature of the
conflict approach, for change is to be expected if
the social sys. is fragmented by divergent values
and conflicting interest gps.

(Ball, 1987, p.18)

School: An arena of struggle
actual or potential conflict between members
conflicts: because of ideological differences, vested
interests, self-interest
maintaining control and resolve the conflicts: no
fixed pattern
partly because school: peculiar char. (Collins)
& structure: loose, poorly coordinated
Action and decision-making in school
not an abstract rational process
involve
compromise
negotiations
trade-offs
threats
pressure
underhand dealing
(Ball, 1987, p.26)
How could schools survive?
If we agree that there are significant
differences among school members,
particularly teachers, &
If teachers’ beliefs contradict, the whole
school may fall apart.
However, most schools have not reached
that level.
Why?
Goals of education: abstract, varied and
diversified
So many educational decisions are value-laden and
ideological
Differences between depts and among teachers ~
ideological foundation
"In the normal course of events such differences are
obscured or submerged in the welter of routine
activities and interaction.“
& also the loose-coupling structure
 Structure of school
"Anarchic organization"
"It is anarchic in the sense that the relationship
between goals, members and technology is
not as clearly functional as conventional
organization theory indicates that it will be."
(Bell, 1980, p.187)
(Ball, 1987, p.12)
However, at times of crisis or change, or in
moments of reflection (occasional days, staff or
dept. meetings). straightforward points of
contention over practice can quickly lay bare
deep divisions in teaching ideology.”
(Ball, 1987, p.14)

"The ideological diversity of schools is

frequently contained by a deliberate policy of
loose-coupling. Depts. or other sub-units... are
left to their own devices.” (p.15)
School principal:
Important role
The importance of principal in
school success
Hall et al. (1987): principal : crucial to success
Mortimore et al. (1988): longitudinal study of 50 schools
in England:
single out 'purposeful leadership of the staff by the
headteacher" : key in schools found to be effective on a
variety of academic and non-academic criteria.
"In short, the school principal more than anyone else can
bring successful school improvement into sharp focus.”
Fullan, 1992, p.96
 The importance of principal in
school success
"We have begun to make the transition fr. the
principal's role in influencing the impl. of
specific innovations to the principal's role in
leading changes in 'the school as an organization'.
The implication is that we have to look deeper
and more holistically at the principal and the
school as an organization."

(Fullan ,1992, p.84-5)

 Role of managers
Plan: deciding what to do & how to do it
Organise: arranging resources the best way
Direct: Motivating people to work well
Control: Measuring performance & cost
Which of the above roles are most important?
Principals: Many roles
change agent
pressure regulator
morale booster
resource supplier
climate generator
 Principal:
manager of operation:
major concern: smooth functioning of the building
spend more time in their office than in corridors and
classrooms, attend numerous meetings outside of the
building, remove themselves from the daily concerns
of movt. of students and life in classrooms and
establish social distance from the faculty

Lieberman & Miller, 1984, p.55

 Principal:
leader of instruction:
encourage instructional excellence, visit
classroom, talk with teachers about heir
teaching concerns, initiate program review
and revitalization
active participant in the life of the school
Principal's commitment to curr. work
"... few educational roles are less clearly defined than
that of the principal. He is continually barraged by a
series of uncoordinated and often contradictory sets of
expectations fr. dif. groups from within and outside
his own school community.”
(Ross, 1980, p.219)

"Research consistently found that a large percentage

of principals (at least one-half) were preoccupied with
adm. work and organizational maintenance activities.”
(Fullan, 1984, p.100)
 Management styles
Four types:
*interpersonal
*managerial
adversarial
authoritarian
(Ball, 1987, p.87)
Interpersonal head:
"rely primarily on personal relationships and
face-to- face contact to fulfill their role"
Managerial head:
"have major recourse to committees,
memoranda and formal procedures"
Adversarial head:
"tends to relish argument and confrontation to
maintain control"
Authoritarian head:
"avoids and stifles argument in favour of
dictat"
(Ball, 1987, p.87)

"An understanding of the way that schools

change (or stay the same) and therefore of
the practical limits and possibilities of
educational devt., must take account of
intra-organization process."
(Ball, 1987, p.3)
 Interpersonal
mobile and visible head
personal interaction, face to face contact
individual negotiation and compromises
informality
communication does not flow through a
formal hierarchy
staff members are encouraged to think of
themselves as autonomous professionals
set up a sense of mutual obligation, loyalty,
consideration
 Interpersonal
weaknesses:
the decision-making mechanism comes to be seen as
an elusive and mysterious process as inaccessible and
behind doors
absence of structure, procedures and methods
the divine right of heads
to make it successful, headteacher needs to have
excellent social skills
"charisma"
(Ball, 1987)
 Managerial
industrial manager
the head, normally surrounded by a senior
management team
formal structure of meetings and committees
supported and outlined by written communication
educational concerns also formally defined
bureaucratic
information and inf. flow thr. the formal channels
and structures
 Adversarial
rests primarily upon the vehicle of talk
crucial areas of talk are public rather than
private
emphasis on dialogue and not infrequently
on confrontation
competing interests and ideologies in the
school: recognized
 Adversarial
emphasis is upon persuasion and commitment
success depends on the ability of the head to cope with
the uncertainties of the relatively unorganized public
debate i.e. to deal with attacks, to persuade waverers, to
provide reasoned argument etc.
allies must be encouraged, at times rewarded;
opponents: neutralized or satisfied, as the occasion
demands
 Authoritarian
assert
statement
opposition is avoided, disabled or simply
ignored
to reduce talk to a one-way flow
 Char. of principal's work
1. A low no. of self-initiated tasks
2. Many activities of short duration
3. Discontinuity caused by interruptions
4. The superseding of prior plans by the needs
of others in the organization
5. Face-to-face verbal contacts with one other
person
6. Variability of tasks
 Char. of principal's work
7. An extensive network of individuals and groups
8. A hectic and unpredictable flow of work
9. Numerous unimpt. decisions and trivial agendas
10.Few attempts at written communication
11.Interactions predominately with subordinates
12.A preference for problems an information that are
specific (rather than general), concrete, solvable and
currently pressing

(Pitner, 1982; Mannasse, 1985, 442)

Basic dilemma of headteacher
maintenance of pol. stability within the organization
achieve control (domination) & commitment
(integration)
The 4 leadership styles are all means to this end.
The stability may be dynamic and radical
(adversorial mode) or static and conservative
(authoritarian mode)
Stability may be emphasized in terms of community
and relationship (interpersonal mode) or in terms of
structures, roles, and procedures
( Ball, 1987, p.120)
 Teacher's autonomy
a major compromise between freedom and
control
it may be an illusion of freedom
as teacher's autonomy is interpreted as limited to
classroom business
this limits the range of concerns over which the
teacher can exercise influence
Advice from curriculum change
theorists
Hargreaves, 1995
Hargreaves, 1998
Glatthorn, 1997
Henderson & Hawthorne, 2000
Blasé & Blasé, 1998
Sarason, 1996
Nias et al. 1992
But one can use school culture as a vehicle
for effecting and sustaining change, rather
than trying to undermine it directly or get
around it surreptitiously. It is unfortunate that
school culture is viewed only as a conserving
force and not one that might be used for
transformation.

(Finnan &Levin, 2000, p.93)

Establish a shared language, a process for
ongoing communication, research and
professional interactions, a highly participatory
governance structure that incorporates all
members and the involvement of significant
other parts of the educational system to support
the process of change.
(Finnan &Levin, 2000, p.93)
 Effective middle manager
need to operate at all modes: no single perfect style
whatever style, should be open, clear and consistent
should show to have a major concern for achieving
tasks and for fulfilling the soc. and prof. needs of
colleagues
adaptable to match constantly changing situations
lead by example
facilitate others to be leaders

(Earley & Fletcher-Campbell, 1990, p.198)

 Team building strategies
willingness to share information, experience
and expertise
well-organized meetings
sharing of dept and faculty responsibilities
regular social events
existence of dept. and faculty offices.

(Earley & Fletcher-Campbell, 1990, p.198 )