Papers by Dr Michelle Suzette Jones
International Journal of Educational Management
PurposeThe purpose of this article is to outline how far the empirical evidence supports the cent... more PurposeThe purpose of this article is to outline how far the empirical evidence supports the centrality of leadership in the process of improving underperforming schools.Design/methodology/approachThis article draws on evidence from a contemporary, selected, review of the literature.FindingsThe findings show that leadership is the critical factor in the improvement of underperforming schools. Seven new themes, derived from the selected evidence, are presented that illuminate how leaders secure improvement in the most challenging of school contexts.Research limitations/implicationsThis review is not a systematic review of the evidence and does not claim to be. It provides a commentary based on selected contemporary evidence and therefore is not comprehensive account of all the relevant evidence pertaining to leading the improvement of underperforming schools. The evidence is derived from sources written in English; therefore, it is fully acknowledged that other sources, in other lang...
Cylchgrawn Addysg Cymru / Wales Journal of Education
CRYNODEB ACADEMAIDD Yn system addysg Cymru, mae ‘Ysgolion fel Sefydliadau sy’n Dysgu’ (YSD) yn pa... more CRYNODEB ACADEMAIDD Yn system addysg Cymru, mae ‘Ysgolion fel Sefydliadau sy’n Dysgu’ (YSD) yn parhau i fod yn un o gonglfeini’r polisi addysg presennol. Mae’r erthygl hon yn ystyried rhywfaint o’r sylfaen dystiolaeth allweddol neu (rai o’r sylfeini tystiolaeth allweddol) sy’n cysylltu â’r model YSD yng Nghymru ac sy’n sail iddo. Nid adolygiad o’r llenyddiaeth yw hwn ond yn hytrach trosolwg o’r brif dystiolaeth empirig sy’n atgyfnerthu’r dull YSD yng Nghymru. Mae’r erthygl yn tynnu sylw at y ffaith bod sylfaen dystiolaeth gefnogol ac empirig ar gyfer pob un o 7 dimensiwn model YSD Cymru. Daw i’r casgliad, fodd bynnag, fod angen mwy o ganllawiau ymarferol, yn enwedig ynghylch prosesau gweithredu, i gynorthwyo ysgolion ar eu taith tuag at ddod yn sefydliadau sy’n dysgu cryfach. CRYNODEB YMARFEROL Ar hyn o bryd, mae ysgolion yng Nghymru yn ceisio dod yn gymunedau sy’n dysgu cryf. Mae’r erthygl hon yn ystyried y dystiolaeth sy’n sail i’r syniad o ysgolion fel sefydliadau sy’n dysgu yng ...
Cylchgrawn Addysg Cymru / Wales Journal of Education, 2017
The purpose of this article is to reflect upon a large-scale investment in professional learning ... more The purpose of this article is to reflect upon a large-scale investment in professional learning communities, as a strategy for school and system improvement, in Wales. The article draws upon the international research evidence about professional learning communities and considers issues of definition and impact. It also charts and reflects upon the progress of a system-wide approach to developing professional learning communities at scale. The article highlights that first, under the right conditions, professional learning communities have the potential to build professional capital. Secondly, it reinforces the need for rigorous and sustained implementation if a lasting impact is to be achieved. The article offers insights and reflections upon a significant investment in professional learning communities, in Wales, as a strategy for school and system improvement.
This article outlines the progress and impact of the development of professional learning communi... more This article outlines the progress and impact of the development of professional learning communities within, between and across schools, as part of the wider implementation of the School Effectiveness Framework in Wales. It outlines the background to this development and describes the way in which professional learning communities have been developed to support school improvement. The article outlines the progress
Asia Pacific Education Review, 2017
Principal preparation and training is generally viewed as an important contributor to school and ... more Principal preparation and training is generally viewed as an important contributor to school and system improvement. While the international evidence base on leadership and leadership development is extensive, contemporary accounts of principal preparation in a number of Asian countries are not widespread. This article outlines the findings from a small-scale, exploratory investigation of principal preparation and training in one province in China, focusing on the principals' learning preferences. Open ended questionnaire and interview data were collected from a sample of secondary school principals in Henan Province in China, as part of a larger comparative study. The findings show that while principals in this province appreciate their formal training they also seek out other sources of informal preparation to assist them in their fulfilling their many obligations and responsibilities. The data also highlights that many principals in China found that the demands of their formal leadership role are very challenging, particularly in delivering contemporary reforms such as the new curriculum. The article concludes by proposing that for principals in China, there are some contradictions and tensions associated with the current demands of this leadership role.
School Leadership & Management, 2019
The purpose of this article is to explore the development of the knowledge base on middle leaders... more The purpose of this article is to explore the development of the knowledge base on middle leadership in schools. Since the seminal reviews conducted by Bennett a contemporary scan only of the scholarly literature on middle leaders/ leadership in schools has not been undertaken. Consequently, this article looks at outputs relating to this topic by examining research papers indexed in the Web of Science and in SCOPUS between 2003 and 2017. The prime purpose of this review is to offer some reflections on the development of the empirical base on middle leadership in schools since 2003 and to highlight some of the implications for future research. The article concludes that middle leadership in schools remains an ongoing focus of research inquiry in a growing number of countries but suggests that the knowledge base would benefit from more sophisticated empirical studies and greater theoretical analysis.
School Effectiveness and School Improvement, 2015
Over its 30-year history, the field of school effectiveness and improvement has faced challenge, ... more Over its 30-year history, the field of school effectiveness and improvement has faced challenge, criticism, and controversy. However, the quality of the empirical base has ensured that most trials have been successfully overcome. Now the school effectiveness and improvement field faces a new and pervasive challenge. The international large-scale assessment data, that is, Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) and the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) are now hugely influential in shaping educational policy around the globe. On the positive side, these international benchmarks have advanced understanding of the factors associated with student outcomes and have caught policy makers' attention. On the negative side, critics claim a lack of theoretical consideration along with a rather "simplistic ontology" regarding schools, students, and teachers (Caro, Sandoval-Hernández, & Lüdtke, 2014, p. 434). Another criticism of these international assessments concerns the "fishing for correlations" and the causal inferences that follow a particular simplistic logic (Caro et al., 2014, p. 434). Based on large-scale assessment data, the core implication from many contemporary analyses of the "high performing systems" is that replicating their strategies will naturally lead to better educational outcomes and performance (Mourshed, Chijioke, & Barber, 2010). Although this logic may be seductively straightforward, it completely ignores the complexity of education systems along with the contextual and cultural boundaries in which they operate (Zhao, 2014). In contrast, the school effectiveness and school improvement research base has consistently underlined the importance of context in explaining relative school and system performance. In their work, Hopkins, Harris, and Jackson (1997) identified differential improvement strategies for schools at various stages of development and growth that took account of contextual factors. Fast-forward to 2015 and context has almost disappeared under the weight of uniformity and standardization. The romanticized and de-contextualized accounts of "high performing" systems have fuelled a global demand for neatly packaged, non-theoretical, empirically fragile improvement solutions. Weak causal attributions and de-contextualized approaches have become part of a discourse that is all about "fixing" faulty or substandard education systems or schools. The challenge for the school effectiveness and improvement field, at this particular moment in time, is twofold: first, to ensure the theoretical and empirical work is not sidelined and is part of the contemporary discourse about school and system improvement; second, to underline that context is an explanatory factor of effectiveness and improvement, at both the school and system level. This is not to suggest that context simply predetermines outcomes, as the school effectiveness movement has clearly shown that irrespective of contextual influences, schools can be effective and can improve. Instead, it is to reinforce that by removing all contextual and cultural influences any neat, causal attributions are questionable and any sweeping explanations for system or school improvement are dubious.
Journal of Organizational Change Management, 2014
Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to focus on the way in which principals in different countr... more Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to focus on the way in which principals in different countries are securing successful organisational change through systematically building social capital. It argues that how a school works as a cohesive unit and how people collaborates will ultimately define organisational performance.Design/methodology/approach– The paper draws upon the international literature to explore how principals are building the social capital for organisational improvement but is not a review of the literature. It adopts a cross-cultural perspective and explores collective capacity building for organisational improvement.Findings– This paper concludes that “disciplined” professional collaboration is an important way in which principals can create and sustain the social capital for organisational change.Originality/value– The paper is a conceptual piece that proposes that creating social capital, rather than individual or professional capital, is now an essential task...
Improving Schools, 2010
This article outlines the progress and impact of professional learning communities within, betwee... more This article outlines the progress and impact of professional learning communities within, between and across schools, as part of the implementation of whole system reform in Wales. It describes the way in which professional learning communities are being developed to support improvement and change across the education system in Wales. The article focuses on a group of schools that piloted a model of professional learning communities that subsequently have become a key part of the reform process in Wales and it highlights some of the challenges faced by the schools in establishing and sustaining professional learning communities. The article concludes by suggesting that professional learning communities offer one way of generating changed professional practice that can positively contribute to system-wide improvement.
British Journal of Educational Technology, 2013
This paper explores the synergy between distributed leadership and digital collaborative learning... more This paper explores the synergy between distributed leadership and digital collaborative learning. It argues that distributed leadership offers an important theoretical lens for understanding and explaining how digital collaboration is best supported and led. Drawing upon evidence from two online educational platforms, the paper explores the challenges of leading and facilitating digital collaborative learning. The paper concludes that distributed leadership is integral to effective digital collaboration and is an important determinant of productive collaboration in a virtual environment.
Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 2013
ABSTRACT This article explores the implications of the knowledge society for education and educat... more ABSTRACT This article explores the implications of the knowledge society for education and education systems. It focuses on how education systems in Asia are contributing to the development and sustainability of the knowledge society through creating powerful professional learning communities. The article explores how professional collaboration, at scale, is being used to generate social capital in order to promote educational transformation and improvement. The article draws upon a range of theoretical perspectives to examine how professional learning communities are contributing to educational improvement and the construction of new knowledge. The article concludes by arguing that disciplined, collective and inter-dependent learning is critical for the knowledge society to be sustained.
The Asia-Pacific Education Researcher, 2014
This article looks at high-performing education systems in Asia through the lens of leadership an... more This article looks at high-performing education systems in Asia through the lens of leadership and leadership development. It proposes that the top-performing education systems systematically build the leadership capacity for improvement and that this is part of an implementation science geared to maximizing performance. Drawing upon initial findings from a cross-national comparative study (The 7 System Leadership Study is funded by the University of Malaya and involves Malaysia,
School Leadership & Management, 2018
School Leadership & Management
The educational leadership field has accumulated findings, from a wide range of international, em... more The educational leadership field has accumulated findings, from a wide range of international, empirically-based studies, highlighting the positive impact that leadership has on organisational learning and outcomes. There is an extensive research base that demonstrates how leadership is a key contributor to organisational learning and system improvement (e.g.
School Leadership & Management
The contemporary field of educational leadership and management is replete with accounts of trans... more The contemporary field of educational leadership and management is replete with accounts of transformational leadership, instructional leadership, distributed leadership, and turnaround leadership practices (e.g. Leithwood and Sun (2012); Fullan 2018; Harris and Deflaminis 2016). Focusing on the positive and normative aspects of leadership tends to be a preoccupation within the field, as a large corpus of empirical evidence reinforces a strong relationship between certain models of leadership and positive organisational change (Leithwood et al. 2008). There is also a wealth of popularist literature highlighting the positive features and potential of certain types of leadership and management practices. These optimistic accounts of leadership and management, however, tend to overshadow and surpass any reflections upon the negative aspects of leadership and management. The destructive or counter-productive forms of leadership and management have received considerably less attention, in the empirical literature, than those associated with more positive outcomes. Yet there is a growing body of literature that highlights why and how leadership and management may not always be a force for good (Cohen 2018). This evidence base points towards the negative features or the 'dark side' of leadership and management practices (Woestman and Wasonga 2015). Among scholars in the fields of organisational behaviour and industrial psychology, there is increasing interest in the less palatable side of leadership. A growing number of studies have focused on abusive behaviours, toxic relationships, and the bullying tactics of those in positions of power (Neves and Schyns 2018; Simonet et al. 2018). For example, Neves (2014) found that submissive employees, characterised by a lack of social support from peers, received more abuse from their leaders than those more well-connected to others within the organisation. The findings from this study imply that those who were more socially or personally vulnerable, within the organisation, were more likely to be subjected to harassment and bullying. Other evidence suggests that negative leadership or management behaviours manifest themselves in certain actions that are directed towards specific individuals or groups (Cohen 2018). These actions include: the deliberate marginalisation of certain groups, often minority groups within the organisation, blatant favouritism of some colleagues over others, using existing personal relationships within the organisation to influence the progression of some colleagues and not others and punitive emails to bully and repress the views of those deemed to be a potential threat to the status quo (Schyns and Schilling 2013). Most recently, Samier and Milley (2018) have explored the concept of 'maladministration' in education focusing upon examples of weak or toxic leadership and management practices. They describe 'maladministration' as the phenomena of harmful administrative and organisational behaviours in educational systems. They outline a range of destructive practices that occur in educational organisations, such as negligence, the mistreatment of people, professional dishonesty, fraud and embezzlement, abuse of power, and corrupt organisational cultures. In their work, Blase and Blase (2018) highlight
Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to outline the findings from a small-scale, explo... more Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to outline the findings from a small-scale, exploratory, study of principals’ instructional leadership practice in Malaysian primary schools. The dimensions and functions of instructional leadership, explicitly explored in this study, are those outlined in the Hallinger and Murphy’s (1985) model.
This is the DCPL project report.
This paper explores the synergy between distributed leadership and digital collaborative learning... more This paper explores the synergy between distributed leadership and digital collaborative learning. It argues that distributed leadership offers an important theoretical lens for understanding and explaining how digital collaboration is best supported and led. Drawing upon evidence from two online educational platforms, the paper explores the challenges of leading and facilitating digital collaborative learning. The paper concludes that distributed leadership is integral to effective digital collaboration and is an important determinant of productive collaboration in a virtual environment.
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Papers by Dr Michelle Suzette Jones