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    A Must: Turning leadership action inside-out on Indigenous children's literacy (2014)

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    12652694_AARE 2014 programme entry Lovett & DEmpster.pdf (421.5Kb)
    12652694_AARE NZARE Abstract 2014.docx (15.23Kb)
    12652694_AARE Symposium 2014 Final for Presentation.pptx (160.9Kb)
    Type of Content
    Conference Contributions - Other
    UC Permalink
    http://hdl.handle.net/10092/11067
    
    Publisher
    University of Canterbury. School of Educational Studies and Leadership
    Collections
    • Education: Conference Contributions [228]
    Authors
    Dempster, N.
    Lovett, S.
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    Abstract

    The focus for this paper is the study of an Australian Government funded project titled ‘Principals as Literacy Leaders with Indigenous Communities (PALLIC) - a closing the gap’ project. Forty-eight schools with significant proportions of Indigenous children were involved. At least half were in very remote Indigenous communities in central Australia where most children were not meeting national benchmarks in literacy. The project was designed to enhance principals’ literacy leadership capabilities, but particularly so in partnership with local Indigenous people. This course of action was taken following a focussed review of scholarly writing and empirical research into leadership and literacy learning with Indigenous people (Bishop and Berryman, 2011; Priest et al, 2008; McNaughton and Lye, 2009). Taking account of the findings of Priest et al. (2008) and Frawley and Fasoli (2012), a model of leadership ‘both ways’ was proposed, bringing together a principal and at least two Indigenous Leadership Partners as a team in each of the project schools. This leadership partnership underpinned the project through the partners’ participation in a shared professional learning program. The hope was that they would work together locally, to engage teachers, parents and community members in supporting children learning to read. One year on, principals and their ILPs were surveyed to gather views about the leadership actions the project had brought into prominence. In the body of the article, we explain the research purposes on which the study was centred, the survey methods and items used. Two survey instruments were administered, one online with principals, the other ‘face-to-face’ in print form with principals and ILPs. A discussion of the results highlights the growth of partnership relationships between principals and their ILPs and the difficulties in extending the benefits of their collaborative work beyond the school. The findings are used to problematize the efficacy of a ‘both ways’ model of leadership and to put forward issues for the further study of school leadership with local Indigenous people. The overall conclusion reached suggests that on matters as important as literacy learning which is so subject to home and community influences, leadership approaches need to be turned ‘inside-out’ – that is, action on literacy considered important by parents and community members must be brought to bear on literacy leadership within the school – circumstances not yet the case.

    Citation
    Dempster, N., Lovett, S. (2014) A Must: Turning leadership action inside-out on Indigenous children's literacy. Brisbane, Australia: Australian Association for Research in Education and New Zealand Association for Research in Education Joint Conference 2014 (AARE/NZARE), 30 Nov-4 Dec 2014.
    This citation is automatically generated and may be unreliable. Use as a guide only.
    ANZSRC Fields of Research
    39 - Education::3901 - Curriculum and pedagogy::390104 - English and literacy curriculum and pedagogy (excl. LOTE, ESL and TESOL)
    Rights
    https://hdl.handle.net/10092/17651

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