Is 'gender-sensitive education' a useful concept for educational policy?

This article responds to Astrid Sinnes and Marianne Løken’s article ‘Gendered education in a gendered world: Looking beyond cosmetic solutions to the gender gap in science’ by exploring the idea of ‘gender-sensitive’ education and its usefulness in educational policy. It draws on theoretical discussions of the concept of gender and of difference to consider ways in which ‘gender-sensitive’ education might serve the task of promoting equality and justice

Defining teaching for a global educational world: the development of professional standards

In August 2013 the General Teaching Council for Scotland launched a revised suite of standards for the teaching profession (GTCS 2012a,b,c). These sets of standards cover initial teacher education, full registration, advanced teaching and leadership and management. There is a danger that professional standards focus on narrowly defined behavioural competences and so reinforce a technicist approach to the practice of teachers and leaders in school (Murphy, 2005). The policy emphasis in Scotland (Donaldson 2011), however, is on the use professional standards as developmental tools to enhance practice (Ingvarson, 2005). A key element in the revision process of the professional standards has been to position the role and practice of the teaching profession in a global setting thereby fostering a future orientation in the development of teaching that reflects increasing social and cultural diversity. The foundation of this suite of standards has been the agreement of a common set of values for the teaching profession: “Professional Values are at the core of Professional Standards. The educational experiences of all our learners are shaped by the values and dispositions of all those who educate them. Values are complex and the ideals by which we shape our practice as professionals” (GTCS 2012a p. 10). The set of professional values cover the ethical dimensions of professional practice such as integrity, professional commitment, trust and respect. Importantly the professional values also cover wider issues related to social justice and sustainability. However, there is a question of how we move from these being a set of espoused values to a set of ‘values-in-action’. This paper examines the potential of this set of professional standards to bring to the fore issues of social justice as a means of developing culturally responsive teaching

Developing a coherent strategy to build leadership capacity in Scottish education

Leadership is central to policy ambitions for improvement in Scottish education with leadership positioned as one of the key drivers for improvement to achieve excellence and equity for all learners. To foster teacher engagement in and leadership of change and to prepare enough teachers for headship, building leadership capacity is crucial. The question we explore is: how is it possible to design a career-long leadership development strategy to secure the capacity necessary to fulfil these policy intentions while fostering the autonomy of teachers in professional learning? First, we examine leadership development in the reform agenda and second, we consider the task of balancing system and individual needs in career-long leadership development. We then detail the approaches used to build a cohesive leadership system and its ongoing development

Developing Teachers as Leaders

No abstract available

The school leader perspective: integrating schools with the communities they serve

No abstract available

Strategies to address gender inequalities in Scottish schools: a review of the literature

This literature review forms the first part of a study of the strategies employed in Scottish schools to address gender inequalities in relation primarily to attainment. In undertaking this task, the intention is to build upon a number of previous investigations into the nature and causes of gender inequalities in schools. Some of these (Riddell, 1996; Osler et al, 2002; Lloyd, 2005) have considered gender and special educational needs; others have discussed gender at particular stages of schooling (Wilkinson et al, 1999; Croxford, 1999; Biggart, 2000); whilst a number of recent projects in the UK and in Scotland (Powney, 1996; Sukhnandan, 1999; Tinklin et al, 2001) have considered gender, attainment and/or achievement across the population and span of compulsory schooling. A recent nationally commissioned report (Younger, Warrington et al, 2005) has specifically investigated the issue of raising the attainment of boys. Together, these studies and others have established that there are gender inequalities both in the forms of participation in schooling and in its outcomes (albeit there is agreement that gender is not the only, nor even the main, source of inequality). Also available from this body of literature are analyses of causes of gender inequalities and debate about the strategies schools might adopt to address these inequalities. These strategies arise, in general, from understandings of the nature and causes of gender difference. There is, therefore, some contention here. A number of commentators argue that some of the strategies adopted by schools pathologise gender differences and hence reinforce particular forms of masculinity at the risk of suppressing, or marginalising, other forms, and at the expense of femininities. Evidence that there are gender inequalities in attainment in Scottish schools has been discussed in detail elsewhere. It will be reviewed briefly here and will be related to broader patterns of inequality, and in particular to social class. For this study, though, with its focus on school strategies, the debate about the causes of gendered outcomes is especially important and it will be treated in some depth and related to social class before the discussion moves on to consider the range of strategies employed in schools, as far as they are represented in the literature. The strategies to be considered encompass approaches to learning, teaching and assessment; aspects of classroom organisation; and school-wide issues such as staff development. All of these will be considered critically in the light of previous discussion of the causes of gender differences and their intersection by other, and arguably more influential, forms of identity

To what extent can headteachers be held to account in the practice of social justice leadership?

Internationally, leadership for social justice is gaining prominence as a global travelling theme. This article draws from the Scottish contribution to the International School Leadership Development Network (ISLDN) social justice strand and presents a case study of a relatively small education system similar in size to that of New Zealand, to explore one system's policy expectations and the practice realities of headteachers (principals) seeking to address issues around social justice. Scottish policy rhetoric places responsibility with headteachers to ensure socially just practices within their schools. However, those headteachers are working in schools located within unjust local, national and international contexts. The article explores briefly the emerging theoretical analyses of social justice and leadership. It then identifies the policy expectations, including those within the revised professional standards for headteachers in Scotland. The main focus is on the headteachers' perspectives of factors that help and hinder their practice of leadership for social justice. Macro systems-level data is used to contextualize equity and outcomes issues that headteachers are working to address. In the analysis of the dislocation between policy and reality, the article asks, 'to what extent can headteachers be held to account in the practice of social justice leadership?