Partnership: lessons from the past

This chapter suggests a new concept, ‘mutual transference empowerment’, to describe partnerships between central/local governments and school-based governance. School governing bodies, councils, trusts or boards are being developed in many late twentieth century educational systems as a means of facilitating partnership between schools and their communities. It is not often realised that such structures for partnership could be seen as a revival of a nineteenth century model but a model in which the local partners lost virtually all their power to their central governments by around 1900. The prevailing explanations for this are that centralising forces took over either because local school-based direction of education provided insufficient and inadequate schooling, or because of an irresistible, central, desire for power. These explanations hide the apparent contradiction that localism continued to be encouraged throughout the century by the centralised authorities and that there were local successes. This paper suggests that, in addition to centralising forces, the local communities themselves, inadvertently or willingly, may have colluded in handing power to centralising structures through lack of interest in continuing with local responsibilities. The terminology of ‘mutual transference empowerment’ has been suggested in this paper for this process in which centralising and localising forces each attempted to ensure they passed responsibilities to others in the structure of education government. Empirical evidence for the study is drawn from nineteenth century Tasmania. Readers are invited to reflect on whether or not mutual transference empowerment will repeat itself there, or in other twentieth century contexts, as institutional, local and central governments focus again on who will lead schooling

Learning landscapes for universities: mapping the field [or] Beyond a seat in the lecture hall: a prolegemenon of learning landscapes in universities

This is the first in a series of project working papers. Its aim is to commence the development of a shared vocabulary so that visioning learning landscapes can be realised in the appropriate development of academic estate. The paper explores first, how the terminology of learning landscapes has been employed elsewhere. Secondly, its connections with university conceptualisations past and present are explored as this project aims to retain the strengths of traditional academic environments together with new designs. The impetus to its emergence is next reviewed , its constituent elements and any evidence of estates-related literature. Finally a definition is essayed. Includes an abbreviated version (p.11-14)

What lessons can be transferred to higher education learning landscapes from the leadership, governance and management processes of school design projects?

This review reports experiences from the schools sector in involving stakeholders in the processes of managing school building design. Its aim was to see if any of this could offer guidance for higher education as their learning landscapes are reconceptualised. School architects and designers have gradually accepted grater stakeholder involvement especially from pupils and to a lesser extent from teachers and many innovative ways have been found to make their participation authentic. These could be adapted in higher education together with teacher education in new pedagogies and better liaison with governors

Getting into print: advice to academic authors on how to get published

Outline of actions needed to help ensure acceptance of academic articles by journal editors and reviewer

Lecture on gender disharmonies with particular reference to the Commonwealth.

This lecture covered three aspects of gender disparity, with particular reference to the Commonwealth. The lecture divided into two halves so that the pedagogy as well as the content illuminated gender issues: – the first, illustrating what are generally accepted as feminine, post-modernist approaches, is on power point and consists of slides shown to the audience without comment. The audience is then asked to share their feelings about the information presented. – the second is delivered by reading the following paper in authoritarian mode to illustrate what are generally accepted as a masculine, modernist style with a competitive element introduced. a. data on gender disparities in education around the Commonwealth b. outline of possible causes c. should we, and can we do anything about this and if so, what ? The theme of this paper concerns ‘singing the same song’ in relation to gender disparities, a theme selected because there does seem to be one song emerging. Simplistically: in access to education, retention, school life expectancy and achievements

With research like this, a 4* rating is just pie in the sky

Ever conscious of the impending RAE, everything possible must be converted to research output. Demonstrating this, Emerita Professor Angela Thody, of Lincoln University, previews her paper for the All Comers Faithfully Winterfest Conference

Followership in educational organizations: a pilot mapping of the territory

A new lexicon of followership terms is suggested to develop this innovative area of research, helping to recognize that both our followership and leadership roles are important to organizational success

The life in the days

This records and analyses observations of the daily lives of the Directors of Education in English Local Education Authorities to reveal what life was like for these chief officers just as local power began to decline and control of education moved to central government. This period of change is covered in this longitudinal study which observed five Directors in 1986-7 and four in the early 1990s. It provides a unique and detailed observation of strategic management in action highlighting issues of leadership common to all sectors of management and valid for any period of major change. In writing this, Angela took the middle-ground between statistical analysis and real-life narrative and constructs to present a gripping study of the reality of educational leadership at a senior level. Unusually, the Directors studied have their own voice in the book; they were asked to comment on it in draft and these comments have their own reflective chapter. There is also an excursion into the past with a chapter about the history of education Directors. It is vigorous treatment with some international comparisons and a future vision which can now be compared with reality. This file contains the contents list and extracts from Chapter One

School Governors: a model to import?

The power point presentation raises debates about whether the model of England's school governors can be exported. It discusses the advantages and disadvantages of the model. The presentation was used in Chile but is adaptable for other nations

How to supervise university students' research

For post graduate supervisors: Supervisory relationship and on examining doctoral Theses