Internationalisation of Educational Administration and Leadership Curriculum

Cover of Internationalisation of Educational Administration and Leadership Curriculum

Voices and Experiences from the ‘Peripheries’

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Synopsis

Table of contents

(13 chapters)
Abstract

This chapter provides a critical and comprehensive review of the internationalisation literature. It starts with a brief discussion of the main factors and features that need to be considered when internationalising the educational administration and leadership field. This is followed by a critique of the internationalisation of education and the many challenges that hinder the achievement of proper internationalisation. The third section provides an overview of the internationalisation models and practices in different disciplines such as psychology, sociology and political science, which is followed by a discussion on the internationalisation of education organisations in different countries with some examples from Arab and non-Western countries. The final section presents a critical review of literature on internationalising the curriculum and how culture competency and knowledge acquisition are key factors in achieving effective internationalisation. The chapter concludes with an overview of the book collection and the main ideas and concepts discussed in each chapter.

Section 1 Theoretical Foundations and Critiques

Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to shed light on humanistic knowledge traditions and highlight their value in informing educational administration and leadership curricula designed for graduate students. We argue that, despite their distinctive features, humanist traditions such as the Confucian, Buddhist, Islamic and European share many core values and practices that should be incorporated into the educational administration and leadership curricula. However, these traditions tend to be overlooked or marginalised by curriculum designers. We argue that incorporating these traditions into educational administration and leadership curricula can contribute to greater internationalisation and achieve a greater diversity. The chapter starts with an exploration of the origins, nature and definitions of humanism. The following parts discuss Confucian, Buddhist, Islamic and European humanist traditions and examine how they can contribute to shaping educational administration and leadership curricula.

Abstract

This chapter provides an overview of the postcolonial literatures and their critiques relevant to internationalising curriculum in the educational administration and leadership field. The aim is to both examine the problems culturally and institutionally with primarily Anglo-American globalised curriculum that still holds a hegemonic position internationally as well as identify proposals in diversifying the field to reflect context, policy requirements and practices, and cultural values and principles. Discussed also are a number of initiatives that have been taken that provide a foundation for furthering this kind of curricular development, and a set of principles for internationalising the field that indicate the various levels and factors involved.

Abstract

This chapter provides a critical and comprehensive review of internationalisation models and strategies in higher education and offers a conceptual model for internationalising the curriculum, taking educational administration and leadership as an example of its implementation. The chapter starts with an introduction and overview of globalisation and how higher education institutions respond to its increasing effects by adopting different internationalisation strategies. This is followed by a discussion on the different forces and rationales involved and the various models and strategies adopted by higher education institutions as well as the many challenges and obstacles they encounter when implementing these strategies. The third section focuses on ways of internationising the curriculum and how it is a complex, dynamic and developmental process that requires the implementation of most internationalisation strategies. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the IHEC model which is created for internationalising the higher education curriculum, focusing on educational administration and leadership as an example. The IHEC model aims to provide students with a universal and holistic learning experience that prepares them for the increasingly competitive and diversified working environment. It also attempts to overcome the Westernisation indigenisation debate by adopting a holistic approach to knowledge and cultural practices that appreciates and integrates different perspectives, knowledge traditions and work practices into the curriculum.

Abstract

A variety of problematic administrative, organisational and institutional behaviours exist in the internationalising higher education sector globally. These vexing behaviours need to be addressed to fully realise the desired outcomes of the internationalisation movement. Encapsulating these behaviours under the concept of maladministration, we describe problems with respect to administrative commitment and competence, institutional integrity, academic integrity, abuse of authority and financial control. We then outline a hypothetical educational administration curriculum that could be used to equip higher education administrators to identify and mitigate problems with maladministration in internationalisation processes and contexts. This proposed curriculum has two dimensions: educational governance and institutional, academic and administrative integrity; and human relations, organisational culture and dysfunctional behaviour.

Section 2 Country Cases

Abstract

In a global context characterised by a growing recognition of the role that educational leaders play in ensuring school effectiveness and the consequent need to design effective leadership preparation programmes, many educational leadership preparation providers around the world have borrowed international standards and frameworks in order to guide their programmes and assure their quality. This trend has been on the rise as a response to globalisation pressures and a growing interest in acquiring international recognition through accreditation agencies. However, this raises important questions about the potential repercussion of using foreign, mainly Western, frameworks to develop or assess national leadership preparation provision. Evidence from relevant literature indicates that these frameworks, when applied to local contexts, need to take contextual factors into account. In this chapter, we engage with existing literature in relation to leadership preparation, internationalisation and professional standards to reflect on our experience of using international standards to develop the Masters in Educational Administration programme offered by Sultan Qaboos University (SQU) in Oman. We hope to contribute to existing internationalisation literature by providing a different perspective on educational administration and leadership preparation from a non-Western tradition, thereby expanding the understanding of meaningful leadership preparation in general.

Abstract

The issue of training and appointment of school administrators has consumed substantial attention from educational scholars for several decades. The literature has witnessed a growing amount of research effort in investigating and identifying the effective ways of training and appointing school principals. However, there are also political, social and cultural aspects to this endeavour, which potentially influences the practices pertaining to training and appointment of school principals. This chapter represents scholarly efforts to discuss issues on the training and appointment of school administrators in Turkey within its historical and political background. Thus, first, it focuses on the historical journey of the field of educational administration in Turkey. This journey has been categorised under three phases: The Ottoman Era, Early Years of Turkish Republic and the 1950s Onwards. Second, this chapter discusses school principalship in Turkey with a specific focus on political and legal dimensions. Finally, the chapter ends with an overall evaluation of the practices and policies pertaining to school administration curriculum in Turkey.

Abstract

When I began to teach within a Masters of Education (Leadership and Management) program, I questioned my assumed unproblematic nature of the presentation of Western leadership and management theories to students from a diverse range of countries without understanding the diversity. The expectations of International students are also that overseas study is designed to facilitate the transport of Western theory, as ‘the solution’ which makes the indigenous knowledges they bring struggle to appear. Few students seem to question the transferability of Western knowledge to other cultures, yet it may actually be of limited value to the real concerns and issues associated with the leadership of organisations in their home countries. Building on the ideas of Raewyn Connell and Boaventura de Sousa Santos, this chapter examines possibilities for research-led pedagogies which support an awareness of the dominance and persistence of northern-centric patterns of global knowledge production, challenging students to question their own expectations of the dominance of Western theory. Through so doing, it makes possible the re-imagining of possibilities for transformation through the emergence of alternatives, where engaging in democratic deliberation about what is gained and lost from adopting various knowledge positions informs a better understanding of human social and organisational experiences. Rather than subscribing to a single, universal and abstract hierarchy among knowledges, which privileges Western theories, cognitive justice favours context dependent knowledges. We can prepare the ground for students thinking about the knowledges they bring, and the importance of unique contextual and cultural factors through Butler's notions of intelligibility and performativity to help students understand that actions are conditioned by what is available within the culture and by what practices are legitimating. Dialogue and interpretation can occur across cultures, at the same time as raising the awareness of reciprocal incompleteness of knowledges.

Abstract

In this chapter, the focus is placed on the interplay between the broader policy context and the content of postgraduate studies in educational administration and leadership in an effort to understand how it influences the conscience of future school administrators about their role and mission. The socio-cultural theory of Basil Bernstein is used for analysing the process of symbolic control regulated by the notions of classification, framing and meaning orientation which operate simultaneously for establishing dominant practices and forming individual consciences through postgraduate studies. Specifically, the analysis is based on information derived from the official websites of all the existing postgraduate programmes in school administration and leadership in two countries, Greece and UK, which represent two polar cases as regards the degree that new forms of educational management have permeated into their educational systems.

Abstract

Sweden, as a country based on extremely high secular and self-expression values, serve as an example that somewhat differ from other countries internationally, when it comes to educational leadership curriculum. The chapter takes its starting point at the governmental decision for Swedish universities to gender-mainstream their organisations, something that affects the educational leadership curriculum. To be able to discuss this, I present three research studies on gendering leader identity development processes and gender equality strategies in the Swedish higher education setting. In a longitudinal study of the process of leader identity development, the main result was the emergence of a gendering process in the discourse on academic leadership. At the end of the leadership assignment period, leader identity was described in differing terms at subject positions held by women and men, respectively. In a separate study on female heads of research-heavy departments, three conflicting subject positions appeared that showed different strategies when leaders were of the female sex: (a) a gender-conscious position, (b) a gender-neutral or gender-unconscious position and (c) a position of sex discrimination experience. In a third, large national study, based on horizontal analysis of gender equality in Swedish higher education institutions (HEIs), was found that universities internally consist of different worlds when it comes to the possibility of making academic careers and in how male- and female-dominated academic disciplines explain gender inequality and strategies to handle this. Results from these studies will be discussed, in light of the striving for (gender) equal and just organisations, since gender equality is an important aspect of Swedish educational leadership curriculum.

Abstract

This chapter discusses a number of well-known African Philosophies of Education (APE) that could significantly improve the development of an international educational leadership curriculum. These include Preparedness/Preparationism, Utilitarianism/Functionalism, Communalism; Holisticism and Perennialism, Ethnophilosophy, Ubuntu, Community, Reasonableness, Moral Maturity, Maat or Ma'at African philosophies discovered from papyrus manuscripts including Imhotep, The Teachings of the Vizier Ptahhotep, The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant, and The Dialogue of a Man with his Soul, Kemit and As Above so Below, etc. In so doing, I identify the salient values of these philosophies, bringing out their qualities as well as their limitations, and discussing ways in which they could be incorporated into the contemporary field of developing an international leadership curriculum. This chapter first reviews contemporary literature on African Indigenous Education (AIE) and APE and their relevance in developing an international leadership curriculum using a descriptive and analytical interpretive approach then proposes an epistemic leadership theoretical framework to guide the delivery of APE in educational leadership learning. Such a leadership curriculum framework could be developed as part of the de-colonial epistemic movement within the Global South. The chapter concludes that while the link between APE, policy and practice is significant and new in the context of educational leadership curriculum research, its survival depends on the establishment of such a de-colonial epistemic theoretical framework.

Cover of Internationalisation of Educational Administration and Leadership Curriculum
DOI
10.1108/9781839098642
Publication date
2021-08-23
Book series
Studies in Educational Administration
Editors
Series copyright holder
Emerald Publishing Limited
ISBN
978-1-83909-865-9
eISBN
978-1-83909-864-2