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The aim of this book is to set an agenda and address a gap in the literature regarding Turbulence, Empowerment and Marginalisation in International Education Governance Systems and its relationship with narrowing the global phenomena of a Black-White achievement gap.

The aims are met by addressing the following quesitions. First, how do senior leaders of Educational Governance Systems who are from and represent marginalised groups in society, describe and understand how School Governance Systems empower or disempower them to develop school communities as societal innovators for equity, and renewal? Second, how do these senior-level leaders within Education Governance Systems describe and understand the role mentors and/or advocates play to support their navigation through the turbulence? Third, to what extent, do these senior-level leaders of Education Governance Systems believe a cultural change is required to empower them in school and college communities including staff, families, students and community partnerships to Empower Young Societal Innovators for Equity and Renewal (EYSIER)? Finally, what theories of knowledge to action emerge regarding how these senior-level leaders might successfully navigate turbulence to empower marginalised groups for equity and renewal for all in Public Corporate Education Governance Systems?

We identified in Chapter 1 that the context is one of colonisation between different groups. In Chapter 2, The review of literature focused on turbulence in Education Governance Systems and identified the global distribution of knowledge concerning education from cash-rich countries has had a tremendous impact on what is taught and tested in schools. Nation states that are not cash rich are marginalised in a global politics. International Testing Industries examine the output of national education systems through a global lens. These studies do not shed light on: the socio-economic, or political context that shape the values, primary moral virtues and secondary intellectual virtues and acts of particular legislation; the fair funding formulas that underpin the allocation of funds to the construction of infrastructure; the Education Governance Systems structures and agencies; and the organisation of processes and practices of the education system within the international community. Intellectual and cultural colonisation that may lack what Adler calls moral and ethical frameworks may accelerate the commodification of education. Chapter 3 critically discussed how we implemented the same research design in each case taking a humanistic approach and identified that the research adopts a shared world view and seeks to recognise scientific, intellectual knowledge, and metaphysical moral and empirical knowledge. Chapters 4 through 9 presented the English, Northern Irish, Arab-Israeli, Trinidad and Tobago and the United States cases, and each case identified a clash of values between the professional educational credentialed senior-level leaders with track records for outstanding school improvement, and those in Educational Governance Systems with: no professional credentials; no track record of school improvement; a tendency to promote competition rather than cooperation; a desire for internal succession planning, rather than succession planning to achieve national education goals. The clash of cultures put senior-level leaders into a mode of protectionism with a focus on keeping their post and ‘watching their backs’, rather than building capacity for sustainable instruction within the Education Governance Systems they lead manage and administrate to optimise students’ learning, students’ outcomes and social mobility.

These senior-level leaders with Professional Credentials, and outstanding track records of school improvement need Education Governance Systems to empower them to do their job and create realistic opportunities to develop networks of professional experts in partnership with the academy to support them navigate any clash of world views. Funding is required for professional learning to ensure ‘old opinion is handed down among them by ancient tradition’ that is rationalised with logic, compared and contrasted with empirical evidence, and synthesised with innovations guided by a moral compass within an ethical infrastructure. These senior-level leaders need to be empowered to empower their staff as autonomous professionals to empower the parents and the students to gain the thinking tools they need to be lifelong learners with the capability to be self-legislating. This requires a culture change that prioritises the moral virtues of learning how to learn as moral citizens in becoming, above the secondary intellectual virtues demonstrated through success in high stakes tests.

Knowledge to action reveals young people need Education Governance Systems that EYSIER and underpin success in student outcomes for social mobility. Success in both these spheres will enable them to break their chains that have kept them dependent on the guidance of others who may seek to exploit them (De Gruy, 2008).

Further research is recommended to implement the knowledge to action impact strategies that emerge from all five cases.

In this chapter, we present a critical engagement with the methodology that each research team presenting a case study in this book from England, Arab Israel, Northern Ireland, Trinidad and Tobago and the United States adopted.

Education is a cultural project that consists of history, narrative and faith. The Black, Asian Minority Ethnicity (BAME) and senior leaders representing marginalised groups that we talked to in this research all stated that their faith, and religion was central to their service as an educational leader. The faiths represented in our research are Islam, Christianity, Sikhism and no faith where a humanitarian approach is taken. The chapter presents the scientific significance of what values underpin these leaders’ behaviours, and to understand how their values align with legislation, education policy and the values found in Education Governance Systems.

A constructivist comparative analysis approach was adopted to address four research questions. First, how do the senior-level leaders describe and understand how school governance systems and school commissioners empower them to develop school communities as societal innovators for equity and renewal for peace in our time? Second, how do they describe and understand the role mentors, and/or advocates play to support their navigation through the governance systems? Third, to what extent do they believe a cultural change is required to empower them in school communities to Empower Young Societal Innovators for Equity and Renewal for peace in our time? Finally, how can the findings be theorised to generate a theory of knowledge to action through impact strategies within an international comparative analysis framework?

Each of the five international cases collected the narrative biographies of up to 15 superintendents, or chief executive officers of multi-academy trusts of colour. In the Northern Ireland case, eight religiously divided key agents of change were selected as an equivalence for the governance structures in the other five case studies. The total number of senior-level leaders participating in the five case studies was 40.

Each author read their findings through Gross’ (2014) Turbulence Theory and typology to categorise the level and the impact of the challenges the key agents of change need to navigate as they mediate between the governance systems. Gross (2014, p. 248) theory of turbulence is used as a metaphor and states that ‘turbulence can be described as “light” with little or no movement of the craft. “Moderate” with very noticeable waves. “Severe” with strong gusts that threaten control of the aircraft. “Extreme” with forces so great that control is lost and structure damage to the craft occurs’. The chapter identifies the findings were read through the theory of turbulence to reveal the state of the Education Governance Systems and their impact on empowering cosmopolitan citizens to participate fully and freely in societal interactions and cooperation between diverse groups. The authors’ chapters are subject to a comparative analysis that took place at the European Conference for Educational Research Annual Conference in two large seminars (Taysum et al., 2017) in Denmark, further developed by the editors and committed to peer-review.

This chapter focuses on the intricacies of marginalized communities in Bangladesh. It provides an in-depth understanding of these communities, considering their sociocultural backgrounds and the challenges they face. This chapter introduces the empowerment paradigm, highlighting the importance of empowering marginalized groups as a catalyst for positive change. It further explores various strategies and initiatives designed to uplift these communities, emphasizing the pivotal role of family planning in this process. By examining the transformative impact of family planning on marginalized communities, this chapter underscores how it can lead to improved health, education, economic opportunities, gender equality, and overall community development in the Bangladeshi context.

This chapter identifies that distributed leadership is about sharing power for political pluralism. Distributed leadership has a comprehensive commitment to bringing different groups with different interests, different languages and dialects, different knowledge bases, different metaphysical knowledge and different religions, or no religion, together through provisional agreement on key principals of political pluralism. Marginalised groups may not feel like they belong and may be vulnerable to ideologies that give them a sense of being disconnected from community. Such a position stands as a barrier to political pluralism and shared world views. The situation might be ignored in schools because developing political liberalism through participatory, evidence-informed leadership that is logical, moral and ethical requires time, and agents need to be prepared for such identity work. However, the problem cannot be ignored if community members seek to belong with risky gangs, and are vulnerable to radicalisation, which is very dangerous for them and for their communities. Empowering others may be achieved by developing their capability to ask good questions, and apply collaborative critical thinking for solving social and personal problems. Such empowerment requires shifts from hierarchical teaching of standardised knowledge that is right or wrong to doing the right thing as mature citizens in becoming. The chapter also identifies that it cannot be assumed that leaders are willing or able to distribute leadership, or that doing so would be a panacea for navigating the turbulence faced by their schools to empower societal innovators for equity and renewal. Rather, we concur with Leithwood et al. (2008) who advocate for a thoughtful and purposeful approach to developing leadership for school improvement.

This chapter contextualizes futuristic learning in a distance education (DE) context for empowering and transforming students. Futuristic learning involves a continuous progress to higher levels of critical and creative thinking in a collaborative environment of academic freedom. Futuristic learning encourages classroom engagement and learning to students to use modern and advanced approaches of teaching and learning. The skills acquired should facilitate students’ intellectual, social, and emotional development. Futuristic pedagogy advocates the acquisition of systematized knowledge and skills and encourages the idea of engaging analytical and practical skills during learning. The chapter describes a practice that provides educational opportunities to a large section of students who study alone most of the time but get the opportunity of learning at organized tutorial sessions. This teaching approach may be the most viable option to mobilize futuristic learning in South Africa. A descriptive research methodology employed literature analysis of documents using data extracted from secondary sources of information, which entailed peer reviewed journal articles and books published between 2000 and 2018. A key finding is that the traditional form of education should pave way for futuristic pedagogy to allow schools to respond to the learning needs of students. The significance of the study is that it will offer opportunities for the change in learning approach to organize how student engagement will be carried out in the future. Informed by this finding futuristic learning should be committed to the provision of quality education to all DE students.

The research aimed to clarify how supervisors in the Arab education system act to close the achievement gaps and to introduce learning programs that can empower students and improve their achievements. Qualitative research employed in-depth interviews with supervisors in the Arab education system, which constitutes a substantial element of the schools’ governance. The research attempted to answer the following questions: (1) Which steps do education administrators in the Arab education system take to reduce students’ underachievement, widen circles of cooperation and empower change agents during crises that deepen achievement gaps between Arab and Jewish students? (2) Do Arab school supervisors understand their interplay with government policies as empowering or disempowering them to improve students’ achievements and ensure the curriculum’s cultural relevance? (3) To what extent do the supervisors believe that cultural change is required to enable them to empower school communities to become societal innovators for equity, peace and renewal within existing administrative structures?

Research findings were interpreted through the lens of Turbulence Theory (Gross, 2014). Findings indicated that the supervisors strive to improve students’ achievements. A major challenge is to ensure the relevance of learning programs to the school community, while mediating between local community demands and the technocratic accountability imposed by the Ministry of Education for the implementation of its policies. This leadership is isolated in its efforts to establish fairness and education for empowerment and coexistence in a divided society. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.

Womenomics is the idea that women’s economic development will lead to improving the economy as a whole

The case is a primary case. Gender equity is about treating men and women fairly, data for the case was collected through interviews with the protagonist Ms Kalpana Anand.

Although women are capable of writing their own destiny regardless of what they are and where they come from, Kalpana Anand, the Executive Director of Avaneetha Textiles, believes that education plays an essential role in empowering women. Accordingly she is determined to offer shop floor jobs to young underprivileged women aspiring dropouts that provides them an opportunity to learn while they earn. Established in the year 2004 in Coimbatore, Avaneetha Textiles is currently being managed by two sisters Uma (Managing Director) and Kalpana. Although this business model supports around 900 young women, not all have made the most of it. Only 25% of their employees benefitted from the “learn-while-you-earn” program promoted by the company. Kalpana realized that such a conduct would hinder the achievement of empowering women. Therefore, the challenge before her was to motivate more women to enroll for different courses and thereby improve the quality of their life.

Graduate or post-graduate level of courses in management, commerce, sociology, social work and related subjects.