EXPLORING THE TERRAIN: SCHOOL LANGUAGE CHANGE, CHANGE AGENTRY AND SUSTAINING CHANGE
2.2 Part A: Literature Review
2.2.3 Change agentry and Sustainability of change
2.2.3.2 Educational Change and Reform
similar preoccupation with shifting attitudes and creating a positive disposition towards school language change in individual stakeholders leading ultimately to institutional language change. Furthermore, school language change also depends heavily on creating the right context for change and is equally affected by the same critical change issues, particularly ways of sustaining school language change and support for this process.
Change issues within the school context are explored more directly in the next sub- section that focuses on educational change.
foregrounds the concepts of change agentry and sustainability focuses on the work of Michael Fullan.
Fullan & Stiegelbauer‟s (1991) New Meaning of Educational Change model links educational change to the role of key educational stakeholders at the local, regional and national levels. Teachers, principals, parents and superintendents of education among other stakeholders are conceptualised as change agents leading change efforts. It is this role of teachers, principals and parents as change agents leading change from within schools that finds resonance with Douglas‟ (1997) conception of change agents. Although Douglas (1997) conceptualises change agents largely as trained professionals whose primary function is initiating behavioural change in others while the primary function of teachers and principals is managing the enterprise of teaching and learning, both Douglas (1997) and Fullan & Stiegelbauer‟s (1991) change agents share a common goal, viz.
change leading to positive outcomes, and are similarly preoccupied with critical change issues like creating conditions for sustainable change, enabling support for change, and developing capacity to engage with change. It is these issues that also inform the change agenda of change agents in this study.
In contemplating the response of teachers to change, Fullan & Stiegelbauer (1991) observe that teachers are negatively disposed to externally experienced change whether this comes from the education department or fellow teachers driving the change process.
Change is a highly personal experience – each and every teacher who will be affected by change must have the opportunity to work through this experience in a way in which the rewards at least equal the cost (Fullan & Stiegelbauer 1991:127). Other factors critical to change initiatives succeeding and being sustained are the following. Firstly, teachers need to have some understanding of the operational meaning of the change before entering into the innovation, with full understanding coming from some experience of change.
Secondly, the number of changes that teachers confront must be within their ability to deal with - too many changes than are humanly impossible to implement are counterproductive. Thirdly, support and external assistance are critical as are collegiality and collaborative work cultures. Fullan & Stiegelbauer (1991) consider it imperative for
teachers who are engaged in curriculum development or involved in content innovation to be sensitive to the need for other teachers to come to grips with the sense of the innovation. Commitment to the innovation from those leading the change is needed but Fullan & Stiegelbauer (1991:139) observe: “It must be balanced with the knowledge that people are at different starting points, with different legitimate priorities, and that the change process may result in transformations or variations in the change.”
Fullan (1993) identifies moral purpose (making a difference) together with the skills of change agentry as key to teachers leading change. In preparing teachers for change and their roles as agents of change, Fullan (1993) concludes that action is required to link initial teacher preparation and continuous teacher development based on moral purpose and change agentry with the corresponding restructuring of universities and schools and their relationships. He asserts: “Individuals and small groups working on new conceptions intersect to produce breakthroughs – new conceptions, once mobilized, become new paradigms.” (Fullan 1993:7).
The skills of change agentry combined with moral purpose identified as key to teachers leading change within their schools are critical to interrogating the role of one of the change agents (level 1 educator and classroom practitioner) in leading language change within her school.
In contemplating the principal‟s response to change, Fullan & Stiegelbauer (1991) observe that recent research on the change role of principals has progressed from examining the principal‟s role in implementing specific innovations to his or her role in leading changes in the culture of the school. Fullan & Stiegelbauer (1991:169) assert:
“The principal as head of the organisation is crucial. As long as we have schools and principals, if the principal does not lead changes in the culture of the school, or if he or she leaves it to others, it normally will not get done – that is, improvement will not happen.”
Leithwood & Jantzi (1990) studied principals who were effective at transforming the culture of the school toward a stronger improvement orientation with principals less effective at school improvement. Fullan & Stiegelbauer (1991) note that principals effective at transforming the culture of the school took actions that: strengthened the school‟s (improvement) culture; used a variety of bureaucratic mechanisms to stimulate and reinforce cultural change; fostered staff development; engaged in direct and frequent communication about cultural norms, values and belief; shared power and responsibility with others; and used symbols to express cultural values.
Berman & McLaughlin‟s (1977) study of principals and innovation concluded that change initiatives within schools succeeded where principals supported the change process. Fullan & Stiegelbauer (1991) agree with Berman & McLaughlin (1977) that projects having the active support of the principal normally fares well with the principal‟s actions, not words, carrying the message to teachers as to whether a change is to be taken seriously. In contemplating the ways in which active principals support innovation, Fullan & Stiegelbauer (1991) observe that the principal needs to become involved in or keep abreast with curriculum planning in the various departments instead of detaching himself from the process.
Of the different leadership styles adopted by principals, Fullan & Stiegelbauer (1991) note that the initiator principal was most successful as change facilitator. Initiator principals worked more with staff to clarify and support the use of the innovation and worked in collaborative ways with other change facilitators with the result that collaboratively-led schools experienced more interventions and more multiple target interventions, more action taken by teachers, and more focus on student learning.
Goleman (2000) identified six leadership styles including the coercive, authoritative, affiliative, democratic, pacesetting and coaching styles of organisational leadership.
Commenting on these leadership styles as they apply to principals, Fullan (2001) identifies the coercive leadership style (demands compliance, or “do what I tell you”) and the pacesetting leadership style (sets high standards for performance, or “do as I do, now”) as styles that negatively affected a climate of change and in turn performance.
Teachers resented and resisted coercive principals while pacesetting principals overwhelmed teachers, resulting in teacher burn out. While the authoritative (mobilizes people toward a vision, or “come with me”), affiliative (creates harmony and builds emotional bonds, or “people come first”), democratic (forges consensus through participation, or “what do you think?”) and coaching (develops people for the future, or
“try this”) leadership styles positively affected a climate of change.
Fullan (2005a) identifies for principals what he terms “forces for leaders of change”
which include: engaging people‟s moral purpose, building capacity, understanding the change process, developing cultures for learning, developing cultures for evaluating change, focusing on leadership for change and fostering coherence making.
The cited literature on the transformative role of principals locates the principal at the centre of change initiatives in the school with the initiator principal in particular leading and sustaining change within his/her school. It is with this role of the principal as internal change agent in mind that the study interrogates the role of two of the change agents who are principals leading language change within their schools.
Fullan (2005b) identifies elements, similar to that for principals, for superintendents who are intent on sustaining change. These include the following:
Making moral purpose a system quality through fostering moral purpose in the school district.
Commitment to changing context at all levels of the education system by giving people new experiences, new capacities and new insights into what should and can be accomplished.
Strengthening the capacity of schools to engage in self-review, but to do so transparently in relation to district and state accountability frameworks.
Encouraging deep learning, i.e. fostering continuous improvement, adaptation and collective problem solving in the face of complex challenges that continually arise.
Dual commitment to short-term and long-term results.
Cyclical energizing which includes balancing energy expenditure with intermittent energy renewal, pushing beyond normal limits in building capacity and engaging in highly specific routines for managing energy.
Using leadership to sustain change which goes beyond improving student performance to developing other leaders in the school district.
In contemplating the role of parents in school reform, Fullan & Stiegelbauer (1991) consider parental involvement as instructionally related involvement or non-instructional forms of involvement. Instructionally related parental involvement include parental involvement at school as volunteers and assistants and parental involvement in learning activities at home through assisting children with their schoolwork at home. Fullan &
Stiegelbauer (1991) contend that direct involvement in instruction in relation to one‟s own child‟s education is one of the surest routes for parents to develop a sense of specific meaning in relation to new programmes designed to improve learning. Jobs as paid aides provide this opportunity for some parents while experience as home tutors and other forms of involvement with teachers provide the opportunity for every parent at the elementary grade levels.
Non-instructional forms of parental involvement include participation in governance and advisory councils and broad forms of community-school relations and collaboration. In examining the role of school boards and communities on educational change, Fullan &
Stiegelbauer (1991) note that while cases of community pressure leading to change are in the minority partly because local school boards are often overlooked in reform initiatives, school boards can make a difference with successful boards working actively and interactively with superintendents and the district administration. Danzberger et al (1987) observed that the role of school boards was unclear, that board members received little preparation and training for their roles, and that only a fifth of the school boards surveyed had any process for evaluating or monitoring the board‟s role. Noting this, these authors recommend that state reforms should strengthen the capacity of local boards to bring
about and monitor change, and that boards themselves should be engaged in self- improvement.
It is the role of parents in school governance structures leading change within schools and being capacitated to support change within schools that the study contemplates. In this respect the study interrogates the language change initiatives of a school governing body chairperson who is one of the change agents and his call for greater capacitation of parents to increase their input in school language change.
The implications of Fullan & Stiegelbauer‟s (1991) new meaning of educational change for this study lies firstly, in his conceptualisation of teachers, principals, parents and superintendents as agents leading educational change, and secondly, by deliberating on sustainability of change through encouraging systemic change i.e. change at all levels of the education department - the local, regional and national levels.
Fullan & Stiegelbauer‟s (1991) conceptualisation of teachers, principals and parents as agents leading educational change finds resonance with Skutnabb-Kangas & Garcia‟s (1995) identification of educational agents (educators, parents, administration staff and students) as critical to sustaining multilingual education in schools. These authors‟
guiding principles for education leading to multilingualism, which encompass the role of these educational agents as well as the development of a context and culture for multilingual education, are reviewed in the next sub-section.