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Dr Jennie Billot UnitecNew Zealand
This paper emphasises that context is integral to any analysis of the complex lattice of factors that provide significant ethical challenges for school principals. Each school is contextually specific and the role of the principal is to negotiate that context. I do not seek to provide theoretical answers to the question of how school diversity affects ethical decision-making but suggest that increasing diversity elaborates the context within which school leaders make ethical decisions and judgments. It is proposed that, in the current dynamic environment, ethical commitment by the principal can usefully be conceptualised within a framework of contextual understanding.
This paper seeks to raise questions rather than present theoretical perspectives and aims at identifying some significant issues for school leadership that demand examination in the current climate of educational change. Lam has noted that in the last twenty years there has been ' an unprecedented wave of change in public schooling throughout the world ' (2001, p 236) and this has had an enormous impact on how a school principal undertakes his or her role. Further investigation on how this role is implemented in our ever-changing world requires a view through a wide lens that allows diffuse and assorted perspectives to unfold. Searching for singular interpretations or common trends will only obfuscate the journey to truly understanding the pivotal and complex nature of principal agency.
The purpose for the orientation to this paper is to challenge the more linear approach of viewing school leadership and try to draw together the elements that are emerging as critical to effective leadership in today ' s educational environment. Whilst the school sector has been mutating rapidly, particularly in response to the initiatives of educational reform and school-based management, so has the society in which it is situated. The impact of globalisation. and the speed with which its influences resonate through our communities. means that there is a need to react swiftly to change and to do this effectively may mean extending the understandings that inform agency.
Over the last few decades academic studies of educational leadership have moved towards revised versions of how school principals lead their schools. Much of this has been influenced by varied forms of educational reform throughout the western world (see, for example, in Billot, 2003a, 2003b; 2003c; Cranston, 2000; Wildy & Louden, 2000), which has increased accountability and expectations of the principal ' s role (Dempster & Berry, 2003), and the need for the principal to mediate between the inside and the outside contexts of the school (Retallick & Fink, 2002). At the same time there is an acknowledgement of the pivotal and complex nature of the principal ' s role (Portin, Shen & Williams, 1998; Hausman, Crow, & Sperry, 2000). These leadership studies have flourished in academia, with a tendency to search for common meanings and patterns in being a principal. Although some researchers do seek to address the effect of the wider social and political context (Thrupp, 2004, p 24), there has been until lately a tendency to overlook the impact of diversity of context.
This focus on context has recently been seen by Collard (2004) as a ' key variable ' in any study of school leaders and he states that:
Contextual factors such as inherited traditions, institutional histories, school size and student gender help generate a complex mosaic that belies simple generalisations. We need to develop nuanced theories of leadership that recognise the complexity and diversity of principal cohorts. (p 51).
With the growing recognition that cultural influences on a school community impact on school effectiveness (Dimmock & Walker, 1998), other studies have referred to the significance of context on the dynamics of school leadership. Ribbins, Pashiardis and Gronn (2003) and Billot (2004, 2003a, 203b) have asserted the significance of context for leadership, as exemplified by their studies of the role of principals in islands states, while Gale and Densmore (2003) claim that there should be ' a role for context in the determination of approaches to leadership ' (p 119).
So what elements of context are influential for the principal? Obviously every context is different but then so also are the principals themselves, for as Collard showed in his studies of self-images of principals in Victoria (Australia), ' self-image shapes the agency of principals ' (2004, p 37). Accepting that a principal will behave differently in different schools (as seen in a study by Fennell, 1999), the specificity of school context deserves greater examination to assess its influence on principal agency. Collard sees this as developing a ' framework that recognizes that leadership involves complex interactions between a wide range of social variables and the specific context in which a principal leads ' (2004, p 53).
If we can accept that context is of such paramount significance, then it is the diversity within each school context that will provide the particular set of characteristics through which each principal facilitates his role. Frequently diversity is assumed to indicate differences of race or religion but Haidt, Rosenberg and Hom (2003) postulate that there is a more influential diversity amongst people. It has been suggested by these authors that there are ' good ' and ' bad ' diversities with associated benefits and costs. To attempt to differentiate between types of diversity, they suggest two categories:
demographic diversity , which is when a group falls into a category (such as race, gender or ethnicity) because a substantial percentage (20% perhaps) of its members fall into this category and moral diversity, which is defined as the ' state of the group when ' many different ideas of right and wrong are represented and there is no widespread consensus about what moral goods should be pursued ' (p 5). Much research has been done on how moral consensus is important for a healthy community, even over shared race (ibid).
Consequently, while ' diversity ' is frequently celebrated as a modern social concept, it must be acknowledged that with that notion is the complexity of problems associated with ' diversity ' . Hence the paradox of ' diversity ' is seen as one that is difficult to resolve, especially taking into account the further complexity that arises from the ' diversity of diversities ' (ibid).
So, if diversity can be viewed as having many forms, then it follows that there are many diverse problems and issues that need to be met in communities. The school principal is one leader who has to meet these challenges. As each school reflects the changes of the wider social community, is it any wonder that within the extremely complex set of relationships that exist in each school the principal is constantly faced with repeated predicaments? He (or she) is forced to find ways of reconciling the issues with which he is constantly faced, with the perceived and obvious needs and wishes of the school and the extended social community. Through the principal ' s own preferences, values and experiences that frame his approaches, his ' actions shape the experiences within the school - both directly and indirectly affecting and determining the norms and conventions of the institution ' (Quick & Normore, 2004, p 343).
It is within the lattice of political, social, cultural and religious elements, within both community and school, that the principal finds himself having to deal with ' ethical ' issues. Thus, the principals are situated in an educational environment that is ' strewn with many decision-making dangers (that) may be likened to an ethical minefield ' [and] which they are left to negotiate blindfold ' (Dempster & Berry, 2003, p 457). Perhaps, then, it is the significant differences between contexts that may have enormous implications in determining what are ' regarded as appropriate patterns of leadership, management and organisation for schools in different societies ' (Dimmock & Walker, 1997, p 380).
If we can accept the significance of context, then the principal is positioned in a place where diversity within the context meets everyday issues. This is when issues constantly arise and the principal has to evaluate what constitutes an ethical decision. Much may depend on how he sees his school community using his own personal lens but, more likely, it is how he manages to interface his perspectives and beliefs with those he perceives as significant for his community. It is this that I believe constitutes challenge for the principals in the future. Societies are transforming rapidly and, as school leaders, principals are entrusted with making decisions that reflect the values and beliefs of their changing community. This is a daunting task that I believe we should examine more closely. Issues of school organisation and curriculum are integral to the future of student learning but, without the acknowledgement that every context is different and requires leadership to be astutely aligned, we are moving forward in a space that does not represent the many different components that constitute the future school communities.
It follows that school leaders will decide when something becomes ' ethical ' . There has been increased theorising on what constitutes ethics. Indeed, recently, Quick and Normore (2004) asserted that the principal needs to blend the three ethics of leadership, namely critique (evaluating the current values, norms, beliefs and structures, as well as the purpose of the school), justice (evaluating implicit and explicit practices that are unfair and unjust) and care (when practices focus on positive functioning based on collaboration and inclusive participation of all participants) (p. 345). This being the case, the principal will work towards a school world that reflects and ' exemplifies the very values he or she espouses ' (ibid, p. 346). One wonders how principals manage this situation. Are they assisted in recognising what constitutes an ethical issue or given guidance and support towards resolving the decisions that emerge from such issues?
How does the principal decipher the ethics that frame each and every issue that he faces? How does the principal decide when something is ' ethical ' and how does this get reflected in the functioning of the school community? In addition, how do the complex interactions and interrelationships that constitute ' diversity ' filter these processes and impact on how the principal negotiates the path through to the most effective solution? Do providers of principal professional development provide support or mentoring in this area? Is it the case that principals currently work in isolation and depend to a great degree on their experience and ability to meet and reflect the needs and aspirations of the community?
Dempster and Berry recently noted that ' principals are often ill-prepared to deal with the complexities that attend the ethical issues with which they are increasingly forced to deal ' (2003, p 457). This is, in part, what Banks refers to as the consequence of ' racial, ethnic, cultural and language diversity [which] is increasing in nation-states throughout the world because of worldwide immigration ' (2004, p. 296). However, it is a signal that certain aspects of the role of school principal are not adequately examined and debated.
If principals are assisted to understand how dealing with ethics underpins the manner in which they lead a school ' as a community ' (Hinchcliff, 2004, p 99) then they may also be able to create schools that are ' more than factories for the digesting of information and knowledge and for the measurement of material outcomes ' (ibid). In addition, the elements of diversity that complicate what and how ethical issues are addressed may increase the benefits of diversity in a school, rather than confirm the empirical research that suggests that such benefits are sparse (Haidt et al, 2003). How can we meet these combined effects of school diversity and the drive for effective ethical environments?
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Dr Jennie Billot is a Senior Lecturer within the Division of Postgraduate Studies at Unitec, in New Zealand. She teaches Research Methods within a variety of disciplines and manages the Unitec Teaching, Learning and Assessment Project. For the last five years she has directed and facilitated the Institutes for Educational Leadership (sponsored 10-day residential programmes for secondary school principals) and her research focuses on educational leadership with an emphasis on the impact of context.
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