Contextual understandings and perspectives of primary school principals in the mid-west of Ireland in relation to moral leadership in a global age of measurement

This critical interpretivist study problematises discursive spaces for moral leadership of primary school principals in the mid-west of Ireland within a neoliberal policy imaginary in a global age of measurement (Ball, 2003; Biesta, 2013). The study involved a critical interpretation of four policy reform documents in primary education from 1998 to 2015 as a background policy and context (Education Act, 1998; OECD Improving School Leadership Country Report from Ireland, 2008; The National Strategy to improve Literacy and Numeracy among Children and Young People 2011; Department of Education and Skills Statement of Strategy 2015-2017). The research paradigm for the thesis was contextualised within critical theory and used a theoretical case study involving a survey, a self-selecting purposive sample of primary school principals in the mid-West of Ireland (n=103), semistructured interviews (n=12) and a reflexive journal by the author (Creswell 2007, 2009; Bryman 2008; Flick 2009; Yin 2009, 2012).

The study drew from three theoretical frameworks, a compact of critical sociology and philosophical perspectives, first, Bernstein’s (2000, p.34) ‘pedagogic device’ explaining the relays of power and symbolic control operating within education and the necessity for discursive gaps for a vibrant educational system, second, the literature on ‘moral leadership’ as a contested construct with different types, such as, ‘servant leadership’ for emancipatory and humanistic needs and ‘functional leadership’ for fulfilling the corporatist agenda of schooling (Starratt 2004, 2007 Shapiro and Stefkovich 2001; Corvig, Ongo and Ledesma, 2012; Cranston 2013) and third, the contexts of performativity reported within critical theory as an encroaching model based of an ethic of the marketplace and the need to reveal hidden power and political relations and assumptions (Apple, 2012; Ball 2003). This compact provided a suitable explanatory framework for the critical analysis and interpretation of the national policy documents and data collected in the case study. During the data analysis phase, code books were first generated from the surveys (SPSS) and interviews (NVivo) and from the coding process three main themes emerged (Appendix 5 and Appendix 7).

The first theme showed that ‘moral leadership’ in interviews with the school principals was for the most part taken as a ‘given’, and it was only later on reflection that school principals recognised the importance of the moral and ethical dimensions of their practice. This construct of ‘moral leadership’ was understood by a majority of primary school principals as ‘servant leadership’ where the moral and ethical work of leadership was about the holistic education of children and the moral agency of building mutual trust, presence and care in school communities. In addition, the critical interpretation of national policy documents also showed that ‘moral leadership’ in primary school education is taken as a given and currently not opened for dialogue within the education system. This may be partly explained within the cultural context that 92% of primary schools in Ireland are privately-managed by the Catholic Church where ethos is legally protected within a publicly supported system of education.

The second theme showed that just under 50% of school principals in the case study reported stress in reconciling contradictions in practice between the relational work of education and the new reform movement focused exclusively on standardised test scores (DES, 2011, 2015-2017), within the epistemic dominance of OECD PISA (Sellar & Lingard, 2013). This suggests a critical question in relation to how much longer will primary school principals’ be able to retain a ‘servant leadership’ stance within a dominant narrative of leadership as manipulation of data for the production of the child in the image of new labour market needs (Ball 2003; Gable and Lingard, 2015)?

The third theme showed that school principals in the case study reported that they were seeking in a multiplicity of ways to create discursive gaps and spaces in their school communities for dialogue and collaboration within positive relationships and social inclusion. However, there was little or no evidence that they were developing this within a capacity to critique as suggested by Starratt (2004, 2007).

An important outlier finding in this case study was the gendered nature of the role of school principal and this appeared to be connected to whether or not the school principal held an administrative or a teaching leadership role in their school. This hypothesis is worthy of further consideration and research.

‘Servant leadership’ is not advocated in this dissertation as a panacea (Crippen, 2005). However, an implication from the findings of the case study is the need for professional learning and continuing education of all primary school principals in relation to opening a discourse on the imperative of ‘moral leadership’ and, in particular, the need for a ‘servant leadership’ stance in a system of education tasked with human emancipation, the heart work of teaching and learning and social equity and inclusion.