Education policy, distributed leadership and socio‐cultural theory

Abstract

A current characteristic of governance in the public services in England is the advocacy of a permeation of once‐discrete organizational and professional structures. New configurations are being called for. Examples are extended schools, workforce re‐modelling, and multi‐agency working. At issue here is a further indication of this loosening of hitherto discrete roles and structures: that of distributed leadership. When formulated, all of these policies lacked an evidence‐base which justified them. To some extent this was due to a weak theoretical base. Emerging as a prominent theoretical position to inform distributed leadership is socio‐cultural theory, which includes distributed cognition and activity theory. Two conclusions are drawn from the study here. First, an analysis of the most important contribution to this research – that generated by Spillane and his colleagues in the US – points up some important discontinuities between the socio‐cultural approach adopted and its empirical endeavours. That is to say, whilst adhering to a socio‐cultural position which regards only process as having any ontological status, Spillane’s research nevertheless appears to assign ontological status also to individual agents. Second, in contrast to Engeström’s socio‐cultural activity theory, Spillane’s socio‐cultural approach under‐theorizes the question of power in distributed leadership.

Keywords:

• education policy
• distributed leadership
• socio‐cultural theory