School leadership in networked schools: deciphering the impact of large technical systems on education

Abstract

This article introduces readers from education to the emerging area of sociological literature about the growth and development of Large Technical Systems, and, in particular, the notion of “translation” and “social communication spaces”. It provides readers with a discussion of the ways this literature is applicable to discussions in the field of educational leadership in regard to distributed leadership and technology integration in an era of systemic school reform. The discussion of Large Technical Systems is grounded in a case example – the Hessen Model School Partnership – a multi‐year qualitative research study of technology integration in one school district. The authors focus on three specific areas of identified change in the content and exercise of the practice of leadership within the schools: 1) the emergence of new roles; 2) the repurposing of old roles; and 3) the creation of new collective bodies. The study found that leadership roles were significantly reshaped and redistributed as a result of the acts of translation required by technology integration. At the same time, however, that technology was acting upon the social context of the schools, there is also evidence that the social context of the schools was powerful in shaping the organization and use of the technology. The findings point strongly to the need to provide rising educational administrators with deeper knowledge of the complexity of the issues undergirding technology integration.