The politics of organisational sensemaking: a theory of sensesplitting

ABSTRACT

School leadership was transformed by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. In this crisis, principals organised schooling amidst extreme confusion and uncertainty. Using sensemaking theory to capture how leaders identified, interpreted, and acted on this novel situation, this longitudinal qualitative study describes how school leaders, in interaction with stakeholders, generated understanding during the pandemic. We draw particular attention to a set of actors – parents – who elevated their participation in education broadly and sensemaking specifically in ways that have yet to be explored in other educational research. We examine the active role parents played in shaping educational decisions, their interaction with school leadership, and the growing polarisation exacerbated by the deepening political crisis that frames the field of education more generally. Our findings highlight how school leaders and parents held competing beliefs about how schools should be organised, leading to a process of what we call sensesplitting, the growth of two narratives emerging out of the same phenomena. This study offers important insight into how organisational sensemaking in education is increasingly shaped by parents, politics, and school leadership and the impact of this shift on leaders’ decision-making.

KEYWORDS:

• Sensemaking
• leadership
• organisational sensemaking
• school politics
• parent politics
• organisational routines

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kate Steilen

Kate Steilen is a doctoral student in Educational Administration at the University at Buffalo and the Managing Editor of the Journal of Educational Change. Her research examines school leadership and how districts manage accountability and inclusion during periods of political and social change. She holds degrees from Columbia University and Northwestern University. Her most recent article is ‘There Wasn’t a Guidebook for This: Caring Leadership During Crisis’ in Frontiers in Education.

Corrie Stone-Johnson

Corrie Stone-Johnson is a Professor of Educational Administration at the University at Buffalo and the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Educational Change, published by Springer. Previously, she was the Associate Editor of the journal Leadership and Policy in Schools published by Taylor & Francis. Her research in educational change and leadership examines the social and cultural aspects of change, highlighting the ways in which people interact to foster or impede reform in a context of accountability. She is particularly concerned with understanding the social contexts and organisational cultures within which teachers, leaders, and school support staff experience change. She is the author of the book Generational Identity, Educational Change, and School Leadership published in 2016 by Routledge. She holds degrees from Boston College Lynch School and Tufts University.

Lea Hubbard

Lea Hubbard is a Professor in the School of Leadership and Education Sciences at the University of San Diego. She earned her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California San Diego. Her work focuses on educational reform and educational leadership as well as educational inequities across ethnicity, class and gender. Working nationally and internationally, she has co-authored several books and written articles on school reform and leadership. Her most recent articles include: ‘School Reform from a Constructivist Perspective’ in the International Encyclopedia of Education 4th Edition and ‘Responsible School Leadership in Crisis’ in the Journal of School Leadership.