Reconfiguring urban leadership: taking a perspective on community

Abstract

This article maps the key features of the community contexts in which a range of challenging urban schools are located, highlighting the community-related issues facing school leaders. Whilst recognising the growing demands on school leaders and the need to reconfigure leadership, the author also identifies steps which they can take to strengthen connections with communities and build trust in ways that will benefit children and young people. The article concludes by offering some of the key features of a community-orientated approach to leadership.

Keywords:

• trust
• community
• urban
• leadership
• schools
• diversity
• challenging

Acknowledgements

The analysis put forward in this article has been supported by work funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation. Thanks are offered to the Foundation and to the many people who have contributed to the development of the project Leadership on the Front-line: The Centre for Leadership in Leaning, Institute of Education, University of London: Professor Tim Brighouse, Dr Carol Campbell, Yvonne Beecham, Dr Karen Edge, Jane Reed and Professor Kathryn Riley; The Northern Ireland Regional Training Unit: Dr Tom Hesketh, Sean Rafferty and John Young; Drumcondra Education Centre, Dublin: Eileen O'Connor and Dee Coogan; The Leadership Development for Schools, Dublin: Zita Lysaght, Ciaran Flynn and Paddy Flood; Consultants: Estelle Currie, Jill Jordan and Paula Taylor-Moore; LEAs and School Boards: Belfast, Birmingham, Cardiff, Dublin, Greenwich, Hammersmith and Fulham, Liverpool, Londonderry, Manchester, Newham, Tower Hamlets, Salford and Waltham Forest.

Notes

1. While the article focuses on school leaders, given the increasing social interface between education and other services the issues it raises about the need for a more community-focused approach to leadership are relevant to other areas of public sector leadership.

2. A review of the literature on schools and communities suggests that there are five main reasons why schools decide to become more engaged with their local communities: to improve student achievement; to make schools more accountable, and to increase democratic involvement; to build social capital within communities, by encouraging schools to collaborate to promote community well-being (for example, healthier or safer communities); to develop the role of schools as moral agents, promoting social justice and responsibility for youth; and to promote schools’ self-interest through the development of good public relations (Riley and Louis 2001).

3. Also see, Riley and Rustique-Forrester (2002); Riley, Ellis et al. (2006); and Riley and Jordan (2004).

4. Adapted from Riley and Stoll (2005).

5. There is a growing literature on the value and ethics of leadership which is particularly relevant to urban contexts (Burns 1978; Sergiovanni 2000; West-Burnham 2002; Begley and Johansson 2003). Furman (2003), for example, points to a shift away from studies of how leadership is done, and by whom, towards an emphasis on the ‘leadership for what?’ She argues that current definitions of the ‘leadership for what’ question include school improvement; learning for all children; the creation of democratic communities; social justice; and ethical schooling (Leithwood and Duke 1998; Murphy 2002).