School Leadership as Gap Management: Curriculum Traditions, Changing Evaluation Parameters, and School Leadership Pathways

• Published in: Educational Governance Research
• Main Authors: Knapp, Mariella, Hopmann, Stefan
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: Springer 2017
• Subjects: Curriculum Research; Educational Practices; Foreign Countries; Instructional Leadership; School Administration; Teaching Methods; Austria
• DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-58650-2_6

School leadership nowadays is confronted with ever-changing and fast-growing expectations of what schools should be able to achieve. However, school leadership is an embedded activity, i.e. much depends on the underlying structure and culture of schooling. For instance, different traditions of defining schooling play a significant role in defining the role of school leaders. Therefore, it could be worthwhile to compare different traditions and current practices of defining school leadership with the traditions of conceptualizing the schooling within which they have evolved. Taking the well-known differences between the "Didaktik" and the Curriculum traditions as a starting point: Should one assume that these deeply rooted traditions have an impact on the leadership "pathways" which are determined by new expectations of the outcome of schooling? This becomes a fascinating empirical question the moment both traditions meet, e.g. by implementing in a "Didaktik" setting control patterns that historically have been developed within the curriculum tradition. For example, how do school leaders respond to the challenge of being measured by parameters that traditionally were none of their business? This chapter addresses conceptual issues of this question and empirical findings, based on a research project in Lower Austria. [For the complete volume, "Bridging Educational Leadership, Curriculum Theory and Didaktik: Non-Affirmative Theory of Education. Educational Governance Research. Volume 5," see ED612477.]