Collective Responsibility: Redefining What Falls Between the Cracks for School Reform

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xvi

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Frances Whalan

   Pages 1-7

3. Mapping the Terrain

   • Frances Whalan

   Pages 9-44

4. Research Methodology

   • Frances Whalan

   Pages 45-64

5. Exploration of the Variables Related to Collective Responsibility

   • Frances Whalan

   Pages 65-78

6. Collective Responsibility in Four Schools

   • Frances Whalan

   Pages 79-116

7. Collective Struggle

   • Frances Whalan

   Pages 117-138

8. Teacher-to-Teacher Trust and Collective Responsibility

   • Frances Whalan

   Pages 139-154

9. Pedagogical Leadership and Collective Responsibility

   • Frances Whalan

   Pages 155-177

10. Towards a Model for the Development of Collective Responsibility

    • Frances Whalan

    Pages 179-198

11. Back Matter

    Pages 199-229

    PDF

How to achieve school reform and organisational change has been a subject of much inquiry and interest by educators, education systems and academics. This volume advances both conceptual and methodological knowledge in understanding the cultural changes required at the school level to develop teachers’ collective responsibility for student learning. The concept of teachers’ collective responsibility is both intriguing and elusive as it traverses both sociological and psychological aspects of teaching. Five major but interconnected discourses: professional community; professional development; relational trust; accountability; and efficacy map the terrain of this complex phenomenon. Results reported in this volume provide clear evidence that collective responsibility is positively correlated the coherence between professional learning programs and the school’s learning goals, teachers’ commitment to enact those shared goals and teacher-to-teacher trust. In addition, teachers’ collective struggle to address pressing issues for teaching and learning, and pedagogical leadership, when embedded in the organisational capacity of a school, form a complex and dynamic set of factors influencing the development of collective responsibility. Drawing together these important findings surfaces a need to rethink how schools, education systems and academics pay attention to what falls between the cracks for school reform. This book addresses aspects of school culture that guide the choices in the development of teachers’ collective responsibility. Professional development, collective struggle, professional community, relational trust and pedagogical leadership as elements of school culture and organisational reform are modelled as a continuum of micro-political conditions interacting at the school level. This model offers new insights into the complexity of collective responsibility as a multi-dimensional phenomenon and is a useful guide to organisational changefor school and system leaders and academics whose research interests are focused on the how of organisational change.

• educational reform
• educational policy

• University of Sydney, NSW, Australia

  Frances Whalan

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