The book of the 14th ENIRDEM conference proceedings 22–25 September 2005, Brno & Telč, the Czech Republic ENIRDEM Board 2004–2005 members: Milan Pol Jukka Ahonen Gerald Dunning Ilze Ivanova Ola Kaldestad Kristina Malmberg © Masaryk University, 2006 ISBN 80-210-4090-4 14th ENIRDEM Conference 3 22–25 September 2005, Brno & Telč, the Czech Republic Contents Acknowledgements .............................................................................................................. 5 Editorial ................................................................................................................................ 7 Dealing with diversity: education’s challenge in creating human solidarity ....................... 11 David Oldroyd Dealing with diversity: a key values issue for educational management ............................. 19 Anne Gold Philosophical thinking as a precondition for dealing with diversity .................................... 31 Ieva Rocena Equity and school leadership ................................................................................................ 37 Anita Trnavčevič and Paul Mahieu Counteracting adversity in an aspect of diversity: identifying characteristics of very effective primary schools in socio-economically disadvantaged contexts and their associated lessons, caveats and questions for school leaders ............................................... 51 Chris James, Michael Connolly, Gerald Dunning and Tony Elliott A model of school culture development .............................................................................. 61 Lenka Hloušková Building capacity in schools — dealing with diversity between schools ............................ 65 Eric Verbiest and Justina Erčulj On the challenge of diversity: case studies of headteachers and school quality management ......................................................................................................................... 81 Milan Pol and Petr Novotný Headteachers’ coping strategies — how to survive leading a school .................................. 97 Anne Karikoski The headteacher’s role in the organisation of work with pupils with special needs ............ 107 Agris Upenieks Motivation in late-career teachers ........................................................................................ 113 Bohumíra Lazarová Building partnerships — school and family — as an important factor in managing diversity in school ................................................................................................................ 125 Ilze Ivanova Diversity — one of the challenges for school self-evaluation ............................................. 133 Jana Vašťatková 14th ENIRDEM Conference 5 22–25 September 2005, Brno & Telč, the Czech Republic Acknowledgements The 14th ENIRDEM conference was held under the auspices of Mr Stanislav Juránek, President of the Region of South Moravia, and Mr Miloš Vystrčil, President of the Region of Vysočina. The conference was supported by the two Regions, the Masaryk University, the Vysočina Educational Centre, and the Municipality of the town of Telč. This book of the conference proceedings was sponsored by the Regions of South Moravia and Vysočina and by the Department of Educational Sciences of the Masaryk University’s Faculty of Arts. We appreciate the help from all these institutions and their representatives, with special thanks to David Oldroyd, a distinguished and experienced member of the ENIRDEM network, for his proof-reading of the texts. 14th ENIRDEM Conference 7 22–25 September 2005, Brno & Telč, the Czech Republic Editorial This book contains selected papers presented at the 14th conference of the ENIRDEM1 network, held in Brno and Telč, the Czech Republic, from 22 to 25 September 2005. The core theme of the conference was Dealing with Diversity: a Key Issue for Educational Management,2 which is as well the subject of this publication. It is well understandable that dealing with diversity was selected as the central topic of the conference. Such theme is as old as the human kind — and yet always topical. There is no way to avoid diversity, but living with diversity is not easy. Such issue concerns all of us — and yet we often associate it with other things or people. We are facing diversity day after day — but rarely speak of it. We tend to direct our attention to others rather than to face ourselves. Dealing with diversity is naturally an important subject matter, both in general contemplations and in educational management. Dealing with diversity in educational management permeates in complex ways the educational management theory as well as most of the domains where such management is materialised. The texts included in this volume of conference proceedings are diverse too. Some authors focus on what can (and should) be identified and emphasised when dealing with diversity in educational management, while others comment on the diversity of various phenomena and processes in such management. Some authors treat diversity explicitly while others have made the topic an implicit but strong motif of their contributions. In the introductory text, one of the plenary speakers of the conference, David Oldroyd, discusses the basic issues associated with the conference theme: he is concerned with what is meant by diversity, asking the question whether education can successfully face the challenges presented by diversity in its many forms and how we can deal with diversity as individuals and professionals. In his search for answers he gives eight suggestions about diversity, reflecting the complexity and multifaceted nature of such phenomenon. Another plenary speaker of the conference, Anne Gold, stresses dealing with diversity as an issue of key values for educational management. She describes the very essence of the most important concepts such as values, diversity and leadership, and reflects upon possible links among them, trying to identify the strategies which educational leaders can use if they work with their own values and lead a diverse society. 1 ENIRDEM was created in 1991 upon the opening of the former Soviet block to the rest of Europe. ENIRDEM stands for European Network for Improving Research and Development in Educational Management. ENIRDEM is a truly horizontal network which brings together school leaders, educational administrators, trainers, researchers and consultants in the field of educational management. Its Board of six members (3 women, 3 men, 6 different countries) is usually renewed by one third annually. The Chairperson is the organiser of the next annual conference. The network has no permanent secretariat or institutional base. Its members are engaged in organised networking (annual conference in late September; web-site; joint research and development projects; publication of books, conference proceedings, two newsletters a year) and self-generated activities (exchange of materials; study visits; visiting lectureships; invitations to give lectures and workshops; etc.). Mission statement: “ENIRDEM seeks to improve the quality of educational management, development and research across the whole of Europe. It does it through the initiative and energy of its participants through mutually generated activities within and especially between Central, Eastern and Western Europe.” (for more information see: www.enirdem.org) 2 For a survey of all the papers presented at the 14th ENIRDEM conference see the collection of abstracts: Pol, M., Ahonen, J., Dunning, G., Ivanova, I., Kaldestad, O. and Malmberg, K. (2005) Dealing with Diversity: a Key Issue for Educational Management. Brno, Masaryk University 2005. ISBN 80-210-3821-7. 8 Editorial Ieva Rocena underlines the importance of philosophical thinking as a precondition for dealing with diversity in educational management. Analysing the deeper basis for dealing with diversity, she suggests that the basic philosophical concepts and paradigms used when thinking about human beings, reality, knowledge and values are crucial for the dialogue and dealing with diversity. This is why these issues need more attention in educational leaders’ training. Anita Trnavčevič and Paul Mahieu focus on equity and school leadership. They discuss some theoretical views on equity issues, targeting equity in access, and analyse the relevant policy frameworks in Slovenia and Belgium, mentioning a number of important implications for school leaders. Chris James, Michael Connoly, Gerald Dunning and Tony Elliott deal with the disparity among the achievements of students attending different schools as one of the widely surveyed aspects of educational diversity. They comment on the factors that can account for such phenomenon. One can certainly agree with the authors’ assumption that this is a significant issue, its valid conclusions offering major implications for the priorities adopted by school leaders and their training and development, which is, after all, another important aspect of this contribution. Lenka Hloušková discusses diversity in regard to school culture. Her short text, originally a poster presentation, offers a model of school culture development representing the relation between school culture and its change. It is a cyclic model, depicting terms, phases and processes of change between two approaches to the specification of school culture. One way of conceptualising school culture is based on the notion of school as the basis for the definition, worded as ‘a school has a culture’. Another way regards culture