Distributed
Leadership: Toward A Theory of School Leadership Practice
James
P. Spillane, Richard Halverson, and John B. Diamond
Abstract
School-level conditions, and school leadership in
particular, are key in any effort to fundamentally change instruction.
While new organizational structures and new leadership roles matter
to instructional innovation efforts, what seems most critical are
the ways in which leaders enact their roles and interact with school
personnel and clients. Yet, the practice of school leadership has
received scant attention in the empirical literature. Building on
activity theory and theories of distributed cognition, this paper
develops a distributed perspective on school leadership as a conceptual
frame for studying leadership practice. The goal of this work is
to make the "black box" of leadership practice in elementary schools
more transparent by revealing and analyzing how together leaders
think and practice to improve teachers' practice. The distributed
perspective goes beyond considering a division of labor for leadership
functions to the realization that the thinking and practice of school
leadership is enabled and constrained by a range of leaders and
by the material and symbolic artifacts in the environment. A distributed
perspective treats the situation not simply as an influence on practice
but as an integral and constituting component of that practice.
James P. Spillane, School
of Education and Social Policy, Northwestern University
Richard Halverson, School of Education and Social
Policy, Northwestern University
John B. Diamond, School of Education and Social
Policy, Northwestern University
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