The Practice Architectures of Middle Leading (cont.)

In the last three posts (11-13) we have talked about how middle leading practices are enabled or constrained by certain arrangements. In this post we want to be more explicit and give an example from a study carried out in preschools in Sweden (being published very soon) where 14 middle leaders led their colleagues in systematic quality work. The material-economic arrangements enabling this to happen are the most obvious as all personnel get two hours a month to participate in the communicative space organised by the middle leaders. In turn, the middle leaders get four hours a week, which enables them to plan, conduct and reflect on the meetings. However, there are some constraints as well. Some principals in the district complain about supporting this work and want to use the time for other purposes. But the district leader and the middle leaders have all been arguing to keep these communicative spaces as they found them important as a way to have time to come together in conversations to share and reflect over their work with the students. Observing these conversations it is obvious they are not without contradiction. The people who meet do not always think the same way about different activities, which is fine, but in a communicative space one goal is to reach unforced consensus. The point is not to thoughtlessly agree, but rather to argue and to listen to each other’s views. This is expressed well by Kemmis, Mc Taggart and Nixon (2014) in the following quote:

Communicative action is that kind of action we take when we engage one another in genuine, open dialogue or (better) conversation. Put more precisely—and this will serve as a definition of communicative action—people engage in communicative action when they make a conscious and deliberate effort to reach (a) intersubjective agreement about the ideas and language they use among participants as a basis for (b) mutual understanding of one another’s points of view in order to reach (c) unforced consensus about what to do in their particular situation. (p. 35)

Kemmis, S., McTaggart, R., & Nixon, R. (2014). The action research planner: Doing critical participatory action research. Singapore: Springer

Rönnerman, K., Edwards-Groves, C., & Grootenboer, P. (2015 forthcoming). Opening up communicative spaces about quality in early childhood education through middle leadership practices. Nordic Journal of Studies in Education Policies.

Post 13: The Practice Architectures of Middle Leading (cont.)

In the last post we explained the three dimensions of practice architectures that enable and constrain a practice. In doing this we chose to explain cultural-discursive, material-economic and social-political each at a time by separating them from one another. This can just be done analytically and as a way to grasp what they actually mean in relation to enabling and constraining a practice. However, in the blog it is obvious they are not separable in action. It is easy to read how the sayings also effect the doings and relatings.

To go a step further, the theory of practice architectures talks about how the cultural-discursive arrangements occur in semantic space, in the medium of language; the material-economic arrangements occur in physical space-time in the medium of activity or work; and, the social-political arrangements occur in social space in them medium of solidarity and power.

These three spaces overlap one another and to understand middle leaders’ practices we can imagine the need of a communicative space for new forms of discourse, activities and relating as part of the process of change in schools. In an article accepted for publication (Rönnerman, Edwards-Groves & Grootenboer, 2015), that reports on a study where early childhood teachers met regularly in discussion their on-going quality work, the results show that communicative spaces enable teachers to engage in learning-focused meaning making activities connected to the curriculum. It also reveals the practice architectures that enabled the middle leader to take up the responsibility of leading colleagues.

Rönnerman, K., ,Edwards-Groves, C. & Grootenboer, P. (2015 forthcoming). Opening up communicative spaces about quality in early childhood education through middle leadership practices. Nordic Journal of Studies in Education Policies.

The Practice Architectures of Middle Leading

In our last blog we presented the arrangements of practice architectures that enable and constrain a practice. In this post we will go into more detail what this means for a practice and specifically a practice of middle leading. The three arrangements; cultural-discursive, material-economic and social-political, can be viewed on different levels surrounding the practice in focus. To illustrate the practice of middle leading, consider a middle leader facilitating her colleagues in a preschool with the aim of raising the quality of the students’ learning and development. How her work is enabled and constrained through the practice architectures can be viewed in the following ways:

Cultural-Discursive arrangements - is about how you talk about the students’ development and learning. The discourses can be strong from a political level and can constrain the conversations among the teachers and middle leader as they might feel they have to use the right words (being politically correct or prescribed). On the other hand the middle leader might see this as enabling the practice in striving for a joint and collective language.

Material-Economic arrangements – has to do with the activity - how and where the middle leader can meet her colleagues to be able to facilitate their dialogues. To enable the practice to happen the middle leader needs time to plan the meeting beforehand and to summarise the meeting afterwards. Both the middle leader and all the teachers taking part in the meeting need time to be present. They all also need a room for their meeting and maybe other facilities (such as computers, documents papers, etc.) to discuss their on-going quality work. To make this possible this has to be discussed with the principal who can make it happen by providing time and recourses for the middle leader and the teachers to meet.

Social-Political arrangements – is about the relatings to human and artefacts. When the middle leader meets a group of teachers, professional relations are enabled among the teachers and the middle-leader through dialogue. Furthermore in the discussion there are relatings to the curriculum and other documents relevant to in the discussions as well as to other things in the site where the meeting takes place.

However in the practice of middle leading these arrangements are bundled together and not separated which we will come back to in the coming post next week.  

The Practice Architectures of Middle Leading

During August our blog posts concentrated on the practice of Middle Leading. Now we will zoom out from the practice itself and talk about the conditions under which the practice of Middle Leading occur. We will use the theory of Practice Architectures to be able to show how a practice is prefigured by certain arrangements (Kemmis & Grootenboer, 2008). But within this theory these arrangements do not determine the practice, but rather they enable and constrain the practice. Within the theory of Practice Architectures there are three kinds of arrangements:

·       the characteristic cultural-discursive arrangements of the practice. These exist in the medium of language in the dimension of semantic space and orient to the distinctiveness of language and discourses used in and about middle leading practices. Cultural-discursive arrangements enable and constrain the ‘sayings’ characteristic of the practice; for example, determining what it is relevant to say, or – especially – what language or specialist discourse is appropriate for describing, interpreting, justifying middle leading  practice;

·       the characteristic material-economic arrangements of the practice. They exist in the medium of activity and work in the dimension of physical space-time and orient to the characteristic kinds of activities or work that is done in the course middle leading practices. Material-economic arrangements enable and constrain the ‘doings’ characteristic or typical middle leading practice; for example, in the physical set-ups of staff meetings or professional development days and in the particular activity systems in an organization; and,

·       the characteristic social-political arrangements of the practice. These exist in the medium of power and solidarity in the dimension of social space and orient to the characteristic patterns of relationships between people and between people and non-human objects that occur in middle leading practices. Social-political arrangements enable and constrain the ‘relatings’ characteristic of the practice; for example the relationship between the principal and the middle leader, or between middle leaders and teachers in collegial groups. (Kemmis & Grootenboer, 2008). In our next post we will continue to delve deeper in these dimensions and give example of how they work in middle leading practices.

Kemmis, S. & Grootenboer, P. (2008). Situating Praxis in Practice: Practice architectures and the cultural, social and material conditions for practice. In S. Kemmis & T. J. Smith (Eds.), Enabling praxis: Challenges for education (pp.37-62). Rotterdam: Sense.