EDDi XLIX
A digest of news, views and peer-reviewed educational research.
Dear subscribers
As promised, this week is a full, traditional EDDi digest. It’s also another bumper edition.
Our first piece is a combined digest of two recent papers on school governance:
Who is Governing You? Academic (and Personal) Perspectives on School Governance
As a (hopefully, regular) reader of EDDi you’ll be more than familiar with the changing landscape and character of international schooling. However, what you may not be aware of is how this growth has directly impacted school governance.
Governance in international schools is somewhat different to that of traditional government schools (the former being increasingly profit-orientated, the latter supported by the state), yet these disparate professional spaces have in the past adopted the same governance model – a model reliant on good-willed amateurs or experienced retirees.
Emerging from the articles (and summarised in our digest) are two questions:
Should governors be paid – should they in effect be treated as professionals?
Should schools adopt ‘hybrid’ governance models, blending the ‘best bits’ of different governance approaches?
If you are a governor, a school Head/Principal, or a senior manager who interacts with a school board, the digest will make insightful reading.
In addition, we have two contributor articles:
The first of these, by Ollie Escott of Staffroom, explores (and challenges) the reasons why international schools persist in privileging (so-called) Native English Speakers.
The second will make interesting reading for anyone working in bilingual or bi-curricula schools and for foreign teachers in local schools. Jay Maxwell discusses his experiences of finding a ‘middle way’ between local and Western perspective, approaches, and pedagogies.
And , finally, we also have the first of another new feature:
Whether you are a teacher, principal, lecturer, student or simply curious, in this short EDDi section Dr Stephen Whitehead will answer common questions related to sociological theory - showing how they can be applied to educational contexts.
Until next week…happy reading.
EDDi
DISCOUNT FOR EDDi READERS
A quick reminder that EDDi readers can get a 15% discount on tickets to the Outstanding Schools Middle East 2021 Conference (use the code EDDi5OS at checkout).
