Leadership in Disadvantaged Primary Schools

Abstract

Research has indicated that schools should be developed as inclusive learning communities that would support collaborative learning and problem solving in order to address learner diversity more effectively. This article explores school leadership as one determining factor which either affords or constrains collaborative teacher learning for inclusion in the work place. The theoretical framework of cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) provided the broad platform from which we engaged in the study. Engeström’s triangle model was employed to explore leadership in the two research schools. Leadership was framed within the democratic distributed approach to leadership: this resonates with inclusive education’s strong emphasis on equality, equity and voice. A critical activity-theoretical ethnographic research design was employed from which the findings were drawn regarding school leadership. A qualitative methodology – incorporating multiple methods of data generation – informed the study. The data was organized by employing three dimensions of the two schools as activity systems: rules, community and division of labour. The findings provided irrefutable evidence that school leadership in the two historically disadvantaged primary schools profoundly affected teacher learning for inclusion.