Educational Leaders’ Doctoral Research That Informed Strategies to Steer Their Organizations Towards Cultural Alignment

Abstract

This research generates new knowledge about how 24 educational leaders in the USA and England used their doctoral research to build narrative capital to inform strategies to steer their organizations towards cultural alignment. Cultural alignment prevents forms of segregation rooted in nation-states’ wider historiography of education segregation based on low income and/or racial, cultural and linguistic diversity, and those recognized as having special educational needs. The evidence reveals doctoral study enabled the leaders to focus on the inner life and the emotional relational dimension of their narratives, and their alignment with the narrative of the members of their organizations through building networks of organizational participation in processes and practices. The networks enabled values to be shared such as trust, respect, agreeing to disagree and celebrating diversity. Thus doctoral research enabled the leaders to provide chances for members of the organization to evaluate their personal and professional narratives with each other and build narrative capital. Narrative capital is essential to underpin the construction of new life narratives that move beyond old descriptive scripts to scripts that turn dreams into objective realities, social mobility and civic engagement. Further research is recommended to explore how networks of participation in organizational processes and practices for cultural alignment are described and understood by leaders, educational professionals and students.

Keywords

agents of change applied leadership learning cultural alignment leading organizational change

Introduction

This research aims to generate new knowledge about how 24 educational leaders doing doctorates at universities in the USA and England, engaged with identity work that informed steering their organizations towards cultural alignment. The leaders include school and college principals, a superintendent and district administrators/budget holders. Their doctoral programmes were located at universities. The article examines four key themes. First, what culture and cultural alignment is. Second, the kind of deep identity work into personal and professional narratives required to gain self-awareness, awareness of the other and to build narrative capital. Third, the wider cultural, and historical differences regarding segregation in the USA and England that impact on narrative capital. Finally, how leaders’ doctoral research might inform the development of strategies and networks to steer their organizations towards participatory processes and practices for cultural alignment.

The research is important because, as Lumby (2012) argues, culture has been included in over one-third of articles in this journal and has been grappled with in the literature on educational management, administration and leadership since the 1970s. However, Lumby (2012: 576) suggests the literature does not address how to align the organization’s members to a single, strong culture. Rather culture and cultural diversity are engaged with superficially, which fixes and perpetuates inequalities. Leaders need to open up systems and present opportunities for teachers and staff to evaluate and rewrite their narratives to enable them to realize their dreams (Buthelezi, 2007; Goodson, 2012). Here the focus is on sharing values such as trust, respect, agreeing to disagree and celebrating diversity so that all members are included in organization practices and processes. This is affirmed by Coleman (2012: 607–608) who suggests: ‘such mainstreaming of diversity for example of whole institution change is rare … and further coverage of the practice of leading for diversity would be welcome’. This research begins to reveal leaders’ narratives of such change.

Empirical research that represents narrative biographies contributes new theories and narratives that relate to transformative leadership for cultural alignment and social justice. This is important because within one classroom there may be students of different socio-economic status, and racial, cultural and linguistic diversity. Indeed, Lumby (2012) argues leaders need to work within global and local contexts when considering working towards cultural alignment.

Howard (2006) defines the consequences of mis-alignment of culture as disproportionate academic outcomes for those of low income and/or racially, culturally and linguistically diverse (LI/RCLD). This is significant because De Navas-Walk et al. (2011) cite the total US population as 306,110,000 with 197,423,000 being ‘White alone, (not Hispanic)’ 39,031,000 being ‘Black alone’ and 69,656,000 being ‘Other’. A total of 108,687,000 are therefore ‘Not White’, just over one-third of the total population. In England the UK Bureau of Statistics (2011) for England and Wales state 48,209 000 are ‘White alone’, 1,865,000 are ‘Black alone’ and 6,002,000 are ‘Other’. Thus about one-eighth of the total population is ‘Not White’, which is a smaller proportion of ‘Not White’ people in England to that in the USA. With regard to low income, 2.3 million children are currently living in poverty in the UK (Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 2012) and 16.4 million children are living in poverty in the USA (National Poverty Centre, 2010; US Bureau of the Census, 2010). The statistics are compelling and there is an urgent need for educational leaders, staff and students to work together for cultural alignment regarding low income and/or racial cultural and linguistic diversity. To do this educational leaders need to have the thinking tools required to do the necessary identity work to examine, evaluate and change professional and personal narratives.

Constructing personal and professional narratives chimes with Goodson’s (2012) identification of the US President Barrack Obama’s ability to evaluate and construct an ongoing life narrative from working class, and multi-racial to Ivy League and to president of the USA. Further, President Obama often presents alternative positions and arguments to his own, and this probing, interrogating, reflexivity and flexibility is what Goodson (2012) calls ‘narrative capital’. Building narrative capital is therefore essential to removing barriers to social justice to enable social mobility in open systems (Bourdieu, 2000).

Prime Minister David Cameron in England, conversely, has taken a different path with what Goodson (2012) call a descriptive narrative. Prime Minister Cameron has moved from Eton, an elite public school to an Oxbridge education, where the path was pre-determined and on to prime minister of the UK (Goodson, 2012). There are educational leaders who will constantly evaluate and construct personal and professional narratives, and others who have followed descriptive life narrative scripts. Doctoral research may facilitate leaders from these different narrative scripts to build narrative capital by focusing on, and evaluating their inner life and the emotional relational dimension of their narratives, and their alignment with those of the members of their organizations and/or those they lead. The leaders may then offer opportunities for others to build their narrative capital. This is particularly important given what Shah (2010: 28) calls: ‘the increasing diasporas of communities of diverse cultures, ideologies and faiths’. Thus leaders who have built narrative capital in their organizations may build organizational members’ chances to gain greater insights into their communities of diverse cultures, facilitating cultural alignment with common values such as trust, respect, learning to agree to disagree and celebrating cultural diversity. Cultural alignment of this kind is only possible if engaged with on both a cognitive and emotional level.

Cain and Gunter (2012) have identified a lack of empirical research into the realities of the professional practice of senior leaders who engage emotionally with particular contexts. Thus this research begins to fill a gap in the knowledge by asking two research questions. First, how do leaders doing doctorates describe and understand culture, and cultural alignment in their communities? Second, how do leaders describe and understand the ways their evaluation of their own narratives facilitated by doctoral research informed their strategies to steer their organizations towards cultural alignment?

Moving Towards Cultural Alignment

In order to engage in a discourse of moving towards evidence informed cultural alignment it is important to define culture, and then to define cultural alignment. Harris (2003) argues culture can be understood through invented or shared meanings with lasting philosophical underpinnings, values such as trust, a celebration of diversity and a mutual respect for cultural difference, rules or norms within the particular organization’s environment. Indeed, Bush and Glover (2012) identify that high levels of trust are key features of high performance in schools. Further Bruggencate et al. (2012), and Beatty (2007) affirm that sharing values leads to higher performance in educational organizations. However, Pring (2007) argues that when different cultures meet they may not wish to share their values, rules and norms. On the contrary, members of one culture may have fixed descriptive cultures and scripts, and rather than evaluate their own culture, they evaluate other cultures and find them inadequate (Pring, 2007). Evaluating other cultures potentially creates a cultural elite who are contemptuous of, and do not recognize or relate to those not in their cultural group. Further, dominant cultures may develop social structures that segregate themselves from other ‘inadequate’ cultures. This is a barrier to learning about the self, and the other, sharing values, and moving towards cultural alignment. This is affirmed by Reay (2011: 2) when she states:

Recently, the UK education secretary, Michael Gove, told a Conservative Party Conference that ‘rich, thick kids do better educationally than poor, clever children before they even get to school.’ He went on to assert that ‘unfortunately, despite the best efforts of our society, the situation is getting worse’ (2010) … in the United Kingdom, private schools are almost entirely focused on high academic attainment – they are educational powerhouses for churning out as many As and A-stars at A level as possible, and with 23 per cent of the money spent on schooling going to the 7 per cent of the school population who attend private schools (Sibieta, Chowdry, and Muriel, 2008), they produce students who are well placed to monopolize places in our top universities.

This is a form of segregation and prevents representation of cross sections of children, and staff from sharing core values.¹ However neo-liberal market forces position leaders to be selective in terms of students from dominant cultures and Lumby and English (2009: 108) argue that there are leaders with a:

[P]rofessional self who wish to protect and aggrandise their own school rather than consider the area-wide needs of all learners. The moral nature of this self who may focus on actions to aggrandise their organization at the cost of another is a dark secret never exposed in courses.

Further, Rusch (2004) and Lopez (2003), in studies of faculty and students in preparation programmes in the USA, both found that issues of race were sidelined or were the subject of fear and avoidance, revealing moral complexity (Stutchbury and Fox, 2009). Therefore becoming self-aware and aware of the other and sharing values that human beings can provisionally agree with (Heckmann, 2006) is both important and challenging work. It calls for investment into education and the community and moves beyond self-interest and Adam Smith’s (Joyce, 2011) vision that:

… every individual necessarily labours to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it … he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention … I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.

Rather finding cultural alignment provides opportunities for balancing the interests of the self, with the interests of the other (Kohlberg, 1981), and the public good which is essentially a relational approach.

However, Zay (2012) identifies that different paradigms address the balancing of the self with the other in different ways. Zay identifies that Anglo-American liberalism sees the poor as responsible for their poverty, and they need to work out of it. Thus, Sleeter (2005: 40) argues investing resources into education and working for cultural alignment can ‘go against the grain’. Leading learning in this direction may evaluate policy and tensions may arise between conforming, and innovation. Thus it takes courage to develop strategies that engage with teachers’ and students’ values rather than deliver a standardized curriculum. As Freire (1972) states leaders need to steer their organizations beyond breaking lessons down into fixed component parts and enable teachers and students to make connections between specific disciplines and patterns. Breaking lessons down to teach to the test has been accompanied by an intensification of work for teachers with large amounts of paperwork that leave little time for lesson planning and communication with students (Katsuno, 2012). Katsuno suggests that educational professionals are limiting their professional responsibility to sustain their professional identities to avoid burnout. They do this because they know what they need to do to facilitate their students’ understanding, but they cannot do it because their time is taken away from the students and devoted to paperwork and administration. Katsuno argues educational professionals develop dual identities because they cannot do what they came into teaching for, which is develop students’ learning, but they need to develop a professional identity or leave the profession. Arguably, members of organizations need time to understand the values and ideologies underpinning what they are learning about and relate these to their own lives and the lives of others as they construct their own life narratives and build their lives (Bateson, 2002). Time to build relationships is particularly important if educational leaders and professionals have very different cultural backgrounds to the student body they are teaching. Participation of this kind in the processes and practices of educational organizations enables staff and students to relate to the curriculum, to relate to each other and to relate to the organization through their sharing of values (Macbeath et al., 2007). Here, participation is talk with teachers and students about things that are important to them in their lives, in their work and in their learning (Ruddock and McIntyre, 2007; Goodson, 2012).

Through participation in organization processes and practices teachers and students recognize that their views matter and that they are at the centre of their learning that is relevant to their values, their dreams for the future and their economic and cultural civic engagement. Such identity work affords teachers and students with opportunities to evaluate and recognize themselves, and the other, share values and not see each other as inadequate within a standardized culture (Pring, 2007). Rather teachers and learners are encouraged to take part with their learning through a wider range of roles and responsibilities, membership of committees, being part of decision making, and gaining insights into their own strengths and weaknesses (Ruddock and McIntyre, 2007). Participation of this kind may lead to greater job satisfaction which Grisson and Anderson (2012) found in their research into superintendents in the USA, can contribute to reduced leader turn-over.

Doctoral Research, Building Networks and Steering Towards Cultural Alignment

Howard (2006) argues there are many teachers who do not understand the concept of moving towards cultural alignment with young people who are LI/RCLD (Wong and Glass, 2009). In the USA Howard had been giving workshops to address these issues, particularly in light of changing demographics such as a growth in Hispanic student population from 10 per cent to 40 per cent over five years in one district. Howard (2006: 3) provides the following dialogue at the end of such a workshop:

A white teacher said, ‘What I want to know is why are they sending these kids to our school?’ I asked, ‘You mean the Hispanic kids?’ She nodded, and I said, ‘Hispanic kids are coming to “your” high school because they live here; they are part of your community’. She walked away shaking her head.

Howard argues that teachers need to recognize their role in evaluating other cultures (Pring, 2007) and move to evaluating themselves before evaluating others. Wong and Glass (2009: 17–18) affirm this and state:

Unless white academics, in particular, are willing to face honestly the systemic discrimination that privileged their own schooling histories, thereby troubling the myth of meritocracy that has no doubt shaped their own sense of achievement and self-worth, they may fall prey to the prevailing ideology tinged claims about Low Income, Racially, Culturally, and Linguistically Diverse (LI/RCLD) children’s ‘underachievement’ stemming from a range of individual, family, and cultural deficits … Developing a commitment to an embodied engagement in the struggle against discrimination and oppression within the educational system requires on-going and difficult work on the part of all faculty members given the dominant ideologies that permeate the schools serving LI/RCLD communities.

Foster (2007) affirms this and argues in the US research from faculty of colour that does not fit the dominant paradigm is ignored. Lonsbury and Apple (2012: 761) argue this furthers: ‘the interests of particular groups that renders school reform attempts unsuccessful because of the built in protections of a system designed for and by its participants’. Flessa and Ketelle (2007: 812) agree and state that educational organizations: ‘perpetuate white privilege via, mechanisms of mono-cultural assimilation, school funding and assignment, discipline policies, or the views of teachers’. Disrupting white privilege, and privilege needs to address these mechanisms, which Leonardo and Hunter (2007) argue will need to challenge a xenophobia, and hegemonic controls that exist in white mainstream culture in the USA. Flessa and Ketelle (2007) argue that this needs to be addressed urgently because there is a tendency to conflate racism and linguistic diversity under an umbrella term ‘cultural diversity’. Further, I would cautiously suggest other causes of segregation such as (in alphabetical order) ageism, gender, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) and special educational needs appear to be conflated within ‘cultural diversity’.

Shields (2013) argues that action is required to correct wrongs. Action needs to move beyond one off ‘cultural’ workshops. Doctoral study offers opportunity for professional and personal enquiry that is immediate, reflexive, yet actively empirical. The research and knowledge oriented study in the process of professional and personal identity (re)formation and the building of narrative capital is ongoing and sustainable. Thus educational leaders may interrogate issues around forms of segregation in their organization, address new issues of segregation as they arise, and be on the look out for old issues of segregation. Old issues of segregation may have always existed, but may have only recently been recognized as a result of doctoral study leading to commitment to building narrative capital, which underpins working for cultural alignment.

Similarly in the English context, Thomson (2007) who analysed National College texts in relation to leadership in urban locations found a demonization of urban neighbourhoods, families and children. Evaluating other cultures and finding them inadequate in this way may replicate forms of segregation and inequalities (Gunter, 2012). Evidence informed strategies to build networks that operate on multiple levels with members of an organization (Glatter and Young, 2012) are important for steering towards cultural alignment. The strategies arguably need to consider LI/RCLD, ageism, gender, LGBT and special educational needs without conflating these elements into low income, and/or cultural diversity. James and Saul (2007: 843) argue that conflation of this kind can lead to: ‘ghettoization and systemic poverty’.

This narrative has to be understood in terms of the wider and historiographical segregation in the USA in the 1950s and 1960s. The 1946 Mendez v. Westminster case regarding segregation of schooling of Mexican and Mexican students (Moll, 2010) and the Brown v. Board of Education case in 1954 (Taysum, 2012a) ended legal educational segregation. The Equality of Educational Opportunity (The Coleman Report, 1966) was commissioned in response to new educational provisions in light of the Civil Rights Act 1964. The Coleman Report sought to document equal opportunities educational provision for all children. Bermingham (2011) argues how the USA addresses forms of segregation has significance for how these issues are addressed globally with implications for promoting mutual understandings of diversity through education policy.

In contrast, in England since the Education Act 1944 (Central Administration, 1944), segregation occurred through the tripartite system (Jones, 2010). Taysum (2012b) argues the tripartite system in the public sector of education separated students by ‘types of mind’, children who passed a test at 11 years old with the highest scores went to grammar schools and a potential pathway to university education, and a career. The next highest scoring group in the test went to secondary modern schools, in preparation for entry into the labour market in industry, trade or commerce. The final group went to technical schools in preparation for a ‘practical touch with affairs’ (Taysum, 2012b). Darling-Hammond (2010) argues that such segregation leads to low expectations of children who do not perform well in a test, particularly those with low income. The Crowther Report (1959), argued 40 per cent of children should have access to public examinations on leaving school. Access to public examinations for more individuals gave new opportunities for different life and career trajectories. The Plowden Report (Department of Education and Science, 1967) further underpinned the move to Education For All (Pring, 2012) with an aim to end segregation by ‘type of mind’, which tied in with evaluating low income and cultural diversity (Pring, 2012). However, Cork (2005) reports that in England professional ideologies and hegemonies in England ignore children and parents of colour through frequently hidden mechanisms that perpetuate hegemonic controls. This ties in with the conflation of racial and linguistic diversity that James and Saul (2007) state still exists in the USA.

In summary, there are dominant cultures that evaluate other cultures and find them inadequate which can lead to segregation. Here, segregation has been revealed to have its roots in each of the nation state's history. Educational leaders doing doctorates may evaluate their own life narratives and develop narrative capital that underpins research informed strategies to steer their organizations towards cultural alignment (Macbeath, 2009). The leadership learning required for cultural understanding and cultural alignment calls for critical insight of both educational policy and school leadership practice, which transcends the more traditional forms of training. Therefore, both the doctoral studies pursued by the respondents as well as this research study itself, break new ground by addressing an arguably neglected topic of leadership practice. Thus leaders doing doctorates may champion promising new directions (Walker, et al., 2008).

Methodology

In this research I take the position that reality is objectified by people who interpret it, externalize this knowledge and define their reality accordingly. Bryman (2004) argues that if there are different ways of understanding an occurrence the credibility of the account presented by the researcher is going to be key to the participant, if it is to be recognized as trustworthy. It is very important that consumers of research consider the relationship they have with the research. This is illustrated by Levin (2004) who argues the role of evidence and knowledge will experience pressures, be they political or social in addition to existing cultures, habits and practices. These might include holding dispositions about people who are LI/RCLD, and of diverse ages, of different genders, GLBT and those recognized as having special educational needs. Levin argues that research by itself will not convince people to transform long-standing power relationships that may be embedded in mono-cultural principles and laws. However, research may over time, have a significant role in changing how people view the self in relation to the other, and therefore may transform communities of practice and work towards cultural alignment in pluralistic societies. Therefore this research takes an interpretivist approach with a qualitative research design, and the credibility of this research lies in three important elements. The first is the critical approach to the substantive and methodological literature that informs the research as practice. Second, I have used respondent validation, where research participants have affirmed that my understanding of what they have said is accurate. Finally, I have faithfully represented research participants’ positions and arguments (Blumenfeld-Jones, 1995).

The research takes a comprehensive view of 24 educational leaders doing the doctorate at four universities in England and four universities in the USA (see Table 1). All leaders are doing a EdD, other than Stephen and Lawrence who are doing a PhD.² A central case in England, and a central case in the USA are drawn upon, and the other cases corroborate the findings from the two central cases.³ I take a detailed hard look at the leaders’ perspectives of their roles as agents of change related to working for cultural alignment. The sample is therefore purposive (Cohen et al., 2000).

Table 1.

Interviewees.

Name (pseudonym)	Position	Country
John	Primary headteacher	England
Maya	Primary SMT	England
Helen	Primary SMT	England
Joanne	Primary headteacher	England
Hannah	Primary headteacher	England
Antonia	Secondary headteacher/consultant	England
Matthew	Primary headteacher	England
Daniella	Former primary headteacher	England
Mary	Former primary headteacher	England
Nelle	Secondary headteacher who has turned round two ‘failing secondary schools’	England
Charlotte	Secondary deputy headteacher	England
Jean	Secondary deputy headteacher	England
Bert	Secondary headteacher	England
Henry	Secondary headteacher	England
Martina	Lead teacher middle school	USA
Jane	Lead teacher middle school	USA
Peter	Lead teacher high school	USA
Charles	Principal of FE college	USA
Richard	District administrator	USA
Angela	Former senior administrator for different states	USA
Kate	Lead teacher middle school	USA
Lawrence	Former lead teacher high school	USA
Georgia	Lead teacher and district consultant	USA
Stephen	Superintendent	USA

Semi-structured interviews were chosen with a degree of flexibility to prompt and probe the participants in response to their unique narratives (Denscombe, 2007). The key interview question that this research reports upon is ‘how did your doctoral study influence your leadership’? The detailed analysis involved in this life narrative research required a small number of interviews to meet Bryman’s (2012) requirement of 20 to 30 interviews for publication. A pilot study informed the research design (Edwards and Talbot, 1999). The pilot study was conducted with a principal doing a doctorate who talked me through the questions. The principal gave me invaluable advice, and enabled me to rephrase important questions.

The research was carried out in England first, and doctoral programme providers gave me access to other doctoral programme providers. This is an example of snowball sampling (Denscombe, 2007). The Doctoral programme providers sent my letters of invitation to take part in the research to leaders doing the doctorate who then contacted me. I then arranged interviews with the participants who responded to the letters. Participants opted into the research, had the right to withdraw at any time, and gave their written informed consent to take part in the research. Anonymity and confidentiality were assured, and pseudonyms used (BERA, 2011; AERA, 2011).

I then built on this research, which is a criteria for quality in research (Pollard, 2008), by continuing the research in the USA. I made contact with doctoral programme providers in the USA through networks to which I belong, including the British Educational Leadership, Management and Administration Society, American Educational Research Association and the University Council for Educational Administration (US). As with the English research, doctoral programme providers recommended other programme providers to take part in the research which is evidence of snowball sampling (Denscombe, 2007).

The interviews were recorded, transcribed and analysed manually using themes (Miles and Huberman, 1994) once on paper and once electronically. Completing the analysis manually twice enabled me to monitor my performance for consistency and enabled me to gain a double distance from the data (Bourdieu, 2000). Double distancing helped me to objectify my data and ensure the analysis was systematic and robust (Oancea and Furlong, 2007). In the presentation of findings, I use excerpts to reveal positions and arguments from within the oral texts and invite the reader to connect with these rather than see them as generalized truths (Taysum and Gunter, 2008 ). Writing up my methodology transparently has enabled me to justify the rigour of the warrants for the claims made for this original contribution to knowledge (Gorard, 2002).

Findings

How Leaders Understand Culture and Cultural Alignment in their Organizations

All the educational leaders in both the USA and England expressed that culture was important in their educational communities and they wanted to work for cultural alignment in their organizations. The evidence reveals there were three different positions and arguments regarding cultural alignment. First, 22 educational leaders stated that there was an issue with regard to a lack of cultural alignment in their contexts between staff and students, or between students and students, or between the community and the curriculum, and they wanted to address this. Second, one leader said that there was a lack of cultural alignment, but manipulation of culture led to superficial changes that were not meaningful or worthwhile. Third, one leader identified that cultural alignment within the school community was strong. I now represent the three positions and arguments of culture and cultural alignment.

Twenty-two leaders doing doctorates in both the USA and England identified a lack of cultural alignment within their community of practice as a problem. Mary an educational leader in a high school in the USA doing a doctorate makes it clear that her and her own children’s socio-economic background was very different to the students in her school and this brought tensions for her. Mary states:

The children in this school are low-socio economic status … and this is their future, how can they compete in the workforce when they do not have the same background that all those other, and my own kids have. At the time that I came here my son was I think in ninth grade, he was a freshman, and my daughter was a Senior in High School, but they grew up with computers because we did and we have.

Stephen a superintendent in the USA doing a doctorate also articulates that there is a lack of cultural alignment in the educational communities in the district he worked in. Stephen stated that educational professionals do not have personal experience of how students of LI/RCLD think and feel. Stephen states of the educational professionals he leads:

My goal isn’t to label them, my goal is to get them to behave in a way that accounts for the needs of my kids more than determining whether their whole make up is right. And I think the vast majority simply do not understand and it is purely unconscious so raising the questions and saying think about this for a minute, if you do this, how do you think that makes this student feel given this about his background or culture or life experience? Trying to get them to look at it that way and trying to get them to ask that question themselves is typically my way of trying to teach such things. It is to say simply take this student’s view and tell me how you think you hear that.

Bert, a headteacher of a boys grammar school in England doing a doctorate states:

My particular issue was school culture and I had already identified in my first School Development Plan that culture was the key thing I wanted to move in this place … I was researching 6th form … there was a bit of a tension, do I want to be academically successful or do I want to play rugby for the first 15 and look a really cool macho sort of person … So we feel we’ve worked through that tension … you are here to be academically successful but we want you here to also grow as a whole person and part of that growing as a whole person is sport and other things …

Daniella, a former principal in England doing the doctorate states that the lack of cultural alignment and shared understandings can be reflected in the structure of the building and states: ‘in my first headship, there was a headteacher’s toilet, I immediately got rid of that’. Matthew a headteacher states that a lack of cultural alignment can also be found in the curriculum. Matthew states: ‘the children were not relating to the curriculum sufficiently’.

The evidence reveals that in the USA and in England 22 of the leaders wanted to work for cultural alignment in their communities to recognize and mainstream diversity (Lumby, 2012). They wanted to build the narrative capital of the educational professionals, particularly those who may have followed descriptive life narrative scripts (Goodson, 2012) and do not share any cultural experiences of the student body that they teach. Building the narrative capital of their organizations underpinned the leaders’ strategies to develop cultural alignment in their communities to develop shared meanings that are underpinned with enduring philosophy, values, rules or norms (Harris, 2003). Further the leaders identified that particular efforts need to be made to create cultural alignment (Lumby, 2012) between staff and students in school processes and practices (MacBeath et al., 2007). The empirical evidence revealed that cultural alignment also needed to be developed and integrated with the prescribed curriculum so that the learning is culturally relevant to the students (Freire, 1972) and connects with their dreams and hopes for the future (Buthelezi, 2007; Goodson, 2012). Further if the students are more motivated to learn because their learning connects with who they wish to be, and the teachers can spend time planning lessons and communicating with students, the teachers may get more job satisfaction. This may lead to reducing turn-over Grisson and Anderson (2012), and reducing burnout (Katsuno, 2012). Cultural relevancy provides a legitimate challenge to the under-tow of education that affirms hegemonic controls and furthers the interests of particular groups that renders school reform attempts unsuccessful. The reforms fail because of the built in protections of a system designed for and by its participants from dominant cultural groups (Labaree, 2010; Lonsbury and Apple, 2012: 761).

A second understanding of how to address cultural alignment was identified by Antonia. Antonia is a consultant and former principal in England doing a doctorate, who identified the importance of culture, and that culture might be manipulated. Antonia states:

my own experience as a head, showed me how important the culture of an organization is in achieving your aims and your goals, I do think with culture, although a lot of it is complex and hard to change, there are aspects of it you can manipulate and move about and to a certain extent I was doing some of those things. But I think perhaps tinkering with some of the more surface things rather than deep seated aspects of culture.

The manipulation of culture potentially engages with Taysum (2012a) notion of technicians who do not compare the changes in culture to their own value systems and do not make adjustments or alignments with the new practices/knowledge that has been imposed on them. The evidence connects with Pring (2007) and Lumby’s (2012: 576) argument that: ‘Leaders are currently ill-served by encouragement to focus on aligning the organization’s members to a single, strong culture and the persistent surface engagement with culture may perpetuate inequalities.’

The third understanding of cultural alignment was identified by Jean, a deputy head of a church secondary school for girls in England who states there is cultural alignment in her organization:

Unless you can locate an educational process within a philosophy there is no point. It is all very well saying no excuses are acceptable, but if you are working with kids from a very disadvantaged area you can’t just say the environment is irrelevant. We are a school where we academically push the girls but we also want them to play sport, to play music and go off to retreat … if we are serious about life-long-learning then we have to give children a positive experience in their secondary school … We did an analysis of the staff and I think the average length of time that the staff have been here is 22 years. That is not to say it’s a stayed staff it is forward moving forward thinking it has to be for the girls. We have the benefit of history of saying well you know politicians will come, politicians will go, initiatives will come initiatives will go but the girls will always be there … If you meet a girl you know if she is a ‘name of our school’ girl. There is very much a philosophy of care and that is in all of the staff. The leader, that the children love to death … and I don’t mean loved in a popular way but that people can trust they will help you.

Jean’s perception of culture expressed here agrees with Lumby’s views (2012) of cultural alignment and how this has been possible through developing shared philosophies and meanings (Pring, 2007) that the education community share, and moreover, choose to share. However, it is not clear how a single faith school considers the area-wide needs of all learners that Lumby and English (2009) identify as important and further research is recommended into this.

Agents of Change for Cultural Alignment; Applying Learning from the Doctorate

The analysis revealed two positions in response to this theme. First, all of the US leaders and 13 of the English leaders identified that doctoral study enabled them to steer their organizations towards cultural alignment. This number includes Jean who perceived participative processes and practices as important for the strong cultural alignment that existed in the school. Second, one principal of a primary school in England had only just started an EdD, and stated it was too early to state if cultural alignment was part of her intended research into network learning communities. I shall represent these two positions in turn.

The following excerpts from oral texts are representative of a position and argument that doctoral study influenced work for cultural alignment. Stephen, a superintendent in the USA identifies that there are tensions between educational professionals and students from different cultures and how he acted as an agent of change to build narrative capital to underpin working towards cultural alignment. Stephen states:

The issues are of understanding who kids are and what their culture is, and how to teach that includes that culture. [Doctoral study] has given me some tools to help teachers ask some of those questions about their own teaching and about their own activities and it has helped me to put those questions before my faculty, before my administrators, and say who are we serving and is somebody getting hurt by this policy, or by this practice, unnecessarily? … to invite them to participate in the process of looking for those unintended consequences when those instances of unintentional racism or classism or whatever that may be, bias what we do against certain students, certain groups.

Richard a district administrator and budget holder in the USA identified that doing a doctorate helped him evaluate his own personal and professional narrative and states:

My exposure to Afro-Americans and Hispanic populations was fairly limited I was teaching in high schools like my high school with a white majority and even in my role now I don’t deal with kids I deal with mostly teachers and my teachers are mostly white and fairly well off so my work context was not going to really challenge me much. After the doctoral programme I was asking more questions about what is this really doing in terms of the students in terms of closing the achievement gap, the historic gap we have here … So I started to shift Professional Development to having teachers looking at their prejudices and their biases in their teaching and how that is going to impact on their students who have traditionally not been very successful in our school. We have made some progress in a few schools, but the doctoral programme definitely made me more sensitive to the issues and more aware that it is something that is systemic and you really need systemic leadership looking at the impact of that. You cannot just put on a workshop once a year, we did our equity workshop, or whatever we did.⁴

Georgia a lead teacher and district consultant in the USA explains doing the doctorate informed how she works for cultural alignment in school ‘buildings’ with a range of leaders and states:

In my current position I work with 5 elementary districts, which are Kindergarten through 8th Grade districts and one high school district so I have an opportunity to work with 6 superintendents, their Assistant Superintendents and other Central Office Staff. I am currently on a doctoral course with [name of programme provider] and she has opened our eyes to social justice and thinking about the critical aspect of what individuals bring to the school settings, whether it is parents, students, educators and administrators. I have worked in settings where there has been a very connected climate and culture and I have also worked in buildings where there has not been. I have looked at that after being on the doctoral courses and I have reflected on the experience. I think it is because in those buildings where there was a strong climate and culture there was recognition of what different individuals brought to the setting. I am working with a lot of school buildings that have students who come from low income families. What I’ve been able to do from Rothstein’s work is try to help some of the staff members that I work with come forward and rethink the things they are saying. I am really looking at a lot of educators and administrators having to look at their role differently to make some change and I have really relied heavily on the text that I received through that course work for my presentations.

Maria, a leader in a high school in the USA identified how applying her learning from the doctorate had helped her create networks and organize meetings with LI/RCLD members of the organization. Maria states:

I was trying to do something from the grass roots up rather than coming in and saying Oh I’ve got an idea, I know how to fix you, and that was what I was trying to avoid because from my experience that is all I see, people coming from the outside especially in my community, you know ‘you poor people you are suffering so much we know how to fix you’ and unfortunately the school district employs these people you know like consultants or whatever the new reform de jour is that they are buying. So I have seen, and I could name reform after reform that has gone through my school and that is what I wanted to avoid. And the academics during my EdD project really helped me.

Jane a leading teacher in the USA also identified that doctoral study had helped her to build networks between ethnically diverse groups of teachers to help them develop cultural alignment in their classrooms and states:

A lot of teachers come from a white privileged background, some of them are coming from a community that we teach (LI/RCLD). So I think having a diverse group of teachers that is where teachers grow … because those teachers of colour who have grown up in the community in the neighbourhood can really share their experiences in an authentic format with the whole group. That is really wonderful to have a diverse group ethnically, in years of teaching from one year to thirty years, where we can really learn from one another. The EdD [doctoral study] has really helped me in leading my colleagues … I can bring in research, what I have learned and knowledge.

These representative quotations from the US educational leaders reveal how many educational professionals have had descriptive life narrative scripts that are very different to their students, which is a barrier to them understanding, on an authentic level, the cultural experiences of their students (Goodson, 2012; Katsuno, 2012). To build narrative capital takes more than a one day workshop (Howard, 2006) and leaders need to create time for members to engage with self-evaluation to build their narrative capital and to work towards cultural alignment with students with LI/RCLD. The focus on race and linguistic diversity may tie in closely with the wider historical context of racial and linguistic education segregation in the USA during the 1950s and 1960s. The leaders developed strategies to steer their organizations towards cultural alignment and resisted conflating racial and linguistic diversity into cultural diversity to move beyond dominant paradigms and evaluative cultures (Howard, 2006; Fless and Kettle, 2007; Foster, 2007; James and Saul, 2007; Leonardo and Hunter, 2007; Wong and Glass, 2009; Shields, 2013).

John, a headteacher in England, also identified that staff needed to understand how they might be a part of evaluative culture (Pring, 2007). John was the only English headteacher who talked about working for cultural alignment that recognized LI/RCLD. This may be because his school was an urban school where the majority of pupils were ‘Not white’ John states:

Addressing issues of racism, we had a couple of staff some years ago who were racists okay, you get it. The strategy put in place to change them wasn’t working so who’s fault is it? Their fault because they remain ignorant or my fault knowing that they are ignorant but not being able to find a way of changing it. So we did find a way of changing them just by changing strategies … A good amount of my time now is about creating time, not just for me, but for other people to meet and to talk and move from ignorance to understanding. So if things aren’t working I take personal responsibility for it.

John also states that applying learning from his doctorate had an influence on him and states:

so it (the doctorate) made me examine things a bit more closely, a bit more deeply it makes you re-examine yourself … about beliefs in other spheres of life … thinking things through, re-establish, what I have done, that is part of the process of knowing yourself actually, it’s like you know yourself, constantly re-track and talk it through, where am I, what am I doing? Especially in terms of relationships with people. What’s the impact I have on people, what am I like, what am I doing, what’s selfish, what’s not selfish?

Here John’s doctoral study offered him the opportunity for personal and professional enquiry that is immediate, reflexive yet actively empirical (Taysum, 2012a). John was able to build his own narrative capital, and that of the teachers (Goodson, 2012) which underpinned working for cultural alignment in his educational organization. John’s response was similar to the responses of the US educational leaders where race and linguistic diversity was not conflated into cultural diversity. However, the other English leaders spoke about low income and culturally diversity. Henry, a former principal and consultant headteacher doing the doctorate stated that it is difficult to find good teachers ‘when you are in a London school in the middle of high cost housing with very challenging pupils’ who are low income and/or culturally diverse. John recognized that a first step towards cultural alignment in schools is to have good teachers who ‘develop self confidence and social skills … because you haven’t got a hope trying to teach children with behavioural difficulties by traditional methods’. Henry also stated that doctoral research had been important for him and gave him the skills he needed to provide convincing warrants for the claims he made. Henry states: ‘in my case there didn’t seem to be a shorter easier option for developing these skills than a four year part time EdD’. Thus Henry developed evidence informed strategies that supported developing students’ narrative capital. These strategies do not conform to traditional methods or standardized curriculums (Freire, 1972) and therefore ‘go against the grain’ (Sleeter, 2005).

Helen, a leader in England stated the doctorate had enabled her to develop skills to probe, and interrogate the evidence and be flexible rather than make evaluative assumptions based on traditions that find the other inadequate (Pring, 2007). This is what Goodson (2012) calls developing narrative capital which is essential to adapt scripts within open systems to underpin students’ learning. Helen said: ‘I’m bringing that to the children in school.’ In other words Helen is sharing the values required for building narrative capital, which enables children to participate in classroom practices (Ruddock and McIntyre, 2007), and potentially construct their own life narratives to realize dreams, achieve social mobility and increase life chances and fuller civic engagement.

These representative quotes of the English leaders’ positions reveal the doctorate has enabled them to evaluate their personal and professional narratives and construct new and more inclusionary narratives regarding cultural diversity. The focus on low income and cultural diversity may be rooted in the struggles for ‘Education For All in the 1950s and 1960s’ (Jones, 2010). However, the problem of forms of segregation for students of low income and cultural diversity persists today. Leaders articulate that their doctorates enabled them to develop narrative capital (Goodson, 2012) that underpinned the strategies and the building of collaborative networks to steer their organizations towards shared core values, such as trust, respect, celebration of diversity and cultural alignment. The organization members were therefore building their narrative capital that enables students’ authentic learning for career and life trajectories to be constructed in open systems (Goodson, 2012). The leaders have achieved this by working collaboratively together with members of their organization. Transformative leadership of this kind agrees with MacBeath (2009) argument that networks are important because they enable individuals to spend sufficient time together as a reflection of a new culture.

There was one exception to the findings. Angela, a principal from England had just started the doctorate and did not mention working towards cultural alignment. The leader stated she was working with and wanted to research:

eight heads involved in a network learning community and how networks had actually really empowered people within their own individual organizations.

The leader stated: ‘It’s far too early days really (to say if doctoral study has influenced her) and if you came back and ask me that in a couple of years maybe I could answer that.’

Conclusion

The findings reveal that leaders recognized that culture was important to their organizations. Doctoral study enabled the leaders to evaluate their personal and professional narratives and to focus on the inner life and the emotional relational dimension of their narratives, and their alignment with those of the members of their organizations. Thus, the leaders built their own narrative capital that enabled them to critique, probe, interrogate and respond reflexively in the construction and (re)formation of their professional and personal identity and life narratives (Goodson, 2012). Using their doctoral research that is reflexive and actively empirical (Taysum, 2012a) and their narrative capital (Goodson, 2012), they were able to develop evidence informed strategies and networks to enable people to spend enough time together to reflect on shared values (MacBeath, 2009). The ongoing day by day interrogation of issues of segregation is important but only when accompanied with the commitment to addressing issues of segregation as they emerge. Mainstreaming diversity in this way enabled deep cultural work to take place (Coleman, 2012; Lumby, 2012). The focus was on understanding the self and self-interests, in balance with the interests of the other (Kohlberg, 1981). This is evaluation that starts with the self and moves beyond descriptive narrative scripts that evaluate other cultures and find them inadequate (Pring, 2007).

The leaders who steered their organizations towards cultural alignment in the USA and one English leader, who was the principal of an urban school with a majority ‘Not white’ population, focused on students with LI/RCLD. The English leaders on the other hand focused on low income and cultural diversity. I have looked to the wider historical context to theorize this. I have argued that in the USA in the 1950s and 1960s education segregation was by race and linguistic diversity that tied in closely with low income and cultural diversity. However, in England education segregation was based on low income and cultural diversity with a sharp focus on ‘types of mind’ through the tripartite system (Jones, 2010). Both the US and English systems put legislation and/or policies in place in the 1960s to end the respective forms of segregation. However, the evidence reveals that there are still forms of organizational segregation that are replicated where dominant cultures and hegemonic controls marginalize other cultures.

The findings demonstrate that conflating LI/RCLD, and I would cautiously suggest ageism, gender, LGBT and those recognized as having special education needs, into low income and/or cultural diversity may lead to overlooking forms of diversity and segregation. Thus building narrative capacity (Goodsoon, 2012) needs to be deep work that does not conflate elements of diversity. Therefore cultural alignment needs to have the hallmarks of trust, respect, learning to agree to disagree and celebration of cultural diversity, which may lead to constructing narratives in open systems for fuller economic and cultural civic engagement.

Further research is required into the purposes of the doctorate as perceived by the programme leaders and the educational leaders/students to try to understand the role of the doctorate in developing leaders as agents of change. Further research is also needed into the kinds of pedagogies in doctoral study that facilitate the leaders to orientate their organizations towards cultural alignment. Research is also required that explores how networks built by leaders for participation in processes and practices for cultural alignment are described and understood by the leaders, the educational professionals and the students (Ruddock and McIntyre, 2007). It would also be useful to research the ‘narrative capital’ of constituent member groups on entry to the school community, and how leadership interventions might be explored using methodologies associated with practitioner enquiry or action research. I am currently piloting a research project with an international team of researchers from sixteen different nation states that examines multiple perceptions of participation. However, I agree with Levin (2004) that research by itself will not convince people to transform long-standing power relationships that may be embedded in mono-cultural principles and policies. Research conducted in partnership between the academy, educational leaders, educational professionals and students may play a significant role in changing how people view the self in relation with the other, and therefore may transform potential evaluative cultures that segregate, to community cultural alignment that underpins authentic learning for civic engagement.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the University of Leicester for a study leave period that enabled me to write this article, and the University of Leicester Educational Leadership, Learning and Change Special Interest Group for feedback on an earlier draft of this article. I would also like to thank Professor Tony Bush, Editor of the journal for encouraging me to write, and the anonymous referees who gave me insightful feedback that enabled me to develop the article. Particular thanks go to those who participated and supported this research.

Notes

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