Educational Management Administration & Leadership

Lifelong learning occupies a leading place in policy discourse, but specific measures of any substance are relatively rare. The article argues thatthis is not simply a product of political bad faith, a lack of resources, or the weak lobbying power of the relevant vested interests. It is also associated with the nature of lifelong learning as a policy issue, aggravated by changes in the nature of government. Lifelong learning is an amorphous phenomenon which relies upon the behaviour of a range of actors, and not solely or even primarily that of governments. In so far as it involves governments, unlike schools or higher education, it is diffused across a range of policy areas with different ministerial structures and interests. Shifts away from welfarist models of service provision particularly affect areas suchas lifelong learning, which are defined by the requirement for active engagement with and of citizens and other non-governmental actors. As a result, policy initiatives have usually been limited to prolongation of initial education or reform of vocational training. This has serious consequences for those involved in managing and delivering learning programmes.

The challenge of regeneration—of rebuilding urban communities by tackling the intractable collective action problems of the environment, education, transport and health—defies simple solutions. Individuals, if they are to flourish in a risk society, will need to learn throughout theirlives to develop their capabilities. In particular, the qualities of learning communities (reflexive, dialogic, cooperative) will be the condition for addressing these predicaments of our time. If this process is to be inclusive, ‘voice’ will be the distinctive capability which schools should encourage young people to acquire if all are to become active citizens in a just, learning democracy at the turn of a new century.

What role are schools to have in the establishment of a learning society? Limitations and exclusions left unexamined in much public debate about the development of lifelong learning are identified and discussed. Emerging social and economic changes are characterized in relation to their possible educational consequences. Some emerging social implications of ‘risk’ and ‘individualization’ are explored and their impact upon learning discussed. Learning, it is argued, should be construed as a ‘biographical’ project, a journey, during which the learner autonomously constructs a lifeworld. Professional commitment should be redefined in terms of an orientation to enhance learners’ self-esteem and capability to participate in communities of practice, to enrichment of sociality.

The purpose of this article is critically to evaluate the notion of professionalism in the contemporary context and to suggest a way forward which will enhance the ‘learning capability’ of institutions in whicheducational professionals work. The characteristics of what are shown to be‘new times’ will be briefly summarized and a case made for a particular reinterpretation of professionalism in the light of these new circumstances. Crucial to the practice of a new professionalism will be an emphasis in institutions on democratic collaborationas a basis for rational communication in the context of uncertainty which characterizes ‘new times’. The discussion focuses on bureaucraticconstraints on such a collaborative model and on the operation of disciplinary power(Foucault) in institutions. Reformswhich aim to foster collaborative cultures, such as the National Curriculumand the school effectiveness/school improvement movement, often conceal theextent to which disciplinary power remains dominant. Professionals need to be more sensitive towards the role of power in the construction of selves and in their understanding of their own expertise in this regard.

This article argues for a reconceptualization of leadership. Possible substitutes for leadership are reviewed along with a number of existing dualisms. These are rejected in favour of the claim that the leadership of organizations is most appropriately understood as a distributed, rather thanas a focused, phenomenon. Various attributes, dimensions and applications of distribution are then considered, and a revised approach to action and influence in organizations centred on conjointly performed activities is thenproposed. For this new formulation a summary is provided of the core concepts of, and recent developments in, activity theory. It is shown that two particular advantages of this approach include the helpful model it provides for contextual analysis—an aspect sorely neglected by the field of leadership—and its focus on the evolving division of labour in organizations, the prime mover for tracking emerging patterns of distributed leadership.

Debate about the future of local education authorities (LEAs) needs to embrace wider issues than the merits of particular management structures. How will LEAs be able to add most value in the future circumstances in which they will be operating? This article explores from first principles the issue of local educational leadership, and suggests three broad purposes to which LEAs can make a positive contribution: the provision of high-quality education, the development of a learning society and the building of capacity at institutional level. The article concludes that local educational leadership is itself essentially an educational process.

Education has become a concern bordering on an obsession in most of the industralized world. Its centrality to competitiveness, social inclusion and wellbeing are now widely recognized. But most efforts at reform still divide between efforts to boost the output of an increasingly worn institutional infrastructure, and hype-ridden strategies based on untested use of new technology. This article sets out the major challenges facing education systems, questions their fundamental purpose and then explores avenues to the reinvention of whole systems of learning and teaching.