Teacher Teams and Distributed Leadership: A Study of Group Discourse and Collaboration
Item
Title
Teacher Teams and Distributed Leadership: A Study of Group Discourse and Collaboration
Abstract/Description
Purpose:This article explores distributed leadership as it relates to two teacher teams in one public secondary school. Both situational and social aspects of distributed leadership are foci of investigation.Methods:The qualitative study used constant comparative analysis and discourse analysis to explore leadership as a distributed phenomenon. Data from field notes and video recordings of two teacher teams during one semester were used.Findings:Three constructs emerged that informed our understanding of collaborative interaction within each professional learning team: purpose, autonomy, and patterns of discourse. Purpose and autonomy, manifest as organizational conditions, largely shape patterns of discourse that characterize the interaction of the team members. We argue that the nature of purpose and autonomy within a teacher team can influence the social distribution of leadership.Conclusions:The nature of teams in shared governance structures?the fact that teams can organize to either find or solve problems?has important implications for the creative and leadership capacity of individual teams. Thus, structures and social dynamics of distributed leadership must be attended to and not taken for granted. Implications include (a) conceptualizing leadership in terms of interaction, (b) needing to help teachers become aware of conversational dynamics that lead to or subvert effective collaboration, and (c) needing to help principals become more aware of their role in helping to establish clarity of purpose and appropriate levels of autonomy, so that teams may engage in work that leads to effective and innovative problem-finding and problem-solving activities.
Author/creator
Date
In publication
Volume
43
Issue
1
Pages
67-100
Resource type
Research/Scholarly Media
Resource status/form
Published Text
Scholarship genre
Empirical
Open access/full-text available
No
Peer reviewed
Yes
ISSN
0013-161X
Citation
Scribner, J. P., Sawyer, R. K., Watson, S. T., & Myers, V. L. (2007). Teacher Teams and Distributed Leadership: A Study of Group Discourse and Collaboration. Educational Administration Quarterly, 43(1), 67–100. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013161X06293631
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