Cultivating democratic citizenship education in schools :implications for educational leaders

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In this dissertation I critically explore educational leadership and management practices inrelation to how current school principals lead and manage schools in a democratic society.The aim of this study is to explore to what extent school leaders and managers aretransformative in their approach to deepening democracy in schools.In order to contextualise my understanding, I choose to tell my story. Therefore, I give anarrative account of my personal career experience as a teacher, and specifically as aschool principal. I argue that educational leaders and managers continue to think and actaccording to traditional notions of leading and managing school practices. I contend thateducational leadership and management practices ought to change in order for schools totransform into institutions implementing democratic practices in a more thoroughgoingway.I argue that current understandings of leadership and management in schools seem to beembedded in positivist tendencies that undermine transformative practices in schools andthat positivist leadership and management engender thin forms of democratic schoolpractices. I show how positivist theories of educational leadership and managementconnect with indefensible forms of leading and managing, namely skewed authority,gender discrimination and exclusion of cultural diversity. I contend that school leadershipand management practices ought to be reconceptualised in relation to a framework ofdemocratic citizenship education. Cultivating democratic citizenship education withreference to the seminal thoughts of Jürgen Habermas, Seyla Benhabib and Iris MarionYoung will hopefully strengthen my argument for social justice, renewal and redress inschool practices. These theorists have shaped the thinking and actions of educationalleaders and managers to provide a critical understanding of transformative educationalleadership and management practices in schools. Such ideas conceptualise a criticalunderstanding of deliberative leadership and management practices as constructs fordeepening democracy in schools. It is within this context that the dissertation explores a pathway towards deepeningdemocracy in schools through a deliberative leadership and management approach. Suchan approach has the potential to cultivate communicative democratic moments ineducational leadership and management practices through engaging the voices of'others. For deliberative leadership and management practice to manifest itself, I proposethat conditions ought to be established whereby the democratic rights of 'others asincorporated voices in classroom pedagogy, school management and school governanceengender deeper citizenship through the inclusion of these 'other previously marginalisedvoices. By embracing the voices of 'others, the potential is created to move towardsdeepening democratic leadership and management practices which can possiblyengender 'schools of hope for the future.Keywords: Educational leadership, educational management, positivist, critical, citizenship,deliberative democracy, communicative democracy

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University