The interactions between district-and school-based instructional leadership practices for the history subject in the Zaka district of Zimbabwe

[摘要] This study investigated the interactions between district- and school-based instructionalleadership practices for the subject of History in the Zaka district of Zimbabwe. Thepurpose of the study was to establish the nature of the relationships that exist betweendistrict- and school-based instructional leadership by exploring the research puzzle on howschools and districts interact in pursuit of instructional improvement for the subject ofHistory in Zimbabwe, what policies and structures guide the interactions and whatpractices define the interactions.Conducted against the backdrop of separate and isolated studies of district instructionalleadership on the one hand and of school instructional leadership on the other, the presentstudy sought to examine instructional leadership structures and practices at the intersectionof the two agencies of education, viz. the schools and the districts. A mixed methodsapproach was used, with a sequential explanatory research design adopted, in whichquantitative and qualitative data was gathered and presented. In the quantitative phase ofthe study, 28 History leaders responded to a questionnaire on the dominant practices ofinstructional leadership at the point of intersection by schools and districts, while in thequalitative phase, 5 purposively selected History leaders were interviewed in addition toobservations of 5 key instructional leadership events within the district. Data waspresented sequentially starting with qualitative analysis, then the observation and interviewdata, with mixing at both the analysis and synthesis stages.Unsurprisingly, the study established that most instructional leadership practices for theHistory subject in Zimbabwe's Zaka district are often limited to the traditional activities ofthe workshop type and that these practices are often narrow in scope and circumscribed interms of time-duration. More importantly, it emerged from the study that the mostunresolved issue for district- and school-based instructional leadership interactions for theimprovement of History teaching and learning lies in the coordination and control of theleadership activities for supporting teachers. There was a clear contestation between what Ihave called the 'bottom-up approach which most teacher leaders advocated, versus thedominant and current practice of 'top-down district leadership approach. Most leaders inthe Zaka district favour an increased role of the non-formal or non-positional leaders in thecoordination of instructional leadership activities.The study concludes that instructional leadership interactions at the intersection of schoolsand districts have a great potential for improving classroom practice, especially if they areinitiated and coordinated from the ground up, where contextual and locational conditionsare taken into account. The success of instructional leadership interactions at the interfaceof districts and schools is strongly dependent on the level of involvement by all leaders atboth levels, where leaders can become followers, interchangeably, at different times.On the structures of leadership, the study established that districts are rather ill-prepared tolead on instructional leadership, in part because of the lack of subject specialists at thatlevel to provide expert knowledge and skills for subject based instructional leadership andguidance. A key recommendation is for the relocation of collaborative instructionalleadership activities to the school level, in order to improve both capacity and commitmentby the practitioners. More specifically for the case study district, the recommendation isfor the district inspectorate to be reconstituted in terms of its composition in order toenhance its instructional leadership role. Subject specialisation should a key considerationfor the inspectorate. Furthermore, it is recommended that school leaders should becontinuously inducted and kept abreast on the developments in the field of subject basedinstructional leadership.Further research on the provincial structures and practices of instructional leadership isrecommended with a view to suggesting possibilities for alignment of all structures thathave a role in subject-oriented school leadership for the improvement of teaching andlearning.

[发布机构] University of the Free State