Collaborative cultures and pedagogic leaderships: organisational, cultural constraints and the scope of opportunities

Abstract

At a time of paradigm change in educational management in terms of the political and administrative centre, in which the discourse around the autonomy of schools has made some marks on the means of schools management in Portugal, it is important to perceive each change within a coherent and integrative framework. Thus, in order to verify whether the working modes of teachers have effectively changed, we need to grasp the school culture(s) that shape the environment(s) in which teachers engage in their activities and influence the leadership and the way they go about their tasks, especially with colleagues. In order to perceive the ways in which collaboration and leadership may be deployed in the service of collaborative and reflective teachers, we adopt a naturalist research approach of a humanist-interpretative type, combining quantitative and qualitative methodologies. In order to characterise the cultures(s) of schools, we deploy a data-based process analysing descriptive statistics subjected to structural and semantic structural interpretation. Furthermore, in order to deepen some of these unique contexts and incorporating the perspectives of individual actors, we also apply a qualitative approach. After analysis of the data, we conclude that, even while noting that the majority of actors in schools display the will to engage with innovation, demonstrated through the implementation of different collaborative dynamics, such change has only taken place very slowly and remains tenuous and limited by structural restrictions, a lack of know-how and the fragmentation and balkanisation handed down by the history of the Portuguese school organisation and teaching staff socialised in a solitary and individualist professional practices.