school leadership and ethnic diversity: approaching the challenge

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This article was downloaded by: [North Dakota State University] On: 19 October 2014, At: 07:59 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Intercultural Education Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ceji20 School leadership and ethnic diversity: approaching the challenge Fred Carlo Andersen a & Eli Ottesen a a Department of Teacher Education and School Development , University of Oslo , Oslo, Norway Published online: 05 Dec 2011. To cite this article: Fred Carlo Andersen & Eli Ottesen (2011) School leadership and ethnic diversity: approaching the challenge, Intercultural Education, 22:4, 285-299, DOI: 10.1080/14675986.2011.617422 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14675986.2011.617422 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms- and-conditions

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Page 1: School leadership and ethnic diversity: approaching the challenge

This article was downloaded by: [North Dakota State University]On: 19 October 2014, At: 07:59Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Intercultural EducationPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ceji20

School leadership and ethnic diversity:approaching the challengeFred Carlo Andersen a & Eli Ottesen aa Department of Teacher Education and School Development ,University of Oslo , Oslo, NorwayPublished online: 05 Dec 2011.

To cite this article: Fred Carlo Andersen & Eli Ottesen (2011) School leadership andethnic diversity: approaching the challenge, Intercultural Education, 22:4, 285-299, DOI:10.1080/14675986.2011.617422

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14675986.2011.617422

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as tothe accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinionsand views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Contentshould not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sourcesof information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever orhowsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arisingout of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Page 2: School leadership and ethnic diversity: approaching the challenge

School leadership and ethnic diversity: approaching the challenge

Fred Carlo Andersen* and Eli Ottesen

Department of Teacher Education and School Development, University of Oslo, Oslo,Norway

In this article we explore school leaders’ responses to challenges of inclusionin two Norwegian upper secondary schools. The empirical data are interviewswith principals, deputies and social advisers in the two schools. We use mul-ticultural education and inclusive leadership as theoretical lenses in the analy-sis. The results show that while the school leaders recognised challenges ofinclusion of minority students, it did not become a driving force in theirstrategic work. Individual teachers were trusted to carry out their teachingpractices in ways that would accommodate the needs of all students. Therewere few arenas for collective learning and sharing experiences about teach-ing the students from ethnic and linguistic minorities. The study contributesto a currently weak research base about school leadership in multiculturalschools.

Keywords: school leadership; upper secondary school; ethnic and linguisticdiversity; inclusion

Introduction

Over the past decades migration has changed Norway from a predominantly mono-cultural society into an increasingly more diverse one. In 2008, students with immi-grant backgrounds constituted 10% of the total student population. As in mostWestern nations, Norwegian schools have been confronted with the challenges ofaccommodating the needs, knowledge and perspectives of students from diverselinguistic and ethnic minority backgrounds. There seems to be a tension in policiesbetween good intentions, focusing on the benefits of cultural and ethnic diversity,and accountability issues that put weight on the production of learning outcomes.Also, there is a debate both among policy-makers, professionals and the publicabout the right ways to teach diverse student populations. When policies areunclear or ambivalent, and their implications for school practice vague and subjectto continuous debate, increased responsibility is placed on the local level, and inparticular on the roles and strategies of educational leaders (Tolo and Lillejord2006; Vedøy and Møller 2007). In this article, we analyse interviews with schoolleaders and social advisers in two upper secondary schools in order to explore theirunderstanding of the challenges concerning teaching and learning in multiculturalschools and how they approach such challenges as school leaders. We will usemulticultural education and inclusive leadership as theoretical lenses for theanalysis.

*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

Intercultural EducationVol. 22, No. 4, August 2011, 285–299

ISSN 1467-5986 print/ISSN 1469-8439 online� 2011 Taylor & Francishttp://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14675986.2011.617422http://www.tandfonline.com

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Teaching and learning in multicultural schools: the role of school leaders

Giving direction, developing people’s competences and organisational (re)-designare hallmarks of successful leadership practice (Leithwood and Riehl 2005). Theseare also crucial elements for inclusive leadership (Ryan 2006). In England, Dim-mock and Walker (2005) studied leadership in schools with a substantial number ofminority students. The authors concluded that effective leaders displayed confidencethat they could make a difference in their schools, and they approached challengesin a proactive manner. But at the same time, they were realistic about what couldbe achieved. This finding resonates with a number of international studies on lead-ership and ethnic diversity (see e.g. Lipman 1998; Gronn 2002; Ryan 2003; Banks2006; Leeman 2007; Leithwood, Harris, and Hopkins 2008), and also with the Nor-wegian studies on school leadership in general (e.g. Møller 2004). However, therehas been little research in Norway focusing explicitly on leadership in ethnicallyand linguistically diverse schools.

One significant exception is Vedøy (2008). She explores leadership in multicul-tural elementary schools from a democratic leadership perspective, and her point ofdeparture is that all people are unique in one way or another. Thus difference as acore value is crucial for all work and for leadership in schools. In multiculturalschools, how to strike the right balance between consensus and diversity is a majordilemma, and its reconciliation will vary from school to school. Although equalaccess to education is legally mandated, Pihl (1998, 2001) found that exclusivepractices are quite common in Norwegian schools. Pihl (2000) also explored leader-ship dilemmas. Education in Norway is decentralised in the sense that there is alarge degree of freedom at the local level regarding the overall aims and regulationsset by the national level. Thus, a local school may set its own goals and priorities.Faced with a number of challenges, defining goals and visions for a multiculturalschool is not always prioritised. More recently, Pihl (2002, 2005) studied assess-ments made by the Pedagogical Psychological Council, which is an expert institu-tion that performs educational assessments in order to predict whether a child willbe able to follow ‘ordinary’ teaching in the future. Results from the study showedthat the pedagogical psychological counsellors failed to recognise the cultural, lin-guistic and social recourses of the minority students (Pihl 2005). Pihl concludes thatan intercultural perspective may be lacking in educational judgement. Our studyexplores school leaders’ judgement about teaching and learning as they strugglewith leadership challenges in two multicultural schools.

Multicultural education and leadership for inclusion

In this article we will use Banks’ (2004) dimensions of multicultural education asintermediate analytical tools to explore how leaders in the two schools conceptual-ise and operationalise inclusion and diversity. While Banks’ dimensions refer pri-marily to teachers’ work, we find them useful to investigate school leadership,because the core business of educational leaders is teaching and learning. Contentintegration deals with the ways in which teachers make use of examples and con-tent from a variety of cultures in the school’s curriculum. School leaders are respon-sible for local curriculum development, and propagating content integration is anaspect of this. Moreover, we will investigate if and how cultural diversity is inher-ent to the issues discussed in leadership meetings or prevalent in the leaders’ talk.

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Knowledge construction refers to the ways in which teachers help students under-stand, investigate, and determine how cultural assumptions, frames of reference,perspectives and biases in the disciplines affect the construction of knowledge(Suarez-Orozco 2003). For educational leaders, we need to investigate the ways inwhich cultural assumptions are made transparent and constitute the basis for learn-ing and reflection in leadership teams and in the interactions between leaders andteachers. Prejudice reduction deals with the ways in which teaching methods andmaterials can be used to make students aware of their attitudes towards each otherand towards ‘other’ cultures, and to promote understanding and tolerance. For lead-ers, corresponding issues could be how they contribute to the development ofawareness of signs and attitudes among themselves and among students and staff,and how to instigate means and processes to change attitudes and practices to pro-mote democratic ideals (Banks and Banks 2001; Stephan and Voght 2004). Equityeducation implies that teachers modify their teaching to facilitate academic achieve-ment for all the students. In what ways do school leaders engage in and contributeto staff development and in-service learning to help teachers modify their teachingand adapt to the needs of minority students? Finally, Banks uses the dimensionempowering school culture to describe the process of restructuring the culture andthe school organisation so that minority students will experience educational andcultural empowerment. Important characteristics in an empowering school cultureare a shared faculty commitment to improve achievement; high faculty cohesionand collaboration; and a sustained focus on identifying and solving problems(Levine and Lezotte 2001).

Central principles in Norwegian education are to promote values of respect andrecognition, and to adapt teaching to individual students’ needs. The multiculturalapproach gives us analytical concepts to investigate the ways in which the schoolleaders handle these challenges in multicultural schools. Such challenges are many-faceted, and there are numerous solutions suggested in the leadership literature,reflecting the complex nature of school leadership. In the following section, we willdiscuss a selection of leadership theories in light of the multicultural frameworkpresented above.

Leadership for inclusion

Studies on educational leadership flourish, and theories and approaches are abun-dant. Studies of the effect of educational leadership on student outcomes oftendownplay the direct effect of leaders, suggesting instead that most leadership effectsare indirect, i.e. based on their influence on teacher motivation, commitment andworking conditions (Leithwood and Jantzi 2008; Day et al. 2009). There are fewstudies that explicitly focus on how educational leaders perceive and lead multicul-tural education (McGlynn 2008); however, a few studies from the United Statesexplore challenges of racism in ethnically diverse contexts. These studies indicatethat school leaders’ failure to recognise or acknowledge systemic racism may berelated to the fact that principals tend to be conservative in their approach. This ten-dency is strengthened by the context in which school leaders work and the mannerof their socialisation (Horst and Pihl 2010). In England, Walker (2005) studied lead-ership in five schools with substantial numbers of minority students. He found thatthe principals involved were firmly dedicated to cultural difference, i.e. a belief that

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schools need to adapt in order to ensure strategies that are consistent with the cul-tural characteristics of the students (Walker 2005).

Recently, distributed leadership has been suggested as an appropriate frameworkfor understanding and designing leadership in education (Gronn 2003; Spillane,Halverson, and Diamond 2004; Harris et al. 2007). Notably, this could be labelledan inclusive approach, given that joint decision-making and staff participation arecore characteristics. However, recognising the pivotal role of distributing leadershiptasks and duties does not guarantee that the school will develop in a way that pro-motes multicultural practice. Ryan’s (2003) approach, inclusive leadership, explic-itly addresses educational leadership in multicultural contexts. School leaders are inthe position to influence processes that are integral to inclusion, such as nurturingand sustaining dialogue between and among themselves and the various constituen-cies in the school community, developing a critical consciousness in themselves andothers, institutionalising whole-school approaches to inclusion and learning, empha-sising student learning, and advocating for communal and equitable policy-making(Ryan 2003).

In such processes, school leaders need to look critically at their own practisesand encourage others to deliberate and inquire into their thoughts and actions. Also,inclusive leadership is transformative; it is about making those changes that are nec-essary for multicultural education, as well as resisting those that jeopardise inclu-sion. Finally, inclusive leadership is collective, presupposing the contribution andinvolvement of staff and stakeholders.

The study and its context

The data used in this article were collected in two upper secondary schools. Bothschools are located in a medium-sized town in south-eastern Norway, with a rapidlyincreasing immigrant population. Currently, the minority student population in eachof the schools is 11%.1 While there are upper secondary schools where the numberof minority students is much higher, in this study we wanted to do research in ‘small-scale’ multicultural schools. None of the schools could provide precise statistics ofthe linguistic or ethnic origin of their students, but in both schools the largest num-bers of minority students were from Iraq, Kurdistan, Iran, Somalia and Albania. Lia2

upper secondary school offers mainly academic study programmes. There are about1000 students in the school, and a total of 150 staff. The school’s senior leadershipteam includes the principal, an assistant principal and five deputy head teachers, allof Norwegian origin. Fossen upper secondary school offers mainly vocational educa-tion programmes. There are between 1200 and 1300 students and approximately 300staff. The school’s senior leadership team comprises a head teacher, one assistanthead teacher and nine deputy head teachers, all of Scandinavian origin.

A period of ethnographic fieldwork preceded the development of semi-structuredinterviews. At Lia, we conducted individual interviews with the principal, one deputy,one teacher, a social adviser and one student, and at Fossen we interviewed the princi-pal, one deputy and the social adviser. At both schools we conducted group interviewswith deputies, six at Lia and nine at Fossen. For this article we have analysed thegroup interviews and the individual interviews with the deputies and social advisers.

The interviews were audio-recorded and analysed to identify common themesand issues, and for differences between the two schools. Images of the two schoolswere constructed. Based on multicultural education (Banks 2009), analytical

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concepts were developed to further refine the images. A back-and-forth movementbetween theory and data (abduction) allowed us to construct representations of chal-lenges and approaches to challenges in the two schools.

Results

Based on the analysis of the interviews, we use the following dimensions to struc-ture the presentation of the results of the study: cultural diversity and leadership,cultural assumptions and leadership, prejudice and leadership, adapted teaching andleadership and empowerment and leadership.

Content integration: cultural diversity and leadership

At Lia, the school leaders recognise the importance of integrating examples andcontent that reflects the students’ ethnic origin, histories and experiences in thecurriculum. However, in the school, the local curriculum development work doesnot reflect this intention. In teachers’ and school leaders’ discussions, curricularissues related to inclusion and equity are rare. Although the school leadersemphasise the need to put topics specifically concerned with minority students onthe agenda and recognise the positive effect it could have on the school’s devel-opment of a vision concerning multicultural education, they have not yet priori-tised this work. They assume that the teachers use examples and content from avariety of cultures in their teaching, but there are no routines to monitor, followup on or systematically support this. Also, the topic of multicultural educationhas not been on the agenda in whole-school meetings, staff development meetingsor senior leadership team meetings. Thus, the school’s leaders do not have a com-mon approach. The leadership strategy (for a few of the leaders) seems to be tomention such issues as often as possible, and always at the beginning of theschool year.

At Fossen, we find a paradoxical view among the school leaders. On the one hand,they display high levels of consciousness regarding the importance of ethnically rele-vant curriculum, and on the other hand, they do not see it as relevant for teaching andlearning in upper secondary schools. As at Lia, there are no common strategies andapproaches. The following interview with one of the deputies is illustrative:

Excerpt 1

Interviewer: Do teachers use examples and content from different cultures and groupsto illustrate important concepts, principles, generalisations and theories insubject areas?

Deputy: In the math books.Interviewer: So the textbooks play a role in that respect?Deputy: Yes, and I have to say, frankly speaking, what you talk about; they should

have had before they started here. We are a school which is supposed toprepare them for a job. They ought to be finished with elementary schoolcurriculum before they start here. And what you are pointing at nowshould also be part of the preparatory, because I do not think that is ourtask. It is too late for that.

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According to this deputy, a multicultural curriculum approach may be important,but it is not something for which upper secondary schools should be responsible.Also, the school’s textbooks give sufficient attention to this dimension. The purposeof (vocational) upper secondary schools is to prepare students for their future worklife. In contrast, the principal emphasises that minority students’ backgroundsshould play an important role in curriculum planning, both with regard to culturalbackground and the students’ experiences. Importantly, whether or not content inte-gration is practised in the school’s curriculum planning seems to be an issue to bedecided upon individually by the teachers, and there are no support structures ormonitoring of teachers’ practises.

Comparing the approaches to content integration in the two schools, we find thatneither has developed a common leadership strategy to content integration. Also, atboth schools there are leaders who value and have an implicit understanding of itsimportance. However, when there is no discussion among the staff or senior leader-ship teams and no monitoring of practice, curriculum planning remains the responsi-bility of individual teachers. We can assume that as with the leaders, there will bedivergent practices among the teachers.

Cultural assumptions and leadership

In this section, we focus on the ways in which cultural assumptions are made trans-parent to constitute a basis for learning and reflection in the leadership teams and inthe interactions between leaders and teachers.

At Lia, the assistant principal displays a proactive approach:

Excerpt 2

We live in a globalised, international community, and we ought to think about the factthat actions taken on the local level will have effects on the international level. Wehave to take into consideration that Norwegians also will take jobs abroad.

Lia has an introductory group for students with low proficiency in Norwegian, andthese students had indicated to the school leaders that they were very content withthis arrangement because it allowed them to ask more questions. This could be anindication that difference is not appreciated in ‘normal’ classes in the school. Theschool organises an annual ‘Multicultural Day’. At this event the minority studentsbring food, dress in their national costumes and dance folk dances, and the studentspresent posters illustrating characteristics of the students’ countries of origin: politi-cal systems, history and traditions. However, the school leaders are aware that thearrangement may have a limited effect on inclusion and interaction between minor-ity and majority students. Such arrangements may serve to replace a true multicul-tural approach to knowledge construction.

At Lia, cultural assumptions, frames of reference, perspectives and biases associ-ated with subject areas, that may influence knowledge construction, are seldom dis-cussed broadly among the teachers or school leaders. A few years ago, one of thedeputy heads, in cooperation with one of the minority students, initiated studentmeetings and discussion groups, where such issues as integration and culture wereput on the agenda. However, when the student completed school, the meetingscame to an end, and no follow-up occurred. The social adviser at Lia assumes thatteachers acknowledge the advantage of teaching school subjects such as history

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from different cultural perspectives, which in turn may influence the majority stu-dents’ biases and assumptions.

At Fossen, there are few indications of multicultural approaches to knowledgeconstruction. In the Programme for Restaurant and Food Processing, they arrangean international week, where students from different countries include food fromtheir country of origin on the menu. But overall, the school expects minority stu-dents to be able and willing to adapt to an already established school system. Forexample, one of the deputies states that he expects that all students in upper sec-ondary school ‘are able to understand what is going on in that school’. However,at Fossen there is also a genuine concern for the students’ futures. One of thedeputies says, ‘We are supposed to prepare the students for work life. As long asthey are not able to read, and when they do not know how to be on time forclasses, I commit a mistake if I do not tell them what is expected from them asemployers’. Minority students need proper education, ‘perhaps an exam in culturalunderstanding and respect for Norwegian society’. The school’s focus on employ-ability may undermine the need for multicultural approaches to knowledgeconstruction.

At Fossen, there are no common approaches to the role of multiculturalapproaches to knowledge construction, and no discussions among staff or the seniorleadership team attending to such issues. The social adviser at one time had a par-ticular responsibility for developing and organising the education of minority stu-dents. However, she did not receive any support from the leadership team and hasnow become less involved in this work.

The school leaders in the two schools are not particularly dedicated to multicul-tural approaches to knowledge construction. Arrangements such as the MulticulturalDay at Lia and the international week at Fossen are superficial events that have lit-tle impact on regular teaching activities.

Prejudice reduction and leadership

In this section, we focus on the practices that enable minority students to interactand support the development of inclusive and democratic attitudes.

At Lia, the school leaders consider the lack of social interaction betweenminority and majority students as the main challenge. For example, a largenumber of minority students refuse to spend time with majority students in thecanteen, and majority students hesitate or resist joining teams with minority stu-dents in physical education classes. One of the deputies notes that there maybe exclusive patterns among majority students; still prejudice is not perceivedto be a problem, even when confronted with actions that are clearly prejudicial.For instance, the principal did not consider a poster with racist content a matterof concern that needed to be attended to.3 His argument was that by raisingthe issue, he would probably make the case worse by bringing racism to thefore.

In the interviews, the school leaders emphasised the need for strategies in orderto overcome the segregation and lack of contact between minority and majority stu-dents. The social adviser notices that the minority students often have difficultiesidentifying with and participating in students’ social activities outside school. How-ever, although they recognise the challenges, the school leaders do not frame this asan issue related to unequal status among the students or to prejudice.

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At Fossen, the school leaders praise their inclusive environment amongst bothstaff and students, and say that there are no indications of prejudice or bullying.One of the deputies reports that there may be some negative attitudes towardsminority students among some of the teachers, but hastens to affirm that the generalattitude is one of extensive tolerance. He explains that it is due to the tradition in ahigh school with predominantly vocational educational programmes, where studentsoften have more difficulties compared to the students in academic programmes. Theschool used to have problems with the behaviour of minority students, but accord-ing to one deputy this belongs to the past, and it was the behaviour of certain stu-dents that may have created the problems at the time, since Norway is not a racistsociety: ‘(. . .) I can see that some [minority students] create racism because of theirbehaviour’.

Although the school leaders in neither school see any reason to take any particu-lar precautions to prevent prejudice or racism, there were indications of prejudice,both among students at Lia and among the staff at Fossen.

Equity education and leadership

Equity education assumes that teachers modify their teaching practices to supportthe academic achievement of all students (Banks 2006). In this section, we focus onthe school leaders’ strategies for engaging in and contributing to staff developmentand in-service learning that aims to help teachers modify and adapt their teachingto the needs of minority students.

At Lia, the social adviser thinks that most teachers would not support the ideaof modifying their teaching to meet the needs of minority students, since theyexpect them to be highly motivated and capable once they are in upper secondary.She also has the impression that some of the teachers are reluctant to have minoritystudents in their groups. Thus, for these teachers, there seems to be recognition ofthe need for adapted teaching, while there is willingness to accommodate the need.The special needs coordinator emphasises that the willingness to work with adaptedteaching varies among the teachers, and the assistant principal sees adapted educa-tion as an area with great potential for improvement. One strategy is to offer specialcourses for minority students, and Lia offers additional instruction in Norwegianand English in segregated groups. Also, the main purpose of the school’s introduc-tion group is to ensure equity by preparing students for the ordinary programmesafter one year. The teachers in this group are offered courses to increase their skillsand knowledge with regard to multicultural education.

At Fossen, one of the deputies explicitly emphasises that the teachers do notadjust the manner in which they approach minority and majority students in theirplanning and teaching. Teaching should always be adapted to student needs, regard-less of origin, ‘whether someone comes from Bergen4 or Somalia’. When they orga-nise groups for extra support in Norwegian and English, these include majority aswell as minority students. ‘There are several majority students who also lack suffi-cient resources’, says one of the deputies. Thus, the school does not differentiatebetween the specific needs of minority students and general support for studentswith learning difficulties. But according to the social adviser, many minority stu-dents need specific support, and that this tackled in the way the school organises itsteaching. In the group interview, the deputies were asked how the school respondsto linguistic and ethnic diversity.

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Excerpt 3

Deputy 1: (. . .) we do not differentiate between minority and majority students.

Deputy 2: No, we don’t.

Deputy 1: We try to handle it all in one way.

Deputy 3: (. . .), we try to handle it all in one way, and there are many Norwegianswho do not bring much with them, and who can join the minority students.It is important not to separate the minority students as a group, but insteadintegrate them into an ordinary group.

(. . .)

Deputy: It is of no relevance what your name is, or what your background is. Ithink the risk of stigmatising is much higher if we put the minority studentsin separate groups. A student is a student.

However, one of the deputies suggests one area in which minority students havedistinct needs: ‘perhaps [they need] an exam in cultural understanding and respectfor Norwegian society’.

There is no systematic work in the area of multicultural education. The socialadviser states that the backgrounds of minority students are not acknowledged:‘This is a Norwegian school, and here you are a Norwegian student’. She disagreeswith this approach, and believes that the school should work to develop policiesand strategies to offer minority students a better education. She also notes that thoseteachers with additional training in multicultural education and Norwegian as a sec-ond language are seldom consulted by colleagues.

At Lia, minority students are taught in segregated groups in Norwegian andEnglish. The school leaders at Lia acknowledged the need to differentiate teachingstrategies with regard to some of the minority students, and they recognised that upuntil now, there had not been enough emphasis on equity education. Fossen hadchosen a different approach, and according to the school leaders, the students pre-ferred integrated groups. Teaching for equity does not have one ‘right’ solution. Atboth schools the interviewed leaders expressed concern for the right to good andadapted education for minority students. However, this seemed to be framed asquestions of how to organise additional support, and apart from the social adviserat Fossen, they did not question the role of teaching in ordinary classes.

Empowerment and leadership

In this section, we focus on the ways in which the school affords opportunities forcollective planning and instruction, and whether teachers and parents have a sharedresponsibility for school governance.

At Lia, the school leaders displayed differing opinions about empowerment.One deputy says that the school pays sufficient attention to adapted teaching forminority students, and that the school regularly informs teachers about strategies forteaching minority students. On the other hand, another deputy indicates a lack ofroutine for documentation, and that as leaders they do not act to raise the teachers’consciousness about the minority students’ specific needs. According to the princi-pal, it is up to each individual teacher to handle the students’ socialisation and orga-nise the work in their classrooms. Thus, while individual teachers are empowered(i.e. they are entrusted with the professional responsibility to make the necessary

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adjustments in their practices), there is an empowering culture at Lia. Only theteachers of the introductory group seem to collaborate systematically, but at the timeof the interviews, those teachers had no contact with the formal leaders.5 Theschool leaders agree that more effort is needed in order to involve minority stu-dents’ parents, but it is difficult to make them come to parent meetings.

The social adviser takes part in some meetings in the senior leadership team,where she contributes information specifically regarding the minority students. Also,the teachers may contact the social adviser and vice versa for consultation or dis-cussion. But on the whole, there are few opportunities for collective learning andknowledge development both among the leaders and the staff. However, one of thedeputies is clear about the responsibility of school leaders: ‘I believe that a schoolleader has to push people in the right direction in order to achieve change. Veryfew teachers take initiative to approach teaching in new ways’.

At Fossen, the school leaders are confident that the school is capable of dealingwith issues related to minority students when they arise. They spend much time inmeetings discussing ‘all the problems that arise with regard to the minority students,and not pedagogical issues’. Such discussions arise when there is an incident, whichhappens quite often, according to one deputy. The school looks for quick solutionsand responds immediately when something occurs. But discussions about pedagogi-cal issues are general, and seldom address multicultural education.

Summary of results

The analysis shows that both the schools approach multicultural education in animplicit manner. There is little evidence of discourses of cultural diversity or inclu-sion embedded in leadership talk or practice. We do, however, see indications at Liaof a budding consciousness with regard to the need for diversity to be propagated inthe school’s local plans. There is also a slightly stronger focus on the need to inves-tigate how cultural assumptions are made transparent to constitute a basis for learn-ing and reflection at Lia. The school leaders at neither school seem concerned aboutprejudice reduction, as they do not experience prejudice in their schools. The twoschools have different approaches to support Norwegian and English for minoritystudents. This was based on implicit beliefs about what benefits the students. Bothschools offer little support for collective learning activities for teachers. How multi-cultural education is understood and practised is up to individual teachers.

Leadership implications

School leaders in multicultural schools face considerable challenges. Educationalpolicies in Norway state that it is the responsibility of the school’s principal toassure that in the school’s practice, cultural and ethnical diversity is conventional,not exceptional (Kunnskapsdepartementet 2007). However, in the two schools wehave studied, there seems to be a gap between policy intentions and practice inschools. Also, there is considerable controversy both among policy-makers,researchers and practitioners about how best the schools can contribute to academicsuccess for minority students (Rydland 2007). It is up to local schools to balancedilemmas of unity and diversity, community and individualisation, and general andparticular strategies for inclusion (Nilsen 2010). In these balancing acts, schoolleaders need to take into consideration the relationships between the school’s actors,

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the distribution of roles and responsibilities, and the goals set for the organisation.Based on the results of our study, we will discuss the implications for leadership inmulticultural schools.

Integrating familiar cultural content

In the senior leadership teams at Lia and Fossen, minority students’ learning is onlyoccasionally a topic. By and large, students in the two schools are expected to con-form to the ‘ordinary’ teaching approaches, and special measures are taken only forstudents who do not sufficiently master the Norwegian language. Although the newnational curricula allow for local adaption in order to meet the needs and experi-ences of the students (Kunnskapsdepartementet 2006), this does not seem to affectthe schools’ strategies for local curriculum development. One aspect of curriculumdevelopment could be to integrate texts and examples with cultural content that thestudents are familiar with. A more radical approach would be to challenge main-stream Western academic knowledge (Banks 1995). Young students from ethnicminorities are likely to feel alienated when confronted with Eurocentric explanationsand concepts. Also, such approaches may impede on all students’ opportunities toacquire understanding of our common history, society and cultures.

A central challenge for school leaders is thus to exploit the freedom of actiongranted through national policies in a way that attends to both the need for commonacademic and cultural frames of reference, and for local and individual adaptation(cf. Nilsen 2010).

Exploring current practice

Research has found that Norwegian principals engage in classroom practices to avery limited extent (Møller and Paulsen 2001; Vibe, Aamodt, and Carlsten 2009).This concurs with the findings from Lia and Fossen. While the school leaders inboth schools express concern with student learning and the schools’ academicresults, classroom practice is only occasionally discussed or investigated by thesenior management team. In order to develop an inclusive school there is a need todevelop critical consciousness to be able to break out of the usual patterns of prac-tice. Critical conversations may help school communities acknowledge, recognise,critique and change the invisible practices that may impede inclusion. The results ofthis study suggest that the school leaders are not dedicated to the recognition of‘cultural difference’ (cf. Banks 1994). Rather, they focus on cultural deficit; it is theculture of the student that constitutes a problem, not the culture of the school. Whatmay be needed are purposeful strategies that push the staff to look beneath theobvious and develop a quest for social justice to be reflected across the school. Thiscan be achieved through critical conversations addressing questions related topower, such as what counts as knowledge, and who decides what counts. How isknowledge transmitted, and who has access? How do the school practices accom-modate to and help develop the interests, skills, knowledge and understanding ofminority students? Educational leaders can contribute to the students’ learning byfocusing on minority students’ learning conditions and putting inclusive practiceson the agenda for the whole school. Also, a critical examination of the school cul-ture and systematically monitoring and sharing classroom practices can serve asmeans to counteract exclusion.

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Counteract exclusive practice

Research indicates that school leaders are reluctant to acknowledge racism intheir schools (Ryan 2003). The preferred strategy is to embrace and practiceinclusion individually. In Fossen and Lia, few measures are taken in order touncover the structural basis for prejudice and discrimination. People need stimu-lus to prompt them out of their comfort zones, and proponents of inclusionshould induce a degree of cognitive dissonance that may cause others to ques-tion the current state of affairs and look for new and better ways of attendingto the needs of minority students. School leaders have a particular responsibilityto advocate inclusive ideas and practices. Leadership enactment with a sense ofurgency is required.

Exclusive practices have several faces. The more obvious ones are for instancebullying and lack of respect or involvement. However, in a broader sense, exclusionis institutional, and may be understood as the ways in which schools perpetuatesocial injustice by providing access to education rather than equitable education.Inclusion, then, is about acting on the apparent instances of exclusionary practices,but also about actively combating exclusive school cultures and structures in never-ending school development processes (Ainscow, Booth, and Dsyon 2006). The basisof such work may be for the senior leadership team and for the staff to explore ques-tions like: in which situations do students experience inclusion? In which situationsmay students experience exclusion? In which situations may students experience dis-crimination? How can the school develop and share inclusive values?

Leadership for learning

Inclusion is best served in schools that emphasise student learning and teachingpractice and that strive to improve the capacities and commitment of both schoolleaders and teachers (Ryan 2006). In successful schools, the leaders display con-cern, engagement and commitment to individual students’ learning processes (Rob-inson et al. 2008; Møller et al. 2009). Both space and time are needed for theschool leaders and teachers to explore collectively and critically the school’s teach-ing and learning practices. This calls for leadership strategies that develop theschool as a learning community with a focus on multicultural education in order toensure learning for all. School leaders in large secondary schools cannot beexpected to engage extensively in individual teachers’ work. Effective school lead-ership must be built on trust, but educational enterprise will not be powerful if stu-dents, teachers, parents and administrators do not share inclusive values. Buildingcapacity and developing collective commitment to inclusive teaching and learningpractices must thus be highly prioritised. While our data from Fossen and Lia pro-vided few examples of collective planning and learning for school leaders or staff,investment in professional learning and development may be crucial for schools tobe able to meet the needs of a rapidly changing student population. School visionstatements need to be grounded not only in the views of management or powerfulindividuals and groups, but in all segments of the school community.

Conclusion

The implications outlined above do not comprise an exhaustive list of leadershiprecipes. There are no simple recipes for successful leadership in multicultural

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schools. Each school operates in a different context and must find its own way for-ward. A first step may be to develop a shared vision, based on inclusive values,critical explorations of the school’s practice, and substantial knowledge about multi-cultural education. Results from this study indicate that in these two schools thereis a need for the school leaders to initiate and direct developing strategies aimingfor social justice. Also, school leaders and staff need to critically explore the schoolpractices concerning inclusive practices, and to adopt collaborative approaches toprofessional learning. The leaders at Fossen and Lia appeared to be committed andcaring. However, in order to fulfil the schools’ good intentions, there is a need todeepen the consciousness about the significance of minority students’ ethnic andlinguistic background for learning and inclusion. This is a precondition for equitablelearning for all students.

Our work has offered insights into the complexity of leadership in two multicul-tural schools. Our findings build on the views and opinions of school leaders. Futureresearch should explore the practices of leaders in multicultural schools, e.g. based onethnographic data. Also, the student voice is absent in our study. An interesting line ofresearch could be to interview students or conduct classroom research.

Notes1. There are 423,000 immigrants and 86,000 Norwegian-born persons with immigrant par-

ents living in Norway. Together these two groups represent 10.6% of Norway’s popula-tion (http://www.ssb.no/english/subjects/00/00/10/innvandring_en/).

2. The schools’ names are pseudonyms for the sake of confidentiality.3. Someone had placed a poster on the wall with the text: ‘Muslim football team meet in

the shelter room’. In Norwegian, a shelter room is called a ‘bomb room’ (bomberom).4. The second largest town in Norway, situated on the west coast, and also the home town

of composer and pianist Edvard Grieg (1843–1907).5. For the next school year, this will be changed by establishing regular meetings between

contact/coordinating teachers for the introductory group and one of the deputies.

Notes on contributorsFred Carlo Andersen is university lecturer in the Department of Teacher Education andSchool research at the University of Oslo, Norway. His research interests are schoolleadership and teaching and learning in multicultural schools. His publications include:Ledelse av mangfold, Utdanningsledelse (2006); Skoleledelse og språklig og etniskmangfold, Rektor som leder og sjef – om styring, ledelse og kunnskapsutvikling i skolen(2011).

Eli Ottesen is an associate professor in Department of Teacher Education and SchoolDevelopment at University of Oslo. Her professional interests are in the areas of workplacelearning in schools, educational administration and leadership. Her publications include:Teachers “in the making”: Building accounts of teaching, Teaching and Teacher Education(2007); Reflection in teacher education, Reflective Practice (2007); Talk in practice. Analysingstudent teachers’ and mentors’ discourse in internship: Det utdanningsvitenskapelige fakultet,Series of dissertations submitted to the Faculty of Education, University of Oslo (2006).

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