Adopting a social network approach to promote school leaders’ collaboration across a formal school partnership in England: insights from a longitudinal study

Abstract

The flow of innovation across school partnerships and the overall community is receiving increasing attention as a means to promote collaborative school improvement. School leaders have the main responsibility to diagnose the characteristics of these professional networks and mobilize knowledge across the partnership. The purpose of this study is to investigate the social role of school leaders in building social structures within, between and across school boundaries that support or constrain systemic change. To address this purpose, the study evaluates the role of Social Network Analysis (SNA) as a mechanism that can raise awareness, provide strategies to build social relationships and improve change efforts. The study consists of three phases.

The first phase (Chapter Four) utilizes a cross-sectional network questionnaire to examine the structural characteristics of 153 school leaders’ collaboration networks across a formal PLN in England. Multivariate analysis revealed an innovative model of system leadership where senior and middle leaders are formally assigned to work across the partnership to promote a shared purpose. Competition, self-efficacy, work experience and friendship positively affected the presence of school leaders’ outgoing ties. The second phase (Chapter Five) focuses on the influence of school leaders’ (N=85) engagement with network data in promoting the development of collaborative ties over time. The longitudinal analysis of three social network questionnaires revealed that collaborative interactions remained relatively sparse and followed a centralized pattern. The p2 analysis confirmed that trust, self-efficacy and site (secondary/primary phase) affect school leaders’ collaborative activity. The third phase (Chapter Six) employed a mixed-method design and investigated the brokerage roles of school leaders (N=13) across different positions in sharing resources within and beyond the school partnership. The study revealed that co-membership of the same group increases collaboration. Competitive pressures, hierarchical governance and differing school size are barriers to cross-group interactions. The research provides methodological, theoretical and conceptual insights into the social dimensions of leadership development, particularly the value of brokers and social network awareness in developing innovative school partnership structures.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Sotiria Kanavidou: orcid.org/0009-0000-6662-2185

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