Complex Adaptive Schools: Educational Leadership and School Change

Authors

  • Brad Kershner Boston College
  • Patrick J McQuillan Boston College

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.29173/cmplct23029

Abstract

This paper utilizes the theoretical framework of complexity theory to compare and contrast leadership and educational change in two urban schools. Drawing on the notion of a complex adaptive system—an interdependent network of interacting elements that learns and evolves in adapting to an ever-shifting context—our case studies seek to reveal the complexities, tensions, characteristics, and related implications for school leadership derived from using this heuristic to understand adaptive change. In particular, we highlight the need to disrupt the status quo as a precursor to adaptive change, the power generated by distributing authority through decentralized networks, the importance of relational trust, and the impact of school culture.

Author Biographies

Brad Kershner, Boston College

Brad Kershner, a school leader and educational researcher, has an A.M. from the University of Chicago and is a doctoral candidate at the Lynch School of Education at Boston College. He also serves as the Primary School Director at Conservatory Lab Charter School in Boston, MA. His current research focuses on school leadership in the context of educational reform, and he is particularly interested in forms of administrative resistance to test-based accountability.

Patrick J McQuillan, Boston College

Patrick McQuillan, an Associate Professor in the Lynch School of Education at Boston College, has a Ph. D. in cultural anthropology from Brown University. He teaches courses on curriculum theory as well as seminars on qualitative research.  His current research focuses on school reform, with an emphasis on the role of the prinicpal in transforming urban schools.  His publications include Reform and Resistance in Schools and Classrooms: An Ethnographic View of the Coalition of Essential Schools (Yale University Press, 1996; co-authored with Donna Muncey) and Educational Opportunity in an Urban American High School: A Cultural Analysis (SUNY Press, 1998).

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Published

2016-05-18

Issue

Section

Research Articles