Leading against the odds

School Leadership & Management Formerly School Organisation

ISSN: 1363-2434 (Print) 1364-2626 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cslm20

Leading against the odds Alma Harris & Michelle Jones To cite this article: Alma Harris & Michelle Jones (2018) Leading against the odds, School Leadership & Management, 38:1, 1-3, DOI: 10.1080/13632434.2018.1399957 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/13632434.2018.1399957

Published online: 15 Jan 2018.

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SCHOOL LEADERSHIP & MANAGEMENT, 2018 VOL. 38, NO. 1, 1–3 https://doi.org/10.1080/13632434.2018.1399957

EDITORIAL

Leading against the odds In many education systems, closing the poverty and attainment gap remains a top policy priority. In other education systems, breaking the powerful link between poverty and underachievement remains a very challenging prospect. The effects of poverty on academic, social, and emotional health are clearly documented and well established (Whitty and Anders 2017). Levels of poverty and degrees of inequity, within a country, acutely affect educational performance and outcomes. One profound consequence of growing up in a disadvantaged household, for example, is successive, non-attendance at school. For millions of children living in poverty, attending school is simply not an option.1 Living in poverty means that it much more often the case that children work to provide extra income for their families and more frequently look after younger siblings instead of attending school. In this way, poverty significantly determines participation in schooling and in turn, subsequently affects educational achievement and attainment. A recent OECD report on child well-being acknowledged how socio-economic background affects the quality and quantity of child–parent interaction and in turn, their educational attainment (Durand 2015). The report underlines that socio-economic status (SES) can perpetuate differences in the acquisition of vocabulary. For example, the report notes that 18-month old children, from wealthier families, recognise a far wider range of words than children from lower SES families (Fernald, Marchman, and Weisleder 2013). This clearly has profound implications for their engagement with early years education and subsequent levels of reading proficiency. Even though policy makers may go to great lengths to ensure that they appeal to extant values that include equality, social justice, and fairness there remains huge variations in wealth distribution and differential levels of equality. Inequity and inequality directly affects the life chances of young people who are born into extreme disadvantage. Hofstede’s Power Distance Dimension (PDI) has captured differences in perceived inequalities across different countries and it reflects the degree to which a culture is comfortable with power inequities.2 The higher the PDI number the greater the power distance meaning that members of a culture expect and accept that power is distributed unequally. At the top of the power distance index is Malaysia with an index of 104 followed by the Philippines (94), China (80) Indonesia (78) and India (77). In contrast, the United States (40) Canada (39) and Great Britain (35) score significantly lower (Schweitzer and Alexander 2015, 6). The inconvenient truth is that inequality and inequity are not only hard wired into many education systems but are also exploited and in some cases, actively maintained (Harris and Jones 2017). Such inequities play out in different ways that directly affect educational performance and outcomes. For example, more affluent young people can quite simply purchase additional tutoring and obtain a comparative advantage (Bray and Lykins 2012). In Singapore,3 South Korea,4 and Hong Kong,5 the private tutoring system is highly profitable as young people, in many parts of Asia, strive to achieve in ways that are culturally expected. © 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

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EDITORIAL

Without question, economic and social inequities remain potent and pervasive influences on education achievement and attainment. For school leaders in areas of high deprivation, the daily challenge is to try and alleviate some of the more negative influences that the weight of poverty brings through the school gates. Family problems follow children into the classroom and for teachers, these problems often are detrimental to teaching and learning. For school leaders, the daily decisions about the well-being, safety and care of children can be relentless and often very distressing. School leaders are in the front line, often making incredibly hard choices that will directly affect children and their families. It remains the case, however, that despite such challenges and difficulties, many schools in the most disadvantaged circumstances continue to succeed against the odds. There is a wealth of research evidence which shows how young people facing hardship and family difficulties achieve in school and move onto promising careers. The stubborn bond between disadvantage and underachievement can be broken but this is only secured through the sheer determination and dedication of educators who quite simply, care. For so many young people living in poverty, school is their only hope of feeling valued and nurtured. Increasingly, children are coming into schools in need of mental health support and specialist care.6 The job of school leaders and teachers has never been tougher or more important. The evidence shows that there are schools everywhere that are succeeding against the odds and there is now a great deal of evidence about practical ways of narrowing the attainment gap.7 The good news is that there is a clear policy spotlight in many countries on equity issues and the introduction of the pupil premium in England8 has demonstrated that extra funding, if allocated properly, can make a difference to pupils coming from the most disadvantaged backgrounds. Schools, however, cannot tackle the net results of poverty alone. Multi-agency working is critical if some of the more complex issues, that so many children face, are to be dealt with properly. Collaboration among different professional groups is essential, if the diverse challenges facing families are to be addressed. Teachers and school leaders can only do so much. This is true. But what they do makes such a difference to the lives and life chances of young people, often in the most difficult of circumstances. This first edition of SLAM in 2018 commences with articles that look at the challenges of improving schools in disadvantage and the potential of school turnaround in such contexts. As 2018 begins, acute poverty remains a major challenge facing schools, families, and communities, in so many countries. Yet the commitment, care, and compassion shown by educators everywhere continues to be a potent and a major force for good.

Notes 1. http://www.unesco.org/education/efa/global_co/policy_group/children_out_of_ school.pdf. 2. http://www.geerthofstede.nl/. 3. http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/super-tutors-who-earn-at-least-1m-a-year. 4. https://www.ft.com/content/c0b611fc-dab5-11e3-9a27-00144feabdc0?mhq5j=e7. 5. http://uk.businessinsider.com/hong-kong-tutors-can-make-millions-of-dollars-2015-10. 6. https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/a-to-z/c/children-and-young-people. 7. https://www.york.ac.uk/media/iee/documents/Closing%20the%20Gap.pdf; https://www. nfer.ac.uk/publications/lng02.

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8. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/pupil-premium-information-for-schools-and-alternativeprovision-settings.

References Bray, M., and C. Linkins. 2012. Shadow Education: Private Supplementary Turoring and its Implications for Policy Makers in Asia. CERC Monograph Series in Comparative and International Educational Development No 9. Durand, M. 2015. “The OECD Better Life Initiative: How’s Life? and the Measurement of Well-Being.” Review of Income and Wealth 61: 4–17. doi:10.1111/roiw.12156. Fernald, A., V. A. Marchman, and A. Weisleder. 2013. “SES Differences in Language Processing Skill and Vocabulary are Evident at 18 Months.” Developmental Science 16: 234–248. doi:10.1111/desc.12019. Harris, A., and M. Jones. 2017. “Leading Educational Change and Improvement at Scale: Some Inconvenient Truths About System Performance.” International Journal of Leadership in Education 20 (5): 632–641. doi:10.1080/13603124.2016.1274786. Schweitzer, S., and L. Alexander. 2015. Access to Asia. New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons. Whitty, G., and J. Anders. 2017. “‘Closing the Achievement Gap’ in English Cities and Towns in the TwentyFirst Century.” In Second International Handbook of Urban Education. Springer International Handbooks of Education, edited by W. Pink and G. Noblit, 1079–1101. Cham: Springer.

Alma Harris Department of Education, University of Bath, Somerset, UK [email protected] Michelle Jones Department of Education, University of Bath, Somerset, UK [email protected]