Comparative leadership: pathways, scope and values in DRC-English 'urban' schools

Mboyo, Jean Pierre Elonga; Pierre, Jean Luckson

doi:10.7190/shu-thesis-00029

Cited by 3 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 178 publications

(306 reference statements)

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“…Both head/senior teachers in the cases of Edmond and Natasha assumed the collective self (Epitropaki et al, 2017) at the expense of the BME member of staff in question. As framed by Elonga Mboyo (2017), the head/senior teachers took on an organisational self, which requires the leader to embody organisational/group values. An ideal scenario for a BME member of staff seeking promotion would be for such leaders to adopt a comparative self that privileges the best interest of group members and, on merit, tries to draw from/bring in different sources/entities.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Here, the agency of the ‘self’ can also take a three-dimensional nature: literal or personal (where the leader acts on the basis of personally accumulated religious, cultural, etc. constructs); the institutional or organisational (where the leader embodies organisational values and seeks to enforce them); and the comparative self (where the leader rises beyond the personal and organisational selves and seeks the best interest of various group members based on knowledge drawn from various sources) (Elonga Mboyo, 2017).…”

Section: Social Identity Perspective As a Theoretical Framework For Tmentioning

confidence: 99%

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School leadership and Black and minority ethnic career prospects in England: The choice between being a group prototype or deviant head teacher

Mboyo¹

2017

Educational Management Administration & Leadership

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The body of research on the career prospects of Black and minority ethnic (BME) teachers cites racism as one of the reasons for BME underrepresentation in positions of school leadership in England. Understanding the nature of such discriminatory practices is needed in order to find solutions. It has also been reported that pioneer BME leaders are perceived as role models. Such a claim is mainly based on their appointment rather than their action or inaction in facilitating the career progression of other members of BME staff. To address these gaps, this study draws on electronic survey data of eight respondents out of ten, two of whom provided rich written and interview narratives. The data were analysed under the group-based identity formation framework to suggest that the underrepresentation of BME staff due to racism can be explained by head teachers’ prototypicality of group/team values and their failure to deviate from these. That a BME senior leader acted in the same way highlights the following: the dominance of the role of head as a group prototype; the need to challenge deep-seated discrimination; and the view that increased representation needs to be matched with modified school-wide attitude.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Social Identity Perspective As a Theoretical Framework For Tmentioning

confidence: 99%

School leadership and Black and minority ethnic career prospects in England: The choice between being a group prototype or deviant head teacher

Mboyo¹

2017

Educational Management Administration & Leadership

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“…However, Hendriks et al (2013) estimated that thousands more children still inhabit the streets of Kinshasa, the country’s capital, without any formal or informal education. The data used for this article formed part of the author’s 2014–2016 comparative study of leadership experiences of urban head teachers in the DRC and England (Elonga Mboyo, 2017a). The experienced DRC heads, whose names have been anonymised as ‘Bafote’ and ‘Lokuli’ and who are the focus of this present paper, were both working in Kinshasa and they therefore met the two research participant selection criteria of being experienced and leading a school in an urban area.…”

Section: Context and Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…More precisely, this article sets out to discuss a unique approach of Ubuntu as it is enacted by the combined experiences of two urban primary head teachers in Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The wider DRC–English comparative research on which this article is based had three objectives: to understand participants’ pathways to school leadership; to identify their leadership challenges; and to make sense of their leadership responses to the challenges encountered (Elonga Mboyo, 2017a). One of the research questions that the paper was framed as follows: ‘how do you go about responding to your leadership challenges?’.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reimagining Ubuntu in schools: A perspective from two primary school leaders in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Mboyo¹

2017

Educational Management Administration & Leadership

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Communalism, otherwise known as ‘Ubuntu’ in African literature, has come to signify the philosophical and ethical thought capable of transforming behaviours/lives and restoring the continent’s cultural identity. This potent energy is explored in this article with a critical discussion of the conceptual, cultural and operational statuses of Ubuntu. While inhumanity across Africa has prompted some to question its viability, others – including the author of this article – see, in these testing times, an opportunity to reinvent the concept. Using narrative data from two urban primary head teachers based in Kinshasa/Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the article highlights unique Ubuntu operational patterns of understanding others’ needs, negotiating and prioritising needs, assessing available resources, attending to others’ needs, and raised expectations and commitment to organisational goals. This process, it is noted, can successfully take place in the context of genuine dialogue; a compromise that not only prevents ‘bogus needs’ and looks beyond limited resources, but also serves the interests of both individuals and schools.

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“…Fear and Self-scrutiny Methodology of Ubuntu/Structuration framework(Elonga Mboyo, 2016b) I will now demonstrate using examples from my wider study(Elonga Mboyo, 2017), as well as some evidence as reported in TheGuardian (2016) and The Times Educational Supplement(Milne, 2008), to reflect on the nature of ethical isomorphs that can emerge from these ontological spaces. It is possible to approach this by looking at how a single story (ethical decision/dilemma) can fit into all parts of the model.…”

mentioning

confidence: 94%

Framing ethical isomorphs in educational leadership: a sociological approach

Mboyo

2017

International Journal of Leadership in Education

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This commentary is inspired by Begley's (2000) definition of (ethical) isomorphs as: 'Social conditions or value postures that appear to share the same shape or meaning in different countries but actually consist of quite different elements' (p. 23). I take this to mean that the value of 'rule of law', for example, may have the same meaning in different countries in terms of nation states organising themselves around certain laws. However, such laws are arrived at, understood, and applied differently. In reality, this means recognising common features of various values while accepting their different contextual nature.

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Comparative leadership: pathways, scope and values in DRC-English 'urban' schools

Cited by 3 publications

References 178 publications

School leadership and Black and minority ethnic career prospects in England: The choice between being a group prototype or deviant head teacher

School leadership and Black and minority ethnic career prospects in England: The choice between being a group prototype or deviant head teacher

Reimagining Ubuntu in schools: A perspective from two primary school leaders in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Framing ethical isomorphs in educational leadership: a sociological approach

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