Cosmopolitan Leadership: Education as a Global Public Good for Sustainable Education Futures

Abstract

There is widespread recognition that education is the key to the well-being of any society and that transforming schools and school systems is critical to sustained growth and success. Yet despite the many advances in information and communication technologies, truly world-class schools remain a relative rarity. Part of the reason for this resides in the nature and form of organisational structures that are no longer appropriate in the information age. The frontier of human productive capacity today is the power of extended collaboration, the ability to work across global and technological boundaries, and the ability to create and nurture learning organisations. This form of collaboration inevitably brings challenges and opportunities. In particular, for schools and school systems, it demands the rethinking of current practices and developing alternative conceptions of leadership, professional development and pedagogy. It necessitates tackling the deep rooted problems of social inequality and educational disadvantage that so many countries have yet to resolve. It requires that we look much more critically at the forms of leadership practice most likely to secure long term transformation and change. This book is a powerful compilation of research evidence from around the world that throws new light on a range of important issues. The chapters look at different aspects of educational change focusing particularly on the link between leadership and learning, both organisational and individual. The chapters look at the implications for teaching and learning arising from technological change and probe the forms of leadership needed to secure long term transformation. They demonstrate the importance of teacher learning as well as student learning and thus the importance of teacher education and professional development. The book embraces a range of approaches, some of them offering new and critical insights into current practice. This amalgam of perspectives makes the book authoritative and relevant to policy makers and practitioners around the world. Globalisation and rapid technological change pose significant and substantial challenges for schools and school systems. By sharing experience and analyses from around the world, this book offers those who work within schools and with schools some extremely helpful ways of understanding and meeting those challenges.