Generation X School Leaders as Agents of Care: Leader and Teacher Perspectives from Toronto, New York City and London

Abstract

This paper draws on evidence from our three-year Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)-funded research study of the lives, careers, experiences and aspirations of Generation X (under 40 years of age) principals and vice-principals in London, New York City, and Toronto. More specifically, the paper examines interview evidence from nine school-based studies in which nine leaders and 54 teachers discuss their perspectives on leaders' care of their staff members. The evidence demonstrates that leaders and teachers both place a high level of importance on leaders' ability and willingness to be supportive, understanding, and approachable. Teachers also expect leaders to serve as advocates for and role models of good work/life balance. While the school-level studies take place in radically different city-based contexts, the expectation of leaders' care for teachers transcends different accountability and policy structures. Both groups focus their discussion on work/life balance and, more specifically, the need for leaders to understand that teachers are people with lives beyond school. The paper highlights implications for policy, practice, and future research.

Generation X leaders from London, New York and Toronto

“…Transcripts were analysed using full-grounded theory approach (Strauss and Corbin, 1994), which resulted in, for example, an application of 25,000 codes across the 65 interviews conducted in the first year . The first-and second-year findings have been reported in our research reports (Edge et al, 2013c;2013d).…”

“…It is often recognised that each new generation of leaders brings challenges to its organisations to evolve, build and adapt to its cohort's expectations and ways of working (Smola and Sutton, 2002). As such, the arrival of Generation X (GenX) leaders (born between 1960 and 1980) marks an important transition and handover as baby boomers retire (Edge et al, 2016a). As GenX leaders have grown up in the most rapidly progressive technological era, they are recognised as more globally minded, techno-savvy and informal (Zemke et al, 2000).…”

“…We explore whether, and how, the generational attributes of GenX principals and vice-principals influence their career development, work/life issues, organisational improvement and future aspirations. Cohorts of 20–30 under-40-year-old GenX vice-principals and principals participated in annual interviews and focus groups (Edge et al, 2013b).…”

Relational trust and positional power between school principals and teachers in Chile: A study of primary schools

“…The exception found in this study shows how a greater work experience and age of teachers leads to a stronger trust relationship with principals. This finding is the first step towards explanatory hypotheses, taking as a basis either the progressive teaching experience gained (Van Houtte, 2007), particular traits of the advanced stage of a teaching career (Day and Gu, 2012) or generational traits among teachers (Edge et al, 2016). These alternative (or copulative) explanations need further research to gain some ground.…”

Intergenerational professional relationships in elementary school teams: a social network approach

“…Brücknerová and Novotný (2016) relied in their study on intergenerational learning of teachers on teachers' own perceptions of themselves as a member of a particular generation. Most studies used the chronological dimension of age to frame school team members' generational cohorts (Edge, Descours, & Frayman, 2016;Geeraerts et al, 2016).…”