1. Susan Lovett, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand Neil Dempster, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia Bev Flückiger, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia Clearing a Path for Leadership ‘Both Ways’: Using a survey instrument to facilitate the cross-cultural conversations in Indigenous School Communities New Zealand Association for Research in Education (NZARE) Annual Conference, Dunedin, NZ, Nov. 26 – 28, 2013.

2. To comment on the usefulness of a Leadership Perspectives Survey Instrument to stimulate discussion about leadership in school communities serving significant proportions of Indigenous students and their families

3.  Intercultural space  Shared leadership  Culturally responsive conversations

4. The ‘meeting of two distinct cultures’ through processes and interactions which retain the distinctive integrity and difference of both cultures and which may involve a blending of elements of both cultures but never the domination of one over another… Taylor (2003) cited in Priest et al (2008) p.45

5. The need for key players other than principals to be involved in leadership, people called ‘boundary crossers’ because they have the capacity to ‘speak’ the language of both the school and the community Kilpatrick & Johns (2004)

6. Culturally respectful and evidence-informed conversations are fundamental to the relationships on which productive partnerships are based Frawley, Fasoli, d’Arbon & Ober (2010)

7.  You can’t have a conversation without a relationship; and  You can’t have a relationship without a conversation.  You’ve got to have the conversation.  Everything starts here. What Works (2013)

8. A Leadership perspectives survey instrument Derived from Priest et al (2008) who defined two perspectives: 1. ‘Accepted or Conventional’ Leadership Practice 2. ‘Intercultural’ Leadership Practice

9. In our school communitySDDASA 1. (30) School committees include Indigenous community members as key contributors to decisions 2. (5) Reading improvement strategies are dominated by a mainstream educational belief in the over-riding value of Standard Australian English over other languages 3. (1) Reading practices are designed, planned and prepared by non-Indigenous education professionals 4. (19) Improvements in children’s reading rely heavily on Indigenous people 5. (28) Indigenous people want to undertake training and to share in information sessions 6. (9) Performance in reading is measured against mainstream benchmarks 7. (6) Indigenous people often avoid working in support of the school 8. (24) Performance in reading is measured against the experiences of Indigenous people 9. (2) Reading improvement processes are heavily reliant on non-Indigenous professionals 10. (22) Indigenous people speak for themselves about education 11. (18) The leaders of reading include Indigenous people 12. (20) Reading improvement strategies place an unequivocal value on the importance of Indigenous languages 13. (10) Performance in reading is based on the judgments of non-Indigenous professionals 14. (27) Information and training sessions are ‘two-way’ with Indigenous people being teachers 15. (17) Reading improvement strategies rely heavily on Indigenous people 16. (15) School committees make decisions and then inform Indigenous parents and families about what has been decided 17. (3) The leaders of reading are non-Indigenous professionals 18. (26) Reports on reading are provided by Indigenous people 19. (11) Reports on reading are prepared by non-Indigenous professionals 20. (8) Non-Indigenous members of school staff focus on the difficulties in providing improved reading for Indigenous children 21. (4) It is believed that improvements in reading cannot occur without non-Indigenous staff 22. (16) Reading improvement practices are designed in genuine partnership with Indigenous people 23. (21) Indigenous people attend and support the school willingly and freely 24. (7) Non-Indigenous professionals often speak on behalf of Indigenous people about education 25. (23) Non-Indigenous professionals actively seek improvement solutions in conversations with Indigenous people 26. (25) Performance in reading is based on the judgments of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people 27. (12) Information or training sessions are most often ‘one way’ from non-Indigenous to Indigenous people 28. (13) Indigenous people often choose not to attend training information or training sessions 29. (14) School committees are dominated by non-Indigenous professionals 30. (29) Some reading improvement groups or committees are made up solely of Indigenous community members

10. A. Involvement in reading improvement B. General school support C. Judging performance in reading D. Participation in training E. Participation in decision-making

11. Accepted or Conventional Leadership Practice Category A AOSN Intercultural Leadership Practice Category A AOSN 1. Reading improvement practices are designed, planned and prepared by non-Indigenous educational professionals 9010 --16. Reading improvement practices are designed in genuine partnership with Indigenous people --1090

12. By this we mean: all-embracing professional conversations that are positively focused on the moral purpose of schools. Disciplined Dialogue is not based on stereotype, hearsay or prejudice, but on reason and values, stimulated by helpful qualitative and quantitative data. From Swaffield & Dempster(2009)

13. 1. What do we see in these data? 2. Why are we seeing what we are? 3. What, if anything, should we be doing about it? Dempster (2009)

14. What do we see in these data? Disciplined Dialogue Question 1: What do we see in these data? Principal. As Table 2 shows, our responses to the two items on the involvement of Indigenous people in the planning and preparation of reading improvement practices are mirror images. 90% believe that these processes are Always undertaken by non- Indigenous educational professionals. 10% believe that genuine partnership in these processes Never occurs. Overall, these data suggest that we whitefella professionals retain control of these matters and that leadership ‘both ways’ is not in our thinking.

15. Sample Conversation Teacher No. 1. One of the reasons why we have results showing whitefella dominance could be that in our school we are not yet able to plan with people from the community because we are still at an awareness raising stage for ourselves about Indigenous children’s reading. I don’t think we are ready to take steps beyond the school. Teacher No. 2. That’s a weak excuse! I don’t think that we really understand sufficiently Indigenous culture and ways in which we might be more inclusive… Why are we seeing what we are? Disciplined Dialogue Question 2. Why are we seeing what we are?

16. Sample Conversation Teacher No. 5. Let’s build on something already happening. We’ve got some of the pre-school mothers talking to the brothers and sisters of their school-aged children about the photographs we’ve displayed on the walls around the school. These show their children’s learning activities complete with captions. I think that this helps when Indigenous parents are reluctant to enter the classroom. Teacher No. 6. Displays are good ice-breakers. We should make panels of word lists in both languages and display them outside the local shop. The children and their parents will be interested in talking about these with each other. This will get some print into the community.

17. How helpful is an instrument such as the one described here for principals and teachers hoping to build effective working relationships with local Indigenous people in their school communities?