ED 564: Administration of Inclusive Schools Tuesday, January 24, 2012 Inclusive Leadership Faculty of Education

Class Outline The Great Inclusion Debate The Allegory of the Cave Leadership Types of Leadership Inclusive Leadership Final Thoughts Presentation - Miranda

The Great Inclusion Debate The newly appointed Minister of Education has convened an expert panel of teachers and administrators to review the policy of inclusion in Nova Scotia schools. In your group, prepare a brief to present to the Minister indicating arguments in favour of and opposed to the practice of inclusion.

The Great Inclusion Debate PROS Less likely to stigmatize; more natural and reflective of real world Develops more positive attitudes More opportunity for interaction Research says inclusion works Teachers and parents prefer inclusion Students prefer full inclusion CONS Environment too manipulated to reflect real world Student relationships are unilateral, and occur in-school only Opportunities for intense instruction are reduced Research says a range of settings works better Teachers and parents prefer range of settings Students prefer range of settings

The Allegory of the Cave Based on your viewing of this allegory, can you make any links between Plato's allegory and its relevance to the notion of leadership.

Types of Leadership 1)Managerial/Technical Leadership Original view was leadership is a science that prescribes certain courses of action Under the new form of managerialism, administration is a technical operation designed to execute policies formulated elsewhere

2)Humanistic Leadership Centrality of human beings Who you are impacts how you do your job Also advocated that leaders were different and could influence others

3)Transformational leadership Borrows from managerial and humanistic approaches Emphasizes talents of leader Leaders influence others to embrace a vision Assumes leader can single-handedly raise performance of others Emphasizes only the talented

Inclusive Leadership Is a collective process in which everyone is included or fairly represented Inclusive leadership aims to achieve inclusion in all aspects of schooling and beyond the school to the local and global community, and it does so through a process that is itself inclusive

What are the barriers to inclusive leadership? 1)entrenched hierarchy 2)manner in which people perceive leadership in terms of positions or individuals who act in certain exclusive ways 3)difficulty of linking participation in decision- making processes to the ends for which these processes are organized

Final Thoughts Inclusion is characterized by pros and cons The style of leadership one embraces will inevitably impact the approach one takes in addressing exclusion

Each leadership style has strengths and weaknesses Perhaps what is needed is for leaders to embrace a pluralistic perspective which capitalizes on the positive aspects of the competing perspectives