Exploring visual method in the field of educational leadership

Co-creating understandings of educational leadership and authority in school organisations

Datos Bibliográficos

ID21784110
AutoresFrida Grimm (0000-0001-8286-8716, Statistics Sweden, autor de correspondencia), Lars Norqvist (0000-0001-9981-6349, Statistics Sweden), Katarina Roos (0000-0002-4492-0832, Statistics Sweden)
Año2023
Volumen51
Número5
Páginas1219-1238
Fecha de publicación2023-09-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaEducational Management Administration & Leadership (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1741-1432 • E-ISSN: 1741-1440
EditorialSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/17411432211030747
OpenAlexW3181236484
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas1
Referencias citadas22

This paper contributes to method development in educational leadership research. The focus is on a visual method and the inclusion of visual material in data collection and analysis. Core concepts in this paper are educational leadership, power and authority. The method was used in face-to-face interviews in a research project that studied the steering and governing in, and of, Swedish schools. The method enhances verbal narratives when informants reason and motivate their understandings of positions, relations and hierarchies within the organisations. We found that using visual material encouraged informants to reason and problematise formalised leader positions, their relations and the hierarchies that appear. The method helps to visualise the informants’ understandings of the power distribution within the organisation depending on whether positions are described as distant or close, horizontal or vertical. The method made the informants take a stand on complex matters, reflect, and gain insights about their organisations. It provided us, as researchers, with rich data material. By making subjective understandings visual, implicit assumptions were made explicit. This could challenge the knowledge on existing leadership and power norms within educational organisations, and most likely in other forms of organisations as well

Educational leadership · Ethnography · Instructional leadership · Narrative · Pedagogy · Political science · Power structure · Public relations · Social science · Sociology · Educational Environments and Student Outcomes · Participatory Visual Research Methods · Teacher Education and Leadership Studies