Bethlehem Tertiary Institute lecturer Alaster Gibson has completed research showing spirituality in educational leadership has a positive effect.
The research was Alaster's PhD and this was conferred to him at the University of Waikato's Tauranga graduation last week.
Alaster Gibson.
His research involved interviewing and observing three primary school principals and nine teachers during a one-year period to explore the effect of spirituality in principal leadership.
He says spirituality in educational leadership has received renewed interest in the last decade, both internationally and in New Zealand, but for the first time, his research has included the influence on teachers.
'A growing body of literature claims that spirituality can make a difference in leadership practice,” says Alaster.
'I wanted to take that further and determine to what extent teachers are influenced by this.”
He purposely kept the definition of spirituality open because it can be interpreted so broadly.
'Spirituality embraces a wide framework of life and carries all sorts of dimensions and intersections with religious beliefs.
'Trying to define it can be controversial, but by taking an open approach I explored what principals understood spirituality to mean to them, to what extent this was part of their school life and what teachers thought about it.”
Findings showed principals believed their spirituality contributed to their resilience, was relevant to a range of professional tasks and was highly integrated into their personality and their practice.
Teachers say that spirituality in principal leadership was influential in a positive way provided it was expressed appropriately and with integrity.
'If spirituality sits alongside professional competence then it would augur well for the principal in their position.
'Importantly, the principal's character, calibre and conduct are prerequisites for spirituality to be received in a positively influential way.”
He suggests further research be conducted into exploring the meaning of teachers' spirituality and the influence this might have on their teaching.
2 comments
it's personal
Posted on 08-05-2011 13:15 | By morepork
While a "spiritual" or religious person may get support and guidance from their belief, it doesn't mean that another person with a different belief system can't also be a good teacher or pupil. Ethics and morals are not necessarily the preserve of only the "spiritual". Personally, I don't want to see teachers pressing their "spiritual" belief onto pupils, although if that belief sustains them in their work, then there is no reason why they should be forced to hide it as a personal belief. While Dr. Gibson's paper may show a positive correlation (based on a very limited sample, from a skewed domain) there has been no control experiment to show whether humanist or atheist teachers/pupils can also be good leaders, and their ABSENCE of "spirituality" may actually be a positive thing for them. The thing to remember here is that "spirituality" is a very personal thing and when you start pressing it on others the results, throughout history, have been disastrous.
astounding...
Posted on 09-05-2011 12:07 | By fiatracer
a case study with a sample of 12 fulfills requirements of a phD? ok, I haven't read the thesis, but your report makes me shudder to think what it's like. Surely any reliable research would [as posted by 'morepork'] require a control group? What of the surely many many cases in which "spirituality" has had a measurable NEGATIVE effect - the flaky new age hippy teacher pushing pseudo-scientific nonsense? the Christian teachers and schools that exist all around NZ failing to properly teach science because they believe in the creation myth and work under the gaze of the invisible friend they call their god? Does this piece of work only explore the [so-called] "positive" and ignore the negative?
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