Teacher and Middle Leader Research: Considerations and Possibilities

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is a very well written essay that will be accessible for general readers.  It provides the state of the art on middle and teacher leadership, exposes difficulties with the concepts and suggests ways forward.

To some degree, it is a synthesis of ideas already being discussed in other recent work. But, the essay provides originality by framing trustworthy claims, laying out policy implications and suggestions around considering teacher and middle leadership in more holistic and distributed terms.  The latter is exemplified in the DMI model.  The essay will likely be a reference point for researchers on teacher and middle leaders. 

One question that I have is: What makes the claims trustworthy? Is it simply that they were published?  Or is it the volume of scholars who make similar claims?  Or something else?  

Also, the claims are discussed in six areas: impact, interventions, leadership focus, identification, support and hindrances.  In order to crystallize the message, why not also state what the actual claims are in six compelling or provoking sentences? These could become touchstones for future writers, much as Leithwod et al Six and Day et al's Ten strong claims. As it stands, we seem to have 6 areas of discussion rather than six claims.  I realize that this is a bit nit-picky. I'm not trying to say that the authors need to do this.  However, as the essay format allows for a bit more creativity than a standard empirical study, why not? I think it would help to focus the messaging and make the piece stand-out a bit more. I think it would also help readers in distilling the central message for each of the areas discussed.  For instance, 4.2 interventions covers multiple models.  But, what is the central message that is derived by doing so?  

Alternatively, another column in Table 1 could be inserted between Area and Policy implications that is entitled "Trustworthy claims".  These could indicate the claims from which the policy implications and practice recommendations flow. This would help to demonstrate the overall coherence of the essay. 

In sum.  A great paper with solid contributions that I think could be even greater by the authors explicitly putting down their money on the trustworthy claims.  An essay is the ideal medium for doing so. 

I'm recommending accept with minor revisions so that the authors can consider the above.  However, if they don't concur the paper could be accepted, so long as what constitutes a trustworthy claim is addressed,  as is as it does make a sufficient contribution given the medium of an essay.  

Author Response

Thank you for your comments. I have incorporated all your comments and it has made for a better paper I think. The justification for the claims is still somewhat underdone, but I have provided a rationale for what I have done with the invitation for the reader to explore further:

"Author A’s (2023) review of research about middle leaders made claims across five dimensions and these are used as the basis for this section, with references related to teacher leadership added to arrive at trustworthy statements of knowledge about middle and teacher leadership across six areas: impact, interventions, leadership focus, identification, support and hindrances. The claims (indicated in italics) made here are based on a variety of sources of information including key review articles of teacher and middle leadership supplemented by consideration of pertinent examples of high-quality empirical research published in books, book chapters, theses and journal articles. I don’t claim thoroughness here as the sections are very brief to fit within the constraints of the paper, but I do submit that the knowledge is based upon good research, and there are sufficient references for the interested reader to pursue further reading."

Following this each section gets a clear claim statement and these are also incorporated into the Table in the closing section.  For your interest the claims became:

Definition. Claim 1: Teacher and middle leadership are not the same concepts, although their might be overlap depending on how they are defined. Teacher leadership is mostly about the work of teachers who exert influence on teachers and the school beyond their teaching work, and these people do not have a formal leadership or organizational role outside of their teaching. Middle leadership is mostly about teachers who also have a formal leadership or organizational role, and exert influence on teachers and the school.

Impact Claim 2: Teacher and middle leaders can impact significantly on students, teachers and schools.

Interventions Claim 3: The way middle and teacher leadership is enacted varies across contexts, but there are consistent elements that include a focus on improving teaching and learning, working collegially with colleagues and fostering collective endeavour, focussing on improving school conditions and being critically reflective about what schools do.

Leadership focus Claim 4: Middle and teacher leaders can have a leadership focus when there are high expectations and role clarity in regard to this work.

Identification Claim 5: Leadership preparation needs to begin in initial teacher training and then leadership skills, qualities and dispositions need to be developed and supported through teacher, middle and senior leadership phases.

Supports and hindrances Claim 6: Teacher and middle leadership work can be supported through developing leadership expectations in teachers, providing leadership preparation and development programs, ensuring work roles are well defined, having both leadership and management expectations, having a supportive school culture and structure, and having the support of the principal and other senior leaders. The absences of these diminishes the work of teacher and middle leaders.

Thank you for the push to do more.

 

 

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

COMMENTS ON ESSAY: TEACHER AND MIDDLE LEADER RESEARCH: CONSIDERATIONS AND POSSIBILITIES--3126630

This is a useful piece examining the roles of middle leaders, both teachers and principals. What I find not so useful is that the comparisons and discussion fail to flesh out the theoretical framework in which the comparisons are made. Without mentioning it, classical Weberian theory is the framework. There is no discussion of how this theory influences any research or comparisons. For example, classical bureaucratic theory would delineate line and staff as a fundamental issue. Administrators are line and teachers are staff. The discussion is essentially done in the abstract as though context doesn’t matter. Were all of the studies cited theoryless?

Although in the beginning there is a reference to such contemporary issues as managerialism, there is no subsequent revelation regarding how managerialism impacts the roles and duties of either principals, headteachers or teacher leaders or how it would alter their relationships. I’m also thinking here about Mintzberg’s “structure in fives” in which he compares various types of organizations. Managerialism is often part of the structure of what he calls “the machine bureaucracy” in which the central problem is control and all solutions to problems are to attain greater control. If this is the context of middle leadership, roles, duties, relationships would be impacted a great deal.

 

If the authors of this essay choose to not deal with this aspect they should indicate why and cite it as a limitation of their comparisons. The utility of the piece is very much linked to an explication of its boundaries.

 

Author Response

Please see attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf