A troubled terrain: Contesting purposes and shifting definitions within ELM?

1. A troubled terrain: Contesting purposes and shifting definitions within ELM? Callie Grant, UKZN EMASA Conference 11 – 13 March 2011

2. The context: shifting sands

3. Introduction QUESTIONS • Who are we? • Why are we gathered together here at EMASA? • What do we want from the organisation? • Can we work alongside each other? AIM • ‘Trouble’ : to unsettle, problematise & challenge the status quo in the field of ELM • ELM a field in crisis

4. ELM: A troubled terrain • Internationally ELM a distinct area of scholarship and professional activity • Unique field (Bourdieu, 1993) because of its fundamentally practical nature • Dual interest: pursuit of academic advancement and professional development (van der Mescht, 2008) • SA: ELM a relatively young field – troubled terrain

5. The vignette • Discipline of ELM at UKZN 10 staff • Popular discipline • Competing demands • Large post graduate sector – pressure to increase research output by 2016 • Large ACE-SL programme – pressure to increase numbers • Polarisation of programmes and staff

6. Building a more integrated ELM community • Leadership as social practice within communities • Places of learning, meaning & identity (Wenger,1998) • Communities of difference (Ranson, 2000) • Make “conscious, deliberate use of differences in social class, gender, age, ability, race, and interests as resources for learning” (Barth, 1990) • A network of different activities that crisscross and are related to each other (Jorgensen & Keller, 2008)

7. Renegotiating identity and purpose • ELMP discipline a network of different activities • Competing demands • To avoid polarisation, we require urgent dialogue • Dialogic space (Rule, 2004) • Find voice and renegotiate identity • Manage tensions in order to co-exist

8. The challenge of the language of the field • It is through communication that a community can be created (Jorgensen & Keller, 2008) • Need a systematic language of the practice • Concepts are used variously depending on historical time line & professional cultures • Lack of common nomenclature • Slippage in terms ‘leadership’ and ‘management’ • Over emphasis on management at the expense of leadership

9. Where to from here? • What holds us together as an ELMP discipline? • Common purpose: transformation of SA schooling through improved leadership and management • Requires a range of different roles • Roles should be given equal value • Avoid dichotomies • Value ‘the other’ • Explore practice through refection and reflexivity (Jorgensen & Keller, 2008)

10. The texture of our ELM field

11. The relevance for EMASA • INITIAL QUESTIONS • Answered differently by different people • ‘Distancing’ between practitioners and academics • Positioning, jostling, ‘othering’ • EMASA as a professional body is in crisis • What do we do? - split the field - work to bring the polarised parts back together • The challenge is ours!

12. Beware of the sinking sand!