An Evidence-Based Approach to
the Practice of Educational
Leadership
First Edition
Ronald W. Rebore
Angela L. E. Walmsley
Saint Louis University
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Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2007
Chapter 3: Pluralism and Cultural
Analysis in Evidence-Based
Leadership
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2007
Instructional Objectives
• To learn how to create a culture of evidence that
will enhance the ability of a school or school
district to create a positive environment that
supports high student achievement and quality
professional service.
• To provide information that can be used to
engage stakeholders in discourse, which will
provide the opportunity to create a positive
culture in school and school districts.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2007
Instructional Objectives
• To explain how the cultural governance
function operates in public school districts
from an evidence-based perspective
• To exemplify how cultural analysis
promotes student, teacher, staff, and
administrator diversity
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2007
Instructional Objectives
• To explain how the evidence-based
approach can enhance student, teacher,
staff, and administrator appreciation for
pluralism
• To demonstrate the most effective
methods of carrying out cultural analysis in
schools and school districts
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An Evidence-Based Approach to
Pluralism CITE1
• Immigration is changing the ethnic
composition of the population as well as
the religious orientation of the United
States.
• Religious diversity must be considered
along with ethnic pluralism.
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An Evidence-Based Approach to
Pluralism
• The rights and responsibilities of people
bring into play certain tensions manifested
through intolerance and discrimination.
• Discrimination based on age, disability,
gender, illness, and lifestyle is further
complicated by religious and ethnic
pluralism.
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An Evidence-Based Approach to
Pluralism
• Diversity is found in schools extends to all.
• Of considerable concern is recruiting
administrators, teachers, and staff
members from these religious and ethnic
groups.
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An Evidence-Based Approach to
Pluralism
• Utilize philosophical norms as standards
for human interaction rather than religious
norms due to the diversity of beliefs.
• Administration need to develop ideas
about human relations as an orientation
around which superintendents and
principals can exercise their leadership.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2007
An Evidence-Based Approach to
Pluralism
• Assimilation is a continuum .
• Non-assimilation implies a total conscious
rejection of other heritages in developing human
relations norms.
• Total assimilation implies a conscious rejection
of personal heritage as a norm for human
relations.
• It is impossible for a person to be completely
unaffected or totally dismiss surrounding
heritages.
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Evidential Issues Related to
Pluralism
•
Three aspects of pluralism:
1. Values are conditional
2. Conflict is unavoidable
3. The conditionality of values will significantly
influence the way in which conflict resolution
is carried out.
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Evidential Issues Related to
Pluralism
•
•
•
•
Values differ culturally and
generationally.
All values are worthy of consideration.
Values are naturally or humanly
occurring.
There are primary and secondary values.
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Evidential Issues Related to
Pluralism
• Conflict occur over how primary and
secondary values are implemented.
• Conflict is unavoidable.
• Resolution of all conflict must rest on the
quality of reasonableness.
• Values are constituents of what a person
considers life requirements.
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Evidential Issues Related to
Pluralism
• In order to rank values, certain conditions
must be met:
– Quality level of the tradition
– Active imagination
– Freedom to make choices based on
experience and wellbeing
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Evidential Issues Related to
Pluralism
• To promote pluralism:
– Recognize the importance of values
– Understand there is no value which overrides
all others
– Distinguish between deep and variable
convictions
– Identify primary and secondary values
– Acknowledge other’s deeply held convictions
as a life requirement
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The Context of Cultural Analysis in
a Pluralistic Society
• Qualitative analysis is a dimension of
evidence-based analysis.
• Cultural analysis is one qualitative
technique.
• Cultural analysis is significant and helpful
to educational leadership.
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The Context of Cultural Analysis in
a Pluralistic Society
• When people come together for the
purpose of collectively initiating an activity
or service, they create an organization.
• Organizations take on a life of their own
when institutionalized.
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The Context of Cultural Analysis in
a Pluralistic Society
• Organizations are composed of attitudes,
beliefs, values, feelings, and opinions and
thus are constantly changing.
• Culture is a quality inherent within an
organization that creates an atmosphere
setting it apart from other organizations.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2007
The Context of Cultural Analysis in
a Pluralistic Society
Table 3.1: Elements of Cultural Analysis
Column 1
Column 2
Column 3
Attitudes
Beliefs
Values
Feelings
Opinions
Activities
Talk
Behavior
generate
analyzed by
Describing
Listening
Reading
Observing leading
to
interpretation
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Organizational Culture in EvidenceBased Leadership
Basic Notion
• School and school district cultures consist
of those attitudes, beliefs and values,
feelings, and opinions that are shared by a
significant number of its influential
members and that are communicated to
others.
• School culture requires systematic
analysis.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2007
Organizational Culture in EvidenceBased Leadership
Components of Culture
• Attitudes: mental perspectives that fashion
the way a person views his or her personal
circumstances
• Beliefs: ideas about the meaning of
existence, life, and death
• Values: self-regulating principles that
people use to direct their conduct and that
are based on beliefs
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2007
Organizational Culture in EvidenceBased Leadership
• Feelings: synonymous with emotions
• Opinions: conclusions that people draw
from their broad base of experiences and
applied to a specific situation
• Opinions are not always logical and are
influenced by attitudes, beliefs and values,
and feelings.
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Organizational Culture in EvidenceBased Leadership
Expressions of Culture
• Activities: engagement of administrators,
teachers, and staff members in routine
and extraordinary professional activities,
and social settings
• Talk: verbal exchanges that take place
between people; professional discussion
differs greatly from casual discussion
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Organizational Culture in EvidenceBased Leadership
• Behavior: way of physically reaction to a
situation; behavior is observable and
demonstrative and includes body
posturing, engagement, and verbal
communication or lack thereof
• Schools and district culture is affected by
the actions of individuals and significantly
affected by the accumulation of activities,
talk, and behaviors of those individuals.
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Organizational Culture in EvidenceBased Leadership
Analysis of Culture
• To improve communication, first analyze
the culture of the school or district.
• The purpose of analysis of culture is to
understand the personal experience of
both the sender and receiver of the
communication.
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Organizational Culture in EvidenceBased Leadership
•
Four dimension of the analysis of culture:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Describing
Listening
Reading
Observing
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Organizational Culture in EvidenceBased Leadership
Describing: process of gathering and
organizing information; can be formatted
in the following ways:
1. Describing the routine events of the day in
the life of the school or district
2. Describing the routine events of the day in
the life of individual administrators, teachers,
staff, or students
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Organizational Culture in EvidenceBased Leadership
3. Describing the interaction of routine
institutional events with the routine events in
the lives of individuals
4. Describing critical events that occur in the life
of the school or district and in the lives of
individuals
5. Formulating the routine and critical events
into narrative format setting forth the
relationship between the individuals and the
school or district
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Organizational Culture in EvidenceBased Leadership
Listening: process of discerning the meaning
behind the dialogue between
administrators, teachers, staff, students,
parents, and taxpayers
• Questions that constitute the basis of
interpretation:
– What emotions are evoked by the dialogue?
– What is the thought pattern in the dialogue?
– What is unique about the words used?
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Organizational Culture in EvidenceBased Leadership
Reading: can reveal the nuances of an
institution’s culture
• Questions that constitute examples of
tonality that can be detected in school
documents:
– Do the documents of the school or district
foster a sense of excellence in the
performance of administrators, teachers, staff
members, and students?
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Organizational Culture in EvidenceBased Leadership
– Do the documents of the school or district
foster a sense of community in which all
members are lifelong learners?
– So the documents of the school or district
foster the caring community ideal?
– Do the documents of the school or district
foster innovation and risk taking?
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2007
Organizational Culture in EvidenceBased Leadership
Observing
• Characteristics of a quality environment:
– Identity focus
– Collaboration focus
– Concern for people focus
– Coordination focus
– Empowerment focus
– Risk supportive focus
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Organizational Culture in EvidenceBased Leadership
– Performance focus
– Criticism tolerance focus
– Outcomes focus
– Change focus
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Discussion Questions and
Statements
1. How does diversity and pluralism affect
evidence-based leadership?
2. Explain the difference between primary
and secondary values and how they
impact evidence-based leadership.
3. Since value conflict is unavoidable, how
does effective evidence-based
leadership function in such a milieu?
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2007
Discussion Questions and
Statements
4. Explain how conflicts can be resolved.
5. What are the leadership implications of
content and context values?
6. Because some values are incompatible,
what evidence-based leadership
approaches can be utilized by a
superintendent or a principal?
7. Define culture as it is used in relation to
evidence analysis.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2007