Networking experience in a Maltese college education network

Abstract

This thesis provides an educational leadership study on a personal five-year networking experience in a Maltese College Education Network. The major focus of the study is the exploration of lived experiences of educational leadership in a new reform. The main research question explores to what extent the notion of leadership, as advocated by the Maltese Education Reform Document For All Children To Succeed (Ministry of Education & Employment, 2005), corresponds to the lived experiences of a School Administrator in a school college network environment. The conceptual framework of the thesis is based on some of Arendt’s major concepts including totalitarianism, ideology, plurality and freedom. The narrative inquiry approach has been selected to be able to carry out a thematic approach whereby each critical theme is analysed through the reading of both the lived experience of the researcher and the policy document itself. This analysis is supported by the contributions of different theories in educational leadership including social justice, education leadership, inclusive leadership, transformative leadership and feminist leadership. This study shows that there is a substantial mismatch between the vision of the reform document and the researcher’s lived experiences. It promotes the view that what is needed in education is more than words in policy documents or ‘what works.’ It is recommended that, in today’s globalised world, educational leaders nurture the capacity to understand, analyse and problematise their personal experiences within their own local environments. This thesis concludes with a number of other relevant recommendations on this subject.