E MAIL: i.macpherson@qut.edu.au r.brooker@qut.edu.au t.aspland@qut.edu.au

This paper reports on pilot work emerging from a recently-completed Australian Research Council collaborative research project which theorised curriculum decision-making as curriculum leadership for effective teaching and learning (See Macpherson, 1998; Macpherson, Aspland, Brooker & Elliott, 1999; Macpherson, Brooker, Aspland & Elliott, 1999). The pilot work enlarges the focus of stakeholders in curriculum leadership to include parents and students as well as teachers. The pilot work has been situated in a small number of primary and secondary schools in both country and metropolitan areas in Queensland, Australia; within a conceptual framework which celebrates a participatory view of curriculum decision-making as curriculum leadership which includes teachers, parents and students; and within a methodological approach characterised as Action Research which is critical, collaborative and reconstructive (See Macpherson, Brooker, Aspland & Elliott, 1999). Emerging issues, identified as the lifeworld perspectives (See Habermas, 1987) of teachers, parents and students have been elicited and are currently being analysed and interpreted. These perspectives were elicited as narratives and elaborated (as well as analysed and interpreted) in a series of ongoing conversations with individual research participants and groups of research participants within schools. It is intended to broaden the analysis with early next year with the inclusion of both research participants across schools and administrative personnel at school, district and systemic levels. The outcomes of this broadened analysis will provide a platform for ongoing thinking and action at local, district and systemic levels. Emerging issues from this platform will also be used by us (in association with an international critical friend network) as a basis ongoing theorising about the inclusion of teachers, parents and students in curriculum leadership.

The pilot research will conclude in the first half of next year. This paper is, then, a documentation of work in progress which is seeking to create worthwhile professional knowledge for the twenty-first century relative to the inclusion of teachers, along with parents and students in curriculum decision decision-making (conceived as curriculum leadership).

Curriculum decision-making (conceptualised as curriculum leadership) is viewed as any initiative that teachers in the multi-faceted contexts of teaching /learning sites undertake to encourage more effective learning and teaching. It is about leading learning and seizing opportunities that appear to have the potential to enhance learning and teaching experiences and outcomes (See Macpherson et al, 1999 references above). This view of curriculum leadership is framed by a position which sees teachers as curriculum makers and places them centrally in curriculum decision-making (Clandinin & Connelly, 1992; Brubaker, 1993; Henderson & Hawthorne, 1995; Moller & Katzenmeyer, 1996; and Macpherson, Aspland, Elliott, Proudford, Shaw & Thurlow, 1996).

This view of curriculum leadership provides a framework of contextual and personal factors for constructing the perceptions of stakeholders as lifeworld perspectives (See Habermas, 1987). Contextual factors include the images of curriculum held by people, the organisational arrangements and the social relationships among people at teaching/learning sites; while the personal factors include, for example, a person’s sense of enthusiasm and commitment to engage in curriculum leadership.

People are considered central in curriculum leadership and their perceptions (presented as lifeworld perspectives) of how they are positioned in curriculum leadership provide an insight to how we might better support and sustain them in having both a place and a readiness to engage (or space) in curriculum leadership. Such investigation is timely, given the current policy documentation in a range of cultural contexts which highlights the engagement of significant stakeholders (such as teachers, parents and students) as partners in educational activities (Education Queensland, 1997, 1997a; Blunkett, 1997; Education Department, Hong Kong, 1997; Stokes, 1997; Finkelstein, 1997).

The theoretical framework underpinning this pilot work takes curriculum leadership beyond teachers to include other stakeholders, namely parents and students. Thus, a view of curriculum decision-making/curriculum leadership as a collaborative undertaking involving teachers, parents and students becomes an important emphasis in our theoretical thinking. In theorising the place of these people in curriculum decision-making, we are taking the view that these stakeholders are not working in a competitive manner. Rather, we are working towards a view where they work as an alliance in which the complementarity of perspectives and roles is valued.

Data associated with their lifeworld perspectives seek to present a picture of the human complexities through which contextual and systemic pressures, priorities and policies are mediated or filtered in the minds and actions of these stakeholders as they position and reposition themselves at the levels of school and classroom practice. Considerations of these data are designed to make dynamic links among theory, policy and professional practice. Such data seek to capture the perceptions of these significant stakeholders in curriculum leadership and to define (and provide) both place and space for their lifeworld perspectives to be valued, heard and included. The valuing and hearing of their lifeworld perspectives, it is contended, emphasises an approach to supporting and sustaining their authentic and meaningful engagement in curriculum leadership in ways which take account of the lived world of stakeholders and their perceptions of how they might discover place and readiness (or space) to engage in curriculum leadership. This is a counter-hegemonic view of curriculum change where the vision of the organisation and its needs are much more paramount (See Lieberman & Hargreaves, 1998). Such a view is one "from the edge" and seeks to draw those who are presently marginalised much more towards centre stage.

The literature on voice (See Keedy and Drmacich, 1991; Rosaen, 1993; Brown, Perry & McIntire, 1994; Covaleskie, 1994; Hargreaves, 1996; Brooker & Macdonald, 1999 is also contributing to our theorising the place of teachers, parents and students in curriculum decision-making/curriculum leadership. It is the communication of these stakeholders’ perceptions through their voices which becomes the basis for the methodological framework.

Within the theoretical background outlined above, this pilot research is being conducted within an action research framework. The project is seeking to theorise the place and space of teachers, parents and students as they position themselves in curriculum leadership. To do this, initially narratives and conversations were used to generate case study accounts of curriculum leadership perceived by these groups in each of the schools. From these, propositions about meanings and interpretations of curriculum leadership actions, intentions and outcomes are emerging. These propositions are resulting from iterative hermeneutic spirals of recording, analysis and interpretation. Propositional statements will be the outcomes of these processes. The use of a hermeneutic spiral (itself being developed in greater detail as the work proceeds) is informing the ways in which data are analysed, interpreted and documented critically, collaboratively and reconstructively.

Action Research has always been an iterative process and has been characterised often as a spiral of planning, acting, observing and reflecting (Kemmis, 1994). Our work, using action research, emphasises the critical and the collaborative aspects - critical in the sense of having theorised positions about curriculum leadership for effective learning and teaching and about teachers’ (and now other significant stakeholders’) place and readiness (space) to engage in curriculum leadership; and collaborative (in that we work with teachers and not on teachers) in collecting, analysing and interpreting data contained in initial narratives and in transcripts/ summaries of ongoing conversations (See Aspland, Macpherson, Proudford & Whitmore, 1996; Aspland et al, 1998; Macpherson et al, 1998; Macpherson, 1998).

This research is seeking to elaborate on that iterative process, by articulating a place for a network of critical friend groups which seek to take the narratives and the ensuing conversations (which are about analysing, interpreting and theorising data) beyond the locally descriptive to the more globally interpretive and applied. A significant part of this elaboration is to define critical friend networks (Chapman, 1996); and to establish ethical principles and protocols for inviting colleagues to be members of these networks and for facilitating and maintaining the networks as a hermeneutic spiral which will highlight the analysis and interpretation of the descriptive data as well as their implications for action. (The details of this process will be provided in the paper itself and will include, for example, an elaboration of the composition of critical friend networks.)

Sources of data include the initial narrative accounts elicited from small selections of teachers, parents and students at the schools; the presenters’ initial analysis of these accounts; the record of ongoing conversations with teachers, parents and students as the accounts are analysed and interpreted critically, collaboratively and reconstructively at individual schools and across the schools; the record of the mini-conference; and a record of the ongoing interactions with critical friend groups. (This paper does not report on the last two of these).

There have been three schools involved and at each school three small groups of approximately 6 per group (that is 6 teachers, 6 parents and 6 students per school) were involved in writing narratives and engaging in the ensuing conversations and actions.

Preliminary analysis of the narrative data has already been completed and it is providing a platform for ongoing theorising of the inclusion of parents, students and teachers in curriculum decision-making in the conversations, local actions and the mini-conference. Thus far, it is apparent that for parents and students, along with teachers, to have an authentic inclusion in curriculum decision-making, they need to be supported and sustained in developing a confidence and competence. It is also apparent that within each group of stakeholders within and across schools, there is a diversity of lifeworld perspectives which has implications for the ways in which they might be supported and sustained.

The remaining sections of this paper seek to capture the initial reporting and analysis of the data. It is important to stress again that what is presented in the remainder of this paper is an incomplete report of work in progress.

Lifeworld perspectives were obtained in the form of structured narratives from small groups of teachers, parents and students at each site. The narratives were generated on an individual basis. It was from these individual narratives that a group story was collated for each group in each school. All members within each group were given a copy of the group story for their respective group and asked to read it and to confirm its accuracy and fairness as a record for ongoing use. A much shorter version of each collated story was used to generate a framework for conversations with each group at each site. These conversations then formed the basis for a conversation with the administration team at each site. The focus in all of these conversations was on an exploration of what were the main ideas which group members wanted to talk about and what were the possibilities for action in terms of supporting and sustaining stakeholder’s involvement in curriculum leadership. What follows is a summary of the emerging ideas and possible actions which emerged in the conversations.

The stories, then, chronicle the stakeholder’s perspectives about their engagement in curriculum leadership now, the role they could play in curriculum leadership and the ways in which their engagement could be supported and sustained.

It is outside the scope of this paper to present the detail of the individual narratives and the collated group stories. What is important to note, however, is that the context of each site is unique, as is the mix of ideas, people and possibilities for ongoing action. It is, therefore, necessary to point out that the summaries which follow are indicative of what people’s lifeworld perspectives are of curriculum leadership both now and in the future.

The summaries outlined above were provided to each school site as a basis for checking with each group for accuracy and fairness of representation and for an ongoing conversation across the groups at each site. The emphasis in these conversations was upon possibilities and planning for appropriate action to support and sustain people’s involvement in curriculum decision-making. A brief summary for each site appears below.

The purpose of thinking about the above summaries across sites is not so much for the purpose of further reducing or generalising the data as to create avenues for sharing ideas, being generative and looking for ways whereby supportive networks might develop as the research moves more into the action and critical review of action phases. The purposes, then, of widening the audience of the accounts at each of the sites to include an international critical friend network relates to the notion of an hermeneutic spiral as described in the methodological section earlier in the paper.

At this stage, however, interactions (the broader analysis alluded to in the introduction) across these wider audiences has not occurred. Rather, each site has been asked to think about and plan for actions that will support and sustain stakeholders' involvement in curriculum decision-making.

Each site, then, has been sent summaries of the conversations that were held across the four groups at each site (as above). Each site has been asked to provide us with some detail about the following:

1. What actions have you specifically identified as areas to work on in supporting and sustaining stakeholders’ involvement in curriculum decision-making?
2. Why did you identify these areas and not others?
3. How do you intend to work on these areas?
4. When would be appropriate times in the first half of 2000 for us to make contact with you about the actions you will be working on?
5. Who might be appropriate others who could become involved in a wider forum to share your work towards the end of the first half of 2000?

We have also intimated to people at each site that we are sharing the summaries with our own critical friend networks.

It is this wider involvement of participants and appropriate others which focuses both on the action and the hermeneutic spiral components of our methodological framework.

From the reporting of work in progress in the previous section, we capture some of the emerging ideas and themes about the inclusion of teachers, parents and students in curriculum leadership (or curriculum decision-making):

These ideas and themes are, of course, incomplete. It is expected that they will be reshaped as we proceed with the remaining stages of the project and as we begin to interact with critical friend networks

It is argued, then, that teachers, along with parents and students, are central in curriculum decision-making/curriculum leadership; but that the ways in which they might be supported and sustained should be sensitive to uniquely individual and local factors/conditions. In developing this argument, we are drawing from both the theoretical and the methodological frameworks outlined above to elaborate the detail of what it means for these stakeholders to work confidently, competently and collaboratively in a curriculum decision-making/curriculum leadership alliance which values complementarity rather than competition. It is also argued that the methodological framework as outlined above is one way of building critical friend networks and of taking the insights from local cases into wider arenas. In this way, we argue that the data have the potential to move beyond the largely descriptive at the local level to the more interpretive and applied at the more global levels.

Reporting this pilot research addresses the main theme of this conference and relates to several of the sub-themes. We see that a major benefit of this sort of research relates to the critical, collaborative and reconstructive way in which the stakeholders’ (teachers, parents and students) perceptions are elicited and conceived as lifeworld perspectives; and then analysed and interpreted for their ongoing implications for relevant policy and practice in supporting and sustaining stakeholders’ place and engagement (or space) in curriculum leadership at the levels of classrooms, schools and systems. These ongoing implications obviously become the essence of a research focus for a larger-scale study.

We believe that such research is innovative because, at the levels of analysis and interpretation, it uses a series of critical friend groups (especially from the levels of policy and practice within systemic contexts and from other cultural contexts). It is significant in that it builds a new area of ongoing and more detailed research investigation. This area is particularly pertinent within current policy contexts which emphasise partnerships in curriculum decision-making and school-based management initiatives. An investigation into the place of and space for these three stakeholder groups in curriculum leadership is, therefore, considered timely, relevant and appropriate.