Editorial July 2023

Abstract

It gives me great pleasure to write this editorial as a new member of the MIE board in my deputy editor role, following in the footsteps of my colleague Dr Stephen Rayner. I am indebted to Paul Armstrong, Stephen and colleagues from SAGE for the warm welcome and smooth handover as I begin the new role. MIE is foundational in engaging widely with the field in supporting and facilitating thinking about management and leadership in education in its widest sense. Since 1987, its longevity as a journal of professional practice is testament to MIE’s wider remit where we welcome a diverse range of articles, including research findings, think pieces, book reviews all of which are peer reviewed ensuring the highest publishing standards and this edition is no exception. As a former practitioner and senior leader in high schools both in the UK and Hong Kong and presently working in academia as a lecturer in education policy and leadership at the University of Manchester, I am delighted to be directly supporting the journal’s ambitions moving forward. As usual we have a diverse and stimulating range of articles in this edition. We have three articles reporting on research findings, as well as a reflective piece and an opinion piece. Firstly, Pérez-Sánchez and colleagues explore challenge-based learning approaches in Colombia as a potential valid teaching intervention for university students on management degrees to develop solution based strategies in response to context-based real life situations. Findings suggest that students appreciate the opportunity of extensive collaboration, and that the approach has merit in enabling creative solutions to organisational problems. The strength lies in collaborative activities which are based on dynamic real-life situations adding valuable insights to the realities of organisational issues and problems. Our second article focuses on Malaysian primary teachers’ self-efficacy and job satisfaction. Using selfefficacy as a mediating mechanism, the authors tested the hypothesis that there is a causal relationship between self-efficacy, job satisfaction and professional commitment amongst schoolteachers in Malay public schools. Deploying thinking on motivation-hygiene theory the authors administered over 900 questionnaires and, using structural equation modelling concluded that self-efficacy and commitment amongst serving teachers directly impacted their job satisfaction. From a purely quantitative study on teacher satisfaction our next article utilises a mixed methods approach in analysing educational leaders’ navigation of gender stereotypes. The article forms part of a larger research project located in the Punjab region of Pakistan. In this article, Sahar et al. adopt a feminist educational leadership ontology to analyse the prevalence of socio-historical and cultural discourses around gender and equity in school leadership, which historically privilege notions of patriarchal values accentuating masculinities in leadership practice. In this segment of their wider study, the authors interviewed fourteen head teachers (both men and women) where interview questions were framed around Bronfenbrenner’s (1995) ecological development model. The authors acknowledge the cultural shifts occurring in Pakistan where women’s identities are being reconstructed to enable gender equality, but findings suggest there are deeply held attitudinal beliefs that act as structural challenges for women in educational leadership. Our opinion piece by Hunt offers insights into student governance in Further Education establishments in the UK. He argues that whilst some work has been done in facilitating learner voice, further engagement with students in governance arrangements of colleges is not only important but foundational for students in their learning experiences. Hunt identifies the tensions for students to consider when involved in governing in terms of representation, and having a fuller understanding of their distinct role. Hunt references the student governance model in Scotland where its strength lies in institutional frameworks supporting students as co-governors. Hunt posits that a framework on student voice and learner engagement has the potential for supporting governing bodies and enabling students themselves to govern more effectively. In our final offering, Fraser and Horden’s discuss their reflections on the management of emotions during the pandemic. Affection as understood psycho-dynamically, is explained against the backdrop of the global pandemic within a school setting. We hear from Rachel a school leader, who offers up her story when hearing about school closures due to the pandemic, articulating her feelings in experiencing shock and a deep sense of loss and separation. Rachel explains her sense of responsibility in managing the situation particularly in relation to staff welfare and provides examples of leaders’ responses to mitigating against constant and changing challenges managing a crisis brings. We hope you enjoy these rich offerings as we have in selecting them for this edition.