New Zealand Cases of Collaboration within and Between Schools: The Coexistence of Cohesion and Regulation

Abstract

Collaboration is viewed as an essential ingredient for education systems and school improvement. Collaborative leadership has both emergent and intentional components (Woods & Roberts, 2018). Collaborative practices can emerge over time as teachers and schools work together, and intentional interventions and decisions can either support this emergence and/or work against it. In this chapter, we discuss the New Zealand case of collaboration between schools. The context is situated in policy reform associated with an incentivized and voluntary programme that groups of schools could participate in. The programme, communities of schools (CoLs), was implemented in 2014 and continues at the time of writing this chapter. We draw on critical commentary of the programme, as well as the small number of research studies available. The experienced way of CoLs is replete with tensions. These are illustrated with the help of Hoods’ (1998) social regulation and cohesion matrix. Rather than locate the New Zealand case in one quadrant of the matrix, we illustrate how multiple aspects of Hoods’ matrix (1998) have been and are currently in play regarding collaboration between schools in New Zealand.

Citation

Dibben, M. and Youngs, H. (2022), "New Zealand Cases of Collaboration within and Between Schools: The Coexistence of Cohesion and Regulation", Armstrong, P.W. and Brown, C. (Ed.) School-to-School Collaboration: Learning Across International Contexts, Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 11-25. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-80043-668-820221002