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Owner: Roland Bernhard
Owner Email: Roland.Bernhard@kphvie.ac.at
Paper Title: "We Want Your Child to Go to University": Raising Aspirations in Difficult Circumstances in London
Session Title: Examining Influences of School Effectiveness and School Improvement
Paper Type: Roundtable Presentation
Presentation Date: 4/8/2021
Presentation Location: Virtual
Descriptors: Principals, Qualitative Research
Methodology: Qualitative
Author(s): Roland Bernhard, University of Teacher Education Vienna/Krems; Dominik Harnisch, University of Salzburg; Katharine Burn, University of Oxford; Ulrike Greiner, University of Salzburg; Pam M. Sammons, University of Oxford
Unit: SIG-School Effectiveness and School Improvement
Abstract: Outcomes for school students in London, especially for those from disadvantaged backgrounds, have improved dramatically over the last two decades. Leadership at the level of individual schools appears to have been a particularly crucial driver of these improvement processes. We conducted qualitative interviews with eleven headteachers and senior leaders from eight highly effective London schools with a very large proportion of disadvantaged students. The objective of this paper is to explore one element of their leadership, which emerged from the data, namely “raising aspirations and expectations”. The data show that schools make considerable efforts to encourage and equip their students to aspire to higher education instilling in them a belief that they could take any career path they chose.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3102/1689348