Our Network
The primacy of leadership in effecting change and improving outcomes for young people is seen in ongoing investment in building leadership capacity and capability across education systems, including Scotland. While leadership challenges and solutions are context specific, approaches to leadership development reflect global trends. Given the scale and speed of systemic change in education, the place and role of research in informing such approaches and supporting the development of leaders can be often be partial or post factum. This SERA network provides a forum to articulate and discuss leadership and leader learning and development; to connect academics, researchers, practitioners and policy makers; and to interact nationally and internationally with cognate research associations. A key feature of the network will be its interdisciplinary and interprofessional leadership focus to promote research engagement and collaborations in education and with the wider public sector.
SERA LiSEN was formed in November 2014 under the joint stewardship of Co-Convenors Dr Joan Mowat, (University of Strathclyde) and Professor Margery McMahon, (University of Glasgow). Both have subsequently stepped down and the current Co-Convenors are Dr Julie Harvie (University of Glasgow) and Dr Romina Madrid (University of Stirling). It has grown from strength to strength and currently has over 150 members drawn from academia, the policy community and practitioners in schools.
Network Activities
All future updates can be found in the SERA Latest section of this website under the Leadershing in Education Network category.
2023-2024
November to November: submitted a number of articles to academic journals based on the research we have conducted. A case-study approach involving one national cohort of Into Headship participants from three different Scottish universities who undertook their studies during the Covid-19 crisis. Key themes: development of professional identity, professional learning impact on students’ agency in leading school improvements, headteacher recruitment and retention problems internationally, and understanding factors enhancing or impinging on the agency of potential school leaders.
2022-2023
November to November: analysed our data and began to construct a series of articles for publication. Presented our initial findings at the ECER and SERA (2022) conferences.
2021-2022
November to November: we recruited participants from three different Scottish universities and began collecting the data by sending out questionnaires and conducting semi-structured interviews.
2020-2021
November to November: we met regularly, designed our research proposal and gained ethical approval for our research.
2019-2020
November to November: focus on the future direction of leadership education in Scotland post the draft revision of the Professional Standards and Code of Practice and the revised model of Professional Development. Emeritus Professor Christine Forde will be leading an initial session on this theme. Details to follow.
To mark the European Conference on Educational Research (ECER) taking place at the University of Glasgow on the 25th – 28th August. We intend to host a symposium or workshop jointly with the Teacher Education Network focussing on ‘Leadership of and for Learning: Professional Learning as Critical Enquiry to further school improvement.’
2018-2019
Much of our work in this session focussed on alleviating the poverty-related attainment gap through a series of events jointly hosted with the Scottish Universities Insight Institute, the University of Strathclyde, the University of Edinburgh and the SERA Poverty Network. This included a workshop at the SERA Conference at the University of Edinburgh led by Dr Joan Mowat, University of Strathclyde, Dr Gale MacLeod, University of Edinburgh and Professor Stephen McKinney, University of Glasgow. Access to the full range of materials, research briefs and key recommendations can be found via this link.
2017-2018
2016-2017
Contact Information
If you want to be involved or wish to become a Network member, please contact the network convenors.
Social Media
Convenors
Dr Julie Harvie, University of Glasgow
Dr Romina Madrid, University of Stirling