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The Changing Nature and the Role of Heads of Department in Queensland Public Secondary Schools

Peter Rosenfeld   

The role of subject master, then head of department, has long been part of the culture, indeed a characteristic, of public education in Queensland.

A significant feature of the role has been its almost exclusive link to particular curriculum areas which identified departments. As the culture of public education changed so too did the structure and organization of departments, and the role of heads of department. This research employed a multi case study to describe the role within the process of change. Heads of department and principals in four schools took part in the study. The research described a role quite different from the one it replaced. It was one characterised by diversity. The role appeared to be one influenced far more by situational factors, largely through school based management. Instructional leadership, formerly a key aspect of the role, had been replaced by the need for management. Consequently, the skills the role demanded had shifted. Heads of department recognized this and highlighted the need for professional development.

Transcript

Interviewer: I’d like to welcome Peter Rosenfeld, welcome Peter

Peter Rosenfeld: Thank you

Interviewer: Peter can you firstly tell us what your Research is about and how you came to discover this topic?

Peter Rosenfeld: My Research really was about looking at the Role of  Heads of Department in Public Secondary Schools in Queensland and I was interested in seeing how their role changed as a result of the tremendous cultural changes in Ed Queensland in particularly in the mid 1990s and I was interested in seeing how that effected individuals, individual heads of department, how they reacted to it.  It came about as a result of my career experience as a subject master and head of department, actually experiencing those changes, simultaneously I was doing my Masters Degree at QUT and so the two things came together, it seemed like a natural area to explore.

Interviewer: And what sort of methodology did you use to investigate this topic?

Peter Rosenfeld: I used a qualitative methodology and used 4 case studies, 4 case studies representing 4 specific schools and in each school I interviewed the Principal, two Heads of Department, I then re-interviewed 4 years later to see how they had changed I guess, I also analysed documents from that period……..from the late 1980s through to the turn of the century really and looked at how the documents gave some sort of underpinning to the changes that were happening within schools.  The two things were complimenting one another, I found more than I initially thought and I guess I still do that the documents underpinned what happened in schools but what happened in schools had a larger effect than I initially expected.

Interviewer: And what were the major findings to come out this study that you did?

Peter Rosenfeld: The major findings were that there was an enormous change in the concept of a secondary school department, it went from being something that was quite homogeneous and by that I mean the department under the old culture were all described in terms of their curriculum.  For example people would talk about being an English subject master, in other words they had an English Department or a Manual Arts Department or in my case it was a History Department so those……….that had a much bigger effect than I think than we really can understand for example a Head of Department for History in Cairns could be made a Head of Department for History in Brisbane…..in a Brisbane School and slot in like a piece of a jig saw puzzle, now that isn’t to say that the two schools are exactly the same but it means the role is very very close to being the same a thousand miles away, it’s quite homogeneous, the role that…..the concept of the department that replaced it was something far more diverse, something far more influenced by situational factors so that changed enormously.  With that of course, the role changed, the role of Heads of Department changed and it became equally more diverse.  The things that fit into that, that’s the broad…..the broad sort of thing that I discovered but there were all sorts of things that came into…..sort of came under that for example the role, how it effected heads of department, when I initially interviewed heads of department there was……there was enormous amount of role confusion, they didn’t really understand what was happening, they talked about changes impacting upon them, I guess it reminded me a little bit of the tsunamis you know, the waves of change coming. 

The people who were there talked about role confusion, they didn’t actually mention that term but that’s what they were talking about, what is my role, my role is this or this, why are they changing it, why are they adding onto it, there was…..inherent in that was a fair amount of identity threat, they felt that their identity was wrapped up in the old culture…. in departments that were and the term I’ve used through my work is in a curriculum frame and that’s the way they were.

The interesting thing I think in terms of individuals was the……were the two heads of department I interviewed 4 years later because they described a role really quite different and that’s another thing…….all together I guess I’ll talk about that more in a moment but they also described I think a degree of resilience that I hadn’t expected, I thought that after the first set of interviews 4 years before that that identity threat would have still been there and it wasn’t, they were coping with it and they were talking about it being a different role and they were talking about problems but that wasn’t one of them, they were coping quite well or they seemed to be coping quite well and that’s consistent……there’s very little literature on this but the one piece of literature that I immediately I thought was consistent with was a Canadian study that found exactly the same thing so that was really quite interesting and how it effected individuals.

The role itself had become a managerial role, they talked about it being a managerial role not an instructional leadership role any longer.  Leadership had changed, the instructional leadership part of it had gone, they did talk about greater formal leadership requirements of them and I think from the first set of interviews that was sort of one of the problems, the heads of department described their leadership in pragmatic terms and not at all in theoretic terms…..theoretical terms, they described learning from experience, interestingly both inside of school and beyond school and Principals……some of the Principals did the same thing although Principals described investigating formal leadership learning themselves which none of the heads of department did but that’s an area that could be explored as well I guess. 

So the leadership was sort of interesting the way that was changing, I’ve talked about situational factors and the situational factors come in very largely through school based management  so whereas before in the old culture the subject was the thing that dominated what happened, in the new culture Principals could have a very large say in the role……..in the nature of departments and the role so that situational factors were having a much greater effect than they had before which is really quite interesting.

The work load was growing and that isn’t…….again is consistent with the literature that the……one of the very good books on HOD role is entitled “The Time to Manage” and it’s 1989 so the problem of a big work load and shortage of time has always been there but it’s in my research it seemed to be growing much more and with that it seems to be coming…….it seemed to be becoming more complex and demanding different skills that HODs felt they didn’t really have and I think that’s part of the movement away from instructional leadership, more management skills than instructional leadership skills.  I also found that there were quite…..I expected that each case would be clearly defined and different and they were but what was more apparent was the difference in perceptions from the Principals and the heads of department, they come out as 2 distinctly different groups in the results which is really I thought quite interesting and perhaps telling.

Interviewer: And just finally Peter what implications will…..sorry…what implications will this Research have on policy and practice in education?

Peter Rosenfeld: I think that a couple of things for policy, I would like to think that it had an effect, the first one and this was an area I didn’t really get to explore but it….it was clear that this was the very first major cultural and structural and organisational change in the role of heads of department that had taken place and I think for the people involved if there had been change processes that would have enhanced their ability to cope with it and I think it would have also meant that the change probably proceeded more……probably more smoothly, more successfully but I guess maybe it being a first time.  I think there’s also a need to in policy terms to reconceptualise the role, I really think that there…….the role itself changed but it was something that people who were involved in it, it almost changed metamorphous as they were there rather than it being this is a different concept.  If I can go into practice I think that that’s really important for the heads of department, they need to be able to reconceptualise how they see their role and that’s consistent with some of the Australian literature as well from New South Wales so that point, I think also there needs to be a practice based recognition of the fact that the new role demands new skills, in the old culture the training for head of department was training for teachers so you did teacher training and you specialised in the area of your curriculum and if you were able to master the pedagogy, they were really important parts of the job criteria for you as a subject master pre 1994 and maybe a little bit of into post 94, not long but still there a little bit. 

The new role is a management role and the heads of department I interviewed in the first set of interviews were saying then that this……we need professional development, the skills are changing, we need to be able to master the skills that are necessary, the literature seems to indicate that the best form of…..well best way of doing that is actually in the schools, heads of department in the literature who are interviewed say yeah we….that’s the way they learn best, they learn the skills best and professional development at school level would also I think enable schools to be able to teach the skills that fit to them, organisational, socialisation rather than professionalization so I think that’s really very important.  One of the heads of department just as….there was a really telling point she made…….said to me….this is one that I interviewed 4 years later and she said the skills are all new and I’m learning them by trial and error and my heart went out to her, I thought this must be shocking, you’re actually having to teach yourself as you go and that shouldn’t be happening, there should be some way that these people are being…..are able to access professional development so that the skills are available to them so yeah for practice.

Interviewer: Okay well we might leave it there

Peter Rosenfeld: Do you want to talk about the Research, mention Research…..very quickly

Interviewer: Oh Research yes please

Peter Rosenfeld: Just very very quickly…….I think that…….I think this is really important because there is so…..there is not a lot of literature on heads of department but by far the bulk of the literature that is there is almost based upon the demands or the goals of instructional leadership so an enormous proportion of it is saying this is how heads of department can enhance effective learning and teaching and this is what makes a good head of department so they can do that or it’s geared towards that.   I would like to think that there can be…..the tiny little bit there that’s about how this role is changing can be expanded, there’s an enormous potential in there to do that, to yeah research how this new role actually operates.  The flip side of that is there must be an enormous amount of potential to also research how effective teaching and learning can actually be generated because under the old culture where you had a curriculum framed department, I keep coming back to that because that’s what I called it, we had a curriculum framed department, the department was responsible for an enormous number of professional and indeed social functions so it was where teaching took place, it was the edge in a school where teaching took place, it was where effective learning and teaching was pursued, it was where standards were set and maintained.  The social stuff was important too, it was where young teachers were who’d come out of University were nurtured and that was where they learnt their skills and that’s where they were mentored by experienced teachers and they relate socially……teachers related to that, /?/ pointed out that they related to their departments, teachers identified with the department that they were a part of.

Now those functions have got to be in some way replicated and how that takes place, how those things those professional and social functions occur is an enormous field of research I think to see whether it will happen and how it will happen….so does that make sense?

Interviewer: Yes excellent, very interesting, alright well we might leave it there

Peter Rosenfeld: Have I made a mess and talked for too long

Interviewer: So thank you very much for your time Peter

Peter Rosenfeld: It was a pleasure