Transforming traditional views of school leadership for school-community collaboration: a PALAR approach

Schools in poor working class communities in South Africa face a myriad of equity challenges that impact negatively on their ability to achieve basic school functionality. Yet, within such communities, there exists a wealth of valuable local knowledge and support that can be mobilised to assist school leaders, not only to bring about school improvement but also to reimagine effective schooling. However, the process of integrating such support into a school requires a reconsidering and repositioning of traditional views of school leadership. As a school leader, I embarked on a research journey, with 15 community volunteers, to understand how to integrate their work into the daily functioning of our school. I share my learning from the process of action learning with the community volunteers. I use the seven guiding principles of participatory action learning and action research (PALAR) to validate my claims to knowledge. The key findings indicate the value that PALAR holds for the development of a reflexive school leadership praxis that supports community agency towards school and community development. The conclusions drawn contribute to educational leadership theory by providing an evidence-based example of how an action learning process can facilitate collaboration between school leadership and community members.