Faculty Inaugural and Eminent Lectures
- Peter Gronn: Leadership: its genealogy, configuration and trajectory 17 June 2009
- Halina Parafianowicz: Higher Education in Poland: approaches and challenges and Multiculturality and Multicultural Education: perspectives from the Bialystok region of Poland Tuesday 2 June 2009
- Maria Nikolajeva: The Power of Language: Literacy, (mis)communication and oppression in literature for young readers 29 April 2009
Peter Gronn
Professor Peter Gronn's Inaugural Lecture 'Leadership: its genealogy, configuration and trajectory' will take place on Wednesday 17 June 5.00-6.30 in the New Faculty Building Room GS4; followed by a Reception in Room GS5, 6.30pm onward.
The departure point for this lecture is the resurgence of the leadership field that has occurred since the 1980s. Following a prolonged flirtation in that decade and in 1990s with what has become known as a "heroic paradigm", increasing numbers of scholars are now searching for post-heroic alternatives to understanding leadership. In light of these developments, two important arguments will be advanced. First, the common assumption that leadership is primarily about the actions of key individuals is not born out by the historical evidence. Indeed, a brief review of the record will indicate the existence of a range of formations of leadership, and show the extent of the continuity between diverse previous and current leadership practices. Second, leadership plays a part in the ordering of human endeavour due to the desire and willingness of people to co-ordinate their intentions and plans for the purposes of decision-making and problem-solving. As this co-ordination imperative is age-old and longstanding, it re-inforces the possibility and likelihood of continuities in the dynamics of practice. A critical appraisal is then undertaken of the most prominent current post-heroic leadership alternative, distributed leadership, with the idea of a configuration of leadership suggested as a more accurate representation of practice and an alternative unit of analysis. The final part of the lecture will concentrate on a possible future direction for the school leadership field. Here, the focus will be on key co-ordination challenges for school leaders and the specific leadership capabilities they are likely to require if they are to lead learning in schools. A number of issues associated with specifying school leadership capabilities will also be identified.
Professor Peter Gronn is a leading international scholar in the general field of leadership, and specifically in educational and school leadership. He has extensive research experience in government and non-government school systems, and with public sector agencies in Australia and the UK.
Please contact Susannah Lacon: sml44@cam.ac.uk 01223 767626/12 if you would like to attend.
Maria Nikolajeva
Professor Maria Nikolajeva's Inaugural Lecture 'The Power of Language: Literacy, (mis)communication and oppression in literature for young readers' took place on Wednesday 29 April 5.00-6.30 in the Mary Allen Building Auditorium at the Faculty of Education, 184 Hills Road, Cambridge CB2 8PQ.
In literature for young readers, language is frequently used as an instrument of power, both in communication between the implied author (adult) and the implied reader (child), and in communication between fictive characters. In the latter case, communication between adult and child characters can be employed to educate, socialize and oppress the child. This specific function of language reflects the insurmountable dilemma of any children's writer, the tension between the striving to educate the child and the wish to take the child's side. The unequal power hierarchies, especially tangible in children's literature, affect the use of language in texts for young readers. The way literacy is portrayed in children's books reveals the historical and educational context, the view of the child and childhood, and the individual author's power position. In the lecture, that adheres to my current research on power and alterity in literature for young readers, I will investigate language as a power vehicle in some famous children's novels, including Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, A. A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh, Norton Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth, and Astrid Lindgren's Pippi Longstocking.
Professor Nikolajeva is a leading scholar in children's literature. Her academic honours include a Fulbright Grant and a research fellowship at the International Youth Library, Munich. In 2005 she received the International Brothers Grimm Award for a lifetime achievement in children's literature research.
Halina Parafianowicz
Tuesday 2 June 2009, room GS3 Faculty of Education. Halina will be presenting two lectures:
3.00 – 4.00pm: Higher Education in Poland: approaches and challenges
4.30 – 5.00pm: Multiculturality and Multicultural Education: perspectives from the Bialystok region of Poland
Halina Parafianowicz is Professor and Rector, University of Bialystok, Poland, and a former Dean in the Faculty of History and Sociology. She is an historian who has published extensively on diplomatic and cultural relations between the United States and Poland. Some of her most recent writing includes Inter-War America through Immigrants' Memoirs: Between Expectations and Experience: "We" and "the Others": Modern European Societies in Search of Identity. Studies in Comparative History and The American Myth in Poland and Central Europe after the First World War.