Advocacy organizations and collective action
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Item Systems Thinking for School Leaders Holistic Leadership for Excellence in Education(Springer, 2027-08-03) Haim Shaked; Chen SchechteHaim Shaked and Chen Schechter have done what no one else has been able to do, namely make ‘systems thinking’ clear and practical while retaining its depth and comprehensiveness. In Holistic School Leadership, the authors provide us with a clear, accessible and (given its breadth) amazingly complete treatment of ‘systems thinking for educational leaders’. I am a great fan of systems thinking, and indeed use it in our ‘whole system’ improvement work, but I always thought that systems doing combined with systems thinking was crucial both for understanding the theory as well as getting deeper improvement in practice. Shaked and Schechter unpack the ins and outs of systems thinking and show us how to use it in a variety of situations. Their starting defi nition is simple: “seeing the whole beyond the parts, and seeing the parts in the context of the whole.” In Part I the researchers unpack the history and meaning of systems thinking, as well as giving us a clear, succinct account of the research on the topic. We learn about the methodologies used in systems-thinking research, and related fields like complexity theory, and about their direct applications for school leadership. But Part I—containing the first four of the ten chapters in the book—for all its clear account of what has happened in the past, and its recent applications to applied school leadership, leaves us short. Tantalizingly, the reader gets a feel for holistic leadership, senses that it has great potential, but by the end of Part I, still is not in a position to appreciate its use in deep change. I suspect that this is the intent of the authors—to leave us wanting more, much more as we head into Part II—The Holistic School Leadership Approach and its Implementation. The six chapters in Part II deliver on this promise.Item Revival and Reconciliation: The Anglican Church and the Politics of Rwanda(The University of Wisconsin Press, 2022-08-18) Phillip A. CantrellRwanda has many names. It is often referred to in recent years as the “Singapore of Africa” for its intense urbanization and investment in the telecommunications industry and, in a more romantic vein, the “Land of a Thousand Hills” or the “Switzerland of Africa” because of its steep, mountainous topography. Prior to independence in 1959, it was the Belgian Protectorate of Ruanda- Urundi. When European colonialists arrived in the late nineteenth century, they found a smaller kingdom of Ruanda ruled by the Nyiginya Dynasty, perhaps amounting to no more than half to two- thirds of the area of the current state. Regardless of the name, Rwanda is a tiny country, one of the smallest in Africa, most closely approximating in size the U.S. state of Vermont or the European nation of Belgium. Ironically, the word itself, “Rwanda,” means “the surface occupied by a swarm or a scattering,” semanti cally suggestive of a “large space.”1Item Power, Politics, and Organizational Change(SAGE, 2020-03-31) David A. Buchanan; Richard J. BadhamPraise for Power, Politics and Organizational Change ‘It is foolish to ignore or marginalise the role of power and politics in organisational change, yet many practitioners and academics do just that. Fortunately, this must-read book addresses these issues in a clear, concise and practical manner. The first two editions of this book were excellent and very welcome. This edition provides a timely update, building on the quality of the previous editions, especially in terms of its reinterpretation of Machiavelli’s work. I would strongly recommend it to anyone involved in change, whether student, academic or practitioner.’Item Accountability and Leadership in the Catholic Church(Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2020-01-15) Brian DiveBrian Dive has several decades of experience in large multinational organisations working in staff development and organisation design. In recent years, he has advised numerous large organisations and government departments about structure; how to ensure that those at each level in an organisation have sufficient empowerment to become fully effective and gain greater satisfaction. He has written extensively about these matters. In this book, he offers suggestions to the Church based on his experiences. Some might say, thinking of Matthew 28:20, that the Church has done well enough for a couple of millennia and has no need to embrace “new” thinking. However, in the twentieth century the Church readily adopted new technological breakthroughs to assist with its mission. In 1931 Vatican radio established only the sixth short wave broadcasting service in the world (assisted by Guglielmo Marconi). The Vatican website demonstrates an impressive mastery of twenty first century digital means of communication. And, according to recent comments from John W. O’Malley S.J.1, the Vatican adopted microphones and amplifiers before the House of Commons and typewriters before the British Foreign Office. Furthermore, there is the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the Vatican Observatory. Recent popes have made extensive use of the technological marvel we call international air travel to visit local churches all around the globe. The conclusion from these observations is that the Church does not turn inwards on itself but rather looks outward towards the world and utilises whatever useful modern ways of doing things come to hand. In fact, in Chapter 1, Dive quotes from comments made by Pope Pius XII in 1950: “The Church welcomes all that is truly human … [she] cannot shut herself up, inactive, in the privacy of her churches and thus neglect the mission entrusted to her.” Given the above uptake of “new thinking” the book suggests, drawing on the fruits of a career spent in applying late 20th century understanding of organisations, possible steps towards the streamlining of existing Church structures and procedures. The book is very readable and the source of many surprising