Archer’s Morphogenesis Theory

Archer’s sociological theory of morphogenesis advances the idea of the stratified nature of reality (Archer, 1995). That reality is layered along structure and agency; neither of them is privileged over the other. Archer proposes the concept of analytical dualism as appropriate in theorising the interaction between structure and agency. Analytical because the two are interdependent and dualism because each possesses its own emerging powers. Archer argues that social structures are distinct from and irreducible to the agency (Archer, 2003). However, she suggests structural properties are emergent in nature and are dependent on human

activity; but once they have emerged they have irreducible causal powers (Archer, 1995). Archer’s principles of analytical dualism highlight the importance of studying the interplay between structure and agency without conflating them; proposing the reflexivity act as the core mediator between them (Rafiee et al. 2014).

In school systems, structural properties have powers to confront leaders with situations that provide both possibilities and constraints to the capacity to sustain students’ achievement. Social realism asserts that such situations have an objective existence regardless of the perceptions and experiences of school leaders and other stakeholders (Bhaskar, 1979). That notwithstanding, perceptions and experiences form part of school system reality, hence, important in leadership analysis. Accordingly, agency and structure occur as distinct entities entangled in a social reality, separately focusing on one, therefore, fails to exhaust all possibilities of understanding phenomena under study (Archer, 1995). This implies that analysing leadership practices requires a collective understanding of both structure and agency: disentangling both emergent powers and properties is fundamental for enabling school system change, transformations and sustainability. This entangling must happen within specific school contexts.

In the context of this study, I define agency and structure in educational leadership

perspectives: Agency as the creative role of school leaders and their capability to choose to use their emergent powers of reflexivity to address students’ achievement issues (Archer, 2003). The structure as a network of internal and external social relations in a school system that define communicative interactions and provide actors with reasons for pursuing change or stability in the context of sustainability (Archer, 1995). Resources, positions and

responsibilities, as well as the communicative networks between them, are things defining actors’ social relations in school leadership systems (Archer, 1985). Archer separates socio-

structural and cultural systems (Zeuner, 1999). In the study, however, I use a collective but inclusive term socio-political mechanism, which captures the complexity of both structure and culture. It is beyond the scope of this thesis to engage in deep philosophical

differentiation between the two.

The concept of morphogenesis, therefore, provides ontological lenses for analysing and explaining leadership practices in school settings; schools as social systems influenced by both structures (internal and external) and agency. In this study, the concept of

morphogenesis is particularly important in understanding the emergence of school leadership practices that enhance sustainability. The idea that social change with respect to realising sustainability is only accomplished when cultural and structural factors are modified in a school system. However, a change in structure and culture entails changing people’s

assumptions and values within the school system with an open mind to alternatives (Fullan, 2002, 2005; Anderson and Wenderoth, 2007). The change further calls for in-depth

individual and group consciousness that develops mutual relations in the school system (Archer, 2010; Hardman, 2012). Archer theorises the development of mutuality in the concept of reflective conversations in which she advances a framework for analysing

communicative networks and interrelationships within school systems and their implications on resultant leadership practices (see Archer, 1999, 2003). This implies that cultural change is essential in realising sustainability in a school system; however, a change in school culture is dependent on changes in people’s ideas, assumptions and beliefs. Changes in these

dispositions aid in changing unpleasant relationships that hinder sustainability objectives.

2.1.2 3rd _{Generation Activity Theory}

Engestrom’s activity theory (AT) is a theoretical framework that analyses the interaction of human activities (and processes) and their interrelationships in a social context (Activity system). Lev Vygotsky founded the first-generation AT, which considered human action as mediated by culture, identifying human artefacts as important in overcoming human action. The first-generation AT was criticised for centrally focusing on the individual (Engestrom, 2001). Leont'ev and Luria further developed Vygotsky’s AT to include the historical, cultural and societal (CHAT) perspectives into accounting for human actions (Bakhurst, 2009). The incorporation of historical and social dimensions indicated an expansion of the unit of

analysis from an individual to a collective activity system. Human activity as understood and embedded in the context. Engestroms 3rd _{generation further expounded the unit of analysis to}

consider multiple activity systems in an effort to demonstrate the complex social systems shaping and informing human actions. Engestrom’s AT focuses on the interaction between two or more interconnected activity systems; in doing so, the attention is not only on

meanings within the system, but also, at the point of intersection with other systems; referred to as a zone of expansion (Engestrom, 1999, 2001).

Educational researchers using AT identify a school as a complex activity system with

multiple activities embedded but also networked with other external multiple activity systems within the context of operation (Bakhurst, 2009; Feldman and Weiss, 2010; Beswick et al. 2010). In this study, AT is used to provides a holistic and ecological perspective on leadership as a human activity; facilitating the analysis of human action and interactions with and through artefacts within a socio-cultural context. Engestrom argues that activity cannot be analysed outside the context in which it occurs since the activity is socially and culturally mediated (Engeström and Kerosuo, 2007). AT seeks to explain actions in a real-world

context, by relating them to the socio-cultural context in which the activity is taking place. In doing so, AT is, therefore, an important theoretical basis for studying different forms of human practices as developmental processes; with both individual and social levels

interlinked at the same time (Uden, Valderas et al. 2008). This study framed the analysis of leadership practices within specific study schools as activity systems. Not only recognising the mutuality of the individual and the environment but also viewing leadership activity as an interactive web of actors, structures, cultures and artefacts (Engestrom 1999), illustrated below.

Figure 2.1 illustrates Engestrom’s AT adapted for this study. The activity (leadership practice) is, therefore, an action directed at an object (sustainable student’s achievement) within single and multiple systems. The figure shows that relations between the object and subjects is not direct but mediated through artefacts, community, rules and the division of labour. The multiple directed arrows between components in the system illustrate dynamic and

continuously interacting relations, which define the activity system as a whole unit and not its segments. In keeping with AT underpinnings, the analysis of school leadership practice in this study focused on leaders’ thinking and action in situ; the systemic analysis of leadership practice within social contexts of schools that situate leaders’ activities. The appropriate unit of analysis was not leaders or what they do but leadership activities within specific structural and cultural contexts. This shifted the unit of analysis from individual actors or group of actors to the web of leaders, stakeholders and situation that gives leadership activity its form, in a community of practice (Wenger, 1998). AT theory facilitated the analysis of how the social and situational contexts enable and constrain leadership practices (see the analysis in chapter six). The assumption that recognition of the socio-political contexts as constitutive elements of leadership practices is integral for a change to occur in students’ learning and achievement. Moreover, the ability to reflect on and transform these socio-cultural structures for sustainable students’ achievement is framed in leaders’ agential capacity (knowledge, attitudes, values and dispositions) as well as their interconnectedness and interrelationships with other school stakeholders in a COP and the situation at hand.