UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD PRINCIPALS OF HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS IN POSTCOLONIAL BARBADOS: A STUDY USING LIFE HISTORY AS A DECOLONIZING METHODOLOGY Jean Butcher-Lashley Submitted in partial fulfilment of the degree of Doctor of Education The School of Education The University of Sheffield, UK June 2016 2 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This doctoral journey has been one of the most significant journeys in my life thus far. It turned out to be far more than I expected and was truly transformational and liberating! I thank God for the opportunity afforded me and I wish to express special thanks to the Hon. Ronald Jones, Minister of Education, Science, Technology and Innovation who had confidence in my ability to succeed. I want to express a very special note of thanks to Professor Patricia Sikes, my supervisor, who has been a constant support: you ignited something in me that kept me focused during all the twists and turns of this process. I found my passion-that passion that sustained me throughout! To my colleagues and friends: Dana Gilkes, ivan walters, Cherish Holmes, Claire Millington, Dr. Hajra Degia, Saverna Ross, Valerie Jones, Senator Alwin Adams, my new family in General and Continuing Education and so many others. You have been an inspiration! Thank you! To the participants of this study: I thank you for giving of your time and of yourself to an effort that you did not have to engage in but did so magnanimously and selflessly. The richness of your life experiences has greatly enhanced my life. To Mrs. Norma Holder who passed away on 14 February, 2016: Gone but never forgotten. May you rest in peace and rise in glory. My parents- Marlene and Richard Butcher – thank you for being constant in your support throughout my life. My children – Jerome and Camille and grandson, Dimitri and cat, Patches-team number one! Wow! The discussions we had, our outings between researching and writing, those smiles, the teasing, the dribbles, the disruptions…. they kept me entertained and involved with every facet of your lives during those months and years! You were what I needed to get me through! To my colleagues and friends from Trinidad, St Vincent and Barbados on the doctoral programme: I will never forget the warmth and generosity of your spirits-sisters and brothers bonded together climbing this doctoral mountain. Thank you! Finally, I thank my examiners, Dr. Caroline Hart and Professor Ivor Goodson, for your insightful comments and recommendations. Through all the changing scenes of life In trouble and in joy The praises of my God shall still My heart and tongue employ (A & M, hymn 290) 3 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield ABSTRACT PRINCIPALS OF HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS IN POSTCOLONIAL BARBADOS: A STUDY USING LIFE HISTORY AS A DECOLONIZING METHODOLOGY Life stories of indigenous or colonized peoples can be located within a decolonizing agenda. Our biographies can influence our professional life. However, if not contextualized or examined against the social, political, cultural or whatever context from which they originate, our biographies and life stories can be disempowering and assist in ‘fortifying patterns of dominance’ (Goodson, 2013, p. 5). I take a decolonizing life history approach to explore the biographies of Barbadian higher education principals working at particular times within the island’s recent history from the period 1987 to the present. This approach allows me to see how the stories of principals are set within a colonial, socio- historical, political context imbedded with the meta-narratives of a colonial hegemony still in existence within a Barbadian context. In various ways this affected the way principals functioned in the professional sphere. It may therefore be necessary to include in training programmes, space for principals or persons in leadership positions to reflect on their life experiences and to attempt to contextualize those life experiences. 4 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................ 2 ABSTRACT...................................................................................................... 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................ 4 CHAPTER ONE: THE PROLOGUE ........................................................... 7 THE FOCUS OF THE RESEARCH.............................................................. 7 POSITIONALITY AND ETHICAL ISSUES .............................................. 12 STRUCTURE OF THE STUDY ................................................................. 16 CHAPTER TWO: THE LIFE HISTORY APPROACH .......................... 19 POSITIONALITY ........................................................................................ 19 THE LIFE STORY ....................................................................................... 19 LIFE HISTORY ........................................................................................... 21 LIFE STORY, LIFE HISTORY AND PROFESSIONAL LIVES .............. 23 LIFE NARRATIVES & IDENTITY ........................................................... 26 LIFE NARRATIVES, LIFE HISTORY & PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY IN A POSTMODERN ERA ......................................................................... 29 CHAPTER THREE: THE CONTEXT ....................................................... 31 GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION AND ETHNIC PROFILE OF BARBADOS ................................................................................................ 32 REVIEW OF A HUNDRED YEARS OF EMANCIPATION .................... 32 BARBADOS IN THE NINETEEN THIRTIES TO SIXTIES .................... 36 5 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield DEVELOPMENT OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN BARBADOS .............. 46 THE ERDISTON TEACHERS’ TRAINING COLLEGE (ETTC) ............................. 47 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST INDIES, CAVE HILL CAMPUS (UWI) ........ 48 THE BARBADOS COMMUNITY COLLEGE (BCC) ............................................... 49 THE SAMUEL JACKMAN PRESCOD POLYTECHNIC (SJPP) ............................. 49 THE REGIONAL AND GLOBAL CONTEXT OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN BARBADOS ........................................................................................... 50 CHAPTER FOUR: THE INTERVIEW PROCESS .................................. 54 PREPARATION FOR INTERVIEWING ................................................... 60 MAKING CONTACT WITH PARTICIPANTS AND ANONYMITY ..... 63 INTERVIEWING PARTICIPANTS AND RELATIONSHIPS .................. 66 STORING STORIES AND TRANSCRIBING ........................................... 70 REPORTING ................................................................................................ 73 CHAPTER FIVE: AN APPROACH TO ANALYSIS ............................... 75 A FRAMEWORK-DEPENDENT APPROACH ......................................... 76 THE CONSTRUCTIVIST GROUNDED THEORY APPROACH ............ 77 CONSTRUCTIVIST GROUNDED THEORY AND INTERPRETATION ...................................................................................................................... 78 REFLEXIVITY AND ETHICS IN ANALYSIS ......................................... 80 CODING ....................................................................................................... 81 CHAPTER SIX: ANALYSIS OF LIFE STORIES .................................... 82 STRUCTURE OF THE ANALYSIS OF STORIES OF PRINCIPALS ..... 82 SECTION ONE: CONNECTIONS BETWEEN PERSONAL EXPERIENCES AND THE PROFESSIONAL SPHERE .......................... 83 SECTION TWO: FEMALE PRINCIPALS IN HIGHER EDUCATION ... 95 ROLE OF FATHERS AND SIGNIFICANT OTHERS .............................................. 95 BALANCING THE PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL SPHERE ........................ 99 6 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES AND MENTORSHIP ................................... 100 SECTION THREE: THEMES ................................................................... 102 MODELS OF LEADERS OR AUTHORITY FIGURES .......................... 102 LEADERSHIP ............................................................................................ 110 INSTITUTIONAL GROWTH AND FINANCING TERTIARY EDUCATION ............................................................................................. 115 QUALITY ASSURANCE AND ACCREDITATION .............................. 118 VALUES AND VISION OF PRINCIPALS .............................................. 124 CHAPTER SEVEN: THE EPILOGUE .................................................... 133 SUMMARY OF RESULTS AND IMPLICATIONS OF THIS STUDY . 133 IMPLICATIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH ........................................ 134 IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE AND POLICY ................................. 135 THE LIFE HISTORY APPROACH WITHIN A GLOBAL RECOLONIZATION AGENDA ............................................................... 136 THE LIFE HISTORY AND A DE-COLONIZATION AGENDA ........... 138 REFLECTIONS OF A RESEARCHER .................................................... 139 REFERENCES ............................................................................................ 141 APPENDIX ONE: INFORMATION LETTER AND CONSENT FORM ....................................................................................................................... 157 APPENDIX TWO: INTERVIEW GUIDE ............................................... 159 APPENDIX THREE: ETHICS APPROVAL LETTER ......................... 162 APPENDIX FOUR: DATES FOR PRINCIPALS ................................... 163 7 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield CHAPTER ONE: THE PROLOGUE Barbados, a postcolonial society within the Caribbean region, has a proud tradition or legacy of universal access to education from the primary to the tertiary or higher education level. It is a legacy that is ‘long standing and respected’ (Ministry of Education and Human Resource Development, 2012, p.1). However, an announcement by the government of Barbados in August 2013 that tuition fees would be charged at the regional University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus in Barbados can be seen as an end to this cherished legacy and funding model. As a consequence, questions in relation to the capacity of government to continue to fund tertiary education in Barbados have become a significant part of the national discourse. The severe fiscal reductions in budget allocations to all institutions in the higher education sector in Barbados have also increased the challenges to this sector. The financial sustainability of the entire higher education sector in Barbados described by Sir Hilary Beckles as ‘the nucleus and seedbed of development and sustainability in the nation-building project’ (Ministry of Education and Human Resource Management, 2012, p.1) is under national scrutiny, threat and review. THE FOCUS OF THE RESEARCH The current challenges of financing higher education in Barbados are seemingly overshadowing other issues of similar or greater import. This study seeks the views of those who lead and have led higher education institutions in Barbados at a time of significant growth and at this time when the sector is under financial review. Slater (2011) and West (2010) believe that the voices of those who lead the higher education sector are seldom heard. This study examines the lives of principals from their perspective but it is not a study about the daily professional experiences of principals (West, 2010; Loader, 2002). In this research project I explore the life stories of four principals of the four public- funded higher education institutions in postcolonial Barbadian society. The stories that they share are personal and subjective. I ask principals to tell their stories in order to 8 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield understand how those stories or biographies can be related to the professional sphere of life but I also set and consider these stories against the historical, social, political, cultural or whatever context within which they were lived. This is because lives are shaped and influenced by particular contexts and so can be seen as socially constructed. The focus or central thesis of this research project is therefore that since lives are socially constructed, it is critical that there also be an examination of the several contexts which shape them. For this reason the project becomes a life history research project. Such an approach has relevance in understanding how we enact our various roles as principals and leaders or within other spheres of endeavour. Additionally, within a context where stories are drawn from a colonial heritage, the research project also uses the life history approach as a decolonizing methodology. A decolonizing methodology as used in this thesis is about ‘motives, concerns and knowledge brought to the research process’ and about ‘critical engagement with multiple forms of power and coloniality’ (Sonn, Stevens & Duncan, 2013, p. 9 citing Swadener and Mutua, 2008). The approach can also be interpreted as a lens or perspective I use ‘to understand and expose the continuing legacy of coloniality’ (Reyes Cruz & Sonn, 2011, p. 207) which I also refer to as ‘patterns of dominance’ (Goodson, 2013, p. 5) and ‘cognitive maps of influence and power’ (Goodson, 1997, p. 111). The major questions of this research project are therefore as follows: (1) Do the socially constructed biographies or personal life experiences of principals influence their experiences within the professional sphere? (2) If the biographies or personal life experiences of principals emerge from a colonial and postcolonial context, do these contexts influence how they enact their roles as principals? Additionally, as a female researcher with an interest in serving at a higher level within higher education, I am also interested in the following: (3) How do the biographies and personal experiences of female participants influence the professional sphere? An examination of the stories of female participants therefore will also become the focus of this research. 9 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield PURPOSE AND RELEVANCE OF THE STUDY In this study I therefore examine how personal lives may be related to the professional sphere in order for there to be a better understanding of how personal experiences may affect the way professional roles are enacted or performed. I also emphasize the use of the life history approach as the stories emerging from personal experiences must be contextualized or related to the historical, political or cultural context from which they originate. As indicated above, this is important as persons are shaped by various contexts (Brown & Lavia, 2013; Schatzki, 2010; Beijaard, Meijer & Verloop, 2004; Mead, 1934). Attempting to place the life stories within the context within which they were lived will hopefully lead to a greater consciousness of ‘what missions and motives people bring to their work’ (see Goodson’s introduction in Sugrue, 2005, p. xvii) and most importantly, where those missions and motives originate. I believe that it is important to know the origins of our motives and missions because if those missions, motives or values are not interrogated or critiqued, we may unconsciously either be causing harm or doing what is good or beneficial. We need to be conscious of what we are perpetuating and why. Brown and Lavia (2013) indicate that ‘education in the Caribbean is inextricably linked to a history of imperialism experienced specifically in the form of European colonialism’ and that ‘in tracing the development of the education system and the leadership within that system, it is important to examine that a key feature of colonial rule was a civil service systematized to carry out dictates emanating from an external source’ (p. 52-53). It is also interesting to note that Sylvia Henry in examining the programme designed for training experienced practitioners in primary and secondary schools in Barbados, concluded that while there was an emphasis on the acquisition of technical and managerial skills, her comprehensive analysis of a critical skills’ survey conducted among new principals, identified ‘self-awareness skills as the most critical to their effective functioning’ (Henry, 2008, p.77). I believe that the life stories of principals that will be shared in this research paper could possibly allow for what Richardson (1990) refers to as a ‘replotting’ for those reading or listening such that an avenue for some kind of ‘self-awareness’ becomes possible. However, as a consequence of the legacy of colonialism within the Barbadian and 10 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield Caribbean landscape, it is necessary also to contextualize those stories. This study seeks to promote a life history methodological approach as having practical and theoretical relevance and significance within the context of colonial societies and within the context of all spheres of leadership. The views of Stephen Kemmis (2010) also become useful in understanding the approach taken to this study. Kemmis (2010) combines Aristotelian and Marxist perspectives in defining ‘praxis’ as ‘the right conduct and the socially responsible action of people aiming to make their world better through education’ (p. 25). Kemmis (2010) believes that this is best accomplished by utilizing ‘advice from the field. [For] what is needed is knowledge and theory that comes into play in the doing of education, not from the sidelines but from the field of play, from the players whose life and work is educational praxis’(p. 25). This study is about listening to those in the field or from the field and learning from them about how they led or are leading their institutions and most importantly discovering how their personal experiences may have informed their ‘praxis’ but also contextualizing those experiences. I believe that it is important to interrogate and critique what we deem as ‘right conduct’ and ‘socially responsible action’ in education as in other endeavours, especially if our actions will have public social consequences. Another important perspective offered by Kemmis (2010) that is useful in relation to this study has to do with the concern raised by the principals in the study by Henry (2008). Kemmis (2010) indicates that advice about praxis coming from external observers on how to improve is often ‘not in educational terms, but in administrative or technical terms’ (p.25). Ironically, Henry (2008) observes that Education Officers in Barbados ‘who assist with the recruitment and monitoring of principals expect the technical and managerial skills to be the most critical to the new principals’ performance of the job’ (p. 77). The principals’ perception of what is critical to their functioning therefore conflicts with the perception of Education Officers. This again highlights the fact that it is necessary to listen to those in the field either about what is required to improve ‘praxis’ or about how the business of education was conducted by those who have been in the field or are still in the field. The principals who are participants in this study are from the higher education sector and they talk about by whom or by what they were influenced in their professional role as 11 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield principals. What they have to say is of relevance to principals at any level within an education system and to those in positions of leadership from various fields. There are two female participants in this study which examines the stories of principals in higher education in Barbados. Morley (2013) cites Singh (2008) as indicating that in 70% of the Commonwealth’s 54 countries, all universities were led by men in 2007 and in the EU ‘women represent only 18% of grade A (professional) academic staff’ even though ‘the proportion of female students (55%) and graduates (59%)…exceeds that of male students’ (p.121). Morley (2013) also indicates that the highest number of female Vice Chancellors was recorded in only five countries: ‘Sweden, Iceland, Norway, Finland and Israel’ (p. 119). The female principals in this study do not represent leadership at the university level but the college level. It will be useful to examine the stories of our two female principals against this context of international under-representation of females in the higher education sector (Cairncross, 2015; McNae & Vali, 2015; Morley, 2013). This may allow for a better understanding of the contexts of their lives and how and why these women progressed to where they were in higher education. It may help to understand how to move women even further. The research related to female leadership identifies an approach linked to the male- dominated culture within the societies studied (Li, 2014; Oplatka, 2006; Coleman, 2000). This approach involves ‘creating an authoritative atmosphere by being strict and harsh’ but Oplatka (2006) also discovered that in developing countries there existed an ‘androgenic’ style which was ‘a combination of “masculine” and “feminine” leadership styles that derive by and large, from the strong male-dominant values in developing nations, coupled with women’s own tendencies and needs’ (p. 614). Morris (2007) writing from a Caribbean perspective indicates that the female secondary school principals from Trinidad and Tobago that she interviewed brought not only behaviours similar to males, but also brought to their practice relational skills related to care. The stories of the female principals in Barbados provide insight into what has influenced their identity and practice as principals. As I approached the home of one of my participants on the afternoon of 02 February 2015 for a scheduled interview, I was suddenly struck by the overwhelming sense of 12 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield responsibility of knowing that I was about to record significant segments of the history of an institution with which I have been associated for twenty-five years. I was also about to hear the life story of someone who was my principal for most of those years and who led that institution during years of significant expansion. This study will also therefore be about institutional development. The stories that people tell of their personal lives cannot be separated from the context in which they were lived but it is also important to understand how the lives as experienced within a particular developmental context are shaped by even wider social and political contexts. The life history methodological approach used in this research project seeks to make those contexts known and understood. POSITIONALITY AND ETHICAL ISSUES Sikes (2010) contends that it is ‘unethical to offer a version of someone’s life (or indeed of any social phenomenon) without making clear the nature of the gaze that is being brought to bear upon it’ (p.13). I believe that our personal life experiences determine who we are, what we do and how we do what we do in our professional lives (Hutton, 2013; Hyvärinen & Uusiautti, 2014; Inman, 2013; Benjamin, 2011; Day, Sammons, Stobart & Kington, 2007; Day, Kington, Stobart & Sammons, 2006; Beijaard, Meijer, Verloop, 2004, Sikes, Measor & Woods, 1985). My first inclination towards this view was after being invited to write about my journey to where I am now on a doctoral programme. While I was in the process of writing about my journey to where I am at the moment, I discovered that my early life experiences as a teenager and some memorable incidents as a young adult had shaped my professional identity as a teacher. The models of leadership in my home and church community and memorable incidents in my early adulthood had impacted on my choice of teaching as a career and who I perceived myself to be and my approach to teaching. It was only after recognizing the impact of those models and more importantly, being able to contextualize those models, that I was able to accept an identity that apparently was perceived by my students but one with which I had refused to identify. I am now able to attempt to free myself from an identity that I carried for almost 28 years of my teaching career. 13 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield Prior to my new level of consciousness about my identity, I was anxious to get out of the classroom and embark on a career in administration as I felt that the classroom was becoming restrictive and I wanted to influence decision-making in education at an institutional and national level. I agree with Sikes (1985) therefore that ‘interest in management and organization is common among teachers at this stage’ (p. 48) which is between the ages of 30-40 as I was then. However, after liberating myself from those early models of leadership, I find that at age 52, I continue to have an interest in administrative duties and a desire to influence educational policies but most importantly and surprising to me is that I also have a renewed interest in continuing life as a classroom teacher, if I have to, which I have to admit could also be a coping mechanism as well. Sikes (1985) indicates that this could be a response to not gaining promotion at a certain stage in your career. I am at the middle management level and have applied for positions of principal within and outside of my institution. I have therefore invested time reflecting on the role of principal. Additionally, my interest in researching the higher education level, specifically, is as a consequence of teaching at this level for the last 25 years. My choice of methodology and area of research are therefore directly related to the personal experiences I have had and my desire to contribute at a different level. They are also related to my personal conviction about the value of life history research to understanding my identity or who I am and how I approach my work as an educator. I believe the same to be applicable to principals in higher education but also to those involved in myriad fields of endeavour. Sikes (2010) further contends that ‘reflexivity and honesty about one’s positionality and its role in sense-making are integral components of ethical practice’ (p. 13). I am aware of the way, for example, that my personal experience with my life story has affected my choice of area to research and the approach I am taking to this research project. It could also affect how I treat data and interpret that data. I need to be aware of this and so does the reader of the research. I agree with May (2011), Robinson-Pant (2005), Sikes (2004), Sikes and Goodson (2003) and Clough and Barton (1995) that our values are intricately linked to every aspect of the research process. Consequently, this section will only foreground or frame some aspects of my approach to ethical issues. My engagement with these issues will therefore surface throughout the research reporting. 14 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield Even as I disclose where I stand in relation to my research, I have to be cautious about ‘transcendence’ or what Pillow (2003) describes as releasing the researcher from ‘the problematic of representation through confession, catharsis, and cure’ by using disclosure or ‘honesty about one’s positionality’ (Sikes, 2010, p.13) as a ‘tool of methodological power’ (Pillow, 2003, p.192) with which as researchers we sometimes seek to ‘validate’ our work. However, as a researcher from a postcolonial society as from any society, I need to be reflexive about where my knowledge comes from and how I use it to interpret the data from my participants. As researchers from colonized societies, in particular, we have to accept the fact that we are often schooled and trained with ‘the master’s tools’ and need to consider the interesting view by Audie Lorde that ‘the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house’ (Lorde, 1984, p. 112). I agree with Tuhiwai Smith (1999), however, that this does not mean a total rejection of all theory or research or Western knowledge. Rather it is about centering our concerns and world-views and then coming to know and understand theory and research from our own perspectives and for our own purposes (p. 39). We must be careful then not to become complicit in other people’s agenda that may be oppressive. I agree with Robinson-Pant and Singal (2013) that ‘researching ethically is not just a matter of understanding and adapting research tools to specific cultural and social contexts, but also about researchers interrogating and responding to unequal power relations at both macro and micro levels’ (p. 444). In this regard I find the perspectives of Sriprakash and Mukhopadhyay (2015) useful in defining our role as researchers. They see researchers as ‘brokers’ and ‘translators’ of knowledge as part of the theoretical devices from an actor-network theory (ANT). Researchers become ‘one actor in that network, as would research participants and also non-human entities such as policies and research tools that all come to bear on the network’ (p. 231). As ‘brokers of knowledge’ researchers should see themselves as ‘mediators in the research process.’ But they are also ‘”translators’’ in the sense that the salience of their mediations is contingent on the role and agency of other actors connected to the research network and on the negotiations of these interconnections’ (p. 232). Research then is a ‘network of relationships’ and as researchers we are interested in understanding ‘how things come together and how they appear to hold together’ (p.232) in 15 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield that network. Sriprakash and Mukhopadhyay (2015) therefore see the researcher as being able to trace the ‘politics of knowledge with respect to their field of study and beyond’ (p. 232). Reflexivity should then be seen as more than a ‘normative methodological discourse’ but a process that challenges the researcher to move well beyond possibly ‘self-indulgent’ disclosures about positionality relative to the research subjects and area of research, into challenging ‘the constructs of the author’(Pillow, 2003, p. 189) or researcher. I believe that within a postcolonial context ‘hegemonic interests [could] consciously or unconsciously be at play in the researcher. Decolonization therefore may also be necessary for the researcher but is not a simple process’ (Butcher-Lashley, 2014, p. 6). Doing research is complex and we must as far as humanly possible try not to do harm and represent participants respectfully (Sikes, 2010). Reflexivity is an integral aspect of being ethical. There is a level of ethical engagement that goes beyond university research protocols (Robinson-Pant and Singal, 2013; Sikes, 2013). It involves ongoing, rigorous self-examination at every level of the research. Adams (2008) defines this approach as involving ‘a simultaneous welcoming and valuing of endless questioning’ (p.179). I agree with Pillow (2003) that being ethical through being reflexive should also involve the reader: ‘pushing the reader to analyse, question, and re-question her/his own knowledges and assumptions’ (p.189) brought to the reading. I once had the daunting realization that my unconscious gender and racial bias was affecting my analysis of an article. I had to review my critique of the article when I became aware of my bias. I was critiquing an article by Gill Cozier (2005) who I assumed was male as I was not familiar with ‘Gill’ as a female name. When I discovered that my male ‘Gill’ was a female, I recognized that my once ‘sharper, critical eye’ became somewhat ‘softened’. I was critical of what I defined as gender stereotyping by Crozier. This could have been true but I was less inclined to think that this was so when I discovered that Gill Crozier was a female researcher. I am also of Afro-Caribbean descent and I interpreted something that Cozier (2005) had said to mean that she had a disdain for interviewing black people. I was not at all pleased and that ‘sharper, critical eye’ returned but then I extended my research on her work and could sympathize with her journey as a white researcher who had an interest in minority groups within the UK context. As a result of that experience, I discovered that the reader brings all of who they are to the reading process. The reader of the research therefore has as much of 16 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield a responsibility to interrogate their taken-for-granted assumptions as the researcher. Not to do so may lead to misrepresentation of what is written. As a researcher, ‘broker’ or mediator in a life history research project, I seek to connect the world of participants with readers as I share the life histories of participants with the public through my writing. Even though what happens between the interviewer and participant is a co-construction (Brannen, 2013; Benjamin, 2011; Atkinson & Silverman, 1997), how the research report story is told remains within the control of the researcher even though there may be advice from a research supervisor. I see the role of ‘translator’ as therefore going beyond how stories of participants are arranged and the interpretation of those stories within a collaborative process. How I act as ‘translator’ is not even only dependent on how I am able to understand the ‘networks’ impacting participants and also me as researcher as proposed by (Sriprakash and Mukhopadhyay, 2015) but also how I proceed to unfold and arrange the larger story of the research report. It is also my understanding of who I am at the moment and my capacity to contextualize my own knowledge that will determine the extent to which I produce research and write about research that leads to a better understanding or ‘translation’ of our world. Furthermore, if life history research is to function as a decolonizing methodological endeavor, both the researcher and the reader of the research must be brought together in a relationship where there is vigilance about our own taken-for-granted assumptions. STRUCTURE OF THE STUDY The prologue to this study begins by providing the local context within which current changes in the higher education sector have occurred. I then indicate the focus, thesis and major questions of the research. I continue by describing how I use life history as a decolonizing methodology. I also outline the relevance and significance of the study and end by including my positionality and the ethical issues which foreground the study. In this section I now provide a guide and justification of the structure or order of the rest of the thesis and share briefly the content of the chapters. 17 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield In Chapter Two, I discuss and justify the use of life history as a research methodology. I have chosen to incorporate my review of the methodological and substantive literatures throughout the thesis rather than to have a discrete Literature review chapter. I find this to be an effective way of addressing issues as they arise throughout the thesis. I first declare my ontological and epistemological position in relation to the methodology chosen. I then critique the role of life story and life history, use my personal story to introduce the connections between life story, life history and the professional sphere and summarize the findings which examine the connections between biographies and professional identity. I continue by explaining how narratives construct identity within a postmodern era and end by arguing for the use of life history as a methodological approach within a postcolonial context and as a response to neoliberal, hegemonic metanarratives. This section also provides a more in depth understanding of the context for the focus, aims and objectives of this study. In Chapter Three, I provide the historical, political, socio-economic and educational local, regional and global context against which the personal stories of my participants can be viewed. This chapter is placed at this stage in the unfolding of the research story because I believe that it is not only closely linked to an understanding of the life history methodological approach, but will also emphasize the lens or perspective through which I analyse the stories of principals. The chapter on context therefore becomes closely aligned with the methodology proposed in Chapter Two. In Chapter Four, I examine issues surrounding collecting data and describe my experience of the data collection process. I place this chapter after the chapter examining the context from which the lives of participants emerge as it hopefully better provides for an understanding of how the stories to be analysed and contextualized were collected. The approach to analyzing the stories of principals is in Chapter Five. This chapter is used to explain that a frame-work dependent theoretical approach is used in analyzing the connections between the personal life experiences or biographies of principals and the connection with the professional sphere. It also explains why I take a constructivist grounded theoretical approach as a rationale for the approach to interpretation that may go 18 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield beyond the data set recognizing that ‘no single interpretation of a life is going to be the “correct” one’ (Atkinson, 1998, p. 24 citing Coffey & Atkinson, 1996). In Chapter Six, I analyse the stories of principals first in relation to answering the research question on the connections between their life story or biography and the professional sphere. Second, I continue to examine how those stories were influenced by the context from which they emerged and how those contexts impacted how roles were enacted in the professional sphere. Third, I analyse the stories of female principals that help in understanding the context within which they became principals and how they enacted their roles. Four, as themes emerged from the data they were analysed in relation to the local, regional and global educational contexts that influenced the way principals functioned or are functioning. In Chapter Seven a summary of findings in relation to the major research questions is provided. Implications for future research, practice and policy are also discussed. I end by reviewing some of the themes explored in Chapter Six but within the context of the use of the life history approach within a recolonization and a de-colonization agenda and provide my personal reflections on the research process including the impact of the life history approach on my personal and professional practice. I now introduce my positionality or value position in relation to the research methodology. 19 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield CHAPTER TWO: THE LIFE HISTORY APPROACH POSITIONALITY My ontological and epistemological position is that reality is socially constructed and that knowledge is based on subjective understanding. I also believe that since ‘the meanings we attach to the world are not static, nor universal, but always multiple and variable and constantly subject to modification and change’ (May, 2011, p. 14) then our study of the world must be from various perspectives. The use of various perspectives is to understand a reality that is not objective but is ’largely multifaceted’ (Butcher-Lashley, 2014, p. 5). Additionally, I also share the perspective of Denzin and Lincoln (2005, p.13) when they cite Danermark et al (2002, p.200) in presenting the view that if ‘society is made up of feeling, thinking human beings [then] their interpretations of the world must be studied’. The resurgence of biographical research methodologies within our postmodern world attempts to find ‘better ways to make more understandable the worlds of experience’ (Denzin and Lincoln, 2011, p. 11) where ‘individual accounts of life experiences can be understood within … contemporary cultural and structural settings’ (Roberts, 2002, p. 5) that are constantly in flux. THE LIFE STORY A central pillar or aspect of a life history methodological approach is story telling. Plummer (2013) references Aristotle’s Poetics in indicating that as “‘homo narrans”, the story telling animals .... we are the only animals living on planet earth to have the capability for telling, appreciating and living stories’(Plummer, 2013, Sect. 12). We must acknowledge that we may not be the only animals on the earth to have this capacity but ‘it is natural for us to make sense of our lives, the lives of others and the contexts in which we live through telling and hearing or reading stories’ (Clough, 2002, p. xii). I believe that studying those stories should be an important part of our research agenda. 20 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield Atkinson (1998) contends that on a personal level, life history involves people in the telling of their life stories. Goodson (2005) indicates that the life story is the ‘initial selected account that people give of their lives’ and that it individualizes and personalizes’ (p. 185). Goodson, Biesta, Tedder and Adair (2010), Alheit (2005), Atkinson (1998), Goodson and Sikes (2001) and Richardson (1990) suggest that life stories and storytelling may have the capacity to provide structure and meaning to life. Richardson (1990) seems to indicate how this is done when she signals that the narrator or the one telling the story (as in biography or autobiography) can retrieve the past and by so doing relive the past in the present (p.125) or an understanding of the past. When people tell their stories they order and arrange the events in such a way that they seek connection with the past, present and future and as a consequence provide structure and meaning for their lives. Polkinghorne (1995) helps in defining the process. He sees the process of telling stories as a narrative ‘in which the distinctive feature is a plot’. He sees the plot as ‘a type of conceptual scheme by which a contextual meaning of individual events can be displayed’ (p.7). He further sees plots as functioning ‘to compose or configure events into a story by (a) delimiting a temporal range which marks the beginning and end of the story, (b) providing criteria for the selection of event[s] to be included in the story, (c) temporally ordering events into an unfolding movement culminating in a conclusion, and (d) clarifying or making explicit the meaning the events have as contributors to the story as a unified whole’ (p.7). Chase (2005) in a more concise way sees narratives ‘as retrospective meaning making- the shaping or ordering of past experiences’ (p.656). Stories can be seen as therefore neither the life as lived (Bruner, 1993) nor as experienced but are a re- presentation of memory reordered in such a way that it is ‘saturated with the possibilities of meaning however perishable, momentary and contingent’ (Bochner, 2000, p.270). Chase (2005) therefore sees narratives as enabling the storyteller to connect and see the consequences of events and actions over time. Richardson (1990) also believes that for ‘those telling, listening to or reading life stories’ there is ‘the possibility of societal transformation’ (p.129). Listening to or reading life stories could allow the listener or reader to see their life in relation to the story of others and possibly thereby effect personal life changes as a re-plotting of life takes place (Richardson, 1990). Similar to Richardson (1990), Plummer (2013) sees the wider social 21 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield value in telling stories: ‘as we humans tell our stories, listen to the stories of others, and story our lives, our tales come to haunt, shape and transform our social worlds’(Sect.12). In relation to the wider societal significance of telling life stories, the life story as told by indigenous or colonized people can be seen as a decolonization endeavor. Sonn, Stevens and Duncan (2013) indicate that ‘the method of storytelling is central to naming and validating past oppressive experiences, understanding them within a broad set of collective experiences and renaming and reconstructing social relations based on these processes of individual and collective telling’ (p. 299). The voices of indigenous and colonized peoples often silenced within Western discourse can be given a place within a qualitative storytelling methodological approach which can possibly ‘disrupt and deconstruct cultural practices in the name of a more just, democratic and egalitarian society’ (Kincheloe and McLaren, 2000 as cited in Denzin and Lincoln, 2008, p. 285). Ellsworth (1989) gives a reminder however, that giving voice to the disenfranchised or disadvantaged may not always lead to empowerment or positive change but depending on the context could result in consequences that could threaten cohesion, unity, self-worth and dignity. It may be better sometimes to remain silent. Additionally, when Richardson (1990) contends that ‘at the individual level, people make sense of their lives through the stories that are available to them, and they attempt to fit their lives into the available stories’ (p.129) a cautionary signal is sent. Richardson (1990) also indicates that ‘people live by stories [but] if the available narrative is limiting, destructive, or at odds with the actual life, people’s lives end up being limited and textually disenfranchised’ (129). Thus, the stories that people tell are not to be taken for granted. They can be as disempowering as they could be empowering. This is a vastly different view point from the one I originally had. My life story related to how my personal relationships affected my personal life and professional identity. I found the process liberating and empowering. Ironically, it was the story that was not told that was disadvantageous to my personal life and professional identity. LIFE HISTORY 22 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield As indicated earlier, I use a life history approach in this research project but was at first more comfortable with the idea of ‘life story’ as a method of inquiry. In fact there was a lack of clarity in my thinking and writing about the difference between life story and life history. I have to admit now that the lack of clarity could in part be attributed to feelings of aversion in relation to the use of the word ‘history’. Though there was seemingly no logical reason that I could think of at the time for my aversion it was still felt by me. When I examined my feelings more closely, I knew that I had an aversion towards or had resisted the use of the word ‘history’ or ‘his-story’ as it conjured up ideas related to misrepresentation from an imperialist, patriarchal stance in relation to colonized peoples (Tuhiwai Smith, 1999). This resistance remained until I had read more of the work of Goodson on life history (Goodson, 1995; 2013). Goodson (1995) insists that to use the life story alone is to be in danger of interpreting and following the structure of ‘a script written elsewhere, by others, for other people’ (p. 95) and by so doing possibly ‘fortifying patterns of dominance’ (Goodson, 2013, p.5). It must be reiterated that the stories that we tell, that we watch on film or the stories that we listen to must therefore be interrogated or critiqued and especially if they will be used for social inquiry. Goodson (1995) believes that life stories can only be ‘the starting point’ or ‘the beginning of a process of coming to know’ and that ‘we need to move from life stories to life histories.… [for] in so doing, stories can be “located”, seen as the social constructions they are, fully impregnated by their location within power structures and social milieux’ (p.98). I once thought that the life stories of indigenous or colonized people should be able to stand alone (Butcher-Lashley, 2014) but I now have to accept that the life stories of indigenous or colonized people may have been ‘contaminated’ by the imperialist narrative. If these stories are not subjected to ‘theories of context’ then researchers from colonized territories can be unconsciously complicit in a re- colonization agenda. For Goodson (2013) ‘life story work concentrates, then, on personal stories, but life histories try to understand stories alongside their historical and cultural backgrounds’ (p. 6). I see that from this stance, there is then a greater possibility of taking part in a de-colonization process. My mother tells the story of how my sister and I got our names. She and my father had a fairly close relationship with an English priest, Reverend Jensen and his wife. My parents had become so close to this English couple, that when they went on a long holiday to 23 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield England, they invited my parents to live in the Rectory. My oldest sibling was actually born in the Rectory. When my sister and I were born, Mrs. Jensen gave us our names. My sister was to be called ‘Cheryl Ann’ and I called ‘Rosemary Jean’. To this day, I would have been called ‘Rosemary’ and my sister, ‘Cheryl’, if my mother had not reversed the names. So I am now known as ‘Jean Rosemary’ and my sister ‘Ann Cheryl’. Religion played an important role in the imperialist agenda. Privileges offered by the colonial representative were often means of gaining compliance and then assuming an authority over the colonized that trampled on the rights of the colonized to even name their own children. Colonial control was pervasive. The reversal of our names could be interpreted as an act of resistance against the colonial representative conscious or unconscious of her perpetuation of her colonial role in issues of identity. My sister and I were born in 1961 and 1962 respectively. By the 1960s my mother may have been aware of the strident anticolonial pre-independence movement taking place within Barbados and the Caribbean in the decade of the 60s and so her decision could be looked at against that political and historical context. When my mother first told this story, I remember feeling kindly disposed towards the idea of having been given a name by the wife of a priest. I remember feeling that it somehow made me special and that my parents too were special in some way as they were given the privilege of living in the Rectory. The story now seen against its context locates it within an imperialist colonial paradigm still in existence in a pre- independent Barbadian society. This is what Goodson means when he says that moving from the life story which is ‘a personal construction’, there is a need to move to the life history where ‘the intention is to understand the [pattern] of social relations, interactions and [historical] constructions in which the lives of women and men are embedded’ (Goodson, 2013, p. 6). We need then to add the history or historical context to the stories told. It is only then that we can begin to see these stories of name-giving by the colonial representative as not acts of deference but as belonging to ‘patterns of dominance’ (Goodson, 2013, p.5). LIFE STORY, LIFE HISTORY AND PROFESSIONAL LIVES 24 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield My erroneous belief that ‘life stories have the capacity to stand on their own and generate their own meaning and context’ (Butcher-Lashley, 2014, p.7) was as a consequence of seemingly being able to understand the motives of my father and another church leader as they interacted with the institutions of home and church. Their impact on me was such that I adopted an identity in my professional capacity as a teacher that was based on the models I saw being practiced by them. I was only recently able to free myself from such models due to becoming aware of other realities or stories and through the process of reliving the past and connecting it with my present. I had to admit that the circumstances surrounding my discovery of other realities were coincidental or serendipitous and if the stories that were eventually told had remained hidden, the transformative effect on me would perhaps not have been possible. I was nevertheless excited about life stories and the potential they had to transform and liberate! There was a nagging feeling left, however. For several months I was bothered by the feeling that this experience was only possible for me because of the set of circumstances that had unfolded that I seemingly had nothing to do with…they were as a result of others’ interference. It was at first through reflection on the literature text that I teach, In the Castle of my Skin (Lamming, 1953) that I was able to recognize that the models practiced by my father and church leader were models from a colonial overseer patriarchal construct. It also became clear that what I needed was the ability to set these stories against a context. The context was a historical and political one. My father and church leader belonged to a historical and political conditioning that fostered the production of a plantation model of authority. Imagine then my delight with the discovery that a life history methodological approach was the answer to providing life stories with the potential to be liberating and transformational and the potential need not be dependent on chance or coincidence. The political, historical, cultural or whatever context was usually accessible and seemingly in a collective, public way as though independent of individual lives and stories. I agree therefore with Dhunpath (2000) that ‘without a clear focus on this contextual intersection of life in relation to history, social science, education …writing biographies are indeed trivial pursuits’ (p. 545) with dubious potential. The life story is important in understanding the professional sphere of life but even more so as a life history approach is adopted. Contextualizing the life story can make it possible for the listener and storyteller as participant and researcher ‘to re-examine and reconstruct their own perceptions of personal experiences’ (Dhunpath, 2000, p. 545) rendering them capable 25 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield of allowing for a different self-perception with the potential for engagement in action that is aligned with that new self-perception that is hopefully ‘for the better’ (Clough & Nutbrown, 2012). In this research project, I ask principals to tell their stories to see if their biographies may have influenced their work in their professional sphere. I use a life history approach where I also set and consider the stories within a wider context within which they were lived. There are several studies which examine the relationship between teachers’ biographies and their professional lives and specifically their ‘professional identities’ concluding that the issue of identity is complex as identities evolve over time and are related to context (Hutton, 2013; Hyvärinen & Uusiautti, 2013; Inman, 2013; Benjamin, 2011; Day, Sammons, Stobart & Kington, 2007; Day, Kington, Stobart & Sammons, 2006; Beijaard, Meijer, Verloop, 2004, Sikes, Measor & Woods, 1985). Most principals were once teachers and so I believe that the substantial research done in this area has relevance to a study involving the biographies of principals. There are several studies which look at how the biographies of leaders and principals may influence their work within a professional context (Sugrue, 2014; Day & Gurr, 2013; Finch, 2012; Ligon, Hunter & Mumford, 2008; Inman, 2007; Shamir & Eilam, 2005; Parker, 2002; Becher & Trowler, 2001; McGrath, 1980). I was intrigued by the study conducted by Ligon, Hunter & Mumford (2008), particularly. These writers study a total of 120 leaders known internationally and conclude that the type of leadership style displayed by these leaders related to their life experiences and it was possible to use their biographies in identifying the type of leader they were known to be. The writers, however, regretted three things: not being able to hear the personal life stories of these leaders as a primary source of information as they were all dead; not being able to examine the use of mentoring and coaching and third, focusing on identifying various leadership styles while realistically, leaders use a variety of styles. The researchers felt that hearing leaders tell their own stories would have allowed them to hear from those leaders which experiences or ‘critical’ incidents (Sikes, Measor & Woods, 1985) had the greatest impact on them and also have them explain the way these experiences or incidents had impacted them. Though the research by Ligon, Hunter & Mumford (2008) uses leaders from various spheres of endeavor, I believe that their findings are applicable to a study of principals of educational 26 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield institutions and that my research project, like others, seeks to help fill a void in their research. Additionally, Mumford and Manley (2003) stress that helping leaders to understand the impact of past experiences on their daily activities would be more useful than just observing them in their roles. It is also interesting to note that according to Bluck and Staudinger (2000), when persons are in challenging situations they are likely to use their past experiences in helping them to respond to current and difficult circumstances. Through my research, I hoped to discover also if there is such a connection. LIFE NARRATIVES & IDENTITY Syrjälä & Estola (1999) indicate that ‘by telling stories, teachers re-hear, re-find and re- generate their personal and professional selves i.e. [they] construct their identities. Through such stories, the teachers’ identities become visible…In order to understand teachers’ identities we must listen to their own stories’(‘What is telling and retelling’ para. 3). Several writers indicate the intricate link between identity and narrative construction (Goodson, 2013; Beauchamp & Thomas, 2009; Day et al, 2006; Sparrowe, 2005; Gee, 2000; Sikes, 2000; Atkinson, 1998; Connelly & Clandinin, 1999; Volkman & Anderson, 1998; Sikes, Measor & Woods, 1985). Sparrowe (2005) in referencing the work of Ricœur (1992, p. 147) identifies that a process of emplotment takes place as the storyteller weaves together the events of life experiences in such a way that there is ‘the unity of a life considered a temporal totality which is itself singular and distinguished from all others [and that this “unity”] points to character, or what is enduring about the self…. the narrative constructs the identity of the character’. Sparrowe (2005) further makes the point that ‘to tell stories we have to see [ourselves] as others see us. Narrating [ourselves] is therefore ‘seeing oneself as an other’ (p.429). It seems that our perceptions of who we are in the professional sphere as in other spheres are gleaned from telling and re-telling our stories and I believe that in that process we shape and re-shape our identities. The point by Beijaard, Meijer & Verloop (2004) is therefore well made: ‘the cognitive and biographical perspectives on professional identity formation are both characterized by a narrative 27 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield research approach’ (p.125) that gives us the potential to constantly re-construct our identities. If ‘every time I tell my story, my identity changes’ (Syrjälä & Estola ,1999,’What is telling and retelling’, para. 3) and the process is an ongoing one of interpreting the self (Gee, 2000) there is seemingly then an autonomous re-construction of self-perception (Alheit, 2005). If we also accept that the storied self is a contextualized self (Schatzki, 2010) then who we are, is a site of multiple social, cultural, historical, political and other contexts. The life history methodological approach seeks to capture these sites of multiple contexts. In listening and recording the stories told by participants, the researcher captures the raw data of experience, which by contextualizing locates or anchors that life within a certain contextualized frame. However, even as the researcher contextualizes the life story of the participant which now becomes a kind of historical artifact, the participant, while in the act of telling his or her story, is re-constructing an identity within new contextual narrative shifts and arrangements. As researchers listening and recording stories, we can only seemingly capture an illusory sense of the identity of the participant. Mead (1934) writes of the ‘self’ made up of ‘I’ and ‘Me’ where the ‘I’ is the reflective, thinking part of the self and the ‘Me’ is the one that the ‘I’ observes that acts. In telling stories therefore, the ‘I’ adjusts the perceptions of self and therein is the potential to alter the actions of the ‘Me’ or the individual in relation to these changed perceptions of the self. Within this context, I can better relate to the perspective of Alheit (2005) that we can use our life stories ‘for a conscious change in our self- and world-referentially…[and that] the modification of individual self-and world referents-even in the limited context of specific life constructions-contains opportunities for the transformation of the institutional framework conditions of social existence’ (p. 209-210). From this perspective as well I can agree with Alheit (2005) that ‘our life stories possess socially explosive force’ (p. 210) but this caveat must be included. Our life can become a ‘socially explosive force’ (Alheit, 2005, p.210) only when those stories are set against their historical and cultural background or context (Goodson, 2013). As indicated above, Sikes (2000) also advances the perspective that telling your story through crafting a narrative is an ‘opportunity to create an identity’ (p.263). She issues a caution, however, to the researcher that this process of having participants tell their stories 28 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield also allows them to ‘alter their story because they have reason to suppose that a particular researcher may not be sympathetic to them otherwise’ (p. 265). Additionally, she indicates that giving participants information about the research may not be enough to deter them from attempting to use ‘the research situation in order to propagate lies for their own ends’ (266). In other words, participants may tell a story that deliberately promotes a false identity. Atkinson (1998) suggests that even when the story as told by research participants could be ‘a conjured, fabricated, or strategic story’ it could still serve the researcher as ‘an interpretation about why a fabricated story was chosen and what purpose is served for the storyteller’. This is an aspect of the messiness of research but it has to be acknowledged that on a lighter note, participants wittingly or unwittingly engage in ‘impression management and self-representation’ (Smith & Sparks, 2006) and what happens between the researcher and participants is a co-construction or a creation of what takes place between the interviewer and participant (Brannen, 2013; Benjamin, 2011; Atkinson & Silverman, 1997). Though this is not the same as identified by Sikes (2000), researchers must not harbor illusions about the process involved in asking participants to tell their stories. The stories that people tell are not ‘life as lived’ (Bruner, 1993, p. 38) but a re- ordering and re-presentation of experience and also a response to questions and reactions of the researcher. Even the identity of the researcher and his or her relationship with the participant, may impact on the nature of the story that is told. In this complex mix between researcher and participant, a caution is sent by Jackson & Mazzei (2008) about not privileging the voice of the researcher above that of the participant in some misguided belief that the researcher and his or her story has more ‘authority’. Gannon (2006) reminds us that even though stories of the self (as I use my own story in an autoethnographic approach) may be ‘part of a corrective movement against colonizing ethnographic practices’ it should not be an excuse for assuming ‘absolute authority for representing “the other”’ (p. 475) when the self is ‘the other’. It is therefore useful to adhere to the view that there should be a ‘humility about human knowledge’ which accepts that ‘all human efforts’ or endeavours are engaged in by humans ‘whose knowledge is incomplete, whose insights are imperfect, and whose understanding is often blinded by tentativeness’ (Christians, 2007, p. 441). The perception of the ‘I’ by the autoethnographic researcher may therefore be a flawed or ‘contaminated’ perspective which needs to be considered within a contextualized framework as in a life history approach methodology. 29 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield LIFE NARRATIVES, LIFE HISTORY & PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY IN A POSTMODERN ERA The process of telling life stories in the form of life narratives has the potential to help construct and re-construct identities. As already indicated, identities are not static but constantly in flux and particularly in a postmodern era of constant change and challenge. Jerry Starratt writes an introduction to Passionate Principalship: learning from the life histories of school leaders (Sugrue, 2005, p.xii): Identities are being continually improvised, continually being reinvented to take account of unforeseen forces, continually being internally deconstructed in a process of reconstruction. Thus leadership of a school and the self-identity that stands behind it is by necessity a continuous dialogical activity. Starrat further indicates that the professional identity of leaders in a postmodern period is constantly changing as ‘the traditional norms, values, bench-marks…have been contested and at least partially obscured’ (Sugrue, 2005, p. xii). Goodson in writing the Critical Introduction to the text by Sugrue (2005, p. xvii) proffers the view that it is in such a variable and fluctuating environment that ‘a working knowledge of the life histories of school personnel is a key to understanding what missions and motives people bring to their work’. Dhunpath (2000) signals that failure to contextualize those ‘missions and motives’ as within a life history research methodology, could possibly ‘divert attention from the ways in which apparently the inheritances of history and the systematic [influences] of economics, politics, and bureaucracy subtly structure diverse experiences’ (p. 545). These seemingly diverse experiences constantly destabilize and challenge thus keeping identities constantly in flux and contingent. I believe that a life history approach to the life stories of principals could possibly have the potential to anchor or sustain principals like other professionals. Sugrue (2005) indicates that these persons are not ”cardboard cut-outs” but real flesh and blood individuals with motives and emotions…[who could] within the system actively [develop] “new” scripts while simultaneously (re) creating new identities as leaders and re-working and re-writing pre-ordained leadership scripts, working towards “imagined communities” where co-actors, be they colleagues, students or parents, become co-creators of alternative and empowering scripts’ (p. 20). 30 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield I sense that there are two sets of phenomena at work here in relation to re-construction of identity particularly within the professional sphere of life. One relates to the situation where in re-telling and re-arranging the events of one’s life story, identity may be re- constructed autonomously in an ongoing process (Gee, 2000). However, there seems to be another kind of story or meta-narrative at play. I believe that when we can understand our stories through contextualization as in a life history approach, it is then that we can more easily recognize other narratives of domination and avoid fortifying ‘patterns of dominance’ (Goodson, 2013, p.5). These narratives of domination or meta-narratives are seemingly being used ‘to close off sustained political and cultural analysis’ (Goodson, 1995, p. 89) and within the context of education, used for ‘the increasing colonization of the worlds of school leaders…by making their work more “auditable” (Sugrue, 2014 citing Power, 1999) by “rituals of verification” mainly paper trails and Whole School Evaluation’ (Sugrue, 2014, citing DES, 2006, p. 93. I also believe that since life stories and narratives drawn from a colonial, socio-historical political context could possibly be imbedded or interlaced with the meta-narratives of a colonial hegemony still in existence within a Barbadian context from which the participants for this research project will be drawn, that such meta-narratives or discourses can ‘distort human understanding as well as [constitute] manipulative and oppressive control’ (Somekh & Lewin, 2005, p. 346). Therefore, in order for principals to access scripts that are ‘empowering’ and transformational, there is a need to disrupt taken-for-granted assumptions in their own stories, in an effort to recognize and deconstruct colonial and postcolonial hegemonic scripts first. I believe that this should happen before any re-scripting and re-engineering can take place against the gale force winds of neocolonial, neoliberal, neo-imperial hegemonic performativity and accountability mechanisms assailing education systems globally. Sugrue (2005) indicates that contextualization of stories is essential in order ‘to situate the dynamics of identity re- formation within international perspectives thus indicating how international “social movements” are refracted within national systems and the dynamics of professional identity construction’ (p. 19). The life history approach methodology is thus integral to a disruptive, deconstructive and decolonizing process, personally, nationally and internationally that could result in a transformational response to a pervasive, cancerous, international hegemonic hostile takeover of education systems. 31 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield CHAPTER THREE: THE CONTEXT Goodson (1997) indicates that stories ‘are not just individual productions they are also social constructions’ (p. 116). As indicated in the previous section, individual stories are about lives lived in particular contexts and so must be located within those contexts. I also see the process of contextualizing as an aspect of analysis. Therefore, even as I prepare to continue my analysis of the stories in the following sections of this dissertation, I find the perspective of Molly Andrews another useful reminder of the connection: It would seem apparent that the context in which human lives are lived is central to the core of meaning in those lives…[R]esearchers should not, therefore feel at liberty to discuss or analyse how individuals perceive meaning in their lives and the world around them, while ignoring the content and context of that meaning (Andrews, 1991, p.13 cited in Goodson, 1997, p.114). This section is therefore about beginning the process of locating the stories of principals of higher education institutions in Barbados within the historical, political, socio-economic and educational local, regional and the global contexts from which they emerged and within which they were lived. Two participants in this study were born in the 1930s, one in the 1940s and another in the 1950s. One participant was born in Jamaica but the focus will be on Barbados and where relevant, some reference will be made to the historical context of Jamaica and the wider Caribbean. I begin by indicating the geographical location of Barbados and its ethnic profile. I continue by indicating that one hundred years of Emancipation made no significant difference to the lives of the majority of those of Afro-Caribbean ancestry. I indicate how the 1930s become a significant point of departure in terms of the political, socio-economic and educational context of the lives of participants but a context still controlled by internal and external colonial practices and ideologies. I end by examining the historical context of educational developments which led to the birth and further development of institutions which the participants led. It is important to reiterate that the national or local, regional and global contexts will be included as a way of emphasizing what Goodson (1997) refers to as the broader ‘cognitive maps of influence and power’ (p. 32 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield 111) that will be identified as important influences or drivers within which the lives of participants emerged or were lived. GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION AND ETHNIC PROFILE OF BARBADOS Barbados, lying outside the Lesser Antillean chain of islands, is the easternmost Caribbean island in the North Atlantic Ocean with a population of 289,680 (July 2014 estimate) on a physical landscape of 430 square kilometers. The mainly black population of African ancestry (92.4%) is comprised of descendants of a transplanted enslaved population that were made to serve the colonial interests of the planter class whose descendants are approximately 2.7% of the population. The remaining 4.6% of the population are made up of mixed, East Indian and an unspecified group (www.ciagov, 2014). The participants in this research are mainly of Afro-Caribbean ancestry. REVIEW OF A HUNDRED YEARS OF EMANCIPATION In contextualizing the stories of principals of higher education institutions in Barbados, I draw heavily on the contemporary perspectives found in the work of Sir Hilary Beckles’ texts Great House Rules (2004a) and Chattel House Blues (2004b). Beckles rewrites history from the perspective of those of Afro-Caribbean ancestry while cognizant of the attendant challenges to the historian or anyone who dares to embark on ‘debunking established myths that go as history’ (Beckles, 2004b, p. xiii). Beckles challenges long- standing perspectives of national developments and national personages. In recalling Kamau Braithwaite’s view of the ‘inner plantation’, Beckles (2004b) speaks of the enduring legacy of the plantation model in the West Indies and on the Barbadian psyche in particular: Barbados was promoted within the literature of the Empire as early as the mid- seventeenth century as the ‘first’ and ‘ideal’ plantation. The model of sugar and http://www.ciagov/ 33 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield slavery was perfected here, and exported to other parts of the West Indian complex. The weight of this historical fact, it is said, has pressed against the minds of inhabitants leaving psychological imprints upon which the winds of change have had a limited effect (p. 155). I believe that the legacy of slavery had as deleterious an effect on the psyche of the white planter class and their descendants as it did on those who were enslaved and their descendants. Lewis (2004) believes that ‘the relationship brutalized both sides. It made impossible, as always with slavery, any spirit of mutual trust or devotion between the two sides’ (p. 41). Beckles (2004a) indicates that ‘planters did not accept the imperial ruling that basic secular education for Blacks should be a prerequisite for freedom’ (p. 59). Planters thought that such education ‘would create among Blacks certain unrealistic expectations and therefore reduce their willingness to be productive workers’ (p.59). Beckles (2004b) believes that this attitude of the Barbadian planter class among other reasons was because ‘planters continued to see workers as cheap serviles rather than members of a free community [and that t]he survival of the plantation, the sugar industry and the dictatorship of the sugar planter, all depended on the persistence of this view of the Black community’ (p.4). Beckles (2004a) further indicates that it was a view that saw the African as not interested in anything more than ‘crude subsistence, just enough to keep body and soul together day by day, while resisting the employer whose development agenda they wished to see crash to the ground’ (p. 47). For almost two hundred years of slavery in Barbados, ‘”book learning” for the blacks was deemed to be dangerous, since it might afford them access to subversive literature’ (Carter, 1996, p.170). Any education granted to the enslaved population and after was mainly religious in nature as it was throughout the empire. Carter (1996) indicates that Bishop Coleridge who ‘sparked new life into the educational development of Barbados’ (p. 165) had ‘a commitment to education that showed an obvious bias towards the whites. In fact he unequivocally stated that he had nothing as Bishop to do with the “civil condition” of the races, simply to teach all to read and understand the Bible’ (p. 165). For Bishop Coleridge, education was not about ‘creating social conditions that would eventually lead to racial equality and social justice’ (Carter, 1996, p. 167). Thus even though the opportunity to learn to read was indeed a significant educational advancement for the black population, it 34 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield was clear that when education was allowed, it would be the kind that would not ‘make it more difficult for Blacks to accept their subordinate social status’ (Beckles, 2004a, p. 59). Bishop Coleridge’s bias towards the whites therefore would have been an assurance that religious education was not a threat to the oppressive political and socio-economic relationship between the white elites and the black majority. Mayers (1998) believes that the provision of education was coming from a place of fear: ‘The perceived need at that time was not universal schooling to provide mobility and opportunity for the lower order, but rather, to provide a limited, prescribed offering to still the raging beast of ignorance’ (p. 386). It is interesting to note that this attitude was not unlike that which obtained within the United Kingdom in relation to the lower class following increasing migration to urban areas. Ball (2013) believes that education of the masses emerged out of fear and self-preservation. The religious nature of the education provided by the church in colonial societies could be seen as therefore serving the same purpose as the one provided in the metropole: education can be seen as a response to such problems (massive migration to the cities) and the making of a “useful and docile” workforce….In elementary education considerable emphasis was given to both moral training and applicable skills (Ball, 2013, p. 71). If in the period prior to Emancipation and after, education was used to maintain control over the freed population by rendering them ‘ useful and docile’, when the Royal Commission of 1897 led by a former Jamaican governor, recommended that black Barbadians become land owners, understandably, the recommendation did not get the support of the planter class. Landed enfranchisement was proposed as the means whereby the population which had outstripped the labour needs of the planter class could sustain itself in the face of abject poverty and starvation. Beckles (2004a) indicates that ownership of land was what the ex-slave population wanted in 1838. This recommendation by the Royal Commission, sixty-three years after the Emancipation Act was passed, was met with the same resistance to the passing of the Emancipation Act in 1834. Beckles (2004a) indicates that in 1930 when a Commission was sent to investigate the extent to which the recommendations of the Royal Commission were adhered to, they still found the ‘hostility to the landed enfranchisement of Blacks’ (p. 168) alive in Barbados. The Colonial Office 35 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield found this recalcitrant attitude difficult to tolerate and threatened loss of financial support from the Imperial government. This perspective by the white elites in Barbados was at odds with the reality of the Jamaican experience. Beckles (2004a) indicates that when the white elites (planter and mercantile segment) in Barbados saw what the free Black population of Jamaica had accomplished as land proprietors, they ‘marveled at the commercial culture and financial aggression of Blacks who were determined to build a new life upon the independent economic system they had begun during the slavery period’ (p.47). The planter class did not see this as evidence of the fact that the enslaved population ‘could claim a longer record of international trade and commercial production than their fellow English settlers’ (Beckles, 2004b, p. 101) and neither did they see this as evidence ‘that in no other sector of the economy have black people accumulated more skills and information necessary for growth than in agriculture’ (Beckles, 2004b, p. 112). They could not rethink their resistance to land enfranchisement and the education of the Black community. Rather, the Barbadian white elites considered this state of affairs as ‘a symbol of the world turned upside down, and they dreaded such an occurrence in Barbados’ (p.48). It would seem that the white elites in Barbados had become victims of their own interests and fears of losing control and power: ‘Barbadian planters feared that the truth of the Jamaican case would subvert the reasons offered within their racist rationale’ (Beckles, 2004a, p. 47). The recently freed ex-slaves just like their descendants saw ownership of land and education as a way to establish life on a just, humane and equitable basis: The desire of blacks for land was to give effect to their social freedom by establishing a bargaining posture with respect to the dominant economy. With land in hand, they could negotiate with, or reject the wage offers of the plantations. They could reconstitute their families broken and scattered by slavery as viable social entities. Land, they knew, was the key to personal and community development. It could also mean their political enfranchisement, as the right to vote was property qualified (Beckles, 2004a, p. 45). The severe poverty that existed after emancipation was a hindrance to the Afro-Caribbean population even accessing the elementary education that was offered as fees were charged and only abolished in 1928 (Mayers, 1998). After the fees were abolished, there was ‘increased enrollment’ (Mayers, 1998, p. 261). The increased enrollment could not mean 36 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield that the Black population was merely interested in ‘crude subsistence, just enough to keep body and soul together day by day’ (Beckles, 2004a, p.47). The births of most of the participants in this study can therefore be placed against the backdrop of limited educational opportunities, a landless emancipation and an unrelenting and aggressive attempt by the white minority planter and merchant class to ensure the continual unjust enslavement of the black majority even after one hundred years of Emancipation. Beckles (2004a) indicates that ‘whites did not intend to undergo any reduction in their wealth or power, and considered it necessary to intensify the use of the ideology of racism in order to further distance themselves from Coloureds and Blacks…. In 1838, Codrington College and Harrisons, two leading educational institutions, were still refusing Coloureds and Blacks, and the Anglican clergy showed no serious signs of desegregating churches’ (p. 58). Beckles (2004a) indicates that this hostile, recalcitrant stance by the white elites of the Barbadian society found expression and support within the context of a wider global alliance of racism: Merchants, planters, brokers, agents, financiers, politicians, lawyers, all within the ethnic-natural complex of the imperial culture, were gathered in celebration of the global power of the European. The liberated African was not invited to participate in this commercial world. Their exclusion was assured by the power of racism as a cultural action, and the chauvinism of ethnicity as an organizing principal’ (p. 47). The white elites in Barbados as in most Caribbean islands had control over the political, legal, religious and educational systems ensuring their continual domination over the Black population. Even where land proprietorship was assured in Jamaica, race was used as a way to disenfranchise from political autonomy. The Barbados plantation model had seemingly given viability to racism recast in political, social- economic and educational terms. However, the members of the black population from which the participants in this research are descendants, had likewise developed an equal tenacious desire to see themselves and their children removed from a system that had only created the illusion of freedom. BARBADOS IN THE NINETEEN THIRTIES TO SIXTIES 37 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield Just as developments in Britain or the metropole began to stir interest in elementary education and provided local support for Bishop Coleridge’s expansion of education to include the enslaved and post-slavery Black population (Ministry of Education, Youth Affairs and Sport, 2001, p.5), the passing of the Butler 1944 Education Act in the United Kingdom, sparked interest in the development of secondary education in Barbados: The demand in Britain for equal educational opportunity for all classes which gained momentum during and since the Second World War of 1939-1945 and which found expression in the Butler Education Act of 1944, was no less applicable locally as a result of the changing social and political scene (Williams, 1964, p. 316). Mayers (1998) speaks of the education system in Barbados being modified by the 1940s ‘making it appear more capable of offering elements of social justice’ (p. i). Prior to that time entry to elementary and secondary schools was regulated by Vestries and Boards comprising members of the white elite (clergymen, members of the House of Assembly and Legislature). One of these schools so regulated was the Lodge School, formerly the Codrington Foundation School. It was moved to its present location by Bishop Coleridge soon after his arrival in 1825 and later ranked as a First Grade school. The educational landscape was beginning to change for Black Barbadians. Mayers (1998) indicates that the appointment of a Director of Education in 1943 ‘overcame some of the previous resistance to the overall superintendence of the system by a single professional head’ (p. ii). Many of the educational changes in the 40s were also being driven by earlier calls by black politicians for compulsory education in the1920s and 1930s. One of those politicians was Charles Duncan O’Neal who formed the first black political party in 1924. O’Neal is now a National Hero of Barbados. It is important to note that while the elementary education system was preparing the enslaved and post-slavery black population for only ‘agricultural and artisan work’ (Carter, 2007, p. 9) and attempting to make them only ‘useful and docile’, another type of education was taking place. Political organization in the 1930s and 40s was being supported by several mass-based, anti-colonial organisations developed by the black population: Friendly Societies, the Landship, social clubs and Garveyite chapters of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and Trade Unions. These organisations were ‘part of the informal education for “critical consciousness” which helped to shape the new order of the 1930s and 1940s’ (Mayers, 38 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield 1998, p. 388). Carter (2007) indicates that ‘between the end of slavery in 1834 and the 1930s in Barbados [blacks] were always aspiring for an education for their children similar to that of the coloured and whites’ (p.9). The struggle for political enfranchisement was therefore also related to educational goals. The black Barbadian population was so focused on the realization of these goals that even without compulsory legislation which was enacted in 1981, ‘primary school attendance by the 1950s was in excess of seventy percent’ (Carter, 2007, p. 27). Carter further indicates that this tenacious desire for education so long denied ‘is mainly responsible for the traditionally high literacy rate on the island’ (Carter, 2007, p. 27). The riots of 1937 marked an intensification of the struggle for political power by the black majority that was finally achieved during the 1940s, 50s and 60s. This was against the backdrop of severely depressed wages, lack of adequate health and social facilities, limited secular educational opportunities and continued high infant mortality rates. These conditions in Barbados were partly related to external factors and were mirrored across the Caribbean: World-wide economic depression had pushed export prices down…already low agricultural wages were cut even further…West Indian workers were sent home from countries where they had found employment. Three-quarters of the population lived in acute poverty in the rural areas where illiteracy, malnutrition, substandard housing and absence of the most basic health and educational facilities were widespread[;] desperation and discontent stalked the land; protest demonstrations and rioting swept the region (Narcisse 2000, p.205 citing Girvan, 1993, p.6) The attainment of Adult Suffrage in Barbados in April 1950 becomes a signal point of departure from the political power of the white elites. No longer were landlessness and money deterrents to political enfranchisement. The majority black population of Barbados could now vote and elect a representative government. However, this did not take place in isolation from external policies. Adult Suffrage had become the standard in the United Kingdom since 1928 and was achieved in Jamaica in 1944 (Miller, 2015). The length of time it took black Barbadian politicians to achieve this is another indication of the tenacity with which the white elites were prepared to hold on to political control. The island under black majority rule was then seemingly being allowed to align itself with other external standards and modes of governance. Grantley Herbert Adams (National Hero of Barbados) 39 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield becomes leader of the House of Assembly in 1934 and adopts the Cabinet and Westminster style of government then practiced in Britain. He also becomes the first prime minister of the West Indian Federation in 1958 which is defunct by 1962, the year I was born. His leadership is followed by that of the ‘radical’ Errol Walton Barrow (now National Hero of Barbados), the first prime minister of Barbados who leads the country to Independence in 1966. These leaders of the black Barbadian majority maintain a style of government, as indicated earlier, similar to that practiced in the metropole, even after independence. However, and understandably so, the road to independence which seemed to mark a significant departure from control by the Imperial powers, was not easy. It was paved ‘within the context of racial fear and hostility’ (Beckles, 2004b): Many Barbadian whites migrated to South Africa, Australia, Canada and New Zealand following the independence of Barbados (Beckles, 2004, p. 96). Hoogvelt (1997) suggests, however, that colonialism was no longer fashionable to the Imperial powers as the ‘sanctity of private property abroad permitted the emergence of neo-colonialism and continuation of the colonial system in spite of formal recognition of political independence in emerging countries’ (p. 30). This suggests that independence was not seen as a threat to the Imperial colonial powers as they had found a way to accommodate it within a new paradigm of power relations that saw the former colonies as now belonging to a different segment of the division of labour (Hoogvelt, 1997). That new division of labour was not a threat to the maintenance of property rights in colonial territories. The Imperial powers were therefore interested in divesting responsibility for former colonies to a new form of colonialism or neocolonialism which represented a different set of commercial arrangements. Under Grantley Adams, the Colonial Office therefore gave support to the establishment of The Federation of the West Indies. The Colonial office had also initially encouraged the development of a reduced Federation. Beckles (2004b) indicates that ‘pressure was brought to bear on [Errol Barrow’s] government…to become the core of a revised federation with the Leeward and Windward Antilles-the so-called ‘Little Seven’ (p. 57). It was to assist these colonies in moving towards self-governance for purposes that were in the interest of Britain. Levitt (2005) contends that these attempts at Federation failed ‘because[they were] in large measure, designed in London as a convenient way to 40 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield dispose of colonial obligations to a region which had brought great wealth to Britain, but which was no longer politically and economically profitable’ (p. xii). I was born four years before Barbados’ independence. My parents like most parents of participants came from humble origins. My parents only had an elementary education. My father ended his formal education in 1949 at the mandatory age of 14 years. Carter (1996, p. 301) makes reference to the Swaby Report (1909, p. 2) indicating that ‘the function of “elementary” education had been conceived as giving a type of instruction up till the age of fourteen, so as to “produce the intelligent and industrious labourer, or [to] form the groundwork on which to build the technical skill required of the mechanic or artisan”’. My mother ended her formal education at age 13 during the colonial pre-independent period of Barbadian history when access to any higher level of education could only be acquired if your parents had the financial means. My grandmother became ill and my mother had to care for her. When my grandmother recovered, she did not allow my mother to return to school. My mother’s premature withdrawal from school was possibly related to the fact that the education of an Afro-Caribbean female was seen as even less important than that of an Afro-Caribbean male. My mother’s early removal from a relatively short exposure to formal schooling was despite the fact that at age 11 she was declared to be the brightest girl in her school and as recognition, given the bell (used to maintain order)and the strap (used to apply corporal punishment) and declared to be Headmistress for one day. My father was a postman for most of his life eventually retiring as an Inspector in the Government Postal service and my mother is still a housewife. Such were the educational limitations and the gender bias of a period in Barbadian history when ‘education beyond the primary level remained the preserve of a fortunate few’ (Layne, 1998). Therefore when one of my participants in this research project is able to enter the Lodge School in 1946 and another one enters Queen’s College in 1957 and another enters the Foundation Boys’ School in 1962, it is as a consequence of the policies introduced by the black majority government in the House of Assembly and in a situation where these schools were being supported by public funds. Harrison College and Lodge School were designated in 1878 as ‘First Grade Schools’ attended by poor whites and the few coloureds. Queen’s College was first established as a Central School for Girls but ‘there seemed to be much apprehension over this move’ (Carter, 2007, p. 12). Carter (2007) 41 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield indicates that ‘education for girls meant preparing them to be ‘ladies and the future wives of gentlemen’ (p.12) and so there was skepticism over the quality and level of education given girls. It is as a result of a recommendation by the Mitchinson Commission (1875) that the Girls’ Central is eventually elevated to the status of a First Grade School and is renamed Queen’s College in 1883 but attended mainly by the white minority and coloureds. One participant recalls that these racial and social barriers were still felt even in the 1950s and 60s when she went to school at Queen’s College. In 1906, the Boys’ Foundation School became a Second Grade School. There was a racial, gender and financial barrier placed between the various social and ethnic groups in Barbados. Schools were graded following the standard in the metropole (Carter, 2007). ‘By the end of the 19 th century there were 3 First Grade Schools and 5 Second Grade Schools with an enrolment of 406 boys and 126 girls. There were 169 elementary schools …with an enrolment of 24,149 students… School fees were charged at all schools’ (Ministry of Education, Youth Affairs and Sport, 2001, p. 7). The participant who goes to the Lodge School recalls that entry to the school was so restrictive that he was the fourth boy who was accepted from his district. Carter (2007) indicates that ‘the children of the wealthy whites [went] to public schools in England who then went on to such universities as Oxford and Cambridge (p. 8). Williams (1964, p. 302 citing the Swaby Report 1909, p. 2) indicates then that the ‘first grade schools, had been regarded as fitting for their work the thinkers of the community, those who would follow the learned professions, the leaders and organisers, or at least those who serve in the highest ranks of industry and commerce.’ A local elite would then be created. Carter (2007) indicates that ‘Barbados, like the other slave societies in the New World, began to adopt an educational system that was generally an extension of that of the metropole, that is, clearly defined elementary, secondary and higher levels of education’ (p.8). Just as the education and political systems became aligned with British policies so too was the approach to social services, necessary to support the thrust in education. The Beveridge Report on Social Insurance and Allied Services was published in December 1942 in the United Kingdom and influenced both the UK Labour Party of the 1940s and the Conservative party of the 1950s and 1960s. Errol Barrow therefore seemingly adopts a policy position that already had British support. Beveridge advocated ‘a flat rate 42 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield contribution into the state insurance fund….and in return for these contributions a new Ministry of Social Security would provide people with subsistence in the form of sickness, medical, maternity, old age, unemployment, widows, orphans, industrial injury and funeral benefits’ (UK Contemporary History Source Book, p. 17). The white elites in Barbados therefore saw the implementation of many of the social and security services like the national insurance scheme and health policies introduced by the DLP (Democratic Labour Party) as no threat to their economic power: ‘these policies … represented a retreat to Fabian socialism and the politics of gradual reform, both of which were considered respectable and unproblematic from the ideological viewpoint of the dominant class and race’ (Beckles, 2004b, pp. 87-88). The financial barrier to secondary education was finally removed in 1962 by the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) led by Errol Barrow. ‘This meant that all persons of ability would have free access to secondary school’ (Ministry of Education, Youth Affairs and Sports, 2001, p. 10). A two-stage selection process to secondary school in 1958 was finally changed to a one-stage examination in 1974. This is part of a significant development in educational opportunities leading to a legacy of universal access to education in Barbados which lasted up to this postcolonial, postmodern, neoliberal period of cost-sharing measures in higher education and an end to that legacy. Mayers (1998) gives a reminder that colonial education ‘performed a stratification function in creating a local elite with secondary education benefitting the middle class and elementary education catering to the lower class’ (p. 32) and the white elites allowed only what would not threaten their power (p. 387). Prior to the significant changes in education policy facilitated mainly by the black majority political directorate, the future prospects facing the majority of young people depended very much upon their social status and not upon their innate ability, and as the current notion of society was a static rather than a dynamic one, the type of school organization which had developed, had been geared to fit young people to pre-ordained types of employment’ (Williams, 1964, p. 301). Much of this was seemingly changed with free access to secondary education in Barbados. This period of free access to secondary education in 1962 was preceded by rapid expansion in the number of secondary schools starting with the opening of the St Leonard’s new 43 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield secondary modern school where one participant had his first teaching assignment. Several other schools followed and the demand for education was so great that it led to the opening of ten (10) private schools. However, the rise in the number of schools and their expansion did not change the function in terms of the maintenance of a social and gender divide which can be seen in the use of the one-shot examination or high stakes test at eleven (also practiced in the United Kingdom); the provision of Science laboratories only in ‘First Grade Schools’ which favor the creation of a professional class or local elite; Home Economics and Domestic Science classes for girls’ schools and modern secondary schools (later called Comprehensive schools) and in the primary or elementary schools. Generally, the practical classes are reserved for the children of the labouring class and for those attending the secondary modern schools (Ministry of Education, Youth Affairs and Sports, 2001). A social, gender and racial bias is maintained by the education system. Clive Thomas in writing the foreword to George Beckford’s text Persistent Poverty. Underdevelopment in Plantation Economies of the Third World (1972) said that the book had as its goal …severing the link that made us [Caribbean colonized societies] see ourselves and measure our activities through metropoli-tan standards. He recognized that the ultimate insidiousness of this deception was that it led to these metropolitan standards being represented as universal verities, and the acceptance of this by Third World Scholars and people alike (Beckford, 1972, p. xiv-xv). Education is used as a form of control and a way of reproducing the values of the dominant class that is not apparent to those who had been denied access for hundreds of years. Free access and a high stakes test or examination like the eleven plus one-shot examination or ‘screening test’ seemingly free of the rigid, unrelenting bias of a Board and Vestry system of selection, appear representative of fairness, and a chance at equality and social justice so long imagined but denied. Bourdieu and Passeron (1990) are useful in facilitating an understanding of how control and maintenance of the status quo by the white elites is still perpetuated through a system of selection at age eleven which still benefits them: [In] ever more completely delegating the power of selection to the academic institution, the privileged classes are able to appear to be surrendering to a perfectly neutral authority the power of transmitting power from one generation to another, and thus to be renouncing the arbitrary privilege of the hereditary transmission of privilege. But through its formally irreproachable verdicts, which always 44 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield objectively serve the dominant classes since they never sacrifice the technical interests of those classes except to the advantage of their social interests, the School is better able than ever, at all events in the only way conceivable in a society wedded to democratic ideologies, to contribute to the reproduction of the established order, since it succeeds better than ever in concealing the function it performs’ (p. 167). It is a system that though it disadvantages the unsuspecting black majority, they will stoutly defend its retention. A system of education so designed with free access and an examination that appears to give all a fair chance, blinds the black majority to its true intent as a reproduction of the social order put in place by colonial powers or the white elite in Barbados. It is to be wondered then why within a post-independent, postcolonial period of history the eleven plus or ‘screening test’ which was taken by all participants and which I took, still exists. Bourdieu (1990) describes the conditioning related to it as a ‘habitus’ or ‘embodied history, internalized as second nature and so forgotten history’ (p. 56). I see that ‘history’ as the history of hundreds of years of denial of a basic right to be educated and then when it is given, it functions to ensure continual oppression within a racist and financial reality such that when there is the appearance of the removal of such barriers, there is a blindness to their evolution into a different form disguised as ‘fairness and social equality’. Bourdieu (1990) calls it the effect of a kind of ‘primary conditioning’ that ‘accounts equally well for cases in which dispositions function out of phase and practices are objectively ill-adapted to the present conditions because they are objectively adjusted to conditions that no longer obtain’ (p. 62). There are enough secondary schools to accommodate all students leaving the primary school system and yet the Barbadian population is still insistent on ‘screening’ students for selection. Bourdieu (1990) indicates that the habitus tends to ensure its own constancy and its defense against change through the selection it makes within new information by rejecting information capable of calling into question its accumulated information, if exposed to it accidentally or by force, and especially by avoiding exposure to such information (p. 56-61). It can be therefore seen as a kind of psychic distortion or illusion practiced by the Barbadian populace on itself which is also reproduced across the Caribbean in islands that practice this method put in place by the white elites. 45 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield There is no denying that the majority black population made significant strides politically and socially in the 1950s and 60s especially with free secondary education. However, it is to be noted the extent to which the black political directorate engages in policy harmonization, imitation and is dependent on the metropole to a significant extent in spite of achieving independence. Beckles (2004b) describes this state of affairs in various ways: ‘politics of capitulation’ (p.146), ‘submissiveness to the legacy of the English mercantile model of socioeconomic exploitation’ (p.154), or lacking ‘the political will necessary for propulsion away from the colonial scaffold’ (p. 80). Beckles aptly describes the disturbing, deleterious effects of the colonial experience on the descendants of ex-slaves. It is an unwholesome dependence on a colonial system even within a postcolonial era of independence when I have had to come to the daunting realization that we have unwittingly taken part in and avidly carved our own illusion of freedom even as we achieved political ‘autonomy’. Beckles (2004b) frames it clearly: There has been some remodeling of the ancient structure-more doors opened and ceilings raised. But the ideological and economic foundation remain clearly recognizable, and most rooms with a view to, and at the top is still believed to be reserved for persons who cannot be visibly identified as having African blood flowing in their veins (p. 82) Beckles’ statement comes also as a consequence of the way in which even as the new black political directorate sought to re-engineer the economy away from the control of the white elites, they (the white elites) also re-engineered and modernized to take advantage of the thrusts in tourism and manufacturing. Additionally, by controlling areas like banking and finance, ‘they constitute, furthermore, a silent and hidden force that successfully directs the political directorate to its own end’ (Beckles, 2004b, p. 91). Beckles (2004b) further indicates that ‘their policy since independence has been to kidnap the State and use it to discredit, alienate and remove potential and actual critics of their dominance’ (p. 91). The deleterious effect of the colonial experience on the white minority has seemingly been a deeply entrenched inability to relinquish control even as ‘the black community remains psychologically kidnapped by social relations, economic structures and ideologies that have their origins within the ancient plantation regime’ (Beckles, 2004b, pp. 80-81 citing Fisher, 1985). The education system remains a significant element in the reproduction of that plantation model too well disguised and according to Lewis (2004) ‘by seeking 46 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield through education to convert the West Indian person into a coloured English gentleman produced the contemporary spectacle of the West Indian as a culturally disinherited individual’ (p.5). Beckles (2004b) thus charges the ‘black intellectual with doing little with respect to liberating society from this plantation “cocoon” that incubates a mind of submissiveness to the legacy of the English mercantile model of socioeconomic exploitation’ (p. 154). DEVELOPMENT OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN BARBADOS Being born in 1962, I had the privilege of free access to secondary and also to university education in Barbados both of which were denied my parents due mainly to their social and economic status. The expansion in secondary education and the diversification of the national economy away from the sugar industry to tourism and manufacturing seemingly created a foundation that made the introduction of tertiary education a feasible prospect for the majority of the population who were black (Beckles, 2004b). Carter (2007) indicates that the absence of a university in the colonies was as a consequence of ‘a lack of enough secondary school places to complement a university [and that] the islands were generally impoverished, which further compounded the problem, since the colonial governments would have been unable to support such an institution financially’ (p. 57). I use the terms ‘higher education’ and ‘tertiary education’ interchangeably to refer to the post-secondary institutions in Barbados. There are other private higher education institutions and post-secondary institutions in Barbados but the focus of this study is on the four public-funded ones as identified in a Steering Committee Report compiled by principals in higher education on the Reform of Tertiary Education (Ministry of Education and Human Resource Development, 2012). The four public-funded institutions from which my participants come are Erdiston Teachers’ Training College, The University of the West Indies (Cave Hill Campus), The Barbados Community College and The Samuel Jackman Prescod Polytechnic. Carter (2007) writes about three of the above institutions omitting the latter but including Codrington College. 47 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield Codrington College, a theological college, could be considered the first higher education institution in Barbados established in 1876, almost four decades after the passing of the Emancipation Act in the British colonies. Thomas (2008) indicates that when secular courses leading to degrees were offered at Codrington College from 1876 to 1948, the quality of those degrees was assured by the University of Durham, in the United Kingdom. These institutions catered to the need for secular higher education among the local male white elites of the society. Codrington College was therefore the only theological and secular degree granting institution on the island catering to a select few. I now present a brief historical context for the four public-funded higher education institutions from which my four participants come. One participant is currently still a principal and the other three have retired. I begin with the oldest institution which is Erdiston followed by The University of the West Indies (UWI), The Barbados Community College and the Samuel Jackman Prescod Polytechnic. It is to be noted that training in technical areas commenced in 1952 at a Technical Training Institute (Ministry of Education, 2012) later becoming part of the Polytechnic. THE ERDISTON TEACHERS’ TRAINING COLLEGE (ETTC) An institution called the Rawle Training Institute (named after Richard Rawle who was appointed Principal of Codrington College in 1846) was opened in 1912 at Codrington College to train elementary school teachers but was closed in 1945 because the training needed to be improved (Williams, 1964). It was in 1948 (two years after the birth of one of the participants who led this institution) that the Erdiston Teachers’ Training College was opened and provision was made for ‘adult and general education by establishing the Barbados Evening Institute’ (Ministry of Education, 2001, p. 8). Expansion in post- secondary education for the majority Black population therefore began with training of teachers and providing further education to the general public. Erdiston Teachers’ Training College began with a student intake of 32. In 2009, it had 55 students. In 1954, the college became a regional teachers’ training institute and offered residential facilities. The opening of the UWI campus in Barbados threatened the sustainability of the college until in 1993 48 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield the ETTC took over responsibility for the Certificate in Education Management and Administration (Cert. Ed.) and the Diploma in Education (Dip. Ed.). These are programmes which were once offered by the UWI. The ETTC has expanded its curriculum offerings and now offers Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees in Education. The mission of the ETTC is captured in the words of its first principal: to provide a body of specially trained men and women who are capable of making the most of every child’s abilities, however great or small, and helping children to become men and women who can give of themselves to the community in which they live rather than being a charge upon it (The Ministry of Education, 2012, p.55) THE UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST INDIES, CAVE HILL CAMPUS (UWI) Carter (2007) indicates that the quest for self-government forced the British Government to establish the Asquith Commission and its affiliate, the Irvine Committee, to look seriously at the establishment of colonial universities in her colonies. In the Caribbean it led to the establishment of the University College of the West Indies (p. 58). The University College of the West Indies was first opened in Jamaica in 1948 and two participants of this study gained their first degrees at this institution in the late 50s. ‘When higher education institutions were established by former colonies in the post-war period of independence, their dependence on former imperialist countries for models of higher education provision was not unexpected’ (Butcher-Lashley, 2013b, p. 4). The University of the West Indies was therefore established using a model and input from the University of London (Roberts, 2003). In 1962 the University College of the West Indies was granted university status (Ministry of Education and Human Resource Development, 2012). In 1963, two other campuses opened. One was in Trinidad at St Augustine and the other was in Barbados, at a site near the Deep Water Harbour. The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus was built to accommodate 500 students but in 2009, had an enrollment of almost 9,000. The exponential growth resulted in phenomenal financial expenditure both by government and the private sector. The mission of the campus is ‘to propel the economic, social, political and cultural development of West Indian society through 49 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield teaching, research, innovation, advisory and community services and intellectual leadership’ (The Ministry of Education and Human Resource Development, 2012, p. 33). THE BARBADOS COMMUNITY COLLEGE (BCC) The Barbados Community College was established in 1968 and occupied the site vacated by the University of the West Indies when it moved to its present location at Cave Hill. The BCC was established originally to provide sixth-form education to those who could not be accommodated in the four secondary schools which had sixth form sections. In 1990, the 1968 Act was amended allowing the BCC to grant ‘certificates, diplomas, associate degrees, degrees and other awards to persons who successfully complete courses of study approved by the Board of Management’ (Ministry of Education, 2012, p. 41). In 1969, the BCC also had another campus in facilities at Sherbourne, Two Mile Hill and in 1975 moved to more spacious facilities at ‘Eyrie’, Howell’s Cross Road in the parish of St Michael. The student enrollment moved from over 300 in 1969 to over 4500 in 2009. The BCC offers courses in nine divisions instead of the original four. Training is in ‘a wide range of skills at the technical, para-professional, middle-management and pre-university levels’ (The Ministry of Education, 2012, p. 41). THE SAMUEL JACKMAN PRESCOD POLYTECHNIC (SJPP) The Samuel Jackman Prescod Polytechnic (SJPP) was established as a section of The Ministry of Education in 1969 and opened in 1970 originally at a site at the Bridgetown Harbour. The SJPP is now permanently located at Wildey, St Michael and catered to almost 3,000 students in 2009. The mission of the SJPP is ‘to be the regional leader in the preparation of a highly trained workforce by providing qualified persons with quality competence based Technical Vocational training that responds to the future employment needs of its students’ (The Ministry of Education, 2012, p.50). 50 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield THE REGIONAL AND GLOBAL CONTEXT OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN BARBADOS Three of the four public-funded higher education institutions briefly described above were established in relatively quick succession within the 1960s. All of them expanded curriculum offerings fairly rapidly and increased student intake numbers. Entry to all tertiary institutions is primarily based on qualifications gained from the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) at the secondary level of schooling. Prior to 1998, entry to higher education institutions was based on students obtaining Grades 1 and 2 at the general proficiency level. In 1998, the CXC’s Grade 3 qualification was accepted for entry in response to a policy change initiated by government and the regional examination body. This change in policy led to increase access to tertiary level institutions. The expansion in student numbers and curriculum offerings intensified in the 1980s and 90s but also with financial consequences. Carter (2007) indicates that ‘the fact that the UWI, Cave Hill is a campus of the larger University of the West Indies, makes it the most formidable institution of higher learning in Barbados, especially with regard to student enrollment and expenditure’ (p. 317). A steering committee established to review the funding model for tertiary education emphasized the way in which tertiary education institutions have responded and met needs related to competitiveness through tremendous financial investments: Specialized training such as offered by Erdiston, SJPP, the BCC …, [is] all part of the continuing focus on the professional development and training services which Barbados has had to provide to build its modern infrastructure as a globally competitive economy. These investments in human capital have been substantial, but the returns as measured in national, social and economic developments have been spectacular. Barbados today is celebrated globally as a best practice in educational investments’ (Ministry of Education, 2012, p. 15). The establishment of most higher education institutions in the 1960s and the rapid expansion in the 1980s and 90s, came against the backdrop of a global focus on higher education for competitiveness and as a tradeable commodity. The idea of a ‘knowledge economy’ was launched in the 1960s and globally, access to higher education was linked to ‘economic growth and global competitiveness’ (Marginson and Van der Wende, 2007, p. 10). Countries like Barbados would seemingly have been caught in the ‘spell’ or ‘magic’ 51 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield of ‘fast capitalism’ (Gee and Lankshear, 1995) and ‘co-opted into agendas we might subsequently wish we had resisted, but where we could/did not resist because we failed to appreciate the extent to which the meanings of others were not our own meanings’ (p.11). However, the long history of limited educational opportunities and no natural resources except its people could possibly have obscured the reality of a global agenda led by international neo-liberal, capitalist organisations like WTO, GATS, the World Bank and the IMF, to convert the world into a global market place with education as one of its tradeable commodities (Rizvi and Lingard, 2009; Marginson and Van der Wende, 2007; Naidoo, 2003; Watson, 2000; Marginson, 1997). The White Paper on Education Reform (Ministry of Education, Youth Affairs and Culture, 1995) and Barbados Human Resource Development Strategy 2011-2016 (Ministry of Education and Human Resource Development, 2010) indicate the way in which the human resource or ‘human and social capital’ of Barbados is central to development and global competitiveness. Sir Hilary Beckles, Pro Vice Chancellor and Principal of The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus in his capacity as Chairman of a Steering Committee on a Framework for Reform of Tertiary Education, used the title ‘Creating Knowledge Households’ as a vision or theme for tertiary education where ‘knowledge households will be the building blocks of knowledge societies and competitive knowledge economies’ (Ministry of Education and Human Resource Development, 2012, p. 12). Ball (1998) identifies the way in which national policy language begins to mirror that which is linked to the global policy language: ‘”learning society” and “knowledge-based economy”…serve and symbolize the increasing colonization of education policy by economic policy imperatives’ (p. 122). Goldstein (2004) makes the point that the culture within which higher education currently exists is one that had its origins from the mid1980s. It starts with international bench- marking and slogans. UNESCO begins with ‘Education for All’ and this is followed by the USAs ‘No Child Left Behind’. There then seemed to be a local adaptation of this slogan in The White Paper on Education Reform in ‘Each One Matters…Quality Education for All’ (Ministry of Education, Youth Affairs and Culture, 1995). The substantial financial investment that Barbados makes in education is more than what is made by other Caribbean territories who like Barbados borrowed enormous sums of money ‘which were to be repaid at relatively high costs to governments over fairly long periods’ (Ali, 2010, p. 52 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield 77). Tewarie (2009) indicates that Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago were spending 17% and 27% of their budget on tertiary or higher education compared to Barbados which was spending 30% (p.12). However, a 5.3 % contraction in the Barbados economy in 2009 (Ministry of Education and Human Resource Development, 2010) created severe fiscal pressure at a time when costs at the University of the West Indies were also escalating (Ministry of Education and Human Resource Development, 2012). The global financial crisis which began in 2007 placed greater pressure on governments to meet the increasing cost of higher education. Levitt (2005) gives a reminder that ‘crises have been used as opportunities to radically restructure economies’ (p. 330). I believe that this radical restructuring can be part of external engineering. As indicated in the Prologue, students at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus are now being asked to pay part of their tuition fees. The introduction of cost-sharing mechanisms levels the competitive playing field for external providers of educational services. This allows multinational and transnational organisations to move further towards the goal of running the world like a market place. This is part of the current global, regional and national financial context within which higher education in Barbados is currently located. Within this postcolonial, neo-liberal, capitalist global environment, there is the attempt to use higher education to create ‘human capital’. This seemingly is to serve the interests of multinational and transnational organisations for high quality cheap labour (Olssen and Peters, 2005; Brown, Lauder and Ashton, 2008). The history of slavery, the struggle to realize goals of accessing primary, secondary and tertiary education held by the parents of participants, my parents, participants and myself, created a vision of higher education as a ‘right based on merit [more] than one influenced by social class or race’ (Carter, 2007, p. 2). However, I have had to face the reality that this lofty ideal I held about …education as a way of providing more meaningful employment, social equality and social advancement for the disadvantaged is seemingly nothing more than another opportunity for the exploitation of the developing world by the developed world where hegemonic interests are maintained (Butcher-Lashley, 2013a, p. 13). Brown and Lavia (2013) indicate that ‘patterns of school governance replicate the ‘Motherland’ (p. 53). It seems that under a neocolonial, neoliberal agenda to run the world 53 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield as a global market, former colonial societies like Barbados have exchanged one colonial master for an international one such that the education system whose intention ‘was to shape a society based on dependency and sovereign rule, hierarchy and elitism’ (p. 53) has now become the ever-present living reality of a global or world-wide plantation economic and educational model. It seems that ‘the model of sugar and slavery’ that Beckles (2004b, p. 155) speaks of as being perfected in the Barbados plantation model has become globalized. The tainted notion of humans as ‘chattel’ within a colonial world view has now seemingly transitioned into the concept of ‘human capital’. Thus in this global race to remain competitive in a neoliberal, capitalist global hegemonic paradigm, higher education institutions like those in Barbados, have seemingly become complicit in responding to narrow capitalists interests where ‘the dominant values underpinning education policy have [become] individualistic and economic in character’ (Rizvi and Lingard, 2009, p. 186). This is the historical, political, socio-economic and educational background against which the stories of the four principals of the four public-funded higher education institutions in Barbados are to be viewed. It is a context that presents a picture of the extent to which the stories of our lives are not only personal but are part of what Goodson (1997) refers to as the ‘broader cognitive maps of influence and power’ (p.111) that must be recognized and envisioned for what they represent. It is only then that from a postcolonial perspective the process of decolonization can truly begin. 54 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield CHAPTER FOUR: THE INTERVIEW PROCESS There must be a logical connection between methodology and methods (Sikes, 2004). Since it is my ontological perspective that reality is socially constructed and multiple and that knowledge is subjective, then individual perceptions, interpretations and ordering of experiences as in a life story become a significant aspect of research. The life history approach taken in this research project acknowledges that who we are or perceive ourselves to be through the stories we tell of our personal lives and within the professional sphere needs to be examined within a particular historical, political, socio-economic and educational context. It is important therefore to listen to each other and acknowledge what we say about our lives. Listening to the stories of others therefore becomes an important and appropriate research method. In this section, I share my experiences of interviewing principals of higher education institutions in Barbados but I begin by sharing my personal past history with the process of collecting and sharing stories; examining issues around how stories can be used within a postcolonial and neoliberal capitalist world; and consider the concept of ‘giving voice’. When I first thought about the process of interviewing principals, I chuckled silently. I saw the irony of seemingly returning to an activity that I used to be engaged in as a young teacher on staff at The Barbados Community College, one of the higher education institutions once led by one of my participants. After teaching for five years at the secondary level, I had joined the staff at The Barbados Community College in April 1990. I collected information, wrote for and edited a weekly four-page publication called The College Update. One of the features of The College Update was sharing the stories of retiring staff members who spoke about the early days of the institution. The stories connected me to the college and created a sense of belonging. The Barbados Community College was first established as a sixth-form college that challenged the elitist structure of sixth form provision of education in Barbados. It democratized the provision of post- secondary education for students excluded from such provision. At the time of its establishment, there were only four secondary schools with sixth-form sections catering to only 250 students. There was much controversy at the time of its establishment. Some of the stories shared with me by members of staff, were of the early days of struggle but there 55 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield were also stories of exciting times and their feelings of pride in being a part of an institution that would revolutionize higher education provision within a largely conservative Barbadian educational landscape. I relinquished responsibility for The College Update when having two young children, a full-time teaching position and starting a Master’s programme in 1997 became too much, but the process of collecting the stories and sharing them had had a great impact personally and professionally. Even though in 1979, I had gone to one of the more established secondary schools with sixth form provision, I understood about exclusion and how education functioned as a vehicle for social mobility. I became even more committed to the students, staff, college and its mission. Stories can be impactful and transformational (Plummer, 2013; Richardson, 1990). However, the life history approach to stories is also a powerful reminder that because life stories can be impactful and transformational, if not contextualized, they can also be consciously or unconsciously misused. Goodson (2006) shares a perspective on the life story work done by social scientists and subtly implies an appropriation of their work to a political agenda: The rise to power of the social sciences in the twentieth century corresponded to the rise of the modern surveillance state. That state required information on its citizens. Social scientists, of both qualitative and quantitative commitments, gathered information for this society. The recent return of the life story celebrates the importance of the individual under the conservative politics of late postmodernism (p. 8-9). David Reisman and Benney (1956) as cited by Holstein and Gubrium (2003) ‘considered the interview format to be the product of [a] changing world of relationships, one that developed rapidly following the war years’ (p. 6). As indicated by Goodson (2006), this ‘changing world of relationships’ was placing greater emphasis on the individual. Perhaps in a world where two world wars had brought humanity face to face with the seeming meaninglessness, illogic and absurdity of its existence, a new respect for humanity or the individual was in order or overdue. Holstein and Gubrium (2003) therefore surmise that the elevation of the ‘interview format’ as an instrument of investigation comes as a consequence of the belief that ‘each individual-is taken to have significant views and feelings about life that are accessible to others who undertake to ask them’ (p.6). These two perspectives from Goodson (2006) and Holstein and Gubrium (2003) highlight the 56 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield way in which the stories generated as a consequence of the use of the ‘interview format’ can be put to various uses, some of which could be exploitative and so the stories must be critiqued or interrogated. The perspective introduced in the chapter on the life history approach and continued here is that within a postmodern, postcolonial, neoliberal world, stories are now being used strategically to serve socio-political and economic purposes. Goodson (2006) indicates more specifically that ‘storying…becomes a form of social and political prioritizing, a particular way of telling stories that in its way privileges some story lines and silences others’ (p. 94). ‘The conservative politics of late postmodernism’ that Goodson (2006) speaks of above have therefore appropriated the life story genre to obscure ‘general patterns, social contexts, and critical theories’ (Goodson, 2006, p. 90). There is a ‘capitalist agenda’ (Goodson, 2006, p.9) at work in many spheres of our existence including the world of schooling, generally, and the higher education sector in particular. Goodson refers to it as these ‘broader cognitive maps of influence and power’ (Goodson, 1997, p. 111) some of which were identified in the chapter on context. These ‘broader cognitive maps of influence and power’ must be identified in relation to the stories of principals in this study. These stories must therefore be listened to alongside their contexts so that there is an interrogation and a response to inequalities of power at all levels (Robinson-Pant and Singal, 2013) even as there is an investigation of the possible impact on ‘the dynamics of professional identity construction’ (Sugrue, 2005, p. 19) that is not static (Hutton, 2013; Hyvärinen & Uusiautti, 2013; Inman, 2013; Benjamin, 2011; Day, Sammons, Stobart & Kington, 2007; Day, Kington, Stobart & Sammons, 2006; Sugrue, 2005; Beijaard, Meijer, Verloop, 2004, Sikes, Measor & Woods, 1985). The process of interviewing as a method used to collect stories therefore cannot be taken for granted. Collecting stories using an interview format is a way of ‘giving voice’ or ‘not giving voice’. The stories that emerge from the postcolonial society from which my participants come, can be used within a decolonizing project (Sonn, Stevens and Duncan, 2013; Tuhiwai Smith, 1999) as they can be used to ‘disrupt and deconstruct these cultural practices in the name of a more just, democratic and egalitarian society’ (Kincheloe and McLaren, 2000, p.285 as cited in Denzin and Lincoln, 2008, p. 8) but they can also be ‘carriers of dominant messages, themselves agencies of domination’ (Goodson, 2006, 57 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield p.95). A critical pedagogy must therefore be utilized through subjecting ‘structures of power, knowledge, and practice to critical scrutiny [which demands] that they be evaluated “in terms of how they might open up or close down democratic experiences” (Denzin and Lincoln, 2008, p.8 citing Giroux and Giroux, 2005, p.21). The indigenous researcher or the researcher coming from a postcolonial society has a serious responsibility consequently in sharing stories emerging from a colonial and postcolonial context. They can hopefully engage in ‘critical indigenous pedagogy’ which ‘uses methods critically for explicit social justice purposes…[and] values the transformative power of indigenous subjugated knowledges’ (Denzin and Lincoln, 2008, p. 2) or unfortunately, knowingly or unwittingly become complicit in an oppressive, exploitative neoliberal, capitalist agenda. Tuhiwai Smith (1999, p. 137) indicates that there is therefore a ‘constant need for reflexivity’ by ‘the insider researcher’ who researches his or her own society which is no less for any researcher in any geographical space or context. However, ‘the major difference …is that insiders have to live with the consequences of their processes on a day- to-day basis for ever more, and so do their families and communities’ (Tuhiwai Smith, 1999, p. 137). As indicated earlier in the Prologue, there must therefore be ‘a simultaneous welcoming and valuing of endless questioning’ (Adams, 2008, p.179) but I agree with Trahar and Yu (2015) that ‘this is not easy to do, as it requires one to be able to stand outside one’s locality and to look in, to make the familiar strange’ (p. xv). It is easy to take ‘the familiar’ for granted and more so with the self as an individual and as a researcher. It was only when I began to write about myself and therefore could see myself as an ‘Other’ (Sparrowe, 2005) since ‘to tell stories we have to see ourselves as others see us’ (p.429) that I was better able to critique the ‘me’ that functioned within a classroom space. I was warm and friendly with students but always created what I referred to as a ‘professional distance’. I could see what happened in situations where there was no separation of the two. I heard students accusing teachers of having ‘pets’ or ‘favourites’ and of the potential for bias in assessing work. This was the extreme and in my way of seeing it, there was no ‘in-between’. It was only when I could separate the ‘I’ from the ‘me’ that Mead (1934) writes of, that I could see the ‘me’ as an identity constructed from models arrived at from early childhood and teenage years. It was only after locating those models from within a colonial plantation overseer construct (see chapter on life history approach or 58 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield methodology) that I was able to re-examine my practice and identity within the classroom. I am now able to be in the classroom with a consciousness of why I kept a ‘professional distance’ that was in fact, alienating. I now share more of myself with students and them with me, while maintaining a more healthy professional distance. I am now able to help more of my students who may have personal challenges often impeding their academic progress. Arriving at this point through reflexivity was not easy but as a researcher, it is necessary. I agree with Robinson-Pant (2005) that it is from this position that in better understanding yourself and more importantly, where your knowledge and ways of behaving and thinking originate, that ‘research has a greater chance to be ethical’ (p. 98). This is so because you no longer take for granted ways of knowing or interpreting. As a researcher from a postcolonial society I am charged with the responsibility of not taking for granted ‘the hegemony of methods …and leadership in the search for knowledge’ (Tuhiwai Smith, 1999, p. 5). Listening to the voices and hearing the life stories of participants or principals from a postcolonial society is one part of a process within a decolonization project that looks at how we lead from within the practice of education. Baker and Edwards, 2012; Sikes (2006); Troyna (1994) and Ellsworth (1989) issue a caution, however, about collecting and sharing stories in an attempt to ‘give voice’ assuming that our actions will improve the lives of people or have a positive impact. It could have the opposite effect including leading to recolonization or neocolonialism, further discrimination or alienation of individuals and institutions. Sikes (2005) indicates how difficult it can be deciding if and how to represent the voices of students and faculty in a school for ‘deviant’ students. She visited the school of one of her postgraduate doctoral students and wrote about the experience. She feared that she may be doing harm by sharing the experience with the wider society while keeping silent may lead to perpetuation of ignorance about the school. I think her decision to give voice to the students and staff allowed for momentarily silencing the voices of others long enough for them to listen to another story that needed to be told. She subsequently indicated that ‘researching, writing about and re-presenting lives [carry] a heavy ethical burden’ (Sikes, 2012, p.123). This is because you can never be sure about how what you do or say will affect others or whether you may do more harm than good. Ellis (2007) believes and I agree with her position that ‘as researchers we long to do ethical research that makes a 59 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield difference. To come close to these goals, we constantly have to consider which questions to ask, which secrets to keep, and which truths are worth telling’ (p. 26). As a researcher from a postcolonial society I am aware that in interviewing the principals of higher education institutions in Barbados, a postcolonial society, that I am ‘giving voice’ to them. I am also aware that in ‘giving voice’ to them I am silencing others whose stories might be quite different. This is one of the strengths and also limitations of the study as there will be for any study. Qualitative studies on a particular area of life are not attempts to ignore other realities or silence other voices that may be worthy of being heard. A qualitative life history study such as this one is only an attempt to provide an opportunity to hear other voices, like the voices of principals from a postcolonial society that may not be part of the dominant global, hegemonic, quantitative paradigm. Seen from the perspective of indigenous, colonized or transplanted people, these voices of principals of higher education institutions emerging from a postcolonial Barbadian society can be seen as representative of ‘the voices of those who have been silenced by dominant paradigms’ (Denzin and Lincoln, 2011, p. x) or voices that may have been appropriated to serve ‘dominant paradigms’. Persons of Afro-Caribbean ancestry who have remained domicile within the Caribbean may not often see themselves as ‘on the margins’, ‘the Other’, or the disenfranchised. Lewis (2004) indicates that for these Afro-Caribbean persons there was never an acceptance of ‘the classic minority-group psychology, the highly oppressive sense of being a Negro. [Their] very numerical superiority, that is, gave [them] a relaxed self-confidence, a freedom, after Emancipation, from physical fear’ (p. 13). Nevertheless, the voices of principals are still representative of people within a Caribbean region on the fringes or periphery of a global, neoliberal, capitalist order that need to be heard ‘within a broader agenda seeking to develop dialogical, socially responsive and accountable forms of knowledge and praxis that are pivotal to a decolonization imperative that has a past, present and future orientation’ (Sonn, Stevens and Duncan, 2013, p. 299). Most of the principals in this research project, similar to early Afro-Caribbean political leaders, had opportunities to study in metropolitan countries (Britain and Canada) and chose to return to contribute to their Caribbean homeland. Listening to their voices becomes more interesting and complex. The method of collecting stories through 60 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield interviewing acknowledges that as long as human beings belonging to any geographical or cultural space are integral to facilitating change hopefully ‘for the better’ (Clough and Nutbrown, 2012) then the issue is also a complex one. Qualitative methods such as listening to the stories of principals from a colonized society must be reflective of and capable of accommodating that complexity (Goodson and Sikes, 2001; Ben-David, 1973; Carr, 1995). Qualitative methods that are aligned with storytelling or narrative inquiry offer such possibilities. This chapter on interviewing therefore places focus on several aspects of the interview process using principals of higher education institutions. I have indicated above that stories can be manipulated to serve hegemonic interests. It therefore behooves researchers to be transparent about their purposes for asking persons to share their stories (Sikes, 2012) and that reflexivity is an important aspect of being an ‘insider’ researcher from a postcolonial society. I have also indicated the way in which stories from postcolonial societies can be used as part of a decolonization project but must be contextualized so as to avoid possibly being used to serve a neocolonial, ‘capitalist agenda’. Consequently, I have also indicated that care must be exercised when we ‘give voice’ to participants through sharing their stories as this could be harmful to participants and others or could be beneficial within a decolonization endeavour. As researchers it is not always possible to know which. We must at least be guided by an internal moral compass or ethical principles throughout as there are decisions that researchers have to make that cannot be under the purview of supervisors or ethics review committees. I proceed now to discuss issues surrounding the preparation for the interview, contacting participants and anonymity, interviewing participants and relationships, storing data, transcribing, and reporting or representing. All of these processes involve making ethical decisions. PREPARATION FOR INTERVIEWING The process of interviewing or collecting data is complex. Plummer (2001) refers to the whole life history approach as ‘thoroughly disorderly’ and what we attempt to do as researchers is ‘to give …order and protocol’ (p.24). I recall that there was no linear 61 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield approach to the process as several activities were in operation, simultaneously. I kept a research diary for appointments and schedules, a research note-book to remind me of the things that must be done or simply to jot down sudden thoughts that arose in relation to the research and also a journal for describing scenes and for recording my reflections before and after interviews and during the writing stage. These activities allowed me to keep order amidst the ‘disorder’. Israel and Hay (2006, p.13) cite Oakes (2002) in reminding researchers that they ‘do not have an inalienable right to conduct research involving other people’ or ‘an undisputed warrant to study anyone or anything’ (Denzin and Lincoln, 2011, p. xiii). These reminders have also guided my conduct of research in this project. Researchers should treat participants as they should all people, with respect (Sikes, 2010; Tuhiwai Smith, 1999). Benjamin (2011), Lortie (2009) and Atkinson (1998) were useful in helping me to formulate questions related to my purpose for the research. I had compiled too many specific questions, initially, and had to accept that the interview would have been an uncomfortable interrogation. I reviewed the questions adopting a semi-structured format (Appendix Two). I agree with Cohen, Manion, Morrison and Bell (2013) that this type of interview tends ‘to enable the course of the respondents’ responses to dictate the direction of the interview, though the researcher also has an interview schedule to keep an interview on track, and may operate probes to enquire further into issues’ (p. 439). The questions then became more a way of reminding me of what I wanted to know and to maintain a focus for the interview. There were many times when I did not have to ask the questions I had written down as the answers were provided while participants told their stories. Benjamin (2011) records a similar experience. After obtaining ethics approval, I scheduled a pilot interview with a retired principal of a secondary school. I did so to enable me to test or preview a number of things some of which included the use of my recorder, to test my skills as an interviewer in relation to this project and to find out if I could identify connections between life experiences and the professional sphere. I read as much as I could about the process of interviewing and decided on a procedure but was aware that the procedure would have to be adjusted depending on the context. I agree with Roulston (2012) that a flexible approach is appropriate for qualitative interviews. After speaking face-to-face with potential 62 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield participants or calling to inform about what I was doing and asking respectfully if they would be participants, I would follow up with a telephone call or at the same time indicate when I would email the research information and consent form (Appendix One). I had to make minor adjustments to the form for the retired principal and have included that one in the appendix as the majority of my participants were retired principals of higher education institutions. After emailing the information sheet and consent form to the retired principal of a secondary school, two weeks passed before I heard from him and I was also on a short holiday. When I returned, I called by telephone. Apparently, he could not open the document and did not communicate this so I changed the format and sent it again. He then acknowledged receipt of the email. I learned from this that I could not take it for granted that when I did not hear from participants that they had received the email and had opened attached documents. In some cases there were technological challenges. I realized that I could take nothing for granted in this process. The pilot interview was conducted at my home as the participant preferred that arrangement. All other interviews for this research project took place in offices or the homes of participants which was their preference and there was one follow-up telephone interview. Before we began, the retired principal of a secondary school signed the two printed copies of the consent form and I gave one to him as agreed. He was also given a copy giving me approval to conduct the research (Appendix Three). I generally followed this procedure for the other interviews. The interview on a rainy Tuesday afternoon in August lasted for four hours. The participant had an excellent memory and kept saying that he could go on all night in relation to one experience or another. This experience was peculiar to him as none of my other interviews went beyond two hours in one sitting. The pilot interview was useful not only because I knew what adjustments I needed to make when contacting participants but I could see connections between his early life experiences and his professional life as a principal and I also appreciated the value of silence. During the interview, I sometimes allowed my enthusiasm in responding to something he had said to interfere with his trend of thought and as a consequence missed something he was about to say. During subsequent interviews I spoke less mainly speaking when asking questions or when asked a question directly and left any extended comments for after the interview. Betts (2010) gives the reassurance ‘that the interviewer need not fear silence’ (p. 449). 63 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield Betts (2010) also provides a personal testimony: ‘Silence, as I discovered can enable subjects to get their thought together. Another helpful lesson I learnt was not to interrupt and change the direction of the narrative’ (p. 449). In reviewing the recording of the interviews, I felt that even though I tried not to interrupt the flow of the participants’ thoughts, my encouraging or responsive noises such as laughter and non-verbal gestures must have made a difference. Montcherry (2010) warned about allowing your views as the researcher ‘to stir the personal stories of the respondents to a place which reflects the researcher and not the respondent’ (p.58). I was careful not to do that but I learned that as in everyday communication, not being totally silent is necessary. An interview is after all, like a conversation, except that the conversation is being used for purposes of research and there is therefore a specific agenda which all participants are aware of. What reinforced my enthusiasm for reliving this process of interviewing and collecting life stories, however, was also the fact that while listening to this former principal, I was being reminded about one of the things I enjoyed most about teaching and I was determined to recapture this aspect. Atkinson (1998) indicates that ‘the person sharing his or her life story is the teacher. The person receiving another’s life story is the student’ (p.71) and that it is similar to having a mentor. This principal told me that as a boy, the best teachers were those who tried to help those students who were struggling because those students were your friends and you wanted to see your friends succeed. I had to admit that I had never quite seen it in that way before but even though I enjoyed helping the weaker students, in recent years the increases in student intake seemed to have left less time for helping those students. After that interview, I was more determined to change that situation. That interview also made me look forward even more to the other interviews that were specific to my research. I continued to find each subsequent interviewing experience to be most personally and professionally rewarding. MAKING CONTACT WITH PARTICIPANTS AND ANONYMITY There are only four public-funded tertiary education institutions in Barbados so there are only four current principals. This was the reason I chose a principal from the secondary 64 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield level for my pilot study. Baker and Edwards (2012) speak of the challenge that students have with deciding how many qualitative interviews were enough. I did not have that problem. My first objective was to interview these four principals but alternatively would interview the retired principals. I had either face-to-face communication, telephone or email correspondence with all current principals as it was important to establish rapport and trust. One afternoon I spent half an hour speaking to one current principal. They all gave an indication that they were willing to be participants and that scheduling was the only challenge as they were all quite busy. I had my pilot interview in August and the next interview with a current principal of a higher education institution was in November and that was after several re-scheduled attempts. By the end of the year, I had to accept that the availability and accessibility of participants are also critical factors in this process (Baker and Edwards, 2012). I cannot ignore the fact either that in my information sheet, the current principals were aware that I could not promise anonymity and one of them queried why I was not able to do that. One query may mean that there were others who saw the issue of anonymity as a challenge but along with having busy schedules, may not have wanted to admit this. I did not ask the other current principals if they saw it as a challenge but I maintained contact with them via email and would occasionally have the opportunity to see and speak with them on various occasions. Barbados is a small society and the four public-funded higher education institutions are publicly known and so are the principals within those institutions. It is unlikely that within such an environment that any participant could expect to remain anonymous or be promised anonymity. This would not be ethical. Louisy (1997) is accurate in her assertion that in small communities ‘there is a very thin line between what widely shared community knowledge is and what private business is’ (p. 213). This is the same within the Barbadian context. This is one of the challenges of researching within a small community. As a consequence, three participants are former or retired principals of three of the tertiary institutions in Barbados. They were all willing and also available to be participants. All interviews with these former principals took place in one month but I had spent almost five months waiting for interviews to be arranged with three of the current principals. All retired principals signed the consent form with the understanding that I could not promise 65 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield anonymity. Davies (2014) makes the point that ‘not all research warrants participant anonymisation’ (p.27). Davies (2014) also cites Scott (2008) and Walford (2005) as saying ‘that the position of automatically assuming anonymity by academics and Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) alike is ethically unsound’[ and that] ‘it potentially steals the voices of those whom are not at risk and may hope to be heard’ (p. 25). I was grateful that the four participants in this study agreed to share their story and regret that some of the current principals could not share theirs. As researchers we have to respect whatever position participants choose to take especially when deciding about telling or sharing their stories. Ellsworth (1989) advances the view that it is sometimes better to remain silent. As a researcher, ethical conduct also has to do with not demanding that persons find time to share their stories or making them feel uncomfortable or guilty that they did not. Wolcott (2003) and Somekh and Lewin (2005) raise some interesting issues around anonymity. Wolcott (2003) believes that sometimes an attempt to disguise participants so thoroughly within the research report is ‘to risk removing those very aspects that make it vital, unique, believable, and at times painfully personal’ (p. 4). It would be impossible to disguise my participants as almost every aspect of their stories identifies them. Somekh and Lewin (2005) present another ethical dimension that is worthy of consideration: Standard procedures such as ‘anonymizing’ partici-pants and organizations raise further ethical questions since people’s ideas can be seen as their intellectual property and in some cases it would certainly be unethical to quote them without also accrediting the source (p. 3) Again, I cannot imagine using the ideas of my participants without acknowledging them but I know that there are participants who need to be protected and maintaining anonymity is the ethical thing to do. Each research project has to be assessed for the extent to which it does not harm the participants although as indicated, this is sometimes difficult to determine (Davies, 2014; Ellis, Bochner, Denzin, Lincoln, Morse, Pelias and Richardson, 2008; Sikes, 2006a; Robinson-Pant, 2005; Pring, 2005). This is why reading and signing of consent forms by competent adult participants are important so that persons participate ‘via their own volition’ (Florida, 1998 as cited by Davies, 2014, p. 30). While researchers may wish to be sensitive to participants’ uncertainty about participating in a research project, the researcher also has a research timetable that may not be 66 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield compatible with that of the prospective participants. Two of the then current principals have now retired or have new responsibilities. I still hope that at some time they will be willing to share their stories with me but unfortunately not for this project. Their stories among other things would have hopefully brought an interesting perspective on current issues surrounding the financing of tertiary education, a politically sensitive issue. INTERVIEWING PARTICIPANTS AND RELATIONSHIPS In addition to the benefits of telling one’s story already indicated in my chapter on the life history approach and above, Atkinson (2012) not only reminds us of the latent benefits but also signals the disposition of the interviewer in the process of interviewing: Interviewees receive great benefit in being listened to and guided through the telling of their life story, even though they may not be aware of it until they’ve had time to reflect on the experience. The interviewer’s primary job is to be a sensitive, respectful listener in guiding the life storyteller’s narrative (p.116). On the afternoon of the pilot interview I remember being anxious about what was going to happen. I was more relaxed for the final two interviews. For me, the process was almost sacred or spiritual. I did not have the right to have a person share their story with me but it was a privilege they were giving me for which I was grateful. Another obvious reason for my anxiety was that the interviews were critical to the completion of my dissertation and they were also personal to me and would be for the participant. My belief about the connections between the personal experiences and the professional sphere was about to be confirmed or denied and the participants were about to trust me enough to share aspects of their life that were both personal and public. Additionally, as a result of my pilot interview I knew of the possibility of changing my perspective in some way or other as a ‘re- plotting’ (Richardson, 1990) took place. Plummer (2013) speaks of stories we listen to having the potential ‘to haunt, shape and transform our social worlds’ (Sect.12). After reflecting on the pilot interview, I did not know how with each subsequent interview my social or professional world was about to change. That was exciting! 67 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield This excitement and anxiety about the interview, however, did not blind me to other realities related to what happens as the participant prepares for the interview, what happens during the interview, how the researcher should treat the participant during the interview and how the researcher should interpret or view the interview. After the participant is told that you wish to interview them and you tell them about the purpose of the research and they read the information sheet which also tells them that they could withdraw at any time, participants possibly begin to think about how they wish to be seen and identified (Horn, 2012; Sikes, 2010; Smith & Sparks, 2006). Cohen et al (2013) indicate that an interview is ‘an encounter sharing many of the features of everyday life’ (p.410). Participants may therefore engage in trying to manage how they are perceived and represented (Smith and Sparks, 2006) and some can even become fairly creative in doing so (Horn, 2012). It must not be construed consequently, however, that the life story data becomes unreliable and invalid. According to Atkinson and Silverman (1997), the interview must be interpreted with reference to its context. The interview is not about seeking ‘objective truth’ but about acknowledging subjective perspectives. Participants will also decide which events or experiences should be included or omitted. The partial context is that there are always risks in telling our stories as others’ lives are involved and so we must respect the rights of participants to omit aspects of their stories that put themselves or others at risk. When the interviewing process commences, Bishop (1996) believes that the interviewee or participant retains control. This is partially true as during my interviewing sessions, participants determined what they wanted to say. Vähäsantanen and Saarinen (2012) cite Kvale (2006) and Rapley (2007) in making the point that ‘interviewers have power at the beginning of the interview’ [as] ‘they set the stage for the interview’ (p.498). There was one interview where I set the stage and immediately the male participant took over. The participant proceeded to give me an institutional story even though I had indicated that I would start with basic biographical questions. Vähäsantanen and Saarinen (2012) have helped me to place this in context: ‘it is fairly typical for men interviewed by women to take control of the interview…in so doing the interviewee may adopt the tone and manner of a teacher/father’ (p. 500). When I interrupted the participant to indicate that though I was interested in the story of the institution, I was also interested in his personal early life story and experiences, his reasons could be described as ‘fatherly’ or as a ‘teacher’. He 68 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield wanted to be sure that I knew what I was talking about when I included the University of the West Indies as a higher education institution in Barbados. After being satisfied with my answer, the interview still proceeded with him clearly in charge but in a more relaxed way for both of us. However, I also agree with Trahar (2009) that the power can shift as the participants may begin to respond to what they think the researcher wants to hear and they respond to the specific questions of the researcher or try to adjust what they wish to share within the confines of what the research is about. Vähäsantanen and Saarinen (2012) describe these shifts in the relationship as a ‘power dance’ which is defined as ‘the activities of interview participants which are directed towards reciprocally controlling the situation, and influencing the situation, and influencing the other person’s actions and conversation’ (p. 494). I recall one of my participants saying to me that they could tell me more about the growth or development of the institution which they led but they were aware that they had to respond to my specific questions. That is always regrettable but most research projects have a framework or boundaries and unfortunately mine was one of those. At the end of one interview, the participant asked what I was going to do with the data and after telling her about finding themes and contextualizing, she then continued the interview sharing with me her reflections on the historical context of her birth and educational experience. I indicated earlier that as a consequence of conducting a pilot interview, I learned the value of silence, but I also found that the moments of sharing, as with the participant above, were integral to what story was eventually told. I learned the difference between when the interviewee’s silence was indicative of a moment of reflection as thoughts are formulated and when a question was necessary or when a response to a question of a participant created better rapport between the participant and me. During the month of February where the majority of the interviews took place, scheduling was so rapid that there was not much time to establish rapport with two participants prior to the scheduled interview. During one interview, I became the interviewee as the participant asked about my background and connections with persons he knew. All of my participants could be considered to be the elites of my society, but this participant and I were hugely amused at the fact that a cousin of mine was his pastor and that we both visited the neighbourhoods where we had grown up even though he was my senior. It was after I had turned the 69 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield recorder off and we spent some time getting better acquainted that he called me a ‘fellow traveler’ and shared with me another story which he gave me permission to include. For the other participant whose scheduling was rapid, she knew who I was because her son was a colleague at my college and she had heard about me prior to our interview. She knew some aspects of my personal history that were similar to hers. During our interview, there were times when I could not resist indicating to her how similar some of our stories were. Wolgemuth, Erdil-Moody, Opsal, Cross, Kaanta, Dickmann and Colomer (2015) indicate that ‘participants learned the most from researchers who shared their experiences (were viewed as insiders) and this sharing helped the participants feel connected to a broader community’ (p.363). The retired principal from my institution would have been my principal for the first fourteen years of my career at the institution. She was always approachable and personable and I have always felt that she had an interest in my personal and professional development. The first time I visited her home was when she invited my fiancé at the time (a fellow colleague) and me for lunch. I could be wrong but I think that she had some concerns about the coming marriage but she wanted us to understand that we had her support. As she shared her story during our face-to-face interview, it was clear that I was an insider ‘insider’. I am an ‘insider’ from the perspective of being a researcher from the Barbadian community and an ‘insider’ from the perspective of having shared an institutional history with her. She recalled stories and events that I had an intimate knowledge of and some that were new to me. After our initial interview and prompting by my supervisor, I was able to follow up with more questions which she answered via the telephone. Among other things, she shared with me a story about her mother that must have been difficult to recall during our first interview as it was only when asked specifically about her, she shared that story. After emailing my notes from the telephone interview, she authored some of her story. She then gave me permission to include the story of her mother along with others in the main narrative. Atkinson (1998) reminds us that during the interviewing process ‘it is important not to let interpretive issues take precedence over ethical issues [and that] it is always more important to be fair to the human being providing the information than it is to get more data’(p.11). It is for this reason that participants were told that they did not have to answer any questions that they 70 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield did not wish to answer and they should volunteer only what they wanted to (see Appendix One). For whatever reason, my former principal did not say much about her mother during our first interview and I did not ask at the time. I must admit that it is not easy knowing what to ask at the time or what not to ask about. My first interview with a current principal was partly facilitated within the context that he had met my parents when by coincidence, he visited their home with my god-mother. He told me after the two interviews, that he did it for my mother. I believe that all participants shared the stories that they shared not only because of the way we interacted during the interview and not only because in most cases there were ties and connections of various sorts, but also ‘if we act honestly and honourably, people may rely on us to recognise their needs and sensitivities and consequently may be more willing to contribute openly and fully to the work we undertake’ (Israel and Hay, 2006, p.3). My former principal also thought that the approach I was taking to the research was ‘interesting’. There are sometimes disadvantages to doing insider research (Tuhiwai Smith, 1999) as those from your community become suspicious of your motives or do not trust you as a researcher because of age, gender or status. However, in my case, where you have a historical, cultural, personal and professional connection to your participants, I felt that the advantages outweighed the disadvantages. STORING STORIES AND TRANSCRIBING None of my participants had a problem with my use of a recorder to collect their stories or data. There was only once that I could not get the recorder to work perhaps due to the lapse in time between use (August-November) and a fairly busy schedule not allowing time for a test-run immediately prior to the interview. The note-paper that I took was very useful at that moment. Goodson (2005) indicates that using the recorder allows the researcher to be free to maintain eye contact and respond more naturally to the participants. I found this to be so. Goodson (2005) further believes that ‘notetaking can take away from the intimacy and trust that the researcher establishes with the participants’ (p.4). I did not find that trust was compromised by having to resort to notetaking and felt that if that were so it seemed to 71 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield be re-established in returning the rough draft of the notes to the participant for confirmation of what was shared. The researcher should always be armed with lots of paper just in case the recorder does not work. Fortunately, most of the stories of participants were recorded successfully and later transferred to my computer and labelled. Transcribing the data using the computer alone could be a tedious process as I learned in my attempt to transcribe the four-hour long interview for my pilot research. I found transcribing to be less tedious when I used the recorder to listen to the voices of participants and use the computer to input the data. Transcribing the data personally also allowed me to become well acquainted with the stories of my participants and assisted in organizing them in relation to the themes that were of interest. I agree with Cohen et al (2013) that while transcribing you ‘inevitably lose data from the original encounter’ (p.426). As I was transcribing my first interview data (pilot) I included the questions I asked and had no labels for the sections of the data. After reading Atkinson (1998), I removed my questions and created paragraphs. This encouraged me to also add labels or categories and so I had started to code the data and introduce themes. Cohen et al (2013) indicates firstly that ‘a transcription represents the translation from one set of rule systems (oral and interpersonal) to another very remote rule system (written language)….[Therefore] it is unrealistic to pretend that the data [in transcriptions] is anything but already interpreted data’ (p. 426). It is not only that data is lost, and the form of the data is translated during transcription, and that paragraphing and labelling begins the interpretation process but tones, gestures and noises are omitted. I enjoyed all of the interviews with participants and there were many moments of laughter. It is only in the transcription of one interview that I indicated the specific times where there was laughter. I thought to include those moments to capture the idea that my participant said that she was told by her mother that she was a joyful baby. I attempted to capture the presence of that same joy by representing the ease with which she still laughs. In doing a number of things with the transcribed stories, I was also trying to follow the recommendation by Goodson (2005) that the researcher should help ‘the readers to immerse themselves in the stories and get an image of the whole picture of where the interviews took place’ (p. 3). This is possibly to bridge the gap between the actual interview and the transcription of the results 72 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield of the interview. It is a recommendation I acted on. I did so by setting the scene, indicating interruptions, noises such as a thump on the table, underscoring where there was emphasis and indicating how the interview ended. Except for the first part of an interview I had with a principal of a tertiary education institution where I had to take notes, all transcriptions of interviews were emailed to participants. Where there were notes, participants amended, omitted and expanded their stories manually or electronically. Through intense collaboration in some cases, a final version of the interview was produced. Atkinson (2012) believes and I agree that participants ‘are the authors of the first as well as the final draft of their story. The person telling his or her story should always have the last word in how his or her story is presented in written or published form’ (p. 121). Sharing the transcribed interview with participants is a critical stage in the research process as ‘returning the life story to the community from which it came is also an act of profound respect. It protects the “honor” of the storyteller’ (Atkinson, 1998, citing Myerhoff, 1992). Sikes (2010, 2006a) and Tuhiwai Smith (1999) are clear in the view that researchers should act responsibly and ensure that participants have a say in how they are re-presented. Some participants in reviewing the transcribed data omitted some statements, made amendments and included more data. This is their right. In omitting data and including data, they were autobiographers and it was clear that they tried to be respectful of others as they edited the transcribed interview. This emphasised that as researchers we dishonor participants when we do not give them the opportunity to have a say in how they represent themselves and others. In all the areas of collaboration indicated above the story that is told therefore becomes a co-construction between participants and interviewer (Brannen, 2013; Benjamin, 2011; Atkinson & Silverman, 1997) and should be seen or interpreted as such. As indicated in the chapter on the life history approach, stories cannot be life as lived’ (Bruner, 1993, p. 38). Most of the intense collaborative work in translating and interpreting of recordings took place between the female participants and me. Vähäsantanen and Saarinen (2012) indicate that ‘sameness between the interview participants (having similar experiences and the same gender) seemed to enable more equal relationships between them, and to create a platform for shared knowledge production’ (p. 508). At some times the collaboration 73 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield related to paragraph order, coding and punctuation. Reinharz and Chase (2003) speak of power relationships existing even after the interview. Though I am uncomfortable with describing what took place among participants and me as a ‘power relationship’ in all cases I acceded to the preference of the participant asking approval for any changes I made to their stories. I also observed that during the collaborative work that the participants did not change their story in any significant way and there was consistency. Even if they had changed some aspects of their story I accept that it would not make the data invalid. Atkinson (2012) indicates that ‘a great advantage of the life story approach in arriving at a reliable and valid research project is that the life storyteller is always consulted in resolving any questions or concerns that may come up after the transcription’ (p. 121). Denzin and Lincoln (2003) also suggest ‘criteria of credibility, dependability and confirmability’ that for me were all addressed within the stories that were told and the collaborative process taking place between the participants and me after interviews. I believe that issues of ‘reliability and validity’ belong to other research paradigms that carry illusions about seeking ‘objective truth’ (May, 2011; Carr, 2000). REPORTING Deciding how to report or re-present the voices of participants can be challenging. Ellis, Bochner, Denzin, Lincoln, Morse, Pelias and Richardson (2008) remind us that we have to ‘think deeply about what we owe the people whose lives we want to put in our studies’ (p.272). Sikes (2010) cautions us to guard against what she describes as the ‘Cinderella’s Slipper Syndrome’ where data is sliced to fit a particular paradigm (shoe) and the researcher engages in ‘rape research’ (Lather, 1986) simply to fulfill a personal agenda without regard to the participants. For these reasons I felt that I needed to and wanted to report the stories of principals of higher education institutions in the main body of the study and in their entirety. I did not want to speak for my participants as their stories are eloquent representations of themselves. As an educator and one interested in leadership at that level, I was impacted by listening to the stories and I hoped that this would be the same for those reading. It is also impossible to tell which aspect of a story may impact a 74 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield reader. Additionally, through reading their stories, it was hoped that the reader would see among several things, the extent to which the personal life experiences of current principals or retired principals relate to their professional lives. However, due to word limit constraints it was not possible to include all stories and not even just those of the female participants. I thought of placing the stories of the female participants in the appendix but that did not seem fair to the male participants. As a result none are in the appendix and I had to be content with the knowledge that I am fairly generous in including their voices in the analysis phase of the study. Goodson (1997) believes that listening to teachers’ voices and I believe also the voices of principals of higher education institutions who in most cases were once teachers, will help to end the ‘representational crisis’ and that it becomes ‘a welcome antidote to so much misrepresentation and re-presentation in scholarship and it opens up avenues of fruitful investigation and debate’ (p.112). It is not only that but also more importantly, through contextualization of their stories, it is hoped that there will be recognition of how the stories of persons from postcolonial societies need to be interrogated and given wider significance within a postcolonial, neoliberal, capitalist global context. In reporting on the stories of principals of higher education institutions and analyzing those stories, I therefore identify with Brown and Lavia (2013) in citing Smith (1999): ‘we…privilege a position of the colonized and write from that perspective to interrogate school leadership practices’ (p.46). The stories of principals had to be read with reference to the historical, political and educational context highlighted in the previous chapter on context. I will now present an approach to the analysis of the stories of principals which will be followed by the analysis of all stories. 75 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield CHAPTER FIVE: AN APPROACH TO ANALYSIS Fitzgerald (2003b) advances the perspective that knowledge production for and about educational leadership needs to be dismantled to provide a standpoint from which to theorise and research the realities of leadership …from a variety of ethnicities that simultaneously encourages and permits the situating of such knowledge and action in the cultural spaces in which they arose (p.441). Fitzgerald (2003b) advocates a contextualized understanding of school leadership and further contends that ‘it may not be possible to construct a unitary definition of …leadership particularly as leadership is exercised in multiple ways in a variety of settings’ (p.441). The life history approach to this study is in alignment with this perspective shared by Fitzgerald (2003b) about the need to contextualize. The life stories of principals of higher education institutions in Barbados indicate that an approach to understanding how we lead and why we lead the way that we do is not simple but complex and has much to do with our biographies or personal experiences within a colonial and postcolonial setting or context. Fitzgerald (2003b) also calls for an approach to understanding leadership that acknowledges ‘the realities of leadership through the experiences of women from a variety of ethnicities’ (p. 441). In doing so, she cautions against ‘discourses of homogeneity…that articulate and advocate normative ways of managing and leading’ (p. 434). It can be seen as a ‘discourse of silence’ (p. 437) around issues of ‘class, social location and ethnicity’ (p. 435). Fitzgerald (2003b) advocates not only for attention to be paid to female principals, as my study does, but also for ‘a sharper, more radical critique of the perpetuation of power and authority within traditional hierarchies that questions the pedagogies of leadership’ (p. 435). The issue of ethnicity is an interesting one within the New Zealand Maori context explored by Fitzgerald and is also interesting to examine within a Barbadian context and will also be addressed in this study. The need also to be cautious about ‘normative ways of managing and leading’ and questions around ‘the pedagogies of leadership’ or how leadership is constructed are reminders that we should not take for granted ways of thinking and acting, especially in contexts impacted by a colonial heritage. As indicated in 76 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield ‘The Prologue’ of my study, ‘the motives and missions’ that we bring to ‘praxis’ within the professional sphere must therefore be interrogated or critiqued. Sikes, Nixon and Carr (2003) make connections between a life history approach and what we take for granted as our own making of history. I believe that our ‘missions and motives’ sometimes evolve out of the historical, political, social and cultural milieu that we bring to the professional world of schooling and so must be critiqued: It is true that we make our own history, but not in circumstances of our own choosing. The life history allows us to watch the balance between ‘making’ and being ‘made’. In schooling, we see how possibilities open up and are then circumscribed, how what at one time can be seen to be constructed is later accepted as normative and ‘given’ (p.47). An examination of the life stories of principals of higher education institutions will along with other things, identify this balance between ‘making’ and being ‘made’. There will also be a need to interrogate taken-for-granted assumptions. It is in this context that those ‘broader cognitive maps of influence and power’ (Goodson, 1997, p. 111) can be identified within the postcolonial context of a Barbadian and by inference, a Caribbean landscape. This is important so that we better understand our way of being, thinking and acting in the personal and professional sphere of our lives. As indicated in ‘The Prologue’ this is necessary as ‘we may unconsciously either be causing harm or doing what is good or beneficial. We need to be conscious of what we are perpetuating and why’. The approach taken to the analysis of the life stories of principals of higher education institutions in Barbados which captures the perspectives above is one that is framework-dependent and one that uses a constructivist grounded theory approach. A FRAMEWORK-DEPENDENT APPROACH Slater (2011) believes that in examining leadership within an international context that ‘research should push forward in two directions’ (p.219). The one that is of interest here is ‘contextual research [which] needs to be undertaken within cultures primarily through narratives of school leaders’ (p.219). The research done in this study takes this path and uses an approach to narrative analysis that uses both a framework-dependent approach and 77 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield a grounded approach as advocated by Leithwood and Duke (1998) cited by Slater (2011, p. 146). Leithwood and Duke (1998) advocate using these two approaches ‘for the richness of the data they provide’ where ‘the goal of each approach is the same: to develop a defensible conception of leadership, or some aspect of leadership, suitable to the context in which it is exercised’ (p. 32). The analysis of the stories of principals of higher education institutions will be ‘framework-dependent’ in the sense that there is an attempt to see how the personal life experiences of principals can be related to the professional sphere. Leithwood and Duke (1998) vaguely defines this as beginning with ‘one or more existing conceptions of school leadership’ (p.32) but in their study proceed to examine various models of leadership to be found in 121 articles originating from North America, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and other countries. However, the theoretical connections between life experiences and the professional sphere and identity articulated in Chapter Two do not appear in their examination of how leadership is conceptualized or framed. The substantial research in this area that needs to be considered in any examination of leadership indicates that though the issue of professional identity is complex, there is a connection between the biography of teachers and the professional sphere (Sugrue, 2014; Day & Gurr, 2013; Finch, 2012; Ligon, Hunter & Mumford, 2008; Inman, 2007; Shamir & Eilam, 2005; Parker, 2002; Becher & Trowler, 2001; McGrath, 1980). The connection is also relevant to principals or educational leaders as it is for others in various spheres of endeavour. Contextualizing the life experiences or stories of principals will hopefully help to avoid what Fitzgerald (2003b) has referred to as ‘subscribing to hegemonic discourses that articulate and advocate normative ways of managing and leading’ (p.434). She advocates instead that we must ‘be prepared to interrogate our compliance’ (p.434) and recognize ‘the production of discourses of distinctiveness’ (p. 442). There is a caution here about wholesale acceptance and adoption of models or ways of thinking and behaving without clear understanding of and willingness to critically examine the peculiarities of the context or origins. THE CONSTRUCTIVIST GROUNDED THEORY APPROACH 78 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield The analysis of the stories of principles of higher education institutions will also be based on a constructivist grounded theoretical approach. I find the perspectives of Charmaz (2003) to be useful and relevant to the epistemological, ontological and axiological positionality taken in this research project. Charmaz (2003) uses a constructivist approach to the classic grounded theory approach advocated by Glaser and Strauss (1967) and Glaser (1978). As already indicated in this study, Charmaz (2003) also sees knowledge production as a social construct between researcher and participants but she also makes the following assumptions in relation to a combination of a symbolic interactionist theoretical perspective and a constructivist method that are consonant with my perspectives and experiences outlined in previous chapters: (a) Multiple realities exist, (b) data reflect the researcher’s and the research participants’ mutual constructions, and (c) the researcher, however incompletely, enters and is affected by participants’ worlds. This approach explicitly provides an interpretive portrayal of the studied world, not an exact picture of it (Charmaz, 2003, p. 314, citing Charmaz, 1995b, 2000; Guba and Lincoln, 1994; Schwandt, 1994). Charmaz (2003) believes that ‘a constructivist approach to grounded theory complements symbolic interactionism because both emphasize the study of how action and [meanings] are constructed’ (p. 314). The language, specific arrangement of words or narrative used by participants in this study therefore become useful in identifying the origins of their ways of acting and thinking within the professional sphere. CONSTRUCTIVIST GROUNDED THEORY AND INTERPRETATION I am also attracted to the way in which the constructivist grounded theory approach by Charmaz (2003) can be connected to how the stories of participants in this study can be interpreted: Constructivists study how participants construct meanings and actions, and they do so from as close to the inside of the experience as they can get. Constructivists also view data analysis as a construction that not only locates the data in time, place, 79 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield culture, and context, but also reflects the researcher’s thinking. Thus the sense that the researcher makes of the data does not inhere entirely within those data’ (p. 313). The constructivist approach articulated by Charmaz (2003) supports several perspectives taken in this research project. Stories are ‘constructions’. They cannot be life as lived (Bruner, 1993). Atkinson (1998) reminds us that ‘stories about the lives we are composing are being rewritten, recast, and retold-in many cases, very often, too’ (p.22). Atkinson (1998) cites Coffey & Atkinson (1996) in also reminding us therefore that it is important to keep in mind that no single interpretation of a life is going to be the “correct” one. There are multiple realities from both theoretical and subjective perspectives. What we need is a creative and disciplined interaction with narrative data for the best developed ideas about human experience and the meanings thereof (p.24). This perspective by Atkinson (1998) is partially consonant also with views indicating that what participants say about themselves and identity must be taken from a postmodern perspective which accepts that identity is a continuous construction since ‘every time I tell my story, my identity changes’ (Syrjälä & Estola, 1999, Sect. 4). There is then an autonomous re-construction of self-perception (Alheit, 2005) even as the principals tell their stories. Every time we tell our stories there is the potential for further evolution of ourselves. The researcher therefore captures in the moment of the interview what I refer to as ‘an illusory sense of the identity of the participant’. The analysis can only capture who participants perceive themselves to be at that moment in time and so the interpretation must not be taken out of context but is still highly instructive or useful in understanding ‘praxis’. When Charmaz (2003) refers to the way that ‘constructivists also view data analysis as a construction that not only locates the data in time, place, culture, and context, but also reflects the researcher’s thinking’ (p.313), support is given to the life history approach taken in this research project in contextualizing the life stories of principals of higher education institutions. It also is a reminder that the interpretations of the life stories of principals may well be related to the values of the researcher that may be found throughout the research endeavour (Berger, 2015; May, 2011; Robinson-Pant, 2005; Sikes, 2004; Sikes and Goodson, 2003; Clough and Barton, 1995) and most significantly in the interpretation, analysis or reporting stage which ‘does not inhere entirely within those data’ 80 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield (Charmaz, 2003, p. 313). In other words, there can be an interpretation by the researcher that transcends or goes beyond the specific narrative context of the words used by the participant. REFLEXIVITY AND ETHICS IN ANALYSIS Charmaz (2003) also indicates that ‘the constructivist grounded theory encourages researchers to be reflexive about the constructions-including preconceptions and assumptions-that inform their inquiry’ (p. 319). The researcher’s way of thinking and evaluating the research data is also under scrutiny. Berger (2015) indicates that this means turning of the researcher lens back onto oneself to recognize and take responsibility for one’s own situatedness within the research and the effect that it may have on the setting and people being studied, questions being asked, data being collected and its interpretation. As such, the idea of reflexivity challenges the view of knowledge production as independent of the researcher producing it and of knowledge as objective (p. 220). Within this context, I agree with Sikes (2010) that it is vital to acknowledge the researcher’s part in knowledge production and that this is also a way of acting ethically. I also agree with her when she emphatically declares: I don’t believe that research can ever be, or ever should be, value free and I believe that, as part of their ethical responsibility to readers, researcher/writers should acknowledge their relationship to their project thus allowing bias and partisanship to be taken into account (p. 19-20). This process of declaring where the researcher stands in relation to the research is to acknowledge that as human beings it is impossible to remove ourselves completely from the work we are engaged in as researchers. I believe that within a context where we are reflexive and declare our positionality, that the degree of mis-representation is minimized. Berger (2015) references Frisina (2006), Josselson (2007) and Smith (1999) in the view that reflexivity helps maintain the ethics of the relationship between researcher and research by “decolonizing” the discourse of the “other” and securing that while interpretation of 81 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield findings is always done through the eyes and cultural standards of the researcher, the effects of the latter on the research process is monitored (p. 221). I see the need to monitor and hopefully minimize the ‘ “decolonizing” of the discourse of the “other”’ or participant as related to this ‘simultaneous welcoming and valuing of endless questioning’ that Adams (2008, p. 179) speaks of. It is with this in mind, therefore, that there is the deepest appreciation for the perspective by Christians (2007) that the stance of the researcher or anyone, should be one that accepts a ‘humility about human knowledge’ premised on the belief that ‘all human effort-including theorizing-is done by beings whose knowledge is incomplete, whose insights are imperfect, and whose understanding is often blinded by tentativeness’ (p. 441). Therefore when as researchers we act as ‘brokers’, ‘mediators’ or ‘translators’ of knowledge (Sriprakash and Mukhopadhyay, 2015) as indicated in ‘The Prologue’ of this study, we do so from the perspective of humility and respect for the people involved and the process in which we are engaged. CODING Coding or labelling of sections of the transcribed data or interviews was the first level of analysis that took place as indicated in the previous chapter. I agree with Charmaz (2003) therefore that ‘the codes reflect the researcher’s interests and perspectives as well as the information in the data [and that] researchers who use grounded theory methods do so through the prism of their disciplinary assumptions and theoretical perspectives’ (p. 319). In the transcribed data (unfortunately not included in this thesis), my interest in the personal life experiences of principals were in the labels ‘Beginnings’, ‘Schooling’, ‘Community Life’ and my interest in identity and challenges were in labels associated with these ideas: ‘Defining Self as Principal’, ‘Outstanding Influences’ and ‘Challenges Facing Higher Education’. Other labels or titles indicated my interests in the challenges faced by female principals and how they dealt with these challenges. The emergence of other titles and sub-titles were based on the emerging data and themes provided by participants. 82 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield CHAPTER SIX: ANALYSIS OF LIFE STORIES STRUCTURE OF THE ANALYSIS OF STORIES OF PRINCIPALS Data from the stories of the four principals in this study is drawn upon and included as evidence or support in response to the research questions and themes emerging. The analysis of the stories of principals is divided into three sections and so the data is presented within those three sections. Section One contains an analysis of the data in relation to the major research questions. I therefore begin the analysis of the stories of principals by sharing the results and analysis of the connections between the personal life experiences of principals and the professional sphere (see Appendix Four for a comprehensive list of the principals’ names, birthdates and time periods as principals). This will include how their personal experiences are connected to their identity in the professional sphere and an examination of their responses to challenges in the professional sphere as this allows for a better understanding of the mechanisms that individuals draw upon in handling difficult or challenging situations (Bluck and Staudinger, 2000). I will also contextualize their stories in this section as I will do for all sections of the analysis. The second research question will be addressed in this approach. In Section Two the data is analysed in relation to the third research question on females in leadership at the higher education level. I view the stories of female principals in relation to the role of fathers and significant others, how they balanced their personal and professional lives, the educational opportunities provided and the role of mentors in order to see the impact of these various contexts on the professional sphere. Section Three of the analysis is on the various themes or similar ideas that emerged from the stories of the principles and were also a reflection of ‘the researcher’s interests and perspectives’ (Charmaz, 2003, p. 319). This grounded theoretical approach provided an opportunity to examine the broader ‘cognitive maps of influence and power’ (Goodson, 1997, p. 111) that impact the way principals enacted or enact their roles in the professional sphere. Themes examined related to models of leaders and authority figures, leadership, 83 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield the financial context of higher education, institutional development and quality assurance mechanisms, values and vision. Some of the themes were specific to some principals and some themes were common among principals. Additionally, in analyzing the stories of principals their ‘praxis’, understood through their ‘sayings’, ‘doings’ and ‘relatings’ (Kemmis, Wilkinson, Edwards-Groves, Hardy, Grootenboer and Bristol, 2014), ‘missions and motives’, will also be contextualized so that the need for decolonization, if necessary, can be recognized and interrogated. The role and stance of the researcher and also reader (as indicated in ‘The Prologue’) will also be included. SECTION ONE: CONNECTIONS BETWEEN PERSONAL EXPERIENCES AND THE PROFESSIONAL SPHERE The substantial body of research referred to in Chapter Two indicates that though the issue is complex, there is a connection between personal life experiences or biography and the professional sphere (Sugrue, 2014; Day & Gurr, 2013; Finch, 2012; Ligon, Hunter & Mumford, 2008; Inman, 2007; Shamir & Eilam, 2005; Parker, 2002; Becher & Trowler, 2001; McGrath, 1980). The stories of principals in this study support this connection and is directly or indirectly acknowledged by them in their telling of their stories. These connections can be seen in relation to their identity, how they lead and handle challenges. In this first section, I start with data from the stories of Mr. Hector Belle and Dr. Maureen Lucas as principals of higher education institutions in Barbados who acknowledge a direct connection between their personal life experiences and their identity as principals. I then follow with data from the stories of Mrs. Norma Holder and Sir Keith Hunte whose acknowledgement of a connection is less consciously made. MR. HECTOR BELLE: Mr. Belle was born in 1953 and became principal of the Samuel Jackman Prescod Polytechnic in 2012. He is the only principal in this study who is still functioning in the 84 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield professional sphere. He identifies the role of his mother and father in defining who he is as a principal: I think my mother. My mother would be one of those persons. She was a hard working woman. She liked to listen. On the other hand my father was a very quiet man who used to think a lot and when he had to say something, he said it and he would use few words to do so. You have got to measure your words. What you say can also be used against you not only in a court of law but within an institution. So when you are speaking to students and even members of staff you have to be conscious of that. Mr. Belle’s need to be circumspect and reflective as an approach to leading is also seemingly connected to these same traits he observed in his parents which he seemingly internalized. These are traits that have been instrumental in him also knowing how to manage people: You cannot be too reactive. You work as a team. I listen to my managers. My view might be different but in the end I am the one who has to accept responsibility for the decision. I am a very quiet person. People will say ‘he is a pretty cool fellow’. I let persons say what they want to say. You would never hear of my getting involved in a big blow up with staff. What you say says a lot about the kind of person you are and when you let people speak, you learn more about them and you know how to relate to them. Mr. Belle’s early childhood experiences influence how he reacts to and handles challenges within his professional life. It is an approach that some of his staff find difficult to understand or accommodate: The approach has a lot to do with your upbringing. I never had an easy life. Even at this time I have always had to struggle. Even at this point in my life when things are not as good as you would expect, these things would not be daunting for me because throughout my life I have always had to face these challenges so I know at the end of the day these are small things. They are only for a time and if you let them get the better of you, you will lose and the institution will lose. You can’t let that happen. Right now we have a lot of projects and some staff members will say to me ,”Mr. Belle, we cannot take on all of these things”; but I say as long as you have time you can do so many things. When I was at Cave Hill doing my Master’s, I never got time off and I still had to do all of these things and I was an Amway distributor. We had a depot in Bay Street. When the things came in at the Harbour, I had to clear them when they came in and run the Stock Room. Mr. Belle’s level of industriousness is challenging for his staff many of who may have had a different experience. Born in 1953, Mr. Belle grew up in a Barbadian society of the 85 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield 1950s and 60s. There are still signs of the pre and post-emancipation economic hardship where livelihoods and education are tied to agriculture: I collected pensions and distributed them for old people. People could not get around. I also fixed bicycles and painted houses. I loaded canes to earn money to go to school. I also took care of pigs and sheep and grew crops. Every member of the family had to make a contribution. You come from a poor family. My grandmother was a hawker and a mauby woman as well during the Crop Season. Sometimes I would have to make it for her. We did agriculture at primary school and the school always kept a kitchen garden. I would practice at home by growing vegetables. It is clear that harsh socio-economic conditions in Barbados extended well beyond a hundred years after emancipation. These hard socio-economic conditions of Barbadian society have fashioned Mr. Belle’s approach to leading his institution. Bluck and Staudinger (2000) indicate that when persons are in challenging situations they tend to respond to them using their life experiences. This is true in the way the harsh economic conditions of a pre-independent Barbadian society affects the way Mr. Belle manages his institution. Additionally, even though Mr. Belle does not make a direct connection between his industriousness and his near-death experience, his use of certain statements and affirmations recall that experience and perhaps become indicative of his drawing upon that experience also as a response to challenges: …these things would not be daunting for me because throughout my life I have always had to face these challenges so I know at the end of the day these are small things… but I say as long as you have time you can do so many things. Mr. Belle’s first name is ‘Hector’ and unlike that legendary or classical hero he is brought back from the dead, hence I titled his story ‘From Death’s Door’. Mr. Belle recalls the story of his encounter with rheumatic fever where he is ‘left to die’ in a corner of the hospital but survives the ordeal. This incident becomes one of those ‘critical incidents’ identified by Sikes, Measor & Woods (1985) which becomes a defining moment. Mr. Belle’s ‘critical incident’ is an ordeal which left him unable to walk but he later becomes a champion long distance runner: At the end of that first year I was admitted to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. There I was unconscious for 3 consecutive months. I was diagnosed with rheumatic fever. They had given up all hope of me surviving. When I went into the hospital, I was 86 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield fat. I lost so much weight! It was an experience never to forget. The doctors had given up hope that I would survive. They pushed me to one corner of the ward. After my discharge from the hospital, I couldn’t go to school. I had to learn to walk again. I however regained some strength and returned to school. Unfortunately, I could not take in much for the year. I found it difficult to focus. I still did well as I was promoted to 2A and 3A but still could not focus. I was a hard worker. I then turned my attention to other things. I turned my attention to athletics and the girls as well (laughter). I became an athlete. I was a long distance runner and became the champion for 3 years. Mr. Belle’s valour, courage and tenacious hold on life emerging from this ‘near-death’ experience not only reinforced his capacity to work hard in terms of the number of projects he is engaged in as principal or to rise above the challenges seeing them as “small things” but also set him on a path like the legendary Hector, of being a ‘saviour’ or ‘hero’ to the down-trodden, the one in crisis or the under-dog. This is seen in his capacity to rescue his St Giles boys from a life of crime or delinquency and to be an anchor for students coming from the Barbados Community College: When I took over here as Principal, there were a lot of students who would have ‘fallen through the cracks’ in that they would have come here from the Barbados Community College like from elsewhere. They would have passed the majority of courses but they would have failed one or two and would have been unable to graduate. What I have done is institute the ‘Awards of the Unit Certification’. When students leave this institution they would be given a certificate which indicates in what areas they are competent. Principal Belle’s sensitivity to the students in need is not only related to a belief that he could defy the odds but is also related to an ‘ethic of care’ which he practiced as a boy as he would collect and distribute the pensions of senior citizens in his community. DR. MAUREEN LUCAS: Dr. Lucas was born in 1946 and was principal of the Erdiston Teachers’ Training College during the period 1994-2000. She defined herself in the professional sphere as being resilient as she was “determined to face challenges and to succeed”. She attributed her resilience and determination to her father and grandmother: “My resilience came from my father and from my maternal grandmother”. She identifies her father’s resilience and determination in defying the social and political injustices in the Barbadian society of the 87 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield 1930s and 40s by voting in an election even though he would not have been eligible. He agreed to have his name placed on the Voters List and in exchange he was supposed to vote for a member of the white minority. He voted instead for a candidate he believed would provide the black majority with the right to vote. She also saw resilience in her grandmother defying the odds in raising five children and seemingly single-handedly building two homes: “My grandmother was a very resilient woman. She was a woman who had been widowed at 42 and had 5 children to raise. She raised them on her own and also bought a second house”. Dr. Lucas’s approach in the professional sphere was seemingly based on the approach to life used by her father and grandmother. Dr. Lucas also described herself in the professional sphere as being “diplomatic” which is a trait she says she acquired from her father and similar to him she also acquired the capacity to “call a spade a spade”. Her forthrightness is clearly demonstrated in her response to the World Bank official that she thought had too long been unjustly criticizing her staff and indirectly herself. She tells this story: In my first year as Principal (Ag.), the Barbados Government was under World Bank surveillance. The World Bank officers - I remember one woman, a little untidy woman, that is the only way I could describe her. She somehow got this impression that Erdiston College could not survive. And whenever we went to meetings she would bring up this thing. She was always critical of the staff - and I was a member of the staff! So implicitly, she was also criticizing me too! That was my assessment. One day I became very angry. I did not have an outburst but I was so irritated that I thought that I would have to put her in her place. I asked her, “What do you know about the staff? Have you ever worked there? Have you ever evaluated them? Well therefore, if you never worked there, nor never evaluated them, you are in no position to comment on their capabilities. This is a staff of very capable and competent people and I cannot have you speak of them in that manner. Dr. Lucas’s fearlessness as principal in condemning the stance taken by the World Bank official could be attributed to her early awareness of her father’s defiance of unjust and oppressive social systems and even personalities representative of such systems. This is an awareness that was fostered in her home listening to her father and his friends: They would come and sit around the dining table and they would discuss and evaluate their interactions with people who held power at the time. I was hearing all of that. It was by osmosis. But he [her father] could not be categorized as an adversarial person. He understood the times and possessed good insight as to the importance of resilience and independent thinking. 88 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield Maureen Elaine Jones was a child raised within a Barbadian historical, political and social context that was part of a ‘wave’ which fostered a political and social consciousness that evidently provided her with the capacity to discern power structures that were adversarial and unjust and could be dismantled. This is empowering for her and allows her to defend herself and her staff within a professional context. Dr. Lucas is seen too to draw upon her early life experiences when handling challenges. There were challenges related to the possible closure of Erdiston due to competition from the University of the West Indies, doubts as to if Erdiston could deliver the Diploma in Education and Certificate in Educational Management programmes once offered by the University of the West Indies and rumors and insinuations about closure and criticisms about staff. Dr. Lucas is able to respond with a passionate level of determination and resilience: So I recognized that as Principal, I had to be able to take on challenges, whatever challenges were brought and I had to succeed. My determination was that I would succeed [Dr. Lucas thumps on the table]. And I would prove the naysayers wrong. Dr. Lucas recalls that her father had instructed her sister and her always to overcome challenges: “He would always say to my sister and me, in particular, that in life one has to be independent, one has to take on challenges and surmount them”. Similar to Mr. Belle, Dr. Lucas also has a ‘critical incident’. This incident is linked to her experience at Queen’s College. It is within the context of racial and social class prejudice within a Barbadian society of the 1950s. The “naysayers” in the professional sphere become the ‘naysayer’ of her teenage years when a ‘half-white Barbadian Mistress’ insinuates that she could never achieve the degrees she had attached to her name in her notebook. She refers to it as “a wake-up call”. Her father’s staunch support of her potential to achieve those very same degrees is possibly related to her passionate determination and motivation to have her institution succeed even as she personally succeeded in acquiring the highest professional and academic qualification of a doctorate. Goodson reminds us that ‘a working knowledge of the life histories of school personnel is a key to understanding what missions and motives people bring to their work’(see Sugrue, 2005, p. xvii). Dr. Lucas’s ‘missions and motives’ to succeed in the professional and personal sphere as an adult are possibly located 89 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield in this early teenage experience encapsulated within a Barbadian context of racial and social class prejudice and discrimination. MRS. NORMA HOLDER: Mrs. Norma Holder was born in 1936 and though conscious of her father having the greatest influence over her life during her primary or early childhood phase, believes that her identity in the professional sphere was fashioned or shaped by everyone: “So I think at that stage …it was my father. Through secondary school I can’t think that there was any particular teacher. I can’t think of one…. Everybody has some influence on you”. Ironically, however, similar to Mr. Belle and Dr. Lucas, when challenging situations arose within the professional sphere, Mrs. Holder’s choice of language and her motivations seemingly emerged out of her father’s experience or ‘doings’ and ‘sayings’. Within the professional sphere as principal of the Barbados Community College from the period 1988-2004, Mrs. Holder recalls challenges involving asbestos; unauthorized spraying of office and teaching areas; rapid curriculum development and staff not compensated adequately. In her language and motivation for action there are parallels to her father’s words when he had to prepare a group of students when there was either no piano or person to play or even as he spoke of challenges related to study: He always believed there was nothing you couldn’t do: “You can’t say ‘I can’t’. Why can’t you? Do it! Just study and apply yourself…whatever it is.” Mrs. Holder’s words as she approached the various situations of challenge in her role as principal seemed to be reflections of her father’s words and tenor. There is an urgent vitality in tone. Passivity and procrastination are not viable responses: You want to preempt the situation. So you get in there… and decide that we’re going to move out immediately. You get in the safety person to recommend and implement the correct way to remove the asbestos, while seeking funds to cover the various costs. Determine what you need to do, get the approval of the Board, keep the press informed, reassure tutors and students that the situation is being managed properly. 90 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield I say this to say that things turn up and there are serious things and you have to deal with them. You don’t wait and say, “Let me get permission from so and so.” You deal with it. You know you have to deal with it… But you have to work with some of those difficulties, work around them or through them… Mrs. Holder’s father’s influence can therefore be felt in her language and motivation for action in the professional sphere. SIR KEITH HUNTE: Sir Keith was principal of the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus from 1987- 2002. He was born in 1937, and in a general way, acknowledges the influence of his parents and a generation of colleagues at the Cave Hill and Mona Campuses of the University of the West Indies. He saw the latter as having a ‘mission’ or goal that transcended discussions about finances and budgets: I have to identify my parents who believed in me long before I knew there was a ‘me’ to believe in. I don’t have any single person but I have a generation of people who at no point did I not benefit from knowing that I was a fellow traveler with a growing body of persons across the Caribbean, including Barbados, who almost without being conscious of it were behaving as though they were on a mission. In other words, I have not been in many discussions in which we spent a lot of time saying but we don’t get enough money. Not that we weren’t ones to complain but that never became so large an issue that it took pride of place ahead of ….Somebody said, “Man, I’ve been thinking about this and what we are going to do about so and so. My most recent thought was how to resolve it.” Sir Keith’s ‘mission and motive’ was a collective one but it is also interesting how he identifies himself as a principal as one well known for motivating others. This he does through listening to others: I was principal from 1987 to 2002. I feel that what I sought to do and I hope I succeeded… I didn’t lead because I believe this is the way but I sought to listen to people, modifying my original thoughts and represent them as I go forward. I was criticized for it at one point but I have heard it said that I motivated. If you keep saying that this in my campus it becomes your campus. No one helps you run it. Shared leadership was one of the things. You have to have your own ideas because if you don’t bring anything to the table you don’t have anything to take away from it. Your job is really to get the most out of people. I thought that the university that 91 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield I know was an excellent idea because it helps in terms of motivating students. They get a feel for not just that it is going in that direction because the captain says so. They are more enthusiastic about it if they see themselves in it. Not just at the dock waving people goodbye but actually part of the process. The word ‘motivation’ or derivatives of the word are repeated several times by Sir Keith while telling his story and it is linked to listening to others and “shared leadership”. He uses the words in relation to the role of his parents in supporting him generally. He says that his mother returned from New York, met his father and they both simply “did whatever had to be done to keep the children in food and clothes and motivated”. The emphasis on the word ‘motivated’ is Sir Keith’s. I am not certain if he is superimposing this approach on his parents’ approach because this is how he saw his identity in the professional sphere or if this is an interpretation of the role of his parents as a boy growing up. However, it is interesting also that only after I had ‘finished’ the interview and we continued to talk and in calling me a ‘fellow traveler’, he shared the story of the role of Sir Alexander Hoyos in his life as a boy going to school at the Lodge School. He told me that Mr. Hoyos would speak to students individually after the class on some matter of discipline or work. He interpreted these actions as being respectful of you. They impacted Sir Keith as it did the other boys. He said that ‘this was something that they all remembered’. It too had an impact on me the details of which, among other things, I will share in my final chapter. I believe that it was that early experience of taking the time to speak to his class-mates in a personal way and perhaps also to hear from them, which becomes an approach in the professional sphere that Sir Keith understood to be a key factor in motivating people. Sir Keith shares stories of taking the time to listen to the persons who are in a meeting and are silent; of speaking to the grounds men or gardener; of taking time to hear from colleagues about persistent challenges or noticing the despondent student and asking after his welfare. It was about bringing them on board by motivating them through care and respect: I have seen too many instances to think otherwise where a non-Barbadian student off campus or otherwise, that you see and he has a frown on his face and you ask him, “What happening, man?” It may be that he doesn’t have bus-fare or so and so…. So they become part of an informal body of supporters. So motivation is key; motivation is key. 92 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield Sir Keith’s ‘mission and motive’ which guided his praxis as it did for all principals could very well therefore be also linked to his early life experiences involving his parents and significant individuals. I see his approach as fundamental to this study of listening to the stories of others and it reminds me of a significant perspective presented by Holstein and Gubrium (2003) that ‘everyone-each individual-is taken to have significant views and feelings about life that are accessible to others who undertake to ask them’ (p.6). The theoretical framework dependent approach above that links the early life experiences of principals to the professional sphere though significant, must also be examined within a life history approach which seeks to contextualize the missions and motives of principals. Some level of contextualizing has already occurred above which I will now deepen with specific reference to race, gender and social class issues. In the late 1950s to early 1960s, as an Afro-Caribbean or black female enrolled at Queen’s College, a historically elitist school predominantly for white female Barbadians with a history of predominately white or ‘half-white’ teaching staff, the young Maureen Elaine Jones (Dr. Lucas) though partially shielded by Flora Johnson, a black Tobagonian teacher, was still affected by the gender, racial and social discrimination practiced there by both black and white or ‘half-white’ Mistresses. One black Mistress excludes her from preparing for A-level English while a ‘half-white’ one is seemingly contemptuous of a black girl who could be presumptuous enough to think that she could excel beyond what was expected perhaps of her gender, race and social class. I believe that the young Miss Jones was able to use her parents’ condemnation of the ‘half-white Mistress’ to reinforce her resilience and determination to succeed in the professional sphere. Dr. Lucas who describes herself as “a post-war baby” and a child of a wave of social and political consciousness which she rode, identifies the place of Queen’s College within a racist paradigm: That was a time of heightened racial and social consciousness for black Barbadians and many of them passed it on to their children. And then there was my experience at Queen’s College as a child whose education was being viewed as a vehicle for social and economic mobility. Even though black girls were being educated at Q.C, the school was still tied to the traditional and entrenched notions of race, colour, class and privilege and some, though not all staff members, functioned in the context of the existing status quo. 93 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield It is ironic that a decade earlier when Sir Keith entered the Lodge School where there was greater exclusivity and resistance to the admission of black students, that it is a white male Barbadian, who practices a level of racial and social inclusivity and equality that leaves an indelible mark on the minds of all the boys taught by him. Sir Keith says that it is something that they all remembered perhaps because it was unexpected based on the history of the school? Sir Keith gives a brief personalized history: Lodge would not have been on my father’s or my mother’s shopping list for any of my older siblings because it was then an exclusive school rather like Harrison College but with a high representation of the white planter class with some connection to Codrington College. It was a boarding school for those who could either afford it or for wealthy whites and for children of ex-patriots who worked in the southern Caribbean who wanted a boarding school. So that was the kind of school… Sir Keith finds within that environment, the key to motivating people to want to contribute. It is about respecting persons enough to want to connect with them individually and to hear their story. The ‘educational praxis’ of both Dr. Lucas and Sir Keith emerged partially from racial and social contexts that could have been damaging but instead produced persons with an interest in making the world a better place through education. It is noteworthy that though Mr. Belle grew up in a Barbadian society in a period closer to independence than any of the other participants, it is still a period of great financial struggle, racial and social class discrimination. He recalls that though he obtained marks for Harrison College, his parents were seemingly of the ‘wrong’ socio-economic class and so they are advised to have him go to the Foundation School or Combermere: I got marks for Harrison College but was told that I was too young. Mr Reginald Gumbs, a teacher at the Primary School came home and told my mother why I did not get through. It was believed to have to do with the fact that my parents were not well off or did not have the necessary social standing. At age 9+ I took the exam again and was told then that there was no room. Mr Gumbs told my mother to put down Foundation or Combermere. These were schools for poor black boys and mulattoes. As a boy, the young Hector Belle used education and agriculture as his financial mainstay. Among other things he taught lessons and grew vegetables in garden plots which he sold personally and by forming a small cooperative business. Teaching and agriculture became the foundation upon which he builds a career as teacher and principal of a technical and 94 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield vocational institution. The use of garden plots was linked to a Barbadian colonial legacy of limited land acreage or lack of land enfranchisement as a way of political and economic control by the white elites over the black majority. Beckles (2004a) indicates that there was ‘hostility to the landed enfranchisement of Blacks’ (p. 168). The use of garden plots limited the social, political, economic and educational mobility of the black masses. This situation still existed in a major way within a pre-independent Barbadian society. On such bases, the young Hector was possibly denied entrance to Harrison College. In contrast, a young Norma Joy Ione Edmondson, having grandparents who were small farmers from a Jamaican society, possibly bequeathed land within a post-emancipation period, could though coming from humble origins, afford their children including her father, a level of economic security that he could achieve the status of teacher, holder of a first degree from the University of London and postgraduate studies in Geography from Reading, London. He also becomes an Education Officer in Jamaica. Her mother was also a teacher and played the piano, a skill she taught her daughter. The eleven plus or ‘screening’ test that denies access to the young Hector Belle based on his ‘lack’ of social and cultural capital, gives access to the young Norma Edmondson. The eleven plus examination as part of an education system still practiced in the Anglophone Caribbean that has ‘a systematic bias in favour of possessors of inherited cultural capital’ (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1990, p. xi) makes possible the entry of Norma Joy Ione into the prestigious St Andrew High School for girls in Jamaica but denies the young Barbadian Hector Belle, lacking social and cultural capital, access to Harrison College. The better socio-economic conditions and changing political environment existing for Sir Keith (his older sisters are working as teachers) and Dr. Lucas (her father is a Master Mechanic) possibly also made a difference in access to secondary schooling and tertiary education. How these principals of Barbadian higher education institutions define themselves within the professional sphere, how they have led and lead as Mr. Belle still does, their responses to challenges, and their ‘missions and motives’ are drawn from the peculiarities of their individual and also similar historical, political, social, racial and gender constructs that must be understood and interpreted in context. These various contexts are also the bases upon which I continue to examine issues related to female leadership, leadership in general, institutional growth or development, financing tertiary education, quality 95 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield assurance and accreditation, values and vision for higher education which emerged within a grounded theory approach to the analysis of the stories of Barbadian principals within a postcolonial, neoliberal, postmodern context. SECTION TWO: FEMALE PRINCIPALS IN HIGHER EDUCATION In The Prologue reference is made to the gross under-representation of women in the higher echelons of higher education institutions even though women outnumber men with their presence internationally as students and in the attainment of higher degrees. The females in this study represent leadership only at the college level of higher education and have all retired. At present, there is a female Pro-Vice Chancellor of the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus in Barbados, appointed in April 2015, which is a signal moment in the history of the Caribbean. The Erdiston Teachers’ Training College is still led by a female. As indicated in The Prologue, given the international under-representation of women at the higher education university level, a closer look at the lives of the females in this study becomes critical in understanding how these women became principals and among other things, how more women can be represented at this level and beyond. Morley (2013) proffers the view that ‘this under-representation reflects not only continued inequalities between men and women, but missed opportunities for women to influence and contribute to the universities of the future….currently, the expertise and skills of a significant part of the HE workforce are being under-utilized’(p.120-121). Ironically, this latter view represented the same kind of thing said within Western patriarchal societies about women’s non-participation in decision-making in civil society during the mid- seventeenth century. The women’s rights and women’s adult suffrage movements emerged out of such perspectives. In this section, I examine the life stories of female principals in this study in relation to the role of fathers and significant others in the professional sphere, balancing the personal and professional sphere, educational opportunities and mentorship. ROLE OF FATHERS AND SIGNIFICANT OTHERS 96 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield One of the reasons I was first attracted to the approach I took in this study was as a consequence of recognizing the role my father and other male church leader played in how I functioned in the classroom. Along with a professional distance which I adopted which I had to admit was sometimes alienating, I had inculcated from them more desirable traits of the profession. My father was always punctual for church and work and his integrity and dependability were unquestionable. Even after he retired and worked on building my second home (he was also a mason) he arrived around 7.30 – 8.00 am and left around 5.00 pm so I could always discuss the progress of the building when I came from work. The other church leader was similar in that he too set high standards of always giving of your best. My father and this other male church leader became my role models but also my standard for judging people and males in particular with adverse consequences. Inculcating these values allowed me as a teacher, to set high standards for myself and my students believing that all of them could succeed. I felt honoured when one of my students, a visually impaired student, during her valedictorian address at the 2014 graduation ceremony, singled me out as the one lecturer responsible for her success in gaining the only Barbados Exhibition that my college won that year. However, I was also aware that while my high expectations were correctly interpreted by her as a lack of discrimination (much of which she had suffered in her earlier schooling), I had only discovered two years previously, that those high expectations were coupled with an intolerance and professional distance that were professionally and personally alienating. There were partially bitter tears I cried that afternoon listening to my name reverberating around the huge auditorium. As indicated in the chapter on the Life History Approach, I can identify the models of my father and other church leader as belonging to a patriarchal plantation overseer construct that I needed to critique and dismantle as it created an approach to classroom management that was also male-oriented (Li, 2014; Oplatka, 2006; Coleman, 2000). Studies indicate that this approach becomes akin to creating an ‘authoritative atmosphere by being strict and harsh’ (Oplatka, 2006, p. 615). It has already been established and implied that the female principals in this study were influenced by their fathers and significant other males and females in the professional sphere. There is a decisiveness, determination and resilience which they both have in dealing with challenges or situations encountered in the professional sphere. Their 97 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield responses may be considered akin to a ‘strict and harsh’ approach that may be stereotyped as ‘masculine’. Both of these female principals led their institutions successfully through periods of tremendous growth. However, they both indicate that the success they enjoyed was also as a consequence of evoking team spirit and establishing good relationships: It was hard work but the adrenaline was there in getting things going. There also was a sense of excitement. And when we successfully accomplished various projects there was such a great feeling of satisfaction”. There is no doubt. It is the staff. And what I like to think is that I had a good relationship with my staff, my students and with the administration, i.e. the Board of Management. You have to work with the Board. Sometimes you don’t like what they are doing so you don’t want to say that you’re not going to do it but you have to let them respect you enough that they would listen to what you have to say. In reading the life stories of both of these female principals, it is clear that their tremendous capacity for hard work and willingness to learn from the challenges presented were twined with never forgetting that their staff and management team were integral parts of the success of their institutions. Morris (2008) in examining how gender, class and race affected the career paths and management practices of twelve female principals concluded that women brought with them not only approaches comparable to males but also brought attitudes of care and attention to relationship building based on earlier experiences in the home. She also concluded that these latter traits were not exclusive to women. These views expressed by Morris (2008) could be attributed to the female principals in my study. As a member of staff at the Barbados Community College where Mrs. Holder served for eighteen years, I have fond memories of her stopping on the corridor to ask how I was doing and as indicated earlier her warmth of character was extended to my fiancé and me to join her for lunch when I think she was concerned about our pending marriage. As staff, we may not have always agreed with her perspectives (as no leader could expect that) but her warmth and care for staff and the college were felt at all levels. This care is expressed in maternal terms: It’s like when you have a child …you know you have this child but it’s a lot of work. You are responsible for your child; you have to keep the child safe from this and that. It is very much like that because it is a whole college and you have to look at the different things. 98 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield Both female principals speak of a strong supportive family background where there was, as Dr. Lucas reiterates, lots of “love and affection” from her immediate family and the extended family in her Uncle Clyde and primary and secondary school teachers like Hazel Thompson and Flora Jonson. Extra-curricular activities also inculcated in the young Maureen, a reinforced awareness of the positive effects of being a rounded individual which perhaps affects her interests in running a successful continuing education programme at Erdiston College. This was probably the same for Mrs. Holder in the core curricular courses introduced at the Barbados Community College. She remembers some of the views of her father in relation to the purpose of education: He had strong views on the importance of education to the whole character and to the whole person...the personality-not just the subject. ‘You want to do well in the subjects. You also wanted to develop yourself as an ethical being…a good being…a person who thinks.’ Mrs. Holder and Dr. Lucas are fine examples of successful principals demonstrating the capacity to combine androgenic models with a ‘feminine’ ethic of care. This is a model that Morris (2008) believes can be accessible to both genders. The question must therefore be posed as to why women are kept in the ‘velvet ghettos’ (Guillaume and Pochic, 2009, p.19) of corporate finance, banking and marketing or in what Ryan and Haslam (2005) refer to as ‘on top of a glass cliff’ (p. 87) where their leadership positions are offered in circumstances that are ‘more precarious’ (p.87) than for their male counterparts. The answer to this question is seemingly two-fold. Women decline leadership positions due to what they see as ‘a form of identity cage which restricts rather than builds capacity and creativity….which often involves taking on a completely new job-sometimes without any socialization, training or support’ (Morley, 2013, p.118). Additionally, Fitzgerald (2011), Maton (2005) and Pantin (2000) identify that principals are constantly under severe pressures from external stakeholders and West (2010) identifies that there is a leadership crisis resulting from eligible persons refusing leadership positions in education due to the associated pressure becoming a possible threat to their physical health. In other words, leadership of educational institutions in this form is not an attractive one for women. The other answer is that women are often rejected or overlooked for top leadership positions because they are seen as ‘”risky” appointments’ (Ibarra, Carter and Silva, 2010, p.83) perhaps because the new managerialism pervading higher education institutions perceive 99 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield that females would be unwilling to take the ‘tough’ or possibly insensitive and inhumane decisions? Another adjunct reason advanced for why women are overlooked or rejected for top leadership positions in higher education is related to a belief by Fitzgerald (2011) that men are considered best suited for the market competitive rigors of such positions. Morley (2013) reveals an interesting response to this male-oriented hegemonic paradigm advocated above in relation to higher education leadership positions but also reveals a change to that paradigm which unfortunately still serves the same neoliberal, capitalist interests identified above as belonging to a type of masculine arena. Morley (2013) indicates that ‘a goal should be to make the academy gender-free [and that] leadership roles appear to be so over-extended that they represent a type of virility test’ (p.126). Furthermore she thinks that ‘we need to ask how leadership practices can become more sustainable, with concerns about health and well-being as well as competitive performance in a global arena’. She further believes and I also agree that ‘we need new rules for a very different game’ (p.126). What is disconcerting about this old paradigm revealed by Morley (2013) is the suggestion that a shift is needed away from management to leadership whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal….it is, they argue, a social and organizational technology which is being applied in support of the re-orientation of the public services towards the consumer-citizen….[This] cultural ideology of leaderism suggests that certain subjectivities, values, behaviours, dispositions and characteristics can strategically overcome institutional inertia, outflank resistance and recalcitrance and provide direction for new university futures (p.117). What becomes disconcerting is not the fact that there is a recognition that perhaps managerialism and the male-focused orientation of higher education leadership has failed to deliver levels of productivity envisioned, but the attempt now to exploit what I see as a ‘feminine principle’ to strategically control a work force to serve narrow neo-liberal, capitalist interests. BALANCING THE PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL SPHERE 100 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield Parker (2015) references Buffardi and Erdwins (1997) and Loder (2005) in indicating that ‘despite spending more time working outside the home, women’s household and child care responsibilities have not shifted’ (p.1). Women still remain the principal care-givers and holders of domestic responsibilities in homes when they work outside of the home with or without male partners (Parker, 2015). Dr. Lucas spoke about the challenges encountered having to raise two sons, having to take care of her aging parents, coordinating numerous programmes as a senior staff member and trying to complete a doctoral programme. Her response to the challenge was that “it was demanding! I had to plan my life. I had to plan my life a lot and it was demanding.” Mrs. Holder indicates that it was about juggling and balancing many things: “You have to adjust. You have to organize your responsibilities and make some time for yourself. You have different compartments. It is juggling and if you have some help and are generally in good health, you manage.” Both female principals emphasise that coping required the support of family members and good, dependable housekeepers or helpers: In the Caribbean we are fortunate that many of us can employ a housekeeper to help us. There is also to some extent the extended family. All kinds of emergencies can crop up and working mothers need a back-up plan. In many cases, the housekeepers have been with us so long that they are like a part of the family. The children weren’t problematic, I would say. I went back to the family home, so I was living with my parents. They would keep an eye on things. Sometimes I would drop the children home and go back to work. I had a full-time helper who was good and she would run the household for me, but my mother would have oversight although she was in a wheelchair at the time, but her faculties were very, very good. It is clear that success in the professional sphere also means that women have to plan and organize their personal or domestic lives. It is not about trying to do everything alone but being realistic about what is necessary in order to cope with the many expectations, personally and professionally. EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES AND MENTORSHIP 101 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield Similar to their male counterparts, the female principals in this study were fortunate to be the recipients of scholarships funded by various foreign organisations which allowed them to pursue graduate and postgraduate studies. Such opportunities during the 1950s and 60s would have allowed for significant advancement socially and professionally. There was the potential for both women to have academic careers at universities. Mrs Holder had completed a master’s degree in Chemistry in 1961 and had her research published in 1962. The expectation was that she would return to the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica. Dr. Lucas could have remained in Canada, obtained Canadian citizenship and find an academic niche. Neither of them chose those paths. Norma Ione fell in love, got married and had a family and moved to Barbados and continued her teaching career at the Barbados Community College (BCC). Dr. Lucas responded to her sense of duty, returned to Barbados and ironically, similar to Mrs. Holder, took up a position at the Barbados Community College teaching Geography while Mrs. Holder taught Chemistry and Mathematics. Mrs. Holder remained at the BCC while Dr. Lucas moved on to Erdiston Teachers’ Training College. Ironically, neither of these women was advised by men to apply for or pursue any positions at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus like Sir Keith’s father had advised him to do. I believe that they were advised by well- meaning males but advised within a patriarchal construct that placed women at lower levels within the academic hierarchy. McNae and Vali (2015) citing Shakeshaft et al (2007) indicate that the hierarchical structures in higher education tend to favour male academics in senior positions. There is no doubt that these women would have been eligible for senior positions at the university level in the early days of their career. Additionally, women who marry often opt for a ‘deferred career path’ (Morris, 2008). I do not know when Dr. Lucas got married but her father played a significant role in her choice of career even though teaching was her choice as well: My father seemed to have liked the idea of me as a teacher so he pushed me in that sense. I remember that after I graduated and came back here and I had taught for a year or two, I said I wanted to do something else. Always in the back of my mind I wanted to do something pertaining to Law. The Law Faculty had recently opened at Cave Hill and I told my father that I wanted to do Law. He said, “No, no, no! Law is not a profession for a decent young woman. You have to tell too many lies. I don’t want you telling lies”. So that was the end of me and Law because he was very influential in my life. I think I could have done Law and I feel I would have done well in Law and I might still do Law. But I wouldn’t do Law to practice now. 102 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield That area is saturated. I knew that I could do Law well because I can argue a case. And I wanted to do Criminal Law. Dr. Lucas and Mrs. Holder had successful careers and achieved a great deal of satisfaction from their career paths but it is also clear that they would have achieved at any level, such was their determination and capacity. None of these women speak of mentorship in any clearly defined way. Dr. Lucas seemed more comfortable with acknowledging that she got good advice from a number of people at various stages of her career. It is possible to see Mrs. Holder’s connection with the social and cultural capital of attendance at Oxford and the fraternity from the prestigious Andrew High School as a kind of networking that would have been useful to her. Morley (2013) suggests that the problem with finding sustained mentorship for women that translated into promotions had to do perhaps with the need ‘to rescue mentoring from neo-liberal constructs of performance and women’s missing agency and find new conceptual grammars that move beyond hegemonic and patriarchal indicators of achievement’(p.125). In other words, as long as a concept of senior leadership positions in higher education remains the hostile and unpalatable scenario that existed and presently exists, neither men nor women seem likely to support women to pursue careers at the top of the higher education pyramid. Women on their own volition will remain disinterested. The society stands to lose. SECTION THREE: THEMES MODELS OF LEADERS OR AUTHORITY FIGURES In this section, I seek now to deepen understanding about how we lead and why we lead as we do by examining the models of leaders or authority figures that principals speak of from the personal and professional sphere and how those models impacted or impact their ‘praxis’, views or values. The discussion on leadership practices, missions and motives was started but needs to be continued with a closer look at what Bristol (2008) refers to as ‘plantation pedagogies’ emanating from a system of colonial hegemony impacting school practices. 103 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield Before I went to a private primary school ran by a black female educator, I attended the St Alban’s primary school which had a reputation for producing scholars. A former Prime Minister, Sir Lloyd Sandiford, went to St Alban’s and became an island scholar. I have a very vivid memory of the head teacher, a man called Mr. Williams who was much like the head teachers that Sir Keith spoke of: …until I knew differently my stereotype of a head teacher either at elementary school or at secondary school was a person with strength of character. I thought they used to be born with it. It was their school. Whether you were a teacher or something of the kind, when it came down to what was happening at ‘my school’, they used to say; but they lived for the school. That was really a part of it. There was the church and the school and particular individuals who imposed themselves on it via their particular programmes. These head teachers were almost ‘larger than life’ figures. They were sometimes as cruel as they were ‘kind’. I have an indelible memory of Mr. Williams, a man of considerable size and height, standing on top of a desk that I now wonder by what miracle it held his weight. He was administering lashes with a strap from that height to a boy in class two, while attempting to pull a comb through his hair. He did not stop beating the boy until the comb succeeded in coming through his hair. It was a terrifying attempt to control a school within the colonial and postcolonial context of harsh socio-economic conditions. Mr. Williams was also one known to ensure that his pupils came to school even if it meant that he combed the community looking for them. Each participant recalls having authority figures in their lives representative of an almost regimental, strict, fierce or aggressive approach. Mrs. Holder recalls this memory: “What I remember was that when we were small, my father made my elder brother Locksley and my-self get up at 5 o’clock to do music lessons, Mathematics and Latin and all kind of things.” She also recalls not escaping blows at primary school perhaps even from her father who was head teacher of her primary school. Sir Keith also speaks of the possibility of having your “pants warmed” if you were late for school. The head teacher at the secondary school attended by Mr. Belle seemed also reflective of this same type of authority figure: “The Headmaster was Mr. Lee Hartford Skeete. He was very good- a classical person-never saw him smile- a very stern man- he was very good at managing the 104 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield school and when it came to discipline.” Dr. Lucas does not speak of getting lashes in school but her sister administered some when they “would hold school”: More often than not, my sister would hold school and some of us would dress like teachers. The others would be the students. My father got a blackboard made for us and we would siphon off a little bit of chalk at school and we would have serious school to the point where my sister used to flog us. And I remember one day she flogged me very badly. I laughed when Dr. Lucas told this story as I remembered that as a child I would give my dollies work to do, and deliberately provide wrong answers and administer lashes. When my participants told these stories we all laughed but the models of authority and leaders were these types emanating from a plantation system of overseers who had within a pre- emancipation era, interfaced with slaves, then labourers and villagers in the post- emancipation period. They then became types that pervaded the schools, churches and homes as the only models of leaders. In his fictional, semi-autobiographical Barbadian text, In the Castle of my Skin, author George Lamming describes them as ‘fierce, strict, aggressive’ (Lamming, 1953, p.19). Brown and Lavia (2013) indicate that ‘during that period of our history, an education modelled structurally and content wise on the education system of the former colonisers was all that was available’ (p. 46-47). Consequently, ‘all that was available’ as models of authority were the overseer types. As indicated in Chapter Two, I recognized this type in my father and church leader and I emulated this model that was admired but was alienating when practiced. Mr. Belle’s admiration for his head teacher at the Foundation School is clear but ironically, he is disdainful of the white manager at Plantations Limited who dismissed Mr. Gittens, a worker of several years, simply because he was told to wait while Gittens attended to something else. Mr. Belle does not recognize in his head teacher the same type of authority figure at his school. Unfortunately, this was the same for most of us. We did not recognize these same types neither in our homes, churches, nor in our schools. We admired them and emulated them. We took our duty and responsibility seriously and were intolerant of anyone who did not measure up to our standards but they were standards emanating from our social relationships within a context of slavery. I can hear this intolerance in Mr. Belle’s attitude to one of his Deputy Principals who cannot multi-task perhaps because he has not had the same experiences as Mr. Belle. Mr. Belle patrols the school attending to 105 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield dress and speech: “I still walk around and people wonder if I still think I am at a Primary School. I talk about dress and deportment, language… you should have a clean tongue.” It is a model similar to the Japanese “management by walking around’ but within a colonial context becomes the model of the overseer type sent by ‘massa’ to keep the slaves in line. Most participants spoke of the role of the church in their upbringing. This regimental, strict, fierce and aggressive approach used by leaders or authority figures is given a moral legitimacy within the context of the religious principles of the church. Often head teachers and other authority figures like my father and other church leader performed important roles within the church. The church and the school were used to help shape and perpetuate a model of authority that continued the colonial legacy of alienation and separation within a hierarchical structure. Mr. Stanford Emanuel Edmondson was an avid church-goer as his daughter indicates: The other interesting thing was that my father who was a teacher, then a headmaster, and then an education officer was always involved in the church and Religious Education. I was always in the church. I couldn’t get away from it [laughter]. Mr. Edmondson’s role is significant in the academic success of his daughter, Norma, but by also insisting on certain cultural forms as in violin playing and being a member of the established church of the colonial representatives, he becomes an example of the upper and middle classes [who] have exerted a cultural hegemony in the society- defining what is ‘proper’ in taste, morality, religious and political principles, language and other norms of social relations and defining the moral and intellectual connotations of these relationships (Narcisse, 2000, p.208). Understandably, he inculcates these in his daughter as a way of helping her to succeed. Narcisse (2000) writing from a Jamaican context also speaks of ‘racial and ethnic minority groups and a mulatto or ‘brown’ elite [who] have had distinct social and economic advantages as part of an historical legacy of colonialism and slavery’ (p. 207). References to the pigmentation of participants are not included in transcribing the data. I find it denigrating but within the context of a colonial society where race, colour and class were used to separate and alienate, then it is an issue that must be confronted in discussions on leadership (Miller, 2013). While listening to Mrs. Holder tell her story, I became very 106 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield curious about what she looked like as a young woman. She had access to levels of education, social and cultural capital at St Andrew High, the University College of the West Indies, and at Oxford that were exceptional in the 50s and early 60s. The young Norma Ione Edmondson would have been considered mulatto or light-skinned in complexion. Mrs. Holder was at Oxford from 1958-1961 and remained in England until 1968. She spoke of never encountering prejudice and never looking for any: “I never looked for prejudice and never found it.” Dr. Lucas, like Mrs. Holder, attends the most prestigious secondary school for girls but in Barbados, and clearly does not have the same experience. She encounters prejudice and discrimination at her secondary school and when she studies in Canada. She is aware of the prejudice and discrimination and speaks of it: When I did my first degree in Canada, racial discrimination was still fairly strong. That was in the mid- 60s. So sometimes one would be looking for an apartment and would see it advertised but when one got there and they “peeped out” and saw your face, they would say, “Oh, I’m so sorry; it’s just been rented.” Dr. Lucas is of dark complexion. I believe that her confidence and strength as a leader come also as a consequence of her encounter with prejudice within a Barbadian and Canadian context. I think it is possible that these incidents developed in her a capacity to stand up to the white official from the World Bank when she criticized her institution and by inference her, as principal. The fierce, strictness and determination of her father provides the young Maureen Jones with a feeling of confidence in her ‘blackness’ that translated to her defending her staff and institution and perhaps averting its closure. She conveys the view that there was a secure environment created for her that left no doubts about her identity: “I never had any questions about who I was.” Mrs. Holder’s perspective that she did not find prejudice because she did not look for it is an interesting perspective from the point of view of her identity. It could be that her fair complexion was more acceptable to a black and white majority within a Jamaican and British context, and that she therefore could be seen as representative of a ‘culturally dis- inherited individual, an Anglicized colonial set’ (Lewis, 2004, p. 5). Narcisse (2000) indicates that within a Jamaican context, ‘intelligence and worth are ascribed to people in the society on the basis of how they look (how dark, how light skinned), speak, dress, or 107 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield worship’ (p. 208). There was seemingly little to be gained by seeing oneself as black. Sikes in writing the commentary of a discussion between Barry Troyna and Ivor Goodson about issues around life history research proffers this view: on one level, perhaps, life historians have to accept that people tell the story that they, for whatever reason, want to tell to the person who is listening. If this does not involve their “blackness” then that has to be accepted as part of the methodology (Sikes, Troyna and Goodson, 1996, p. 49) Questions could be raised about a kind of ‘intellectual alienation’ that could be possible which Franz Fanon (1967) identifies as a way of conceiving of ‘European culture as a means of stripping himself [or herself] of his [or her] race [and thereby that person] becomes alienated’. Additionally, that person becomes a ‘victim of a system based on the exploitation of a given race by another, on the contempt in which a given branch of humanity is held by a form of civilization that pretends to superiority’ (Fanon, 1967, p. 224). It is quite possible that Mrs. Holder’s fair complexion, her early socialization, her access to high levels of social capital and influence shielded her from the prejudice that Maureen Jones encountered within the Canadian context. It is therefore also possible that she then never experienced or ‘never found’ prejudice. However, Mrs. Holder’s experience of not finding or encountering prejudice raises questions about the impact of a level of alienation that then becomes possible. I have struggled with several sections of the writing of this dissertation and this has been one of them. My supervisor wisely questioned my partially explored perspectives on this issue. I was forced to review. Part of the review involved a second interview with Mrs. Holder which was conducted on the telephone. I had omitted this from the thesis but must have been using it to inform my analysis without acknowledging it formally. Prompted by my supervisor, I formulated questions about Mrs. Holder’s experiences at Oxford. One of my questions pertained to her experiences as a black woman within that environment. I must admit that I had challenges with referring to her as ‘black’. I believe that knowledge of the Jamaican colonial context in relation to social class and colour (Shepherd, 2000) had evoked this feeling. I mustered the courage to ask her what her experience was like as a ‘black’ woman at Oxford. When I asked her the question she responded: “I think the students were happy to have a West Indian woman among them, and they were very 108 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield friendly”. It was during this telephone interview that Mrs. Holder shared with me that she never looked for prejudice and so ‘never found it’. Mrs. Holder’s substitution of the words “West Indian” for my use of the phrase ‘black woman’ also raises important questions about attitudes to ‘blackness’. This is one of the challenges with ‘insider research’. Tuhiwai Smith (1999) reminds us that though the obligations of the outsider researcher are the same, the difference is that ‘insiders have to live with the consequences of their processes …and so do their families and communities’ (p. 137). I struggled with my care for Mrs. Holder. I was afraid of what my exploration of this issue of ‘blackness’ would reveal and yet there was something here that needed to be explored. Tuhiwai Smith (1999) indicates that ‘research can … lead to discoveries which contradict the image that some idealistic younger researchers hold of elders’ (p. 139). Sikes (2010) reminds us that writing is ‘never neutral or innocent’ (p.11). Troyna (1996) thinks that research is ‘potentially exploitative’. I agree with him but that is the condition of any research endeavor. I agree with Sikes (2010) therefore that we must then carefully examine why we are doing the research we say we are doing. I can now better appreciate her view that ‘societal structures, institutions and oppressions [should] become the subject of research (rather than human beings) [so as to] avoid further creation and subjectification of an or the Other (Sikes, 2013 citing Cannella and Lincoln, 2011, p.88). It is an interesting perspective but I am not sure that it leaves us less burdened as researchers. We would wish to think that participants will not be harmed by our interpretations and if they could be harmed, we have to ask ourselves if it is worth the risk within the context of trying ‘to make more understandable the worlds of experience’ (Denzin and Lincoln, 2011, p. 11) particularly if those experiences have wider social implications. I also had to reflect on which eyes I was using as I examined the issue. That is, were these the eyes of the harsh, intolerant, judgmental, overseer type or were they the eyes of the one who was learning levels of compassion that I did not know were possible before? When I had decided which eyes I was using to deal with the issue, I set about recasting what I had written earlier. Re-casting took place several times at various stages. In re- writing several times, I then also needed to think very carefully about how the impact of 109 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield disconnection or alienation could increase our understanding about the colonial legacy and in doing so I returned to my introduction that clearly indicated the way forward: It is important to know the origins of our motives and missions because if those missions, motives or values are not interrogated or critiqued, we may unconsciously either be causing harm or doing what is good or beneficial. We need to be conscious of what we are perpetuating and why. I also needed to return to the challenge by Fitzgerald (20003b) to include an approach to understanding leadership that acknowledges ‘the realities of leadership through the experiences of women from a variety of ethnicities’ (p. 441). Fitzgerald (2003b) also believes that ‘discourses of homogeneity’ can be ‘discourses of silence’ (p. 437) around issues of ‘class, social location and ethnicity’ (p. 435). That being said, I became convinced that not to attempt to understand another possible impact of our colonial history through examining the impact of class, race and colour would be to risk perpetuating its dangers. While I speak of Mrs. Holder’s personal warmth in relationship with her staff, the rapidity of expansion in the college’s programmes led to commensurate feelings of dissatisfaction with compensation and other conditions of service. Mrs. Holder was well aware of the inadequate remuneration levels: The salaries-we have always deserved better salaries for what we were doing. When BCC introduced the Associate Degree programme, staff had to develop all of the programmes, do all of the quality control and still we got the same salary. But you have to work with some of those difficulties, work around them or through them if at the end you see your institution as the thing that makes it worthwhile. Mrs. Holder’s desire to see the BCC succeed as an institution with the help of a committed staff is admirable. However, Mrs. Holder is seemingly helpless to fight for herself or defend her largely Afro-Caribbean staff in relation to receiving better compensation and better conditions of service in spite of their high levels of commitment. It may be possible that though of African ancestry, the advantages of Mrs. Holder’s colour and class had alienated her to the extent that they created a kind of disconnect or ‘intellectual alienation’ (Fanon, 1967, p.244) such that the worth of those of Afro-Caribbean ancestry became unconsciously minimized. 110 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield Additionally, Mrs. Holder can then be seen as akin to an overseer, androgenic type who in ‘combining both “masculine” and “feminine” leadership styles’ (Oplatka, 2006, p. 614) facilitates rapid institutional growth with her capacity to motivate her staff through also establishing ‘caring’ relationships. Mrs. Holder also seems representative of ‘a cultural ideology of leaderism’ that Morley (2013, p. 117) speaks of, where there is the use of ‘the feminine principle’ to motivate others to work towards the furtherance of narrow, neo- liberal, capitalist interests. There is a level of exploitation as the staff of the BCC moved from developing not only Associate Degrees but to developing Bachelor’s degrees and going ‘above and beyond the call of duty’ without adequate compensation and improved conditions of service. While Dr. Lucas is perhaps able to use her confidence in her identity to defend her institution against the unfounded, domineering position of the white World Bank official, Mrs. Holder is perhaps compromised as she, even though having a common ancestral bond with her staff, seen in the use of the word ‘we’, perhaps saw them or us (I was and still am a member of the staff of the BCC) therefore from a racially biased hegemonic position. That position is one that may have been unconsciously fostered and reinforced in her early contact with an authority figure like her father whose model too emerged from ‘plantation pedagogies’. Mrs. Holder had what could be interpreted as ‘distinct social and economic advantages as part of an historical legacy of colonialism and slavery’ (Narcisse, 2000, p. 207) such that even as it allowed her to be successful in many spheres of her life, could also have created a racial disconnect as defined by Fanon (1967). Her ‘motives and missions’ and praxis within the professional sphere could therefore be seen as compromised and was perpetuated with the growth of her institution. De-colonization of such ‘motives and missions’ becomes necessary within local and regional spaces of the personal and professional spheres before any re-scripting can take place against wider, global dominating interests. LEADERSHIP 111 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield All principals in this study came in contact with persons in authority who possessed traits that could be associated with overseer type models within a colonial socio-political construct. These models were practiced either in their homes or educational institutions or both. All principals in this study seemed to have emerged from those experiences with approaches to their practice in the professional sphere reflective to various degrees of imitative behaviours and values or affected in various ways by these models even if it were a rejection of such models. They were not principals, however, who behaved as though the school or institution was theirs. They all seemed to understand that the “shared leadership” Sir Keith speaks of is the best type of leadership. Sir Keith’s story becomes the best articulated example of this approach. The definition of leadership that comes close to the concept of leadership described by Sir Keith is one by Beepat (2013) who describes leadership as developing the leader capacity of individuals in an organization. Beepat (2013) says that ‘it allows for shared responsibility, does not disregard human potential, and utilizes resources to the benefit of the educational community’ (p. 75). Sir Keith speaks about being involved in policy from the level of the department and that there was an organizational approach to developing the leader capacity or potential of faculty: Other than your own discipline that you were locked into teaching or you had responsibility for, there was a tradition of collective participation in policy. Not only does the principal have an opportunity to talk about what priorities should be about but whether it is in the board or Faculty of Arts as a small group, it was in your best interest to participate fully… …long before I became principal there was an expectation that as an academic you would take your turn serving on committees, a committee for the department, a committee for the faculty and then you had elected officers from the faculty to be represented at the higher levels. So that was where I, as it were, cut my teeth in terms of participating, taking my turn as Chairman of Department, Vice Dean and later as Dean. Sir Keith seemed to have an interest in administration that all of his colleagues did not share. Sir Keith’s life within the university spans a period from 1963-2002 which is almost forty years. He was principal for 15 of those years. Flood (2014) indicates that faculty and administrators often have ‘different priorities’: ‘For faculty, the forces that shape their careers and through which they gain recognition, legitimacy, and rewards are primarily 112 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield outside the campus…’ (p. 4). Additionally, Collins (2014) implies that academics are ‘not looking to be led’ (p.561) because they pursue academic careers for independence. This is part of the challenge in leadership at the higher education level. While Sir Keith described an institutional or cultural approach to leadership from within the university, Dr. Lucas describes a crisis in leadership that currently exists: We are experiencing a serious crisis in leadership. We probably are not paying enough attention to preparing people for leadership (e.g. provision of resources) and then recruiting the best ones out of that pool. So part of it also has to do with recruitment. Dr. Lucas may be speaking from a local context but there is also a perceived international crisis in leadership in higher education (Lovasz, Dolnicar & Vaille, 2014; Luna, 2012). Both Dr. Lucas and Sir Keith speak of a current approach to leadership that is problematic or undesirable. It is one that appears similar to the overseer type approach present in the head teachers within a colonial and postcolonial context: If you keep saying that this is my campus it becomes your campus. No one helps you run it. Dr. Lucas describes an approach that also seems similar to the personalized leader approach who ‘[initiates] action to acquire, maintain, and enhance personal power’ (Ligon, Hunter & Mumford, 2008, p. 313, citing O’Connor et al, 1995). She describes actions that are self-serving, egotistical and antithetical to the concept of “shared leadership”: I would say too that leadership now seems to be almost like a convenience store, where one does what is perhaps not always the most ethical thing to do but what is most convenient for you, for you the individual…. I think too that this business of power – that is another challenge. Sometimes one finds that leaders send signals to individuals to the effect that: “I have such large amounts of power now and I can wield this power. You cannot do everything. You cannot carry an organization on your own. Power tends to… I think it can corrupt people. Right and wrong become blurred and right and wrong, justice and fairness do not operate within the organization. They then become concepts that are ‘airy fairy’ for whatever ‘idiot’ wants to practice them. Dr. Lucas is passionate about these issues. She indirectly identifies a situation where, perhaps in the absence of a cultural or internal institutional approach to leadership, a type of leader emerges either from within or outside of an organization or higher education 113 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield institution or any institution, whose values conflict with concepts of “justice and fairness” within the institution. There are a number of wider contextual issues perhaps at play here that have led to what Flood (2014) describes as ‘divided conversations’ where faculty in higher education institutions and administrators ‘are not speaking the same language’ (562). The type of leader mentioned by Dr. Lucas is unlike Sir Keith, who as part of a leadership culture, seemingly remained in touch with all the internal constituents. While Sir Keith and his colleagues were practicing a “shared leadership” model, Taylor’s scientific management model was being developed and widely used in educational institutions with ‘insidious control’ (Ball and Goodson, 2002, p. 9-10). Chow (2014) describes the scientific management approach or model as ignoring ‘human factors, such as staff motivation, job loyalty and workplace learning’ (p.25). Ironically, though not directly identifying scientific management practices as the underlying cause of lack of worker motivation, Sir Keith’s indirect rejection of such an approach is worthy of note: I think outside of the office of principal I think we have a large core of colleagues at all levels of the education system who need to be helped to make a bigger contribution and the help that I think they need is sensitive, progressive leadership and the leaders must create the opportunities. In other words, you have a situation at the university where you are not the only one in this situation. People who are on the staff who have gone ‘stale’ and who perhaps therefore have become demotivated. If you are working with somebody and you haven’t noticed this, you are not an administrator. Sir Keith clearly sees the administrator and leader as integral to successful leadership. He also sees that leadership is about soliciting the views of persons in an organization that could be useful in solving problems and that opportunities must be provided to do such. He refers to it as “sensitive, progressive leadership”. Dr. Lucas too has a clear perspective of what is necessary as a counter-position to scientific management practices that have pervaded the world of education: if we can develop strong cultures of team functioning, team leadership and team learning in institutions, I am sure that we would see a difference both with respect to the return on the investment in education as well as in relation to greater synergies to support change, creativity and innovation. 114 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield The views of Sir Keith and Dr. Lucas seem at odds with the way in which the commodification of higher education and its exposure to market forces, have led to ‘the increasing colonization of the worlds of school leaders’ (Sugrue, 2014, p.93 citing Power, 1999) and likewise, faculty. The type of leader that Dr. Lucas mentions as focused on self perhaps becomes part of the new impersonal steering mechanisms that now seem to control higher education with approaches and agenda that ‘often contradict and threaten the values and goals of faculty’ (Flood, 2014, p. 4). Day (2012) sees them as part of the ‘so-called neoliberal “performativity” results-driven agendas’ which I see as part of Goodson’s hegemonic ‘patterns of dominance’: In academia, we see this especially through the creeping erosion of time to conduct research, as bureaucratic procedures continue to increase; through the rise of research funding which is tied to short-term government agendas in some countries; and, in others, the imposition of national research assessment exercises associated with league tables and increases or decreases in finance, social citation indexes and judgements of research worthiness based upon evidence of impact on user communities (Day,2012, p. 20). These market-focused agendas in higher education have failed to produce the desired results and there is now a return to the concept of leadership that as indicated above, now seeks to exploit a ‘feminine principle’ of relationship and connectivity (Morley, 2013). Tourish, Craig and Amernic (2010) indicate that ‘much of the inclusive language of transformational leadership has [now]been appropriated by advocates of agency theory to serve instrumental and self-centred ends that conflict with some core precepts of transformational leadership theory’ (p. s54). The principles of “shared leadership” and team approach identified by Sir Keith and Dr. Lucas are all aspects of transformational leadership that are now vulnerable to exploitation by neoliberal, capitalist interests. Interestingly as well, Leon & Vătămănescu (2015) cite McCarthy (2008) and Swap et al (2001) in identifying storytelling and stories as ‘an instrument for promoting organisational values, increasing employees’ satisfaction and stimulating personal and organizational development’ (p. 458). Even as I am heartened at the rising interest in the use of stories and storytelling in improving education ‘praxis’, it must be reiterated as has been done throughout this research document, that stories can also be disempowering and could assist in ‘fortifying patterns of dominance’ (Goodson, 2013, p. 5) if not examined against the context from which they originate. 115 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield INSTITUTIONAL GROWTH AND FINANCING TERTIARY EDUCATION Most of the higher education institutions in Barbados were established in the 1960s and early 1970s. The stories of Dr. Lucas and Mrs. Holder contain memories of significant institutional growth or development in the 1980s and beyond indicative of moves away from traditional academic provision to general and applied areas and the embracing of technology not only in workforce training but in teacher education methodologies. The World Bank began lending for education in 1962. This is the same year that the Cave Hill campus was opened in Barbados. Officials from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) provided the education expertise that the World Bank needed for project identification and design. Robert McNamara was president from 1968 to 1980 at a time when the bank started to broaden ‘the scope of bank lending, adding general (and not just technical) higher education, primary, adult education and a concern for new techniques in teaching and learning’ (Jones, 1997, p. 118-119). It is at this time that the programmes at the Erdiston Teachers’ Training College and at the Barbados Community College were also expanding in these directions. Jones (1997) also highlighted the alignment of education policy with bank policies: ‘For many borrowers, the unprecedented levels of finance available through the bank only sharpen their thinking along bankable lines, the mere availability of bank finance shaping to a considerable extent their policies and priorities’ (p. 119). International slogans and bench-marking discussed in the chapter on context begin with UNESCO’s ‘Education for All’ and it is UNESCO officials lending educational expertise to bank officials at the World Bank. It is therefore noteworthy that the World Bank official that Dr. Lucas speaks of, has an interest in the direction of education in Barbados as part of a surveillance mechanism. This global alliance of multinational organisations in the growth in higher education provision is linked to its marketization or commodification which linked to the availability of financing to the sector, becomes part of the strategy to run the world like a global market with higher education as one of its products (Gift, 2011; Rizvi and Lingard, 2009; Marginson and Van der Wende, 2007; Naidoo, 2003; Watson, 2000; Marginson, 1997). As indicated in the 116 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield chapter on context, this marketization of higher education is to flood the global market place with cheap high quality ‘human capital’ so as to extract maximum profit (Olssen and Peters, 2005; Brown, Lauder and Ashton, 2008). I believe that the expansion of higher education provision by the Erdiston Teachers’ Training College and the Barbados Community College in particular, therefore can be seen as part of the global colonization of education provision and sale even as it becomes a significant investment in developing the only natural resource that Barbados has, which is its people. As a consequence of centuries of denial of education within a context of slavery and colonialism, the provision becomes liberating even as it becomes enslaving within a neocolonial, neoliberal, capitalist paradigm. The enormous sums of money borrowed to finance education in general and higher education specifically, over several decades now within the context of a financial crisis beginning around 2007 and rising costs at the university level, lead to questions of sustainable financing of the sector. The decision of the government of Barbados to engage in cost-sharing through charging tuition fees becomes another example of policy harmonization or policy borrowing typical of postcolonial societies (Ali, 2013; Obasi and Olutayo, 2009; Levitt, 2005; Lewis, 2000; Shepherd, 2000; Tuhiwai Smith, 1999; Hoogvelt, 1997; Fagerlind and Sahai, 1989). Sir Keith speaks at length on the issue of the decision to charge tuition fees at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill campus and feels that there has not been enough discussion on the matter: It is important that we have this as a national discussion because the young people need to recognize that parents are making an investment. All we are asking them to do is to sign on. So your contribution should be to take the programme seriously. To the extent that there is a residue and there are one or two dependents you should contribute to them and that is if we indulge this habit of gimme, gimme, without saying this is only one-fifth of the real cost, and if you or I had to meet the full cost, it won’t happen. So my vision is positive because I know that we have the capacity to cross there. If we make these positions more public and I am disappointed about the paucity of information and the political parties will sling at each other. What is missing is the publicizing of what I just told you. All the media are there. We should be having a mature discussion week by week where a journalist is grilling somebody, bringing in the government people. “What would you do differently?” But everything is like a contest where everybody believes they have the answers. And the answers?…we don’t have to invent them. 117 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield Sir Keith generally also feels that as a nation, Barbados may have indirectly contributed to the financial challenges that exist with financing tertiary education. He describes behaviour related to debt collection that is tolerant to defaulters in not collecting outstanding loan debts from those who have borrowed from the Student Revolving Loan Fund. It is a Revolving Loan Fund that Sir Keith describes as a “rusted wheel” because “it has never revolved” [the emphasis is Sir Keith’s]. He believes that we should learn from this experience. He ironically makes reference to situations where, as a society, there is a tendency to borrow all kinds of “sexy” ideas and wonders why in this case we do not borrow ideas that work in relation to recovering outstanding loan debts. Mrs. Holder sees the challenges of financing the higher education sector as related to wider issues of capitalism and declining productivity within the Barbadian society: This capitalist system seems to have worked for most of us are doing alright. We have washing machines, we have this and that but something has gone wrong. It almost seems as though we are not earning our keep. I don’t think our productive sectors are doing very well. Are we paying people too much? Mrs. Holder indirectly identifies the way in which there seems not to be a direct correlation between increases in higher education provision that should lead to higher levels of productivity that can justify a higher standard of living within a global, materialistic, capitalist system. Mrs. Holder’s doubts and questions align with the views of Ashton and Green (1996); Fägerlind and Saha (1989) and Weiler (1978), in relation to increased enrollment in higher education and national prosperity, employment, productivity and economic growth. She feels that “something has gone wrong”. One of the other things that has “gone wrong” within Barbados and the wider Caribbean may also be related to the fact that the Caribbean is among the top 20 countries in the world with ‘highest tertiary- educated migration rates’ (Thomas, 2008, citing Docquier and Marfouk, 2005, p. 15). While Mrs. Holder thinks that one solution to the financial challenge is to reduce remuneration, it has also been indicated in this analysis phase of the research document that the scientific management approach within the corporate neoliberal, capitalist world has failed to motivate workers. Low productivity and disengagement have been the consequence (Beepat, 2013; Hales, 2001). 118 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield QUALITY ASSURANCE AND ACCREDITATION The increase in enrollment in higher education from all classes of society seemingly raised more questions about quality. Mrs. Holder became an integral player in the formation and development of the Association of Caribbean Tertiary Institutions (ACTI) as Vice- President and then as President for six years during which time Accreditation Bodies were established in the Caribbean in 2004 (Ali, 2010a). Mrs. Holder recalls the story of her prominent involvement: I held that post [Vice-President] for six years from 1990 and in 1996, I was elected President of ACTI for two consecutive three-year periods. During that time a lot of collaborative work was done on accreditation, articulation and equivalency. There was a lot of collaborative work especially with articulation. In fact the Accreditation Councils came out of a recommendation by ACTI to have a regional body but then people said, “No, let’s have a national body and then the national ones will work together. Before examining the emergence of Accreditation Bodies in the Caribbean, it is interesting to note the observation by Sir Alister and the head of the Antiguan State College as recalled by Mrs. Holder: Sir Alister said that some of those persons might not get accepted into UWI if for example they had an Antiguan State College qualification. The head of the Antiguan State College was saying but they got accepted into North American universities. He said that he didn’t want his students to go North but to UWI but they have a qualification and UWI does not recognize it. It is interesting to reflect on the reasons why students pursuing an Antiguan State College qualification would be accepted into North American universities and a regional university would reject those same qualifications. I reminisced on the lyrics of “Caribbean Unity” by Trinidadian calypsonian, Black Stalin as he reminded the region that unity and identity will only emerge when there is identification with the commonality of the Afro-Caribbean history: Dem is one race (de Caribbean man) From de same place (de Caribbean man) That make the same trip (de Caribbean man) 119 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield On the same ship (de Caribbean man) Within the Caribbean there remains a lack of trust among Caribbean peoples. It may be as a consequence of failure to identify with a common cultural and historical legacy which was perhaps thwarted by a colonial past which fostered a misplaced allegiance to British, French or Spanish imperialism. It could be the reason why our regional university would have doubts about the quality of qualifications coming from a regional college while North American universities were accepting those same qualifications. There is almost a conditioned approach by Caribbean peoples to look externally for ways of doing things or thinking (Levitt, 2005; Hoogvelt, 1997) which simultaneously fosters a lack of trust, denigration or non-acceptance of what is local or regional. Therefore as indicated earlier there is usually a tendency to engage in policy borrowing from and policy harmonization with former imperialist or neocolonial powers (Ali, 2010b; Obasi and Olutayo, 2009; Levitt, 2005; Lewis, 2000; Shepherd, 2000; Tuhiwai Smith, 1999; Hoogvelt, 1997; Fagerlind and Sahai, 1989). In outlining the perspective above, I underscore the cultural and political context of the peoples of the Caribbean region in having a predisposition to ‘not trust’ each other that then fuels the introduction of not a regional Accreditation Body but several national bodies who “will work together”. It should be noted that international or transnational organisations like UNESCO, the EU, the World Bank, and the OECD were present at negotiations related to the introduction of accreditation systems in former colonies in the Caribbean, Latin America and Africa. There is also evidence that Caribbean and Latin American countries were present at the Berlin Conference on the European Higher Education Area in 2003 when quality assurance mechanisms were promoted as the way to enable Europe to become ‘the most competitive and dynamic knowledge based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion’ (Berlin Communiqué, 19 Sept. 2003, p. 2). Given the tendency of former colonial societies to be enthusiastic policy borrowers and takers, under ACTI and the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME), there was support for the establishment of a Regional Accreditation body premised on the same ideas espoused by the European Higher Education Area of facilitating movement of students and professionals. However, 120 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield only three Caricom (Caribbean Community) countries had Accreditation Councils in place by 2004 (Ali, 2010). Roberts (2003) makes the point that the decision was ‘top-down’ and the case for their establishment was ‘new, unconvincing and lacking legitimacy’ (p. 45). This was an initial response perhaps related to an awareness of indigenous, ‘legitimate’ local, regional and international systems already in place. The arrangement that Sir Keith spoke of that existed among the regional campuses of the University of the West Indies and the University of London or Bristol University is possibly an example of such regional and international indigenous and ‘legitimate’ systems. When Sir Keith told the story it sounded like the kind of collegial mentorship and exchange of ideas in relation to quality assurance methods that I believe is a counter-position to external quality assurance mechanisms: Most of us had just got PhDs and consequently when we went to Jamaica to attend meetings or deliberations…I’m going to call some names. There was a man called Professor Douglas Hall, Sir Roy Augier from St Lucia. Even before I went to Jamaica I was in touch with them. I didn’t do formal education, so things like assessment… so why would you give an essay a B+ rather than a B and why would you give it an A? These are things that in the early part of my career they still had external exams …external to the university but I did my London quality control. I remember Tony and I and Alvin Thompson we would do our first marking and then the external examiner would get up one day and we would have ready for him the registry of our scripts. The final mark would come when the man from Bristol University, Gordon Dean who was doing some interesting work on the African Slave Trade came down. I remember when he came, he would stay at Paradise Beach down the hill. He would work through a whole lot of papers days after he came in. He would call and say two or three days after he came in, “I’m ready for you. Either I come up to the campus or come down.” He would say: “I don’t have many problems but let’s discuss these. Why did you give that rather than this?” I learnt so much in such a short time…. I believe that the type of atmosphere Sir Keith described above promoted the development of genuine, mutual, professional trust and respect in relation to quality assurance issues from within and among higher education institutions. However, at present, the number of Accreditation Councils has grown significantly from 2004. Under the aegis of the Caribbean Area Network for Quality Assurance in Tertiary Education (CANQATE) several accreditation councils across the region meet for the purpose of supporting each other in quality assurance activities. Though the aims of the organization are laudable, I believe that the Caribbean umbrella body established in 2004 is 121 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield probably being held together by the ‘wrong glue’. It is one that has its cultural heritage in distrust. This gravitation towards external quality assurance systems while under the guise of illusions of increasing global competitiveness is perhaps continuing to foster an unhealthy colonial heritage of distrust among Caribbean people. I see the emergence of Accreditation Councils in the Caribbean region as part of global, market-focused externally driven mechanisms that serve neoliberal, capitalist interests. I agree with Levitt (2005) that ‘development cannot be imposed from without’ (p. xxiv) and what is ‘preferable for higher education institutions in postcolonial societies as in other societies is to develop not a “quality of culture” that is “rule-bound” but a quality culture as a “way of life”’ (Butcher- Lashley, 2015, p.9 citing Harvey, 2009a, p.4). Abasi and Olutayo (2009) advance the view that external quality assurance mechanisms like Accreditation Councils facilitate a brain drain from both developing and developed societies. The establishment of the councils and the associated activities require that both developing and developed societies expend enormous sums of money to put external quality assurance mechanisms in place even in these financially austere times. I agree with Abasi and Olutayo (2009) that it is another form of re-colonization but not only of former colonies but also of developed countries in an atmosphere where there is fear of being left behind in this race where ‘money is the key objective’ (Marginson and Considine, 2000, p. 5). Harvey (1997) reminds us that ‘maintaining, monitoring and improving quality is expensive …taking time and resources’ (p. 133). Mr. Belle indirectly complains about the financial implications when he indicates that there are many things to put in place in relation to seeking accreditation that are costly but that it is government that controls the funds. He also identifies a conflict between the requirements for accreditation and being tied to bureaucratic policy positions that are controlled by government. The acceleration in activities of the Barbados Accreditation Council is also noted in the role of Dr. Lucas as Head of Site at the Open Campus of the University of the West Indies. She was employed to prepare the site for accreditation. This is an aspect of the financial implications in meeting quality assurance requirements that are costly for institutions that are already underfinanced. Quality assurance mechanisms such as mandated by Accreditation Councils are promoted as ways of ‘assuring quality’ and maintaining accountability and competitiveness. Ironically, there is no conclusive proof that the use of external quality 122 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield assurance mechanisms guarantee quality (Hüther and Krücken, 2014; Rozsnyai, 2003). The likely consequence of the coalescence of these external quality assurance mechanisms is that quality of provision is sacrificed even further as institutions become severely financially stretched. It can be argued that the rush to establish Accreditation Councils in the Caribbean as in Latin America and Africa can be seen as a response to globalization and being inundated with the influx of foreign providers due to the marketization of higher education provision. Charging tuition fees will provide a level playing field for a greater influx of foreign providers. Mrs. Holder indicates that Sir Alister was concerned about the number of foreign higher education institutions “springing up in the region” in the 1990s and the need to assure quality. I agree with Morley (2003) that this concern over quality and the establishment of external quality assurance bodies like Accreditation Councils may also be as a result of ‘the moral panic over standards, massification, wealth creation and globalization’ (p.6). When massification of the higher education sector is promoted as the way to become competitive and education is declared to be a tradeable commodity by the WTO, then it has to be standardized and subjected to market principles of external quality assurance as educators seemingly can no longer be trusted to maintain quality. I believe that the Accreditation Councils established in the Caribbean will wittingly or unwittingly monitor the ‘quality’ of institutions, local and foreign, thus facilitating a brain drain where the beneficiaries are higher education institutions usually in developed societies who continue to successfully remain competitive by drawing unto themselves the best talent emanating from former colonies. These external quality assurance mechanisms become another method of ensuring the education quality of the ‘human resource’ or ‘human capital’ that is to be extracted as from a former colonial or slavery paradigm, but this time within the context of postcolonialism. The Accreditation Councils have been enlisted to serve within a neoliberal, neocolonial, capitalist context facilitated by the transnational corporations that are present at negotiations on the establishment of accreditation systems in the Caribbean region. I agree with Black Stalin as referenced above and Shepherd (2000, p. 55) that knowledge about our history is integral to ending the ‘legacies of slavery’ within postcolonial societies that predispose those societies to be dependent on former or contemporary global 123 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield hegemonic systems. Former colonial societies like Barbados need to develop the confidence to progress along ‘different and divergent paths…according to [their] own philosophies, institutions, cultures and societal priorities’ (Levitt, 2005, p. x). Postcolonial societies cannot , however, choose ‘different and divergent paths’ if they continue to be imitators and borrowers of other people’s policies and worse find themselves inadvertently part of other people’s agendas to re-colonize the world and run it like a global market- place. Two former principals, Mrs. Holder and Dr. Lucas could be seen to have been part of the process. I believe that there is a need for Caribbean higher education institutions to continue to use indigenous and ‘legitimate’ bilateral, local, regional and international methods of equivalencies, articulation and professional accreditation systems instead of the market- focused external quality assurance mechanisms like Accreditation Councils, student surveys, league tables and rankings. These mechanisms serve narrow, neocolonial, capitalists agendas or interests which are geared towards maintaining the competitiveness of prestigious higher education institutions and securing profits for transnational corporations. I agree therefore with Levitt (2005) that ‘there is a danger in simply reacting on a day-to-day basis to the agendas and prescriptions of the industrial powers, or in accepting their criteria of “efficiency”, which are likely to be inappropriate at best, and self-serving at worst’ (p. 185). Consequently, it would seem that in an attempt to satisfy external demands or ‘rule-bound’ attempts at assuring quality, there is a loss of an intrinsic or indigenous pursuit of quality or a failure to create a ‘quality culture’ as a way of life. This is possibly the reason for what Dr. Lucas can see as institutional and personal failure to transfer skills and competencies and why in relation to standards it seems as though “we have dropped the ball”. This is an interesting analogy even to cricket where it would seem that even in relation to our past prominence with cricketing victory, that as Caribbean people “we have [also] dropped the ball”. There is much that convinces me that on many levels there is need for former colonial societies like Barbados to engage in de-colonization and to resist ‘being co-opted into agendas we might subsequently wish we had resisted, but where we could/did not resist because we failed to appreciate the extent to which the meanings of others were not our own meanings’ (Gee and Lankshear, 1995, p.11). 124 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield VALUES AND VISION OF PRINCIPALS In writing the foreword to School Leadership in the Caribbean edited by Miller (2013), Peter Earley shares the view that ‘leaders’ actions are clearly grounded in personal and professional values’ (p. 8). In this final section, I examine the societal value related to teaching as a career and the role of values and vision of principals not only as linked to praxis but also as a contrast to ‘corporate managerialism…advocated across most western educational systems’ (McCrea and Ehrich, 1999, p. 432). Dr. Lucas identifies teaching as one of the few respectable professions accessible to the black majority: ‘In the 50s, teaching was a career that was sought after. It was a career that black women and black men could get into. It was respectable and more accessible than areas like Finance and Banking’. Beckles (2004b) indicates that the government of a pre and post-independent Barbados attempted to diversify the economy away from its dependence on sugar and the white elites by establishing a service sector. Beckles (2004a) also indicates that diverting the economy away from the control of the white elites was unsuccessful as they migrated to and dominated the service sector as well. Banking and finance were some of those service areas dominated by white elites that Dr. Lucas identify as not being as accessible as teaching. Thus within a pre and post-independent period of Barbadian history, the black majority was seemingly still doing only what it was allowed to do. All participants in this study gravitated towards teaching because not only was it accessible and seen as a respectable career, but it provided a great deal of satisfaction. Superlatives are used in defining the way female participants felt about teaching: “greatest joy”; “most satisfying”. Sir Keith speaks of it as the most obvious choice: “I did a History Honours programme in Jamaica from 1956-59 and was heading for teaching.” Mr. Belle started his teaching career at a much younger age than any of the other participants. In addition to always having a love for teaching, he chose it for economic reasons: I commenced teaching from the time I was in Primary School. I would give lessons to children from an early age. While at Foundation, I was teaching Common Entrance students after school in my district in Workman’s. I was doing it because 125 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield I liked teaching and for the money. Pauline Forde, Beverly Lovell, Horace King and I rented a place and gave lessons. Teaching and Nursing were two of the few careers opened to the black majority that could provide a level of independence, recognition and economic survival. All participants, like most Afro-Caribbean persons would have seen parents, siblings or older adults as teachers and had deep admiration for the work they did. However, it was a limitation on the aspirations of the majority. This explains why in the 50s and 60s there was massive migration of many Caribbean persons to the United Kingdom and Canada hoping to widen their choices for social and economic advancement. Though opportunities for higher education were now accessible locally and regionally in the 1960s, some scholarship opportunities were provided through external agencies. Teaching as a career was accessible or ‘allowed’ and was supported by colonial and transnational external agencies as identified by participants: the Commonwealth, Imperial Daughters of Canada, the World Bank and the Carnegie Scholarship Fund. Perhaps, with a colonial system of education still in place, there was a guarantee that education would continue to be used to reproduce the colonial social, hierarchical, elitist structure under the guise of fairness and expanded opportunities like those provided by such scholarships. I believe that there are still far too few questions about the perpetuation of a colonial system of education in Barbados and the Anglophone Caribbean, perhaps, because those like my participants could see the benefits provided for them by the system. In addition to the requirements of the scholarships, feelings of gratitude and indebtedness then also engendered within participants a sense of duty to return to their native homeland or to another Caribbean island. However, I take the position that ‘sometimes opportunities given to the socially and financially disadvantaged have not always been as acts of liberation but for the purpose of perpetuating the values of the dominant class or to serve hegemonic interests (Butcher-Lashley, 2013a, p.10-11 citing Jarvis, 2012; Tuhiwai Smith, 1999; Carnoy, 1974; Freire, 1972). All principals in this study began their careers as teachers who cared about the advancement of their students. There is an ‘ethic of care’ best demonstrated in Mr. Belle’s story. He always had an interest in social care not only for young persons but also for senior people in his community: “I love old people and really wanted to be a Social Worker, to work in Agriculture or be a teacher”. The values and vision of principals are 126 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield tied to how they led and are leading their institutions and their vision. Dr. Lucas believes that determination, resilience and a goal-oriented approach were important in her success in leading a successful team of persons at the Erdiston Teachers’ Training College and I believe too that this approach to life contributed to the substantial progress of the Open Campus of the University of the West Indies. She sees development and maintenance of high standards as the only way forward for higher education institutions. Her residence overlooking the St George’s valley becomes almost a testimony to the extent to which she has achieved high standards in her life and allows her to breathe an air of satisfaction: When I look back on my life, I can say I have been specially blessed. I consider myself to have been specially blessed. I have had my knocks as well…personal, but I have not been one to dwell on those. I would tell my students when they encountered challenges: “Dust yourself off and keep going.” That’s part of my philosophy of life. My interview with Mrs. Holder took place within the confines of her spacious patio fully enclosed from top to bottom by wrought-iron and partially so by palm trees. Her concerns are related to maintaining values of honesty and integrity and her focus is on not stealing which extends to a national concern that we may in fact not deserve the level of compensation given: I get the impression that a lot of people think that it is alright to steal as long as nobody catches you or you think nobody will catch you. They’re going to catch you. So I don’t know if somewhere education could say to us …to bring us back along a more noble and honest path and to realize we are in the situation we are in because many of us are not earning our keep. Mrs. Holder’s value position could possibly be related to a lack of trust in human nature perhaps as a result of personal experience with Afro-Caribbean people in particular? This could also possibly be seen as being consistent with a level of alienation from a black majority due to her socialization which could also have engendered a level of discomfort with a black identity. This could be seen as problematic as identified earlier when you are leading an institution of persons who are representative of the black majority. However, what she says about her experience of working at the BCC is not consistent with this interpretation related to dishonesty and lack of integrity and being compensated 127 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield undeservedly. She had first-hand knowledge of persons working well beyond the call of duty, giving and offering more than they needed to and not being compensated adequately. It is necessary to ask therefore ‘Whose eyes is she using when examining the reasons for the economic crisis and the solution?’ I ask whose eyes Mrs. Holder was using when she formulated a reason for the economic crisis and offered a solution. I asked as though free as a researcher from my own unconscious tendencies to use the harsh judgmental ‘overseer’s’ eyes I am trying to escape from. I had previously tried to escape from them in examining Mrs. Holder’s attitude about not looking for prejudice and not finding any and her seeming comfort in using words like ‘West Indian’ to describe herself when asked about being a ‘black woman’ at Oxford. However, it is disconcerting to admit that my initial re-presentation, interpretation or ‘translation’ of Mrs. Holder’s value position above about ‘not earning our keep’ had to be recast. Once again my harsh judgmental eyes were used and this time, it had seemingly gone undetected by me. There was the absence of a reflexive stance of ‘endless questioning’ (Adams, 2008, p. 179). It was two of my readers who made me aware of the slim line between ‘portrayal’ and ‘betrayal’ and for them, I had crossed the line. When I reviewed my language, I accepted that there was not enough of the ‘humility about human knowledge’ (Christians, 2007, p. 441) that should be foremost in any interpretation. There was instead the potential to cause harm by not representing participants respectfully (Sikes, 2010). I had not only betrayed Mrs. Holder by my portrayal but I had also betrayed myself. In the introduction of this research project I wrote of decolonization being necessary for the researcher and about it not being an easy process. I also wrote about the need for ‘ongoing, rigorous self-examination at every level of the research’ and yet at that moment when I felt so sure that I understood the context of Mrs. Holder’s life and her ‘missions and motives’ or values as reinforced by the setting of the interview, I made assumptions and dared to assume an authoritative voice. At that moment I had again become the colonizer. I had to face the fact that it is not a stance that can be easily escaped from or dismantled through ‘confession, catharsis and cure’ (Pillow, 2003, p. 192) as I discuss in my introduction, but perhaps as I indicated, its effects can be minimized where both the researcher and the reader of the research are ‘brought together in a relationship where there is vigilance about our own taken-for-granted assumptions’. I had agonized over what I had 128 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield written initially wondering what Mrs. Holder would think when she read my interpretations and even though her passing on 14 February 2016, provided a reprieve in one sense, I must admit that my agony must have been as a consequence of an interpretation that I knew unconsciously needed to be rendered compassionately or more tentatively. Mrs. Holder had a vision for her institution that saw it being the best which she sees as a value inculcated in her from her youth. She also sees maintaining high standards as a comparative affair: You have to have a vision not just for yourself but for the place you work. Believe it is the best! When you see all the other institutions in the region doing excellent things you can say, “You know something, mine is as good as theirs if not better.” And so it is that feeling that this is the best and I’m going to give it my all. And that comes from if when you are brought up you really want to do the best in whatever area it is and you don’t see any reason why little Barbados… you can’t even see it on the map… why its little college should be any less prestigious or less good than a college in the United States or England or wherever. Mrs. Holder’s values and vision linked to comparison with neocolonial and former colonial hegemonic sites is seemingly a natural and usually unquestioned comparison. However, it is a value and vision perspective possibly encapsulated in the values and vision of a colonial history of comparison with those of the imperialist powers where the black majority can never be ‘as good as’. There is then therefore this constant thriving for something within a context of what can never be, as you can seemingly never have the type of financial resources to make it possible. Thus though Mrs. Holder can appreciate the hard work done by her staff under very difficult circumstances for which they have not been adequately compensated, she is seemingly still apt to believe that there is something inherently deficient or wrong in our humanity or principles that translate to not deserving of something better. A perspective then emerges which involves the removal of what should be a right, like earnings, which then are interpreted as a privilege. The eyes through which Mrs. Holder sees the black majority of a Barbadian society can seemingly be interpreted again as the eyes of the colonizer as they gaze on the colonized that they can never truly learn to trust or to think deserving. To think differently perhaps would be to accept the inevitable guilt of unjust exploitation and domination (Cesaire, 1955) that we as colonized persons are capable of. 129 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield Sir Keith chose to have our interview within the context of the office where he serves as Chairman of the National Initiative for Service Excellence. The multi-purpose room was arranged for meetings where persons could converse in small or large groups. I see the space as consistent with his fundamental belief that people at all levels in an organization need to be motivated to give of their best and that people have answers to the problems with which they are confronted; someone just needs to care enough to ask. This is a critical tenet of qualitative research which is that the personal perspectives of people matter. Sir Keith shares this view: At these adult institutions there should be more conversations. There should be more conversations socially and otherwise in which people are able to feel….they are not academics but to feel that their contribution to the lives of many of the students who come into this country… I always had a sense of warning when I’m in a meeting and I listen to the discussion and there tended to be a silent majority, not that you could resolve all this, but it always said to me, you have to listen to the voices that are not speaking. I say it because here is the challenge that I am familiar with. No, seriously, your job is not to know everything but to talk to your colleagues who ought to know. …the challenge to administration at our level, at the level of the campus agenda, is not only to set the long term goals but to be sure that the people who are in stream are re-motivated and enabled to tackle their problems at a number of levels. You may not have all the answers. If someone trusts you enough to tell you some of the things they have had to deal with even on their way to work, you might want to get back to them and say, “Have you thought of talking to somebody?” Do you know that that turns on the lights again? You have to see yourself as the animator, the motivator because you are not going to get the potential from any group may it be a teacher group or any other, unless they think that somebody is in this with me. And who better than the person to whom I have to report? So you have to mind people’s business in the proper way. There is a focus on valuing people in Sir Keith’s story. This is the same for all principals in this study even if their value position may be problematic and contradictory at times. Mr. Belle had a challenging time as he was appointed to the position of principal ahead of a colleague who would consider him as a junior but his focus is “to put students first”: When you take over an institution without a proper handing over, you start at a disadvantage but I am the type of person who is used to these types of challenges. I am not a ‘no’ person. To me all things are possible and so I decided that I will 130 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield work with what I have got. Since then I have been exerting my energies in building the institution; to establish networks to ensure that the objective to put students first is met. I find that I have been able to ‘ride the wave’ so to speak. After attempting to meet Mr. Belle several times away from his office, we finally had our interview in his office in the middle of the day. This is consistent with his approach to the professional sphere. We could have been interrupted at any time but Mr. Belle has confidence in his ability to handle any challenge and to multi-task. McCrea and Ehrich (1999) believe and so do I that ‘educational management is about people, leading people and providing a supportive learning community that fosters each person’s growth and development, but in interdependent ways’ (p.431). McCrea and Ehrich (1999) do not limit this to just students but to the staff in educational institutions and this could extend to all shareholders. Dr. Lucas describes good leaders as selfless in relation to placing the needs of the institution and the students first: Really good leaders put the institution above self. It is really a sacrificial occupation and if an individual wants to lead effectively, the institution must come first and so must the students. The staff members are important, yes, but without students one does not have an institution. What leadership has to do is to look for ways in which students can be helped to grow, not only academically but personally-they can’t be separated-personal development, ethical development as well as academic development. It could be concluded from the above that Dr. Lucas feels that staff members though important are seemingly secondary in importance to the goals of the institution. I believe, however, that the holistic development of students is important but so too is the holistic development of every staff member and his or her capacity to contribute to the institution. This is perhaps the missing ‘glue’ where goals and a vision for an institution may be prescribed by or handed down from the leader or manager or emanate from an organization or entity external to the organization without input from the internal stakeholders or constituents. This approach is seemingly a part of the ‘corporate managerialism’ that McCrea and Ehrich (1999) identify, where ‘in the current econopolitical climate, educators and education settings are steered towards systemic goals by tighter accountability measures’(McCrea and Ehrich, 1999, p.432 citing Rizvi, 1994, p. 2-3). These writers also cite Duignan and Bhindi (1997, p. 197) in indicating that the ‘result is that the values inherent in corporate managerialism encourage competition, ambition, power playing, and 131 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield self-serving practices, in contrast to ethical and authentic behaviour in education’(p. 433). Dr. Lucas identified this type of self-serving behaviour where the end result of such an approach is ‘that every man is for himself and the Devil takes the hindmost’. There is in this environment of commodification of higher education institutions an abandonment of the institution and the persons in it to local and global hegemonic, capitalist forces. Dr. Lucas like Sir Keith believes that persons in an organization are central to its success and opportunities given to them to contribute will yield the best results: We also have to pay greater attention to the whole business of energizing people to work as teams…. if we can develop strong cultures of team functioning, team leadership and team learning in institutions, I am sure that we would see a difference both with respect to the return on the investment in education as well as in relation to greater synergies to support change, creativity and innovation. This approach is contrary to the philosophical perspective underpinning the ‘corporate managerialism’ that now pervades schooling and higher education. McCrea and Ehrich (1999) citing Blackmore (1989, 1995) indicate that ‘the construct of educational leadership is masculinist; and as such, at the extreme it has been and still is authoritarian, hierarchical, competitive and unemotional’ (p. 432). When Dr. Lucas says that it is necessary ‘to pay greater attention to the whole business of energizing people to work as teams’ she is echoing Sir Keith’s belief that motivating persons in an organisation is vital. McCrea and Ehrich (1999) remind us that since the 1980s this ‘masculinist’ approach to management of educational institutions has been prevalent. It has been the type of approach to managing educational institutions that has threatened the life of institutions. These writers also remind is that ‘the management and care of staff are vital, particularly if settings are to ‘do their best’ for their direct clients (children, students, families)’ (p.432). The ‘ethic of care’ practiced and spoken of by participants which could also be seen as the ‘feminine principle’ also identified by McCrea and Ehrich (1999) as ‘the feminine ethos’ (p. 432), must be encouraged or must be returned to educational institutions. Higher education institutions like other educational institutions have been submerged beneath what McCrea and Ehrich (1999) refer to as ‘heartache administrivia’ or ‘an empty or shallow version of “devolution of authority” with infrequent opportunities to make real decisions’ (p. 437). I also see this ‘masculinist’ approach to educational institutions as akin to a capitalist, neoliberal, overseer type approach to the treatment of persons and organisations as ‘cogs in 132 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield the wheels’ of ‘fast capitalism’ (Gee and Lankshear, 1995) which must be exploited as within a neocolonial context. 133 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield CHAPTER SEVEN: THE EPILOGUE …the sources of human meaning [should be] the way that people talk about their lives, manage their lives and pursue dreams and purposes in their lives. This must always comprise the moral centre of a society, its sources of ongoing legitimacy. For if the overall systems and activities of a society become uncoupled from the collective and individual purposes of the people that comprise that society, you have a classic ‘legitimisation crisis’, a situation where the demands and ongoing aspirations of the system are divorced or opposed to the collective and personal purposes and passions of the people’ (Goodson, 2014, p. 117) In the reference above, Goodson (2014) indicates a kind of social imbalance or disharmony created by ignoring people’s stories. In such an arid context, our systems lack moral authority or ‘legitimacy’. It is as though a ‘moral crime’ is committed against the personal and collective body politic that leads to ‘a death-dealing dysfunctional system’ (Goodson, 2014, p. 125). In this study, I listened to the stories of principals but I also contextualized those stories. In so doing it is possible to more clearly understand the meaning of those lives within particular contexts and thereby achieve better awareness of the harmony, conflicts or tensions between those lives and the social systems with which they interface. I conclude by presenting the summary of results and implications of this study for principals whose actions may have significant consequences within the public or professional sphere and include implications for future research, practice and policy. Drawing upon themes discussed in Chapter Six, I also use this section to examine the use of the life story within a global plantation model of recolonization of postcolonial societies and a colonization of the developed world. I end by examining one of the roles of the life history methodological approach as a de-colonization project which also had personal implications for me. SUMMARY OF RESULTS AND IMPLICATIONS OF THIS STUDY The data emerging from this study and analysis of the data answer the major research questions and support the perspective that personal life experiences or lives that are socially constructed have connections to the professional sphere (Sugrue, 2014; Day & 134 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield Gurr, 2013; Finch, 2012; Ligon, Hunter & Mumford, 2008; Inman, 2007; Shamir & Eilam, 2005; Parker, 2002; Becher & Trowler, 2001; McGrath, 1980). The data and analysis also indicate that those experiences must be contextualized because if they are not, they could assist in ‘fortifying patterns of dominance’ (Goodson, 2013, p.5) and within a postcolonial context become part of a colonization or recolonization agenda. It was clear that the personal context of the lives of Barbadian principals often influenced by the colonial and postcolonial legacy impacted in various ways the way they functioned in the professional sphere. It was also clear that those of us as researchers who come from colonial societies must also engage in the process of decolonization. It is not an easy process but not to do so could result in our being unwittingly complicit in a recolonization agenda (Butcher- Lashley, 2014, p. 6). The focus on female principals in this research revealed that though the way they enacted their roles in the professional sphere was related to the influence of family members or significant others and particularly their fathers, leading to an approach that could be stereotyped as ‘masculine’, they were successful in being able to use an ‘androgenic’ approach combining the masculine role with an ‘ethic of care’ or ‘feminine’ principle in building good relationships in their organizations. It was also realized that women in positions of leadership are likely to feel they need to be practical about balancing the personal and professional spheres of their lives by seeking assistance with household responsibilities as they were still expected to manage both spheres. However, it was also clear that if more women were to occupy higher positions in the education hierarchy, there must be mentorship but mentorship away from ‘patriarchal indicators of achievement’ (Morley, 2013, p. 125) and towards the creation of roles that are not ‘virility test[s]’ (Morley, 2013, p. 126) but roles or positions that are conducive to the maintenance of personal wellness within a global competitive arena. IMPLICATIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH It is sometimes difficult to decide on how much to share with participants about what you are doing with data as you may deliberately or inadvertently coax them along a path 135 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield reflective of the perspective or position of the researcher. Unfortunately, when collecting data, I was not sure that I should ask participants to connect their stories to the various historical, cultural, social and political contexts. However, while interviewing Dr. Lucas, she asked what I was going to do with the data. I learned that by sharing more about the approach I was taking in contextualizing the stories that she was then able to return to an aspect of her story at Queen’s College and locate it within the context of racial and social class prejudice existing at the time. The interview guide (see Appendix Two) as an instrument of investigation could therefore be amended to include questions about the social, cultural, historical and political context. This would allow for research participants to have access to a more enhanced reflection mode. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE AND POLICY Practice related to development and training for principals or persons in leadership positions should therefore include time and space for reflection on their life stories and also for questions on the context of those lives so that they too can begin to make connections between their biographies and their educational praxis as principals and leaders (Kizel, 2014; West, 2014; Sullivan & Palmer, 2014; Inman, 2013; Didi, Sullivan & Ueyama, 2013; Benjamin, 2011; Crawford, 2011; Day, Sammons, Stobart & Kington, 2007). This type of refection and reflective activity would perhaps permit the development of more of the ‘self-awareness skills’ that young Barbadian principals identified as ‘most critical to their effective functioning’ (Henry, 2008, p. 77). Policies related to development and training of principals and persons in leadership positions and those seeking such positions should therefore include major references to the activities as outlined above where reflection on life experiences and their connection to praxis or the professional sphere is encouraged and there is an attempt to contextualize such experiences. The story of Mrs. Holder and also my story are examples of the way in which as persons from colonized societies we are socialized by and emulate models constructed within a plantation socio-political paradigm. If our stories are not 136 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield contextualized we could seemingly continue a legacy of exploitation and insensitive control or domination. Additionally, within the complexities of a postmodern world, principals are beset with many demands emanating from sources external to their schools and higher education institutions. I believe that principals who have an opportunity to contextualize their life stories or personal experiences and who become more conscious of who they are in the professional sphere should have a better chance to navigate their way through global challenges most of which relate to the commodification of higher education. Mr. Belle is seemingly better able to handle the many challenges due to his early life experiences: Even at this time I have always had to struggle. Even at this point in my life when things are not as good as you would expect, these things would not be daunting for me because throughout my life I have always had to face these challenges so I know at the end of the day these are small things. They are only for a time and if you let them get the better of you, you will lose and the institution will lose. You can’t let that happen. Mr. Belle, who among those interviewed, is the only one still functioning in the position of principal, has an almost stoic resolve in handling challenges. It is a ‘stoicism’ that perhaps comes from his ‘near-death experience’. All principals do not have that, yet they must find the fortitude, become submerged, move away from such positions or work together to change the ever increasing hostile paper trail, accountability environment within which they now seem to exist. I believe that a life history approach to the professional sphere could possibly provide them with new lenses through which they see themselves and their public worlds of practice and devise better ways of functioning. The ‘feminine’ principle needs to also be engaged to combat the dominant masculinist world. THE LIFE HISTORY APPROACH WITHIN A GLOBAL RECOLONIZATION AGENDA There is a story beginning from around the 1960s where the Barbadian story of higher education also begins, linking knowledge to ‘economic growth and global competitiveness’ (Marginson and Van der Wende, 2007, p.10). It is a story that continues 137 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield with both postcolonial societies like Barbados and developed societies caught in a race to massify the provision of higher education. Olssen and Peters (2005) indicate that ‘“knowledge capitalism” and “knowledge economy” are twin terms that can be traced at the level of public policy to a series of reports that emerged in the late 1990s by the OECD (1996a) and the World Bank (1998), before they were taken up as a policy template by world governments in the late 1990s’ (p. 331). The story of how higher education is to be ‘reconfigured as a massively undervalued form of knowledge capital that will determine the future of work, the organization of knowledge institutions and the shape of society in the years to come’ (Olssen and Peters, 2005, p. 331) is the evolving story that those of us involved in higher education see continuing to unfold within this twenty-first century with adverse consequences for principals and educators as professionals. The inability to maintain levels of financing to the higher education sector within the global economic crisis coaxes both developing and developed societies along a policy ‘plot’ position of charging tuition fees which creates the opportunity to widen the marketability of higher education and increase the competitiveness. The story continues with higher education institutions which would have formerly operated under the concept of professionalism, ‘autonomy’, ‘delegated authority’ and ‘underpinned by relations of trust’ (Olssen and Peters, 2005, p. 325) now being subjected to neoliberal transnational organisations who act as ‘surrogates for a global ruling class [where] their strategy is to try to usher in the “autocracy of private capital” as part of the plan for running the world like a market’ (Watson, 2000, p. 383). This economic corporate takeover of higher education sees education provision as no longer related to a ‘public service ethic’. The idea of doing things for the ‘common good or public interest is subsumed’ (Olssen and Peters, 2007, p.325). This neoliberal, capitalist hegemonic paradigm uses a ‘consumer-managerial accountability model [where] academics must demonstrate their utility to society by placing themselves in an open market and accordingly competing for students who provide the bulk of core funding through tuition fees’ (Olssen and Peters, 2005, p. 325). It is a model of ‘compliance, monitoring, and accountability organized in a management line and established through a purchase contract based upon measurable outputs’ (Olssen and Peters, 2005, p. 325) that should be all too familiar to those emerging from the consciousness of a colonial history. A life history approach to this story exposes it as 138 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield belonging to a plantation model or legacy of control and domination now gone global with all the attendant scrutiny of the chattel or ‘human capital’ within monitoring systems like accreditation councils, quality assurance mechanisms, league tables, high stakes testing, PISA systems and student surveys as part of a ‘global testing culture’ (Smith, 2015). Higher education with all its practitioners are on the global auction block of a neoliberal, capitalist paradigm seemingly defenseless against the hegemonic gale force winds assailing it. I see this capitalist corporate managerial system as also part of a global overseer type construct that sees all as untrustworthy and there is an assumption ‘that individuals are rational utility maximisers [and] that people will not work together but against each other’(Olssen and Peters, 2005, p. 324). There is then the ‘emergence of destructive subcultures…increased distrust and disruption’ (Olssen and Peters, 2005, p. 324). This research paper indicates the enduring negative legacy of colonialism within developing societies but this same invidious system is threatening the education systems of both developing postcolonial societies and developed societies. Olssen and Peters (2005) cite former Chief Economist of the World Bank and Nobel Prize Laureate, Joseph Stiglitz (1999) in saying that governments therefore have a ‘key role’ in ‘protecting intellectual property rights’ as ‘ knowledge is different from other goods in that it shares many of the properties of a global public good’ (p. 331). THE LIFE HISTORY AND A DE-COLONIZATION AGENDA Resistance to the colonization of the world of education and higher education in particular has to begin and continue with listening to the stories of those involved in the practice of education. In many ways the attempt to run the world like a global market with higher education as one of its products has resulted in the devolution of academics from the governance of educational institutions. Just as new managerial principals have failed to produce the results expected, these new approaches within the educational sphere are threatening to create a dysfunctional education system, globally. These principles lack the ‘legitimacy’ Goodson (2014) speaks of, where the stories of those in higher education have been omitted from the higher education discourse and so ‘the moral centre of a society, its 139 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield sources of ongoing legitimacy’ (p.117) has been displaced. The stories of principals within a postcolonial Barbadian society needed to be contextualized and though seen to be affected by the meta-narratives of a colonial legacy are nonetheless still powerful evidence of the field of education engaged in by those who bring all of who they are and what they are to work together with others capable of solving their own problems ‘aiming to make their world better through education’ (Kemmis, 2010, p. 25). De-colonization is best effected through listening to the stories of others firstly, and listening to the stories of those who lead educational institutions is an effective way of beginning the process which could then better facilitate an awareness of the systems of global neocolonialism that now pervade the world of higher education. REFLECTIONS OF A RESEARCHER I end this research paper by sharing another of the ways in which this research journey has had a profound impact on my approach to teaching and in my capacity as faculty head. The overseer type perspective is a mental cage that shuts us away from others and also us from ourselves. After listening to the story of Sir Keith about the approach taken by his former teacher, now Sir Alexandra Hoyos (now deceased), I returned to my afternoon class where this student sitting at the back seemed to have adopted her usual nonchalant manner. This time I was determined to speak to her before she slipped away. The story that she told me explained so much about her. I was then able to direct her where she needed to go to do something that was more fulfilling. I see her from time to time and she does not seem to be carrying the same burden she carried before though I know that the road will not be easy for her. The life history approach has also engendered in me a capacity to be more tolerant. I see persons and staff members within the context of their life experiences that have fashioned them into who they are. I was conscious of that before but it was seemingly only when I had come face to face with how I too had been fashioned within a colonial construct that I was capable of being able to love and care at a different level. A previous attitude of intolerance is now ‘softened’. This awareness of ‘why we are the way we are’ can lead to 140 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield more caring ways of helping others or accepting persons for who they are. I now practice a level of care that was very different from the one I practiced before. Beckles (2004a, p. 160) reminds us that it is our Barbadian literary icons (George Lamming, Edward Kamau Brathwaite and Tom Clarke) who ‘refuse to allow us to forget that this hidden, spiritual soul resides within us, and that only the re-engineering of specific intellectual environments can call it into active being’. This doctoral journey was one such intellectual environment which facilitated ‘the reclamation of self, [which] then, is an act of rediscovery of ancestry-a painful and turbulent journey against the tide of the inner plantation’ (Beckles, 2004a, p. 160). 141 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield REFERENCES ADAMS, T. (2008). A review of narrative ethics. Qualitative Inquiry, 14 (2), 175-194. ALHEIT, P. (2005). Stories and structures: an essay on historical times, narratives and their hidden impact on adult learning. Studies in the Education of Adults, 37 (2), 201-212. ALI, E. (2010a). A critical analysis of higher education accreditation policy processes in the emerging CARICOM single market and economy territories. Unpublished Doctoral Thesis. University of Sheffield, UK. ALI, E. (2010b). Decolonizing educational policy in the Caribbean: shifting our practice from an internationally dependent policy consumption model to a contextually relevant policy research model. The Caribbean Educational Research Journal, 2 (1), 75-86. ALI, E. (2013). Postcolonialism, globalization and new (or open) regionalism: challenges and opportunities for Caribbean education policy and development. Discussion paper presented for Study School, University of Sheffield Educational Studies Doctoral Programme (Caribbbean) on Jan 19. ASHTON, D. & GREEN, F. (1996). Education, training and the global economy. Cheltenham, England: Edward Elgar. ATKINSON, P. & SILVERMAN, D. (1997). Kundera’s immortality: the interview society and the invention of the self. Qualitative Inquiry, 3 (3), 304-325. ATKINSON, R. (1998). The life story interview. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. ATKINSON, R. (2012). The life story interview as a mutually equitable relationship. In J. Gubrium (Ed.). The Sage Handbook of Interview Research. The Complexity of the Craft. Sage. BAKER, S. & EDWARDS, R. (2012). How many qualitative interviews is enough. Discussion Paper. NCRM (Unpublished). Retrieved March 08, 2015 from http://eprints.ncrm.ac.uk/2273/4how_many_interviews.pdf BALL, S. (1998). Big policies/small world. An introduction to international perspectives in education policy. Comparative Education, 34 (2), 119-130. BALL, S. (2013). The education debate (2 nd . Ed). University of Bristol, England: The Policy Press. BALL, S.J. & GOODSON, I.F. (Eds.). (2002). Teachers’ Lives and Careers. Routledge. http://eprints.ncrm.ac.uk/2273/4how_many_interviews.pdf 142 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield BEAUCHAMP, C. & THOMAS, L. (2009). Understanding teacher identity: an overview of issues in the literature and implications for teacher education. Cambridge Journal of Education, 39 (2), 175-189. BECHER, T. & TROWLER, P. (2001). Academic tribes and territories: intellectual enquiry and the culture of disciplines. McGraw-Hill Education. BECKFORD, G. (1972). Persistent poverty. Underdevelopment in plantation economies of the Third World. Kingston, Jamaica: The University of the West Indies Press. BECKLES, H. (2004a). Great house rules. Landless emancipation and workers’ protest in Barbados 1838-1938. Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle Publishers. BECKLES, H. (2004b). Chattel house blues. Making of a democratic society in Barbados. From Clement Payne to Owen Arthur. Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle Publishers. BEEPAT, R. (2013). From management to leadership. In P. Miller (Ed.), School leadership in the Caribbean: perspectives, practices and paradigms. (pp.63-78). Oxford, United Kingdom: Symposium Books Ltd. BEIJAARD, D., MEIJER, P.C. & VERLOOP, N. (2004). Reconsidering research on teachers’ professional identity. Teaching and teacher education, 20 (2), 107-128. BEN-DAVID, J. (1973). How to organize research in the social sciences. Daedalus, 102 (2), 39-51. BENJAMIN, A. (2011). I teach therefore I am: an exploration of the lives and work of five Jamaican science teachers. Doctoral Dissertation. University of Sheffield, UK. BERGER, R. (2015). Now I see it, now I don’t: researcher’s position and reflexivity in qualitative research. Qualitative Research, 15 (2), 219-234. BERLIN COMMUNIQUÉ (2003) Retrieved March 29, 2013 from http://www.bologna- bergen2005.no/Docs/00-Main_doc/050520_Bergen_Communique.pdf BETTS, B. (2010). An insight into the promise and problems of combining life history and grounded theory research. In ECRM2012-9th European Conference on Research Methods in Business Management: ECRM 2012 (p. 446). Academic Conferences Limited. BISHOP, R. (1996). Collaborative research stories. Palmerston North: Dunmore Press. BLUCK, S. & STRAUDINGER, V.M. (2000). Looking back and looking ahead. The role of the past and the future in present life evaluation. Unpublished manuscript. BOCHNER, P. (2000). Criteria against ourselves. Qualitative Inquiry, 6 (2), 266-272. http://www.bologna-bergen2005.no/Docs/00-Main_doc/050520_Bergen_Communique.pdf http://www.bologna-bergen2005.no/Docs/00-Main_doc/050520_Bergen_Communique.pdf 143 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield BOURDIEU, P. & PASSERON (1990). Reproduction in education, society and culture. London: Sage. BOURDIEU, P. (1990). The logic of practice. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. BRANNEN, J. (2013). Life story talk: some reflections on narrative in qualitative interviews. Sociological Research Online. Retrieved Nov. 10, 2013 from http://www.socresonline.org.uk/18/2/15.html BRISTOL, L. (2008). A state of subversion: teaching in the postcolonial context of Trinidad and Tobago. Unpublished Doctoral Thesis. University of Sheffield. BROWN, L. & LAVIA, J. (2013). School leadership and inclusive education in Trinidad and Tobago: dilemmas and opportunities for practice. In P. Miller (Ed.), School Leadership in the Caribbean: perceptions, practices, paradigms. (pp.45-61). Oxford, England: Symposium Books Ltd. BROWN, P., LAUDER, H. & ASHTON, D. (2008). Education, globalisation and the future of the knowledge economy. European Educational Research Journal, 7 (2), 131- 156. BRUNER, J. (1993). The autobiographical process. In R.Folkenflik (Ed.), The culture of autobiography: constructions of self- representation. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. BUTCHER-LASHLEY, J. (2013a). Sustainable Financing of Tertiary Education. Unpublished paper. EdD. Doctoral Programme. University of Sheffield, UK. BUTCHER-LASHLEY, J. (2013b). Quality assurance and competitiveness in higher education. Unpublished paper. Caribbean Doctoral Programme. University of Sheffield. BUTCHER-LASHLEY, J. (2014). The use of life stories in educational research. Unpublished paper. Caribbean Doctoral Programme. University of Sheffield. BUTCHER-LASHLEY, J. (2015). Quality assurance and competitiveness in higher education. Paper presented at 12 Annual CANQUATE Conference in St Kitts, October 7- 9. CAIRNCROSS, A.M. (2015). Feathering the nest: perceptions of proposals for institutional support programmes for women in leadership positions in South African Higher Education. International Journal of Education Science, 8 (3), 573-586. CARNOY, M. (1974). Education as cultural imperialism. New York, USA: David McKay. CARR, W. (1995). For education. Towards critical educational inquiry. Buckingham: Open University Press. CARR, W. (2000). Partisanship in educational research. Oxford Review of Education, 26 (3-4), 437-449. http://www.socresonline.org.uk/18/2/15.html 144 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield CARTER, D. (1996). The development of education in Barbados 1640-1834. Master’s Thesis. University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, Barbados. CARTER, D. (2007). The development of higher education in Barbados. 1930-2000. Doctoral Thesis. University of the West Indies, Cave Hill. CESAIRE, A. (1955). Discourse on colonialism. N.Y, N.Y: Monthly Review Press. CHARMAZ, K. (2003). Qualitative interviewing and grounded theory analysis. In J. Holstein & J.F. Gubrium (Eds.), Inside Interviewing: New Lenses, New Concerns (pp. 311-330). Thousand Oaks, London: Sage. CHASE, S. (2005). Narrative Inquiry: Multiple Lenses, Approaches, Voices. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research. Thousand Oaks, London, England: Sage Publications. CHOW, A. (2014). Leading change and the challenges of managing a learning organization in Hong Kong. Journal of Management Research, 6 (2), 22-38. CHRISTIANS, C. (2007). Cultural continuity as an ethical imperative. Qualitative Inquiry, 13 (3), 437-444. CLOUGH, P. & BARTON, L. (Eds.) (1995). Making difficulties. London, England: Paul Chapman Publishing. CLOUGH, P. & NUTBROWN, C. (2012). A student’s guide to methodology. Sage. CLOUGH, P. (2002). Narratives and fictions in educational research. Buckingham, England: Open University Press. COHEN, L., MANION, L., MORRISON, K. & BELL, R. (2013). Research methods in education. Routledge. COLEMAN, M. (2000). The female secondary head-teacher in England and Wales: leadership and management styles. Educational Research, 42(1), 13-27. COLLINS, J. P. (2014). Leadership and change in twenty-first century higher education. Bio Science, 64 (7), 561-562. CONNELLY, F.M. & CLANDININ, D. J. (1999). Shaping a professional identity: stories of education practice. London, England: Althouse Press. COZIER, G. (2005). ‘There’s a war against our children’: black underachievement revisited. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 26 (5), 585-598. CRAWFORD, M. (2011). Rationality and emotion in education leadership-enhancing our understanding. In New Understandings of Teacher’s Work (pp. 205-215) Springer Netherlands. 145 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield DAVIES, A. (2014). Does anonymising steal the voices of researchers and research subjects? In W. Midgley, A. Davies, M. Oliver and P. Danaher (Eds.) Echoes: Ethics and Issues of Voice in Education Research. Boston, Massachusetts: Sense Publishers. DAY, C. & GURR, D. (2013). Leading Schools Successfully: Stories from the field. Routledge. DAY, C. (2012). New lives of teachers. Teacher Education Quarterly, 39 (1), 7-26. DAY, C., KINGTON, A., STOBART, G. & SAMMONS, P. (2006). The personal and professional selves of teachers: stable and unstable identities. British Educational Research Journal, 32 (4), 601-616. DAY, C., SAMMONS, P., STOBART, G. & KINGTON, A. (2007). Teachers matter: connecting work, life and effectiveness. McGraw-Hill International. DENZIN, N. & LINCOLN, Y. (2005). Handbook of Qualitative Research. Sage. DENZIN, N. & LINCOLN, Y. (Eds.) (2003). Strategies of Qualitative Inquiry. Thousand Oaks, England: Sage. DENZIN, N. & LINCOLN, Y. (Eds.) (2011). Handbook of qualitative research (4 th .Ed.) Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications. DENZIN, N., & LINCOLN, Y (2008). Critical methodologies and indigenous inquiry. In N. Denzin, Y. Lincoln & T. Smith (Eds.) Handbook of critical and indigenous methodologies (pp.1-20). Thousand Oaks: Sage. DHUNPATH, R. (2000). Life history methodology: “narradigm” regained. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 13 (5), 543-551. DIDI, A.M., SULLIVAN, T.J., UEYAMA, T. (2013). Interactive reflective teaching that enhances teaching, learning and research in graduate education. In 2 nd International Higher Education Teaching & Learning Conference 2013. ELLIS, C. (2007). Telling secrets, revealing lives: relational ethics in research with intimate others. Qualitative Inquiry, 13 (3), 3-29. ELLIS, C., BOCHNER, A., DENZIN, N., LINCOLN, Y., MORSE, J., PELIAS, R. & RICHARDSON, L. (2008). Talking and thinking about qualitative research. Qualitative Inquiry, 14 (2), 254-284. ELLSWORTH, E. (1989). Why doesn’t this feel empowering? Working through the repressive myths of critical pedagogy. Harvard Educational Review, 59 (3), 297. FÄGERLIND, I. & SAHA, L. (1989). Education and national development. A comparative perspective (2 nd Ed.). Oxford, England: Pergamon Press. FANON, F. (1967). Black skin, white masks. New York, USA: Grove Press, Inc. 146 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield FINCH, S. (2012). The influence of background and demographic factors on the leadership of further education principals. Doctor of Education Degree. School of Education. South Hampton University. FITZGERALD, T. (2003b). Interrogating orthodox voices: gender, ethnicity and educational leadership. School Leadership and Management, 23 (4), 431-444. FITZGERALD, T. (2011). Troubling leadership? Gender, leadership and higher education. Paper presented at the AARE Conference. November 30, Hobart, Australia. FLOOD, C. (2014). Divided conversations: identities, leadership, and change in public higher education by Kristen G. Esterberg & John Wording (Review). The Review of Higher Education, 37 (4), 562-565. FREIRE, P. (1972). The pedagogy of the oppressed. Harmondsworth, England : Penguin. GANNON, S. (2006). ‘The (Im)possibilities of writing the self-writing: French poststructural theory and autoethnography’. Cultural Studies  Critical Methodologies, 6, (4), 474-495. GEE, J. & LANKSHEAR, C. (1995). The new work order: critical language awareness and ‘fast capitalism’ texts. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 16 (1), 5-19. GEE, J.P. (2000). Identity as an analytic lens for research in education. Review of Research in Education, 25, 99-125. GIFT, S. (2011). Funding higher education through exporting higher education. In S. Renwick & L. Quamina-Aiyejina (Eds.), Sustainable funding of higher education in challenging times (pp.29-32). St Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago: West Indies Group of University Teachers (WIGUT). http://uwispace.sta.uwi.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/2139/12633/FINAL_WIGUT_PROC EEDINGS_4_WEB.pdf?sequence=1#page=40 GLASER, B. & STRUAS, A. (1967). The discovery grounded theory: strategies for qualitative inquiry. Aldin, Chicago. GLASER, B.G. (1978). Theoretical sensitivity: advances in the methodology of grounded theory. Sociology Pr. GOLDSTEIN, H. (2004). Education for all: the globalization of learning targets. Comparative Education, 40 (1), 7-14. GOODSON, I. & SIKES, P. (2001). Life history research in educational settings: Learning from lives. Open University Press. GOODSON, I. (1995). The story so far: Personal knowledge and the political. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 8 (1), 89-98. http://uwispace.sta.uwi.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/2139/12633/FINAL_WIGUT_PROCEEDINGS_4_WEB.pdf?sequence=1#page=40 http://uwispace.sta.uwi.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/2139/12633/FINAL_WIGUT_PROCEEDINGS_4_WEB.pdf?sequence=1#page=40 147 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield GOODSON, I. (1997). Representing teachers. Teaching and Teacher Education, 13 (1), 111-117. GOODSON, I. (2005). Learning, curriculum and life politics. The selected works of Ivor F. Goodson. Psychology Press. GOODSON, I. (2006). The story so far: Personal knowing and the political. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 8 (1), 89-98. GOODSON, I. (2013). Studying Teachers’ Lives. Routledge. GOODSON, I. (2014). Curriculum, personal narrative and the social future. Routledge. GOODSON, I., BIESTA, G., TEDDER, M. & ADAIR, N. (2010). Narrative Learning. New York: Routledge GUILLAUME, C. & POCHIC, S. (2009). What would you sacrifice? Access to top management and the work-life balance. Gender, Work and Organisation, 16 (1), 14-36. HALES, C. (2001). Managing through organization (2 nd Ed.). The University of Westminster, United Kingdom: Thomson Learning. HARVEY, L. (1997). Quality is not free! Quality monitoring alone will not improve quality. Tertiary Education and Management, 3 (2), 133-143. HARVEY, L. (2009). A critical analysis of quality culture. Retrieved March 29, 2013 from http://www.inquaahe.org/main/conference- HENRY, SYLVIA (2008). Does mentoring matter? Rethinking support for new primary school principals in Barbados. Ed.D. Thesis. Cambridge College. HOLSTEIN, J. & GUBRIUM, J. (2003). Inside interviewing: New lenses, new concerns. Sage. HOOGVELT, A. (1997). Globalisation and the postcolonial world. The new political economy of development. London, England: Macmillan Press Ltd. HORN, A. (2012). The need to tell stories. Inaugural lecture presented at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, May 30, 2012. HÜTHER, O. & KRÜCKEN, C. (2014). The rise and fall of student fees in a federal higher education system: the case of Germany In H. Ertl and C. Dupuy (Eds.), Students, markets and social justice. Higher Education fees and student support policies in Western Europe and beyond. Oxford, England: Symposium Books. HUTTON, D. (2013). High-performing Jamaican principals: understanding their passion, commitment, and abilities. In P. Miller (Ed.), School Leadership in the Caribbean: perceptions, practices, paradigms. (pp.79-103). Oxford, England: Symposium Books Ltd. http://www.inquaahe.org/main/conference- 148 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield HYVÄRINEN, S. & UUSIAUTTI, S. (2014). Safe and encouraging home providing the countdown to leadership? Finnish female leaders’ childhood memories. Early child development and care. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03004430.2013.876626 IBARRA, H., CARTER, N.M. & SILVA, C. (2010). Why men still get more promotions than women. Harvard Business Review, 88 (9), 80-85. INMAN, M. (2013). Bringing life to leadership: the significance of life history in reviewing leadership learning within higher education. International Journal of Leadership in Education: Theory and Practice. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13603124.2013.867076 INMAN. M. (2007). The journey to leadership: a study of how leader-academics in higher education learn to lead. Doctoral Thesis. University of Birmingham. ISREAL M. & HAY, I. (2006). Research ethics for social scientists: between ethical conduct and regulatory compliance. London, England: Sage. JACKSON, A. & MAZZEI, L. (2008). ‘Experience and “I” in autoethnography: a deconstruction’. International Review of Qualitative Research, 1 (3), 299-318. JONES, P. W. (1997). On World Bank Education Financing. Comparative Education, 33(1), 117-130. KEMMIS, S. (2010). Research for praxis: knowing doing. Pedagogy, Culture and Society, 18 (1), 9-27. KEMMIS, S., WILKINSON, J., EDWARDS-GROVES, C., HARDY, I., GROOTENBOER, P., BRISTOL, L. (2014). Practising Leading. In Changing practices, changing education (pp. 157-178). Springer Science & Business Media. KIZEL, A. (2014). Pedagogies of reflection: dialogical professional-development schools in Israel In International Teacher Education: Promising Pedagogies (Part A), 22, 113-136. LAMMING, G. (1953). In the castle of my skin. Essex, England: Longman Group UK Ltd. LATHER, P. (1986). Research as praxis. Harvard Educational Review, 56 (3), 257-278. LAYNE, A. (1998). Educational reform in Barbados in post-war period. Educational Reform in commonwealth Caribbean Inter-American Agency for Cooperation and Development. Retrieved December 5, 2012 from http://www.educoas.org/portal/bdigital/contenido/interamer/bkiacd/interamer/Interamerht ml/Millerhtml/mil_layne.htm LEITHWOOD, K. & DUKE, D. (1998). Mapping the conceptual terrain of leadership: a critical point of departure for cross-cultural studies. Peabody Journal of Education, 73 (2), 31-50. LEVITT, K. (2005). Reclaiming development. Independent thought and Caribbean Community. Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle Publishers. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03004430.2013.876626 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13603124.2013.867076 http://www.educoas.org/portal/bdigital/contenido/interamer/bkiacd/interamer/Interamerhtml/Millerhtml/mil_layne.htm http://www.educoas.org/portal/bdigital/contenido/interamer/bkiacd/interamer/Interamerhtml/Millerhtml/mil_layne.htm 149 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield LEWIS, G. (2004). The growth of the modern West Indies. Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle Publishers. LEWIS, V. (2000). Looking from the inside outwards: the Caribbean in the international system after 2000. In K. Hall & D. Benn (Eds.), Contending with destiny (pp.326-346). Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle Publishers. LI, B. (2014). Understanding the role of female school principals: an exploratory case study of four female principals in a metropolitan city in China. Master’s Thesis. University of British Columbia (Vancouver). LIGON, G.S., HUNTER, S.T. & MUMFORD, M.D. (2008). Development of outstanding leadership: a life narrative approach. The Leadership Quarterly, 19 (3), 312-334. LOADER, D. (2002). The inner principal. Routledge. LOEN, R.D. & VĂTĂMĂNESCU, E.M. (2015). Storytelling as a knowledge strategy in higher education institutions. In European Conference on Knowledge Management (pp. 458-467). Academic Conferences International Limited. LORDE, A. (1984). Sister outside. New York: the Crossing Press. LORTIE, D. C. (2009). School principal: managing in public. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. LOUISY, P. (1997). Dilemmas of insider research in a small-country setting: Tertiary Education in St. Lucia. Qualitative Educational Research in Developing Countries, 199- 220. LOVASZ, K., DOLNICAR, S., & VIALLE, W. (2014). Succession planning at universities: program for preparing early leaders (PROPEL). Office for Learning and Teaching, Sydney. Retrieved 03 March 2014 from http://www.olt.gov.au/system/files/resources/LES_1210_DolnicarReport%202014.pdf LUNA, G. (2012). Planning for an American higher education leadership crisis: the succession issue for administrators. International Leadership Journal, 4 (1), 56-79. MARGINSON, S. & CONSIDINE, M. (2000). The enterprise university: power, governance in Australia. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. MARGINSON, S. & Van Der WENDE, M. (2007). Globalisation and Higher Education. Education Working Paper, No. 8 OECD Publishing. Retrieved Dec. 5, 2012 from http://doc.utwente.nl/60264/1/Marginson07globalisation.pdf MARGINSON, S. (1997). Steering from a distance: power relations in Australian higher education. Higher Education, 34 (1), 63-80. MATON, K. (2005). A question of autonomy. Bourdieu’s field approach and higher education policy, Journal of Education Policy, 20 (6), 687-704. http://www.olt.gov.au/system/files/resources/LES_1210_DolnicarReport%202014.pdf http://doc.utwente.nl/60264/1/Marginson07globalisation.pdf 150 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield MAY, T. (2011). Social Research (4 th Edition). Open University Press. MAYERS, J. (1998). The role of education in Barbados. Perspectives on policy, 1909- 1945. Doctoral Thesis. The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, Barbados. McCREA, N. & EHRICH, L. (1999). Changing leaders’ educational hearts. Educational Management, Administration and Leadership, 27 (4), 431-440. McGRATH, E. J. (1980). Fifty years in higher education: personal influences on my professional development. The Journal of Higher Education, 51 (1), 76-93. McNAE, R & VALI, K. (2015). Diverse experiences of women leading in higher education: locating networks and agency for leadership within a university context in Papua New Guinea. Education and Gender. Retrieved April 11, 2015 from http://dx.doi.org110.1080/09540253.2015.1027669 MEAD, G. H. (1934). Mind, self and society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. MILLER, E. (2015, January 5). The global context of Jamaica’s achievement of universal adult suffrage. Daily Gleaner. MILLER, P. (2013). School leadership in the Caribbean: perspectives, practices and paradigms. Oxford, United Kingdom: Symposium Books Ltd. MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT. (2010). The human resource development strategy 2011-2016. Bridgetown,Barbados: MEHRD. MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT. (2012). Creating knowledge households. Framework for the reform of tertiary education in Barbados. Bridgetown, Barbados: MEHRD. MINISTRY OF EDUCATION, YOUTH AFFAIRS AND CULTURE (1995). White paper on education reform. Preparing for the twenty-first century. Bridgetown, Barbados: Ministry of Education. MINISTRY OF EDUCATION, YOUTH AFFAIRS AND SPORTS (2001). Education in Barbados: Information handbook. Barbados. MONCHERRY, W. (2010). Teachers’ lives and careers: a collection of biographical accounts of past educators in St Lucia. Doctoral Dissertation. University of Sheffield, UK. MORLEY, L. (2003). Quality and power in higher education. Maidenhead: Society for Research into Higher Education & Open University Press. MORLEY, L. (2013). The rules of the game: women and the leaderist turn in higher education. Gender and Education, 25 (1), 116-131. http://dx.doi.org110.1080/09540253.2015.1027669 151 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield MORRIS, J. (2008). Female secondary school principals in Trinidad and Tobago: career paths, and management practice. Doctoral Thesis. The University of the West Indies, St Augustine. MUMFORD, M.D. & MANLEY, G.G. (2003). Putting the development in leadership development: implications for theory and practice. A study of social, physical, life and health sciences. Creative Research Journal, 17 (23), 105-129. NAIDOO, R. (2003). Repositioning higher education as a global commodity: opportunities and challenges for future sociology of education work. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 24 (2), 249-259. NARCISSE, C. (2000). Social integration and disintegration – the Caribbean experience. In K. Hall & D. Benn (Eds.), Contending with destiny (pp.204-234). Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle Publishers. OBASI, I. & OLUTAYO, A. (2009). Globalization, the Bologna Process and African universities. Limits and contradictions of market-oriented higher education reforms. Council for the Development of social Science in Africa JHEA/RESA, 7 (1&2), 157-187. OLSSEN, M. & PETERS, M. (2005). Neoliberalism, higher education and the knowledge economy: from the free market to knowledge capitalism. Journal of Education Policy, 20 (3), 313-345. OPLATKA, I. (2006). Women in educational administration within developing countries: towards a new international research agenda. Journal of Educational Administration, 44 (6), 604-624. PANTIN, D. (2000). The politics of principled proactive pragmatism. In K. Hall & D. Benn (pp. 286-292). Contending with Destiny. Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle. PARKER, R. (2002). Passion and intuition: the impact of life history on leadership. Summary Practitioner Enquiry Report. National College of School Leadership. PARKER, T. (2015). Secondary school principals who are mothers: balancing home and career. Doctoral Thesis. Walden University. PILLOW, W. (2003). Confession, catharsis, or cure? Rethinking the uses of reflexivity as methodological power in qualitative research. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in education, 16 (2), 175-196. PLUMMER, K. (2001). Documents of life 2: Thinking about life history ‘data’. Sage Research Methods. Sage Publications. PLUMMER, K. (2013). A manifesto for a critical humanism in sociology. On questioning the human social world in Daniel Nehring: sociology. A text and reader. Pearson. Retrieved July 5, 2014 from http://kenplummer.com/manifestos./a-manifesto-for-a critical- humanism-in-sociology. http://kenplummer.com/manifestos./a-manifesto-for-a 152 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield POLKINGHORNE, D. (1995). Narrative configuration in qualitative analysis. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 8 (1), 5-23. PRING, R. (2005). Philosophy of education: aims, theory, common sense and research. London, England: Continuum. REINHARZ, S. & CHASE, S.E. (2003). Interviewing women. In: J.A. Holstein & J.F. Gubrium (Eds.). Inside Interviewing: New Lenses, New Concerns. Thousand Oaks,CA: Sage. REYES CRUZ, M. & SONN, C. (2011). (De)colonizing culture in community psychology: reflections from critical social science. Community Psychology, 47, 203-214. RICHARDSON, L. (1990). Narrative and sociology. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 19 (1), 116. RIZVI, F. & LINGARD, R. (2009). Globalizing education policy. New York, USA: Routledge. ROBERTS, B. (2002). Biographical research. Buckingham, England: Open University Press. ROBERTS, V. (2003). Accreditation and evaluation systems in the English-speaking Caribbean: current trends and prospects. Prepared for the International Institute for Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean (UNESCO/IESALC). Retrieved April 05, 2013 from http://wwwisis.ufg.edu.sv/wwwisis/documentos/M0/M000338.pdf ROBINSON-PANT, A. & SINGAL, N. (2013). Researching ethically across cultures: issues of knowledge, power and voice. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 43 (4), 417-421. ROBINSON-PANT, A. (2005). Cross-cultural Perspectives on Education Research. New York: Open University Press. ROULSTON, K. (2012). The pedagogy of interviewing. In: J. Gubrium (Ed.) The sage handbook of interview research. .The complexity of the craft, 61-74. ROZSNYAI, C. (2003). Quality assurance before and after ‘Bologna’ in the central and eastern region of the European higher education area with a focus on Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland. European Journal of Education, 38 (3), 271-284. RYAN, M. K. & HASLAM, S. A. (2005). The glass cliff: Evidence that women are over- represented in precarious leadership positions. British Journal of Management, 16 (2), 81- 90. SCHATZKI, T.R. (2010). The site of the social: a philosophical account of the constitution of social life and change. Pennyslavania, USA: The Pennyslavania State University. SHAMIR, B. & EILAM, G. (2005). ‘What’s your story?’ A life-stories approach to authentic leadership development. The Leadership Quarterly, 16 (3), 395-417. http://wwwisis.ufg.edu.sv/wwwisis/documentos/M0/M000338.pdf 153 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield SHEPHERD, V. (2000). Image, representation and the project of emancipation: history and identity in the Commonwealth Caribbean. In K. Hall & D. Benn (Eds.), Contending with destiny (pp.53-79). Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle Publishers. SIKES, P. & GOODSON, I. (2003). Living Research: thoughts on educational research as moral practice. In P. Sikes, J. Nixon & W. Carr (Eds.), The moral foundations of educational research. knowledge, inquiry and values (pp.32-51). Buckingham: Open University Press. SIKES, P. (1985). The life cycle of the teacher. In S. Ball and I. Goodson (Eds), Teachers’ Lives and Careers. (pp.27-60). London, England: The Falmer Press. SIKES, P. (2000). ‘Truth’ and lies revisited. British Educational Research Journal, 26 (2), 257-270. SIKES, P. (2004). Methodology, procedures and ethical concerns. In Clive Opie (Ed.), Doing educational research: a guide for first-time researchers (pp.15-33). London, England: Sage Publications Ltd. SIKES, P. (2005). Storying schools: issues around attempts to create a sense of feel and place in narrative research writing. Qualitative Research, 5 (1), 79-94. SIKES, P. (2006a). On dodgy ground? Problematics and ethics in educational research. International Journal of Research & Method in Education, 29 (1), 105-117. SIKES, P. (2010). The ethics of writing life histories and narratives in educational research. Exploring learning, identity and power through life history and narrative research, 11-24. SIKES, P. (2012). Truths, truths and treating people properly. In I. Goodson, A. Loveless and D. Stephens (Eds.). Explorations in Narrative Research (pp. 123-139). Sense Publishers. SIKES, P. (2013). Working together for critical research ethics. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 43 (4), 516-536. SIKES, P., MEASOR, L. & WOODS, P. (1985). Teacher careers: crises and continuities. London, England: Falmer Press. SIKES, P., NIXON, J. & CARR, W. (2003). The moral foundation of educational research: knowledge, inquiry and values. McGraw-Hill Education (UK). SIKES, P., TROYNA, B. & GOODSON, I. (1996). Talking lives: a conversation about life history taboo. The Journal of Culture and Education. 1 (Spring), 35-54. SLATER, C.L. (2011). Understanding principal leadership: an international perspective and a narrative approach. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 39 (2), 219-227. SMITH, B. & SPARKES, A.C. (2006). Narrative inquiry in psychology: exploring the tensions within. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3 (3), 169-192. 154 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield SMITH, W. (2015). An introduction to the global testing culture. In W.Smith (Ed.), The Global Testing Culture: shaping education policy, perceptions, and practice. (pp. 7-23). Oxford, United Kingdom: Symposium Books. SOMEKH, B. & LEWIN, C. (2005). Research methods in social sciences. London, England: Sage. SONN, C., STEVENS, G., DUNCAN, N. (2013). Decolonisation, critical methodologies and why stories matter. In G. Stevens, N. Duncan & D. Hook (Eds.), Race, memory and the apartheid archive. Towards a transformative psychosocial praxis. (pp.295-314). London, England: Palgrave Macmillan. SPARROWE, R.T. (2005). Authentic leadership and the narrative self. The Leadership Quarterly, 16 (3), 419-439. SRIPRAKASH, A. & MUKHOPADHYAY, R. (2015). Reflexivity and politics of knowledge: researchers as ‘brokers’ and ‘translators’ of educational development. Comparative Education, 51 (2), 231-246. SUGRUE, C. (2014). Unmasking school leadership. Studies in Educational Leadership, 20, 93-120. Retrieved October 12, 2014 from http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-017-9433-6_1#page-1 SUGRUE, C. (Ed.) (2005). Passionate principalship. Learning from the life histories of school leaders. London, England: RoutledgeFalmer. SYRJÄLÄ, L. & ESTOLA, E. (1999). Telling and retelling stories as a way to construct teachers’ identities and to understand teaching. Paper presented at the European Conference on Education Research, Lahti, Finland, September 22 – 25, 1999. TEWARIE, B. (2009). The regional university model. Does it still stand? A perspective from the University of the West Indies. Policy Forum on Tertiary Education in small states. UNESCO. THOMAS, M. (2008). External Tertiary Education Providers in Barbados. Foreign Providers in the Caribbean : Pillagers or Preceptors?, 3 TOURISH, D., CRAIG, R., & AMERNIC, J. (2010). Transformational leadership education and agency perspectives in business school pedagogy: a marriage of inconvenience?. British Journal of Management, 21(s1), s40-s59. TRAHAR, S. & YU, W.M. (Eds.). (2015). Using narrative inquiry for educational research in the Asia Pacific. Routledge. TRAHAR, S. (2009). Beyond the story itself: narrative inquiry and autoethnography in intercultural research in higher education. In Forum: Qualitative Social Research. 10 (1). TROYNA, B. (1994). Blind faith? Empowerment and educational research. International Studies in Sociology of Education, 4 (1), 3-24. TUHIWAI SMITH, L. (1999). Decolonizing methodologies: research and indigenous peoples. London & New York: Zed Books. http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-017-9433-6_1#page-1 155 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield UK CONTEMPORARY HISTORY SOURCE BOOK. Political, social and cultural evolution 1945-1991. Retrieved June 11, 2015 from http://www.britishempire.co.uk/students/oibuk.pdf VÄHÄSANTANEN, K. & SAARINEN, J. (2012). The power dance in the research interview: manifesting power and powerlessness. Qualitative Research, 13 (5), 493-510. VOLKMAN, M. & ANDERSON, M. (1998). Creating professional identity: dilemmas and metaphors of a first year chemistry teacher. Science Education, 82 (3), 293-310. WATSON, H.A. (2000) Global imperialism, the third technological revolution, and global 2000. A perspective on issues affecting the Caribbean on the eve of the twenty-first century. In K. Hall & D. Benn (Eds.), Contending with destiny (pp.382-446). Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle Publishers. WEILER, H.N. (1978). Education and development: from the age of innocence to the age of skepticism. Comparative Education, 14 (3), 179-198. WEST, D. L. (2010). The daily lives of principals: twenty-one principals in the 21 st century. Doctoral Dissertation in Education. University of North Carolina, Greensboro. WEST, L. (2014). Transformative learning and the form that transforms: towards a psychosocial theory of recognition using auto/biographical narrative research. Journal of Transformative Education, 12 (2), 164-179. WILLIAMS, A.G. (1964). The development of education in Barbados with special reference to social and economic conditions, 1834-1958. MA Thesis. University of London. WOLCOTT, H. (2003). The man in the principal’s office. An ethnography. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira. WOLGEMUTH, J., ERDIL-MOODY, Z., OPSAL, T., CROSS, J. KAANTA, T., DICKMANN, E., COLOMER, S. (2015). Participants’ experiences of the qualitative interview: considering the importance of research paradigms. Qualitative Research, 15 (3), 351-372. http://www.britishempire.co.uk/students/oibuk.pdf 156 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield 157 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield APPENDIX ONE: INFORMATION LETTER AND CONSENT FORM “Windgate”, Upper Weston St James Home: 422-6710; Cell: 231-3033 Email: jeanrbutcher@gmail.com/edp11jrb@sheffield.ac.uk Dear Participant Title of Study: Principals of Higher Education Institutions in Barbados Type of Study and Purpose: You are being invited to take part in a life history study focusing on the perceptions and experiences of principals of higher education institutions in Barbados. The study is an attempt to better understand the relationship between the lives and experiences of principals and their identity and also their responses to challenges facing the higher education sector. Risks and Benefits: By agreeing to take part in this study, your story will be shared with a diverse group of interested persons. I cannot promise anonymity. If you agree to participate, your consent at this time does not obligate you to stay involved as a participant. You are free to withdraw at any time and are not required to give a reason for your decision. While there are no direct benefits to you, taking part in this research project gives you an opportunity to make a significant contribution to research about leadership at a critical time in the history of higher education in Barbados. What will be required of me?: You will be asked about your early life, growing up, your choice of career, influences and mentors, your values and goals and the challenges you faced in relation to your former higher education institution. Your will also be asked about the challenges facing the sector in general. Interviews will be conducted at times and places convenient to you. With your approval, I will wish to use an electronic recording device to capture the details of the interview. I will begin the interview session with basic biographical questions. Use of your information for the study: Information provided by you will be used for discussion and analysis. You are free to ask to have this information shared with you at any time and you will be given a copy of the research document when completed. mailto:jeanrbutcher@gmail.com/edp11jrb@sheffield.ac.uk 158 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield Ethics Approval: This study has been approved by the Ethics Review Committee of the School of Education, University of Sheffield in accordance with the standards set out by the said committee. The contact details for my research supervisor are as follows: Professor Patricia J. Sikes University of Sheffield School Of Education Tel.: +44 (0) 114 222 8158 Email: p.j.sikes@sheffield.ac.uk CONSENT STATEMENT: I, _____________________________________, give consent to participate in this research study. I have read the information above and have considered the risks and benefits. I fully understand that I may withdraw from this project at any time without providing an explanation. I also consent to the recording of my voice for the use of this study and understand that what I say can be used in the discussion and analysis for this study. I will sign and return this consent form and receive a copy. ___________________________________________________________________ Participant’s signature Date Thank you for your consent to participate in this study. Please feel free to ask any questions on any matters pertaining to the study. You can contact me or my research supervisor using the contact details above. 159 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield APPENDIX TWO: INTERVIEW GUIDE PRINCIPALS OF HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS IN POSTCOLONIAL BARBADOS INTERVIEW GUIDE RESEARCHER: Jean Butcher-Lashley INTRODUCTION: Thank you again for agreeing to be a participant in this research project on principals of higher education institutions in Barbados. I have prepared questions but if there is anything that you wish to include that I have not asked about, please feel free to share it. You do not have to answer any questions that make you uncomfortable and you can stop the interview at any time without needing to give a reason. You are also free to ask for clarification at any time during the interview or after. Are you ready? If yes, I will begin with basic questions: A BIRTH AND EDUCATION Tell me about your early days….. 1 What is your full name? Is there any significance to your name? 2 When were you born? 3 Where were you born? Physical place? Country? 4 What are/were the names of your mother and father? 5 What were their occupations? 6 Where did you go to school? Primary? Secondary? Tertiary? 7 What were your favorite subjects at school and why? 8 What academic or other accomplishments would you like to talk about? B GROWING UP - EARLY YEARS Tell me about your life growing up. C SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY LIFE What was your primary and secondary schooling like? 160 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield What about community and church life? 1 What was your experience of the transfer system of education? 2 Who were your church and/or community leaders? What type of activities were you involved in with them? 3 Can you remember anything outstanding about them? Are there any stories that illustrate who they were or how they exercised authority? D TEENAGE YEARS AND EXPLOITS What about your teenage years, friends, activities, exploits? E CAREER CHOICES AND INFLUENCES Tell me about your academic and career path and those who influenced you. F FORMAL ROLE TRAINING AND EARLY ROLE ADJUSTMENT- Tell me about how you were prepared for your role as principal and how did you find your early experiences? G IDENTITY AS PRINCIPAL How long were you principal at your former institution? How would you define yourself as principal? What were some of the things you did that defined who you were in your role? What or who would you say influenced who you were as a principal? H ACHIEVEMENTS AS PRINCIPAL What would you say have been some of the greatest achievements under your tenure and how were they accomplished? I CHALLENGES AND RESPONSES What were your major challenges as principal and what did you see as the best way to handle these challenges? What do you see as the challenges facing the sector now? J VALUES IN RELATION TO EDUCATION 161 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield What are your views about the purpose of education in general and about higher education in Barbados, specifically? K VISION: Can you say something about your vision for your institution at the time when you were principal and now, given the present challenges? L CONCLUSION: When you examine your entire life, what is the single most important thing or person that influenced who you were as a principal and how you performed your role? 162 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield APPENDIX THREE: ETHICS APPROVAL LETTER 18/07/2014 Jean Butcher-Lashley School of Education Dear Jean PROJECT TITLE: Principals of Higher Education Institutions in Barbados APPLICATION: Reference Number 001500 On behalf of the University ethics reviewers who reviewed your project, I am pleased to inform you that on 18/07/2014 the above-named project was approved on ethics grounds, on the basis that you will adhere to the following documentation that you submitted for ethics review: University research ethics application form 001500 (dated 14/07/2014). Participant information sheet 002052 (14/07/2014) If during the course of the project you need to deviate significantly from the above-approved documentation please inform me since written approval will be required. Yours sincerely Professor Daniel Goodley Ethics Administrator School of Education 163 Jean Butcher-Lashley University of Sheffield APPENDIX FOUR: DATES FOR PRINCIPALS Names of Principals Year of Birth Time Period as Principal Sir Keith Hunte 1937 1987-2002 Mrs. Norma Holder 1936 1988-2004 Dr. Maureen Lucas 1946 1994-2000 Mr. Hector Belle 1953 2012-Present Table: Names and Dates for the Principals of Public Funded Higher Education Institutions in Barbados during the period 1987 to the present