Unique case study on the participation of students in the classroom from the principles of distributed leadership through focus group and semi-structured interview applied to students and teachers

Abstract

The structural changes that the world faces as a consequence of a globalizing process to which education is not alien, urges us to respond to the new educational demands through improved learning, being necessary to leave behind the traditional perspective of teaching that relegates the participation of students in the classroom to determinations by the teacher. In this context, Distributed Leadership appears as a transformative leadership style that allows participation, democratization and co-responsibility for school results. Based on the principles of the Preventive System, it is essential to relate the fundamentals that characterize this leadership with the participation of students in the Educational Pastoral Communities. The present study aims to understand the relationship between the participation of students who attend the High School level in a Salesian School of the Metropolitan Region of Santiago-Chile and the principles of Distributed Leadership. Its methodology is inspired by a qualitative paradigm, with a design of unique, descriptive and exploratory case study, applying in-depth structured interviews, focus group and document analysis. Among the main findings, it stands out that there is harmony between the participation of students in academic and coexistence areas with the principles of Distributed Leadership centered in the classroom, making invisible the traditional perspective of student participation relegated to exclusive decisions by teachers.