How senior leaders cope and survive.

: The evidence from British Satellite Colleges in Asia.

Abstract

This original study investigates the lived experiences of senior leaders in British Satellite Colleges in Asia. I will explore the unexplained ‘growth paradox’ which sees ever rising numbers of teachers and leaders enter the field on international schooling despite those schools being presented in literature as “messy and tense” (Bunnell, 2021: 558). This study also offers a qualitative complement to the work of Hawley (1994) and Benson (2011). At the entreaty of those currently researching in the field, I adopt a positive sociological lens to explore how leaders cope and survive within their roles (Poole and Bunnell, 2021). By giving voice to senior leaders within these contexts I aim to bring to light elements of this previously unexplained phenomenon.

Through my professional experience combined with an extensive, systematic review of existing literature (Denscombe, 2017), I decided on an overarching research question: how do senior leaders in British Satellite Colleges in Asia cope and survive? This was supported by four further questions that were designed to interrogate the data sufficiently to support my conclusions. What is it that leaders are dealing with in their contexts, how they cope with those challenges, what privileges they enjoy and what keeps them in the field of international schooling? To ‘give voice’ and ‘make sense’ of lived experiences I have undertaken this study using Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis. Eight current senior leaders’ experiences were explored through semi-structured interviews and analysed through the lens of interpretivism.

My findings are original bringing the voices of a considerably under-researched demographic to the fore. Using the work of Michel Foucault to interpret their voices I make several key findings, not least that leaders in non-traditional schools frequently exist in a state of precarious privilege due to relational power dynamics (Foucault, 1994, Rey et al., 2020). I posit that these leaders are not a class separate from their teacher colleagues, but teacher-leaders. They face the same, and additional precarities, with which they must coexist and navigate to cope and survive, not least the criticality of relationships with the investors in their contexts.

Date of Award	7 May 2025
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Bath
Supervisor	Tristan Bunnell (Supervisor) & Michael Fertig (Supervisor)