Wednesday Sept 22nd
8.30 Key note presentation:
"Sustainable Educational Leadership: Moral Literacy in Action” - Paul T. Begley is Professor of Education Nipissing University and Director of the Centre for the Study of Leadership and Ethics.

In recent years a new professional ethic has begun to garner increasing
amounts of attention, especially in Australia. This operational value is
the notion of sustainability. While interest in sustainability as a
concept probably originates in a concern for the environment –water
conservation, global warming, and increased atmospheric pollution - it
can be argued that the term sustainability also has considerable merit
for sound leadership. A few scholars have explored sustainability as an
organizational capacity, but fewer have looked at sustainability as an
element of the leadership practices of individuals. In this sense
sustainability literally means practices which can be sustained as
positive and constructive actions over the long-term life of a society
or organization. In the same sense that our societies have begun to
think in terms of 50 to 100 years when considering the environment - in
place of the usual one to five year span of awareness usually associated
with fiscal models and strategic planning processes - the same notion
can be usefully applied to the leadership processes of school
administrators. There are educational processes and practices that build
on consistency, trust, capacity, relationships, and transformation.
These are the practices of sustainable leadership. Conversely, there are
many practices commonly espoused by leadership courses and management
experts that are not contributions to sustainable leadership. Labelling
a school, as a “failed school” does not build capacity, it may destroy
it. Zero tolerance policies are another example of destructive practices
that focus on narrow interpretations of behaviour, ignore intent, and
reduce the range of discretional responses by school leaders.
Identifying and promoting leadership practices that are sustainable as
well as ethical seems to be a worthy quest for authentic leaders.

13.30 Key note presentation:
“Striving for Equity and Social Justice: Implications for School Leadership” - Jorunn Møller, professor, University of Oslo, Department of Teacher Education and School Development

The Nordic countries have exemplified a strong commitment to comprehensive education and social justice, inspired by social democratic politics for ensuring equality. This implies a conviction that a more democratic and egalitarian organization of society is both possible and desirable, and that education can have an important role to play in attaining this kind of society.
During the last five years there has, however, been increasing concerns about the quality of schooling, and we have witnessed a development towards a stronger focus on educational quality in terms of student achievements and more output-oriented means of governing. The focus has shifted to more or less well-defined expectations of what has to be achieved by whom, and only those outcomes which meet the predefined criteria are considered as success. Such expectations are however often imbued with paradoxes and ambiguity, and creating leeway for practitioners to interpret the policies.
The presentation aims at exploring the definition of educational quality and success within a Norwegian context, and reports findings from the project “Revisiting Successful Principals”. The strategies local school principals choose to fostering learning and sustained success at the local schools are analyzed through the theoretical framework leadership for democratic education. It offers a lens to understanding leadership that includes recognizing the basic value and rights of each individual; taking the standpoint of others into consideration; deliberation in making decisions; embracing plurality and difference; and promoting equity and social justice.

Thursday Sept 23rd
8.30 Key note presentation

“Should Ethics be Included in the Mission of the School? Why? Why not?” - Robert (Jerry) Starratt, professor of Educational Leaderhip at the Lynch School of Education, Boston College, USA

Robert (Jerry) Starratt is professor of Educational Leaderhip at the Lynch School of Education, Boston College, USA. His presence at our conference marks his third visit to Umea, where he has lectured on Ethical Leadership, which is also the title of his book available in Swedish as Etiskt Ledarskap: Med Focus på Skolan.

“Resilience: A Necessary Condition for Successful Leadership” - Christopher Day, Professor of Education, University of Nottingham, UK.

Over the years, much has been written internationally about leadership purposes, values, practices and effectiveness. More recently, issues of succession planning, capacity building, distributed leadership, sustainability and systems leadership have been the focus of policy and policy related research. Yet relatively little research has focussed upon how school leaders, principals in particular, sustain their values, motivation, commitment and sense of effectiveness over time in changing personal, social, organisational and policy contexts. Principals need to be able to manage their own energy and emotional well being in order to be effective stewards of individual, relational and collective energy and morale. This presentation will focus upon resilience, defined as the willingness and capacity of principals to ‘bounce back’, to recover strengths or spirit quickly and efficiently in the face of adversity. It will suggest that resilience is closely associated with a strong sense of vocation, self efficacy, moral purpose, hope and commitment; and that far from being a personal trait, it is dynamic and developmental in nature.

Friday Sept 24th
10.00 Key note presentation

“Europe as a community of values”

Göran Hermerén, Professor of Medical ethics, Faculty of medicine, Lund University, Sweden, since 1991; professor of philosophy, Lund University since 1975; and professor of philosophy of science and humanities, Umeå University 1970-75.

Both the president of the Council and the president of the European Commission have stressed the central role of values in their political visions of the future of the European Union. This vision can be interpreted in more than one way, and an important aspect concerns the possibility of separating clearly between European values and others. However, in the lecture an attempt will be made to single out some values, and some ranking orders of values, which play a central role in the European Union.