Friends in Sports: Social Networks in Leisure, School and Social Media

Young athletes value their social relations in sports, and these social relations can have consequences when it comes to joining, continuing, and quitting sports. Yet the important question of how social relations in sports develop has not yet been adequately answered. Hence, we investigated how athletes’ social relations in sports depend on social relations outside of sports: in leisure, school, and social media. A total of 387 athletes (aged 16–19) from 30 Norwegian sports groups completed a survey on electronic tablets. We asked how social relations in leisure, school, and social media—through the social mechanisms of contact, homophily, and contagion—influenced social relations in sports. We also controlled for the effect of exercise frequency and duration (years) of contact in sports. Exponential random graph modelling (ERGM) analyses showed that first and foremost, relations from social media and leisure, but also school networks and exercise frequency, influence sports networks. This study shows that social relations in sports are diverse and depend on social relations outside sports. We discuss how this has ‘counterintuitive’ consequences for sports participation, particularly the importance of supporting athletes’ social relations outside of sports for the strengthening of social relations within sports when addressing challenges concerning recruitment, continuation, and dropout from sports.

Contextual Trustworthiness of Organizational Partners: Evidence from Nine School Networks

Problem definition: Trustworthy partners in procurement and service relationships are an asset. How can organizations discern trustworthy from untrustworthy partners, especially early on, so as to not waste time or resources on bad relationships? Academic/practical relevance: Like prior studies, we take the perspective that organizations rarely know whether a partner is trustworthy, but also that organizations often have some evidence of a partner’s trustworthiness, even before interacting. We argue a qualitative study is needed to understand how people discern a partner’s trustworthiness and the consequences of initial perceptions on the relationship trajectory. Methodology: We conduct an interview-based study of how people discern trustworthy partners in a setting where doing so is challenging: the education sector. Kindergarten-through-12th-grade schools must choose outside partners to rely on for resources or services the school cannot afford. Potential partners are numerous and of variable trustworthiness. Results: We find people use contextual factors as evidence of a potential partner’s trustworthiness, such as the partner’s institutional affiliations, physical proximity, and relationships with other schools. Sometimes the evidence indicates that a partner acts intrinsically trustworthily, regardless of these contextual factors. In other cases, the evidence indicates a partner acts contextually trustworthily, meaning partners follow through in some conditions but not others. Intrinsically trustworthy partners provide valuable but standardized resources or services. Contextually trustworthy partners provide the competitive advantage: customized resources that are not easily accessible by other schools. Managerial implications: People in organizations identify trustworthy partners via contextual factors, which helps them determine whether a partner acts trustworthily independent of context or conditional on context. The value of intrinsically trustworthy partners derives from their low risk and high quality, whereas the value of contextually trustworthy partners derives from their willingness to customize resources or services to some—but not all—organizations.

At the boundaries: school networks in divided societies

PurposeThis paper aims to demonstrate the transformative potential of school networks in divided societies, where separate schools often mirror wider ethnic divisions. It describes Shared Education in Northern Ireland, where networks are being utilised to change how Catholic and Protestant schools engage with one another. The concept of boundary crossing is used to frame how staff members build relationships and bridge distinct knowledge communities shaped by socio-cultural practices and identities.Design/Methodology/ApproachA mixed-methods design was employed. Evidence is presented based on a social network analysis of teacher interactions within a Shared Education partnership of five primary schools in Northern Ireland.FindingsThe findings suggest that school networking can overcome systemic separation in divided societies and provide the infrastructure necessary to establish an alternative model for collegial engagement. The structural characteristics of the observed school network are discussed, including comments on its sustainability, the role of boundary-crossing relationships, the professional value for those involved and its transformative potential for society.Originality/valueThis paper provides a unique perspective on the application and utility of school networks for supporting the development of professional communities in challenging circumstances. It also presents valuable social network data on the structure and management of school networks.

School Networks

It is evident that in many educational systems there has been a partial dissolution of the traditional single school model towards more flexible modes of organizational link-up, taking the form of increased collaboration among schools. The early 21st-century climate of rapid technological change creates a need for collective knowledge creation and information sharing at classroom, school, and system level. Different forms of networks, collaboratives, and federations have become an established part of many educational landscapes and have arisen for a number of reasons. Some have been “imposed” on schools, others have been “incentivized” by the offer of external funding, but many have arisen because of the efforts of educational leaders who want to “make a difference” in their locality, which assumes their essential “good.” Within education, networks are regarded as one of the most promising levers for large-scale reform due to their potential to re-culture both the environment and the system in which policy-makers operate through increased cooperation, interconnectedness, and multi-agency. School networks contribute to capacity-building across the education service through the production of multiple solutions for potential, multifaceted, and intractable problems. Networks foster innovation, providing a test bed for new ideas while offering a platform for gradual innovation, distributing the risks and the workloads among different schools. Moreover, they provide capacity-building, reflective practice, and an inquiry frame of mind besides raising achievement and enhancing student outcomes through the sharing of resources and professional expertise. Networks enable schools to overcome their isolationism and move to form community relationships. Notwithstanding the benefits generated by collaboration, some of the ambiguities surrounding the setting up of school networks focus on: network purpose; collaborative inertia; collaboration and accountability; trust and relationships; conscription and volunteerism; identity and autonomy; competition and cooperation; lateral agency; and power inequality. There is no simple, single solution to leading networks, due to the very nature of a network making it difficult to define who its leaders are, resulting in leadership that is defined by activity rather than by formal position.

Promoting collaboration in a competitive context: school improvement networks in Chile

Purpose Chile has developed the school improvement networks (SINs) strategy to support the work of school leaders. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the functioning and effect of the SINs strategy as perceived by principals and curriculum coordinators across the country. Design/methodology/approach An adapted version of the Educational Collaborative Network Questionnaire was applied to a sample of 1,723 participants from 1,375 schools distributed in 398 networks. Descriptive, factor and sub-group statistical analyses by school performance categories and by different roles within these schools and networks are presented. Findings Results indicate that school leaders perceive SINs as an opportunity to work effectively in shared projects that can later be implemented in their own schools. Participants indicate that they can share knowledge in their networks and use it to solve problems in their own schools, which is especially relevant for secondary school leaders who work in difficult circumstances. Results suggest that it is important to facilitate greater autonomy for school leaders in their networks, especially regarding decision making about network goals and activities that are more significant to their contexts. Originality/value This is a national study of a recent school improvement strategy, which provides evidence, from the perspective of school leaders, of its strengths and improvement areas. This study shows that despite being in a competitive context, principals and curriculum coordinators value the opportunities to learn from and with others. These results can be of value for other contexts attempting to promote school networks as a means for school and system improvement.

“We Make Our Own Rules Here”: Democratic Communities, Corporate Logics, and “No Excuses” Practices in a Charter School Management Organization

Recently, there has been growing debate over the managerial and leadership practices of expanding charter school networks, often referred to as Charter School Management Organizations (CMOs). CMOs—which typically serve low–socioeconomic status students of color—are deeply tied to education reform efforts in the United States. Many CMOs consistently promote the belief that education can and should borrow heavily from the “best practices” of corporate culture and many have unlimited resources to enact their vision of educational success, closely aligned with what has been called “no excuses” schooling. Research on the daily practices of leaders working in a CMO remains limited; we know very little of how corporate ideologies are enacted in schooling. Drawing on ethnographic vignettes, I explore the daily life in one school within a CMO network considering to what extent corporate practices de-democratize education, produce neoliberal subjectivities, and shape experiences with learning for disadvantaged populations.