SOCIETY AND EDUCATION
European Foundation Society and Education is a private and independent entity with headquarters in Madrid and Brussels. It promotes investigations and debates regarding multiple topics that form the strategic role of education as the basis of the progress and development of democratic societies.

Born out of professionals' initiative and prestigious institutions from the European field, it aims to be a forum of cooperation and a consultation tool at the service of the different social groups and people responsible for making decisions.

The Foundation’s goals include promoting platforms for reflecting on current educational affairs in the light of research carried out by its analysts and collaborators, with the aim of creating a meeting-point between the Authorities, the educational community, business and society.

Its work combines different points of view and approaches to education, and it also takes as a reference the strategic objectives that the European Union expects to achieve through education and training systems.

Society and Education has the backing of a large number of institutions in performing its mission as a socio-educational think tank.
activities
Society and Education's activities, since its foundation in 2002, seek to respond to its European vocation and to present proposals based on quality, rigorous, plural and interdisciplinary socio-educational research.
NEWS
Society and Education has published the Report Intercultural Dialogue in Spain: a requirement for education and a culture of peace with the collaboration of the Education Ministry. Its authors, supported by more than 40 Good Practice files, aim to determine the basic requirements that can make our school communities more based on dialogue and mutual cooperation. 
Society and Education has permanent representation in the Platform for Intercultural Europe, an initiative by the civil society intended to contribute to designing the Cultural Agenda of the European Commission.   
Society and Education has collaborated with the Fundación Bertelsmann in preparing the Framework Document and the Manifesto presented at the 4th Dialogue and Action Congress Entrepreneurial culture and youth participation: a guarantee of the future, held in the month of November. 
This academic course, Society and Education has started out in a line of work specialised in reflection on university strategies and policies, in collaboration with the Global Universities Division of Banco Santander.
firms
Educational leadership in the Spanish legal framework
Miguel Ángel Sancho. President of the European Foundation Society and Education.
Recent reports by the OECD and the European Commission on leadership in schools identify the need to redefine the responsibilities of management, contributing a greater degree of autonomy together with appropriate support to assume it.
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EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP IN THE SPANISH LEGAL FRAMEWORK

Miguel Ángel Sancho. President of the European Foundation Society and Education

From the Right to Education Act to the Education Act: a change in four aspects of management functions

These studies relate taking on greater responsibility to improving the learning process for students. They place emphasis on a better distribution of leadership to encourage and foster participation by intermediate groups. They implement specific training to provide the abilities and skills required. And they promote everything that makes performing this function attractive with the resulting social recognition, economic valuation and professional development.

The new Organic Education Act (2006), by regulating management functions in the framework of Heading V entitled "Autonomy, participation and governance of schools", outlines a new way to conceive educational leadership. This is a significant change that arises as consequence of establishing an interrelation between the two elements. The provisions of the new law also comprise a new way of conceiving school governance, relating to other laws and particularly to the Right to Education Act. In short:

  1. 1. The management team is specifically mentioned as the basic management body, with greater functions and an associative sense of work in the distribution of tasks.
  2. 2. The team is now proposed by the head and appointed by the education authorities. The School Council is informed of the proposal.
  3. 3. The head is no longer selected by the School Council but by a committee, made up of representatives from the authorities and from the school.
  4. 4. Initial training is required if the candidate lacks management experience and only after surpassing it is the candidate appointed y the authorities.

A challenge: the autonomy necessary for effective leadership

Spain is significantly decentralised in educational matters and, according to international indicators, has one of the lowest rates of school autonomy. Autonomy is necessary for the flexibility of the educational system and to respond to the principles of fairness and quality for everyone, taking into account the diversity of situations and personal circumstances of each student and their interaction with the environment.

An important aspect, which appears in the regulation of many articles of the Education Act affecting school governence, is the role assigned to the education authorities in determining the scope of competences they should have. It will be these authorities who determine competence in the areas of personnel, organisation and financing, according to the level of autonomy that they assign. Accordingly, each Autonomous Community is faced with the challenge of establishing how far the scope and nature of leadership in schools must go, because the real autonomy assigned to them is a determining factor.

An opportunity: participation as shared leadership

The Organic Education Act provides a concept of participation that admits a new model of leadership, overcoming personalism and seeking to involve the educational community with regard to the challenges in achieving the goals of education and in addressing diversity. It also seeks greater personalisation in education.

More and more involvement by parents in education is required. Faced with complex environments, the combination of family and school is more necessary than ever and this can be achieved without blurring or watering down the management functions corresponding to the head and his team.

From this perspective, participation refers to a shared vision of the school project and a way of exercising leadership that scientific literature has described as mission leadership. By encouraging a school climate where the educational community assumes the role that this project assigns it, with initiative and responsibility, the mission is carried out by sharing the goal of placing students at the centre of the educational process.

RESEARCH
The Educational and Social Studies Institute, Research Department of the Foundation, conducts legal, political, educational, economical and sociological studies, providing spaces for discussion, analysis, training and consultancy for both public and private institutions and bodies at a local and international level.
TRAINING
The training programmes, designed from a cross-disciplinary point of view by the Training and Educational Consultancy Department according to a practical approach and a wide range of recipients, are adapted to the requirements demanded by the European goals and share the exchange of experiences and good practices.
PUBLICATIONS
The Publications Department is in charge of diffusing the research projects carried out by the Educational and Social Studies Institute by means of editing reports, working papers and studies offered in conferences and seminars by experts and collaborators at an international level.
spotlight
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In Spain, the principles of equal opportunities and social cohesion require major structural changes in education. The autonomy of schools is one of them, debated by experts at a national and international level in the forthcoming publication from Society and Education: a complex topic, conceived on the basis of considering our schools as the backbone of education system.