The lived experiences of staff in implementing Invitational Education in schools in the United States of America and Hong Kong

Abstract

This article is a follow-up to a previous quantitative study (Steyn, 2007) which sought to explore key aspects that influenced the effective implementation of invitational education (IE) in schools which had received the “Inviting Schools Award” in the United States of America (US) and Hong Kong (HK). This article reports on a qualitative study that explores the experiences of participants in the US and HK of the implementation of IE in their respective schools. It attempts to obtain and understand the life worlds of participants constructed from their “lived experiences”. Participants were selected by means of purposive sampling. Sixteen delegates in the conference arranged by the Invitational Education World Leadership Institute in October 2007 in Georgetown, Kentucky (US) who attended the researcher’s session of her earlier study were willing to participate in the study. Two additional “information rich” participants were approached to also participate in the study. An electronic mail distribution consisting of an open-ended schedule was chosen to gather the data. The following major categories emerged from the data: Becoming aware of IE; Leaders: “walking their talk” in implementing and sustaining IE; Teachers: “buying in” in implementing IE; Professional development programmes employed to implement IE; and Recommendations for effective IE programmes.