Educational leaders as knowledge brokers for school-based mental health
Jennifer Turner, Stephen MacGregor, Sharon Friesen
Frontiers in Education
Network design
Nodes
school and district educational leaders across 20 elementary, five middle, and five secondary schools
Ties
directed nominations for generic contact, knowledge, opinion, support, and co-planning about school-based mental health
Methods
Researchers dichotomized at a monthly-contact threshold, combined five layers into a multiplex network, calculated density, in-degree, betweenness, centralization, fragmentation, transitivity and reciprocity, used 20,000-permutation role comparisons, and integrated five interviews.
Source: Frontiers in Education
Reviewed summary
Thirty-one of 37 eligible leaders in one British Columbia district reported five mental-health relations, and five leaders were interviewed. The multiplex network was sparse and fragmented; an assistant superintendent and coordinator were prominent brokers, while principals had comparatively limited reach. The map identifies where mental-health knowledge could stall between district and school levels and supports distributing access across roles rather than depending on one highly visible broker.
Multiplex density was 0.099 and fragmentation 0.782; the assistant superintendent and coordinator were key direct and brokerage sources, while role differences in betweenness did not reach significance. The purposive case covered one district, 31 survey respondents and five interviews. Roster consent, the monthly threshold, multiplex aggregation and self-reported nominations affect the network; the cross-sectional case cannot establish that brokerage improved practice or student wellbeing.
SNA
How SNA was used
The study defined school and district educational leaders across 20 elementary, five middle, and five secondary schools as nodes and directed nominations for generic contact, knowledge, opinion, support, and co-planning about school-based mental health as ties. Researchers dichotomized at a monthly-contact threshold, combined five layers into a multiplex network, calculated density, in-degree, betweenness, centralization, fragmentation, transitivity and reciprocity, used 20,000-permutation role comparisons, and integrated five interviews.
Source
Frontiers in Education, 9, Article 1457546
DOI: 10.3389/feduc.2024.1457546
