This article argues that the work of school principals in South Africa is shaped by two major sets of constructs or "landscapes": the literature on leadership and management which provides particular constructions of the field and its changes; and the terrain of new policy frameworks adopted after apartheid to transform the education system. In…

Although there has been a sizable growth spurt in empirical studies of shared leadership over the past decade, the bulk of this research has been descriptive. Relatively few published studies have investigated the impact of shared leadership on school improvement, and even fewer have studied effects on student learning. This longitudinal study…

It is generally accepted that there is a positive association between a school's academic outcomes and the quality of its leadership. This article investigates that proposition in relation to the Catholic sector in England, using data provided by the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted). The findings suggest that, for the Catholic sector,…

Competency in moral Literacy, like any other literacy develops through careful and continual practice (Herman, 2007). In this qualitative study we explore the vice principalship and the development of administrative moral literacy. Using a northern Ontario Canada case study, we recount how three secondary school vice principals further their own…

This article looks at a school management tool that allows school managers and education district offices to review the performance of their schools and use the broad-based data to undertake orchestrated planning with districts planning delivery based on the needs of schools and in support of school improvement plans. The review process also…

National rural policy places the local primary school as a key resource within the rural community, yet as a consequence of countywide financial constraints, some small schools are undergoing reorganization, involving amalgamation, federation and school closure. This article considers the complexities involved in the workings of the English rural…

This article looks at research undertaken into two international schools focusing on micropolitics and the importance of school location. Location appears to have a significant impact on the behaviour of those associated with each school, such as reactions to physical environment, local culture and clientele. These affect the micropolitical…

This article explores the insights literature can bring to administrative and bureaucratic critique, focusing on the work of Nikolai Gogol. Gogol's satire of bureaucracy presages many subsequent social science analyses. These encompass the fundamental ruptures in society caused by a surfeit of bureaucracy in "The Nose" and, on a more psychological…

Complexity theory (CT) has had a meteoric rise in management literature and the social sciences. Its fledgling importation into school leadership and management raises several questions and concerns. This article takes one view of CT and argues that, though its key elements have much to offer school leadership and management, caution has to be…

This study was designed primarily to investigate the impact of school-based curriculum development teams on teacher development within the tradition of school-based curriculum development. The results are expected to provide valuable insights for teachers, school management and policy making. Teacher interviews in a primary school in Hong Kong…

This article presents some of the findings derived from a two-year qualitative study compromised of 51 semi-structured interviews with principals, subject leaders and classroom teachers belonging to three private K-12 schools in Beirut, Lebanon. In the context of investigating teacher leadership, this study highlights the aspects of the role of…

Burrell and Morgan's widely-cited "Sociological Paradigms and Organizational Analysis" is applied here to research on distributed leadership in education. Nearly all of the extant research is regulatory, not radical; and the evidence which it has generated falls broadly within the paradigm of interpretivism. Few studies have generated the…

This article uses a cultural and political theoretical framework to examine the relationship between consultants and secondary school leaders within a large-scale consultancy-based reform, the Secondary National Strategy (SNS), in London UK. The SNS follows a cascade model of implementation, in which nationally created initiatives are introduced…

Greater numbers of women are entering and working in higher education. Some of these women are the first in their families to attain academic degrees. They are known as first-generation students, and the care of children and others is often responsible for their withdrawal from academic study. This study addressed the void of information…

This study explored the active involvement of school and community members investing in leadership dynamics for change, especially considering the increasingly globalized world and the importance of preparing globally minded citizens. To explore how educators and leaders work to foster dynamic learning experiences in a highly mobile global…