This article considers principals' assumptions about human nature in Turkey and the relationship between the assumptions held and the leadership style adopted in schools. The findings show that school principals hold Y-type assumptions and prefer a relationship-oriented style in their relations with assistant principals. However, both principals…

This article reports findings from a case study of district leadership for school, family and community partnerships in a suburban district in the mid-Atlantic region of the USA. Analyses suggest that the case district's family and community involvement specialist has been successful in using different kinds of data to achieve a variety of goals…

In the face of globalization, states around the world have tried to regain legitimacy by using a policy framework known as new public management (NPM). In education, it promises to improve quality and competitiveness, by means of increasing control over educational institutions, implementing managerial techniques and submitting educational…

The current focus on school leader preparation reflects the importance societies around the world are placing upon the goal of improving their educational systems. The investment of substantial new resources into leadership preparation and development activities is based upon "the belief that school leaders make a difference" in both the…

The article tracks the evolution of the English school finance system from 1988 to 2007. Three main periods are distinguished: Establishing Local Management of Schools (1988-1997); New Labour and Consolidation (1997-2002); and Centralizing Labour (2002-2007). Three key criteria are applied in assessing the system--efficiency, equity and…

Educational management was still a relatively new field of study and practice in the UK at the time of the Education Reform Act (ERA) 1988. The field focused on "management" and not leadership. This emphasis very much reflected the business world and its use in education illustrated the "policy borrowing" characteristic of an emerging field. This…

Our focus in this article is on the lessons learned about effective change from international experience with large-scale reform over the last 20 years. The central lesson now evident is that sustained improvement in student outcomes requires a sustained effort to change teaching and learning practices in thousands and thousands of classrooms, and…

Job satisfaction has been associated with a variety of behaviours relating to communication. However, very little research has been conducted in primary schools encompassing job satisfaction and a range of communication variables. This study investigated the relationships between aspects of organizational communication and facets of job…

Within the complex working of today's schools, as principals share the lead and the load, the success of their performance will be determined by their ability to inspire a culture of empowerment by acting as "hero-makers" rather than heroes. Drawing on the resources of others is essential for the site-based breakthroughs or change in complex…

Current workforce reform, known as Remodelling the School Workforce, is part of an enduring policy process where there have been tensions between public and private sector structures and cultures. I show that the New Right and New Labour governments who have built and configured site based performance management over the past quarter of a century…

Contrary to the claims of its critics, the introduction of self-managing schools under the ERA and its counterpart in other countries did not lead to the privatization of public education. Self-managing schools have been one manifestation of a general trend to decentralization in public education in many countries since the late 1960s. The…

This article analyses the views of selected headteachers on the impact of the 10-year basic education policy on the leadership skills of secondary school headteachers in Botswana. Research literature on school leadership and management in Botswana is sparse. Despite this, demands for effective leadership in schools have continued as the education…

In their commitment to raising standards successive Conservative and Labour governments have moved progressively to tighter prescription of school policy and more far reaching proscription of practices deemed unacceptable. This article examines how 12 headteachers construct the policy environment and how they respond to it in the schools they…

The 1988 Education Reform Act sought to deconstruct the framework of post-Second World War social democratic governance and replace the tacit rule of professional providers with mechanisms of choice and market competition, thus empowering parents and school leaders. Functions, powers and responsibilities were fundamentally reconstituted and have…

This article explores the ways in which the neo-liberal impetus toward the privatization of state schooling signalled in the Education Reform Act 1988 (ERA) has become embedded in the English school system. Four main points are made. First, that ERA itself was of huge strategic rather than substantive importance as far as privatization is…