This article analyses interview data from 54 women school principals in South Africa to explore how women position their identities in relation to their gender, ethnicity and other characteristics. While grounded in their own context, the women's strategies resonate with those of women in many parts of the world. Five strategies are…

In about a decade the theory of distributed leadership has moved from a tool to better understand the ecology of leadership to a widely prescribed practice. This article considers how to account for its spread and dominance and what purpose it serves. The concept offers an enticing suggestion of including more in leadership, and even sometimes…

This article adopts an international perspective to examine the perceptions and practice of leaders in a South African and an English primary school and the leadership implications. Both schools have experienced a relatively swift and large scale diversification of learners away from the previous white majority. In each case the educators have not…

The literature on educational leadership and management has referred to culture since at least the 1970s. Despite the concept's mention in over one-third of articles written in this journal, there has been little in-depth engagement with how leaders might influence it and the ethical issues involved. The article argues that leadership must engage…

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…

The rhetoric of "partnership" is ubiquitous in UK policy at national, regional, local and organizational levels. Self-styled partnership activity is espoused by most schools in England and Wales. This article considers the implications of the growth of partnership for conceptualizing leadership. It draws on evidence of interviews with young…

This article explores a paradox, namely the rhetoric of engagement with diversity and social justice among education leaders, yet the paucity in forward-looking critical theory and practice to develop that engagement. It draws upon relatively new as well as established concepts, including the Capabilities Approach, to suggest how and why diversity…

This article uses the theoretical framework of broad and narrow ways of conceptualizing diversity, the latter focusing primarily on those characteristics that are likely to lead to disadvantage, ethnicity, gender and disability, and the broader encompassing many more characteristics of "difference", such as educational background, leadership…

Consideration of the quality, relevance and utility of research in educational leadership and management has been a growing concern of researchers, policy-makers and practitioners, but there is little agreement about its current state or priorities for development. The article reflects on the key criticisms that have been made of research in…