Nation states around the world, including Singapore, are endeavouring to reform their education systems in order to successfully compete in the global economy (Carnoy, 1999). With human capital as Singapore's primary resource, it is unsurprising that the state has placed great emphasis on strengthening the economic-education nexus. This tight…

In response to the complexity and mounting adaptive challenges of teaching, learning and leadership today, this article presents an overview of a new "learning-oriented model of school leadership," which is composed of four pillar practices--teaming, mentoring, collegial inquiry, and providing leadership roles--that support internal…

The purpose of this qualitative inquiry was to examine the role of the superintendent in assessing the readiness for change in the implementation and support for Professional Learning Communities. The study findings revealed four major themes. They were: (1) the changing dynamics of leadership; (2) a sense of collective efficacy and responsibility…

Within this essay and the author's reflections on the articles in this special issue, the question considered is: where have all the disruptions gone? On a fundamental level, educational leadership should have something to contribute, since it holds in trust the very educational systems that go a long way to producing the human condition, and…

This article examines the rapidly shifting relationship between teachers and the state and efforts to re-model teacher identities within the wider context of public sector modernization and the New Public Management. The construction and development of officially authorized and normative discursive practices relating to leadership and the…

While educational policy-makers bemoan the ways in which educational reforms falter, they both valorize and punish leaders for their key role in change. In this paper, using a national study funded by the English Creative Partnerships programme, we suggest that it may be helpful to understand the limits to change by seeing change leadership as…

This paper presents a case for the importance of an application of Jean-Francois Lyotard's ideas to the analysis of educational leadership. Through exploring Lyotard's concepts of "language games", the "differend" and "performativity", this paper argues that the approach taken through the development of…

This article follows the lead of several researchers who claim there is an urgent need to utilize insights from the arts, aesthetics and the humanities to expand our understanding of leadership. It endeavours to do this by exploring the metaphor of dance. It begins by critiquing current policy metaphors used in the leadership literature that…

The past two decades have been a period of active education reform throughout much of the world, and East Asia is no exception. This paper synthesizes findings from a series of empirical studies of educational reform in Thailand where an ambitious educational reform law was adopted in 1999. The purpose is to identify lessons learned about…

In this article, I provide findings from a multisite case study of three urban high schools. In each of the schools, principals endeavoured to foster the capabilities of their department chairs to enhance school-wide instructional capacity and increase student achievement. Data were gathered from interviews, participant observations and document…

This commentary focuses on school leadership as connective activity. Leadership is essentially about designing, managing and energizing the right connections, and untying the wrong ones, in order to make schools successful, equitable, happier places. The author's basic proposition is that school leaders who influence students and their communities…

This paper discusses the changing concepts of leadership in early childhood education (ECE) in England and Hong Kong during a period of significant education reform. We seek to illustrate the interplay between the impact of the policy agenda and the emerging quality leadership perspectives found in the theoretical literature, by first considering…

The history of leadership in educational settings that has a principal focus on student learning is one dominated by Western cultures, particularly those in the USA; also, it has developed two near-identical models of leadership commonly known as "instructional" or "learning-centred". This paper explores the relevance of these models in the…

The expectation that schools should work in partnership to promote the achievement of children has arguably been the defining feature of school policy over the last decade. This rise in school-to-school partnerships and increased emphasis on multi-agency-based interventions for vulnerable children have seen the emergence of a new form of school…

This study examined the experiences of administrative interns at the completion of their experience, using a phenomenological framework, document analysis, semi-structured interviews and a survey. Findings indicate a disparity between theory espoused in programmes and actual practice of sitting administrators, ideological dissonance between…