Leadership is currently viewed as a guarantee for educational quality and reforms, as a crucial component for schools' capacity building and as a major contributor to the transformation of practices. Although an array of leadership studies report on the need for leadership by demonstrating what leaders must do or how leadership practices should be…

During the first decade of the twenty-first century, neopositivist claims made about the nature and validity of knowledge in the debates about scientifically based research were countered by educators who, decades earlier, had made various turns away from positivism and were surprised by its resurgence. In those debates, positivists often used…

The question as to who controls academics' knowledge is an important and increasingly urgent question. From the perspective of the good old ivory tower, it does indeed seem that corporate business has gained a high degree of control over the work of academics. The amount of money that is involved in publisher take-over deals not only shows how big…

This paper discusses the challenges to the qualitative health research approach, under the regime of productivity that rules current academic evaluation in many countries. The analysis considers aspects common to several contexts, illustrating the discussion with the Brazilian context and, more specifically, within the dynamics of the collective…

Many universities in Asia are now focused on enhancing their global academic competitiveness. Various strategies are implemented to restructure, reform and transform universities aimed at improving ranking in the global university league. One significant strategy is to encourage academicians to place priority on publishing in high-impact…

The current scientific assessment policies in contemporary Spain increasingly push junior and senior researchers of the Spanish academia to the "global" knowledge production model based on highly specific and monolingual academic works. This turn towards a "Journal Citation Reports"--English written articles mode of knowledge transmission has…

Every five years, universities in the UK submit themselves to an exercise that produces league tables to determine the levels of funding support provided for research infrastructure by government, based on the previous five years of research activity. In 2013, the next exercise, called the Research Exercise Framework, will see in each university,…

Through the literature review, the study aims to explore the relationship between the emotional intelligence (EI) of principals and the turnarounds of low-performing schools and generate some hypotheses regarding this issue. Rigorous, empirical studies published in the last 15 years are selected and reviewed around three relevant topics: the…

Due to privatization of higher education in India, there has been an emergence of sub-standard schools throughout the country. The higher education system in teaching institutes lacks incentives to perform; there is no reward for the meritorious and no way to ease out the non-performers. The quality of teaching and research cannot be evaluated…

Leadership literature has over the years, included assertions about differences between female and male leadership. Although no definitive conclusion has been reached concerning one gender being more effective at leadership than another, female and male leadership characteristics have been proffered. The literature posits that females are more…

This paper describes a longitudinal study, in which the interaction between junior high school principals and science teachers is characterized, and its influence on technology implementation is explored. Fourteen principals and 19 teachers who participated in a former study, which took place from 1998 to 2001, were re-interviewed and observed…

Regardless of what one thinks of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the current national education legislation has demonstrated the power and potential of learning standards linked with systems of accountability to influence classroom experiences. Unfortunately, the changes promoted by the legislation have tied the professional hands and suppressed the…

The purpose of this research was to test an indirect-effects model of the relation between the Paraguayan principals' characteristics and their instructional leadership activities (as perceived by teachers) and school outcomes. Complete data were obtained from 256 of 300 schools in a random sample. Data were collected at the school-level through…

The exploration of the emotional practice of school leadership is a recent focus of enquiry with respect to scholarship on school leadership and management. This development provides a much needed addition to the recent proliferation of technical-rational, managerial discourses on leadership. Three dimensions of this complex field of enquiry are…

"Culture Currents" presents the books, essays, poetry, performances, music, websites and other cultural media influencing educational leaders. "Culture Currents" is a snapshot, a peek behind the scenes. It reveals what people are reading or seeing that may not be normally mentioned or cited in their academic work. In this issue's contribution, two…