Globally, a range of new schooling accountabilities have created a complex and often contradictory context in which school leaders work. For principals of low socio-economic status (SES) and disadvantaged schools, they must balance the accountability, performance and reporting requirements against the other needs of their communities. These…

This paper examines the complex constellation of conditions that turn many young people into "exiles" from schooling. From the vantage point of young people, the paper traces out a profile of the conditions that need to be brought into existence for these young people to find a way back into learning. The paper argues that current educational…

This paper investigates a suite of policies that comprise the "National Partnership Agreement" between federal, state and territory governments in Australia that are ostensibly aimed at improving the educational attainment levels of young Australians. It specifically explores the policy terrain of educational targets that have been arrived at by…

This paper examines the decisions made by French policymakers at a time when France was uncertain about which option to take. The purpose is to follow how actors chart their own course in an environment with plural justifications and how they mobilise resources in several spheres to set up ever-changing networks. The investigation will bear on all…

In this article we discuss students', teachers' and school principals' perceptions of democratic school leadership reforms in Kenya. The article is based on a study that was conducted in two phases. In phase one (conducted between September and December 2007), interviews were undertaken with 12 school principals in which understandings of…

In this paper I explore how a woman secondary school headteacher and her colleagues talk about her gendered headship. To facilitate and contextualise the semi-structured interviews, participants were asked to categorise a range of attributes and qualities that have been seen as "masculine" or "feminine". They attempted to plot their perceptions of…

How do researchers and practitioners understand and interrogate education reform when it is heralded as the solution to many problems, not all of which are educational? As importantly, how can applied educational researchers delve "beneath the skin" of "given" problems to solve or report, and suggest a range of explanations? In this article, the…

Educational leadership discourse has for sometime been the major intellectual pillar of what was once known as the field of educational administration. An examination of the postgraduate coursework programmes available to aspiring principal leaders at every Australian university supports such a contention. While this discourse does shed light on…

In the 1960s, as part of the black freedom struggle in the United States, African-American educators increasingly achieved the position of school principal in the nation's big cities, helping to transform that office into a more dynamic force for school reform. This article presents the accomplishments and the struggles of one such principal,…

Britain in the 1950s offered increased opportunities for secondary education leading to better career prospects at a time of full employment. A government report into early leaving in 1954 noted that it was girls of all social classes who were most "at risk" of not staying the course. The following article discusses first the nature of risk and…

This article explores governors' perceptions of the role played by school principals in the democratic governance of secondary schools in South Africa. The South African Schools Act No. 84 of 1996 has mandated that all public schools in South Africa must have democratically elected school governing bodies, comprised of the principal (in his or her…

This paper attempts a comparative analysis of classification and framing relationships as they are exemplified in the four papers presented in this Special Issue. In particular, it interrogates Bernstein's assertion that education is simply a relay for power relations external to it and examines approaches to educational leadership and…

This article describes a small-scale research project undertaken as part of the coursework in a Doctor of Education programme. The project investigated the organisational images or identities portrayed by ten secondary schools in Auckland, New Zealand on their school websites. The recent proliferation of school websites has provided schools with a…

My doctoral study focused on students' perceptions of educational change in a number of secondary schools in Australia. The research was birthed when I, as a teacher at a school undergoing substantial change, started to listen to students' comments and discovered in them a remarkable similarity to what we as teachers were saying. Yet, students are…

It is common in the literature to refer to British colonial education policy as if it were "a settled course adopted and purposefully carried into action", but in reality it was never like that. Contrary to popular belief, the size and diversity of the empire meant that no one really ruled it in any direct sense. Clearly some kind of authority had…