Recruitment, preparation, and retention of graduates of elite colleges is considered an innovative approach to improve teacher quality and promote change in the neediest schools. While the debate over the effectiveness of such programs is heavily focused on programs like Teach For America, this paper considers three teacher preparation programs…

School-university research networks aim at closer integration of research and practice by means of teacher research. Such practice-oriented research can benefit both schools and universities. This paper reports on a multiple-case study of five participants in a school-university research network in a Dutch master's program. The research question…

The need for innovation in the Spanish educational system has become more evident in the wake of the last PISA reports. To find our own way to achieve better schools we "must" take advantage of what schools that managed to sustain changes over time have learnt from such a process. This paper reports on findings from an inquiry that tried to shed…

This study draws upon theory and methods from the field of organizational behavior to examine organizational learning (OL) in the context of a large urban US school district. We build upon prior literature on OL from the field of organizational behavior to introduce and validate three subscales that assess key dimensions of organizational learning…

This article examines findings from a qualitative investigation of how school district administrators in four mid to large sized urban school districts (10,000-50,000) identify and address differences in school performance. The analysis explores the interaction between district policies and actions that centralize and standardize expectations for…

Based on reflections from over a decade of research, scholarship, and programmatic applications, this article provides evidence of impact from the work of Professor Andy Hargreaves with a specific focus on his concept of contrived collegiality. Explorations into matters of emotion provided an entry point through which the author has addressed the…

This study examines the perceptions of public school principals in New Orleans, Louisiana during the period of extensive decentralization in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Using the frameworks of systems theory and chaos/complexity theories, iterative interviews with 10 school principals form the core data which examines leaders' experiences…

The Respect program is a whole school approach to prevent and reduce problem behavior. The purpose of this study was to investigate which conditions in schools helped them to continue the program successfully after the end of the 1-year implementation period. The study also looked at the actual continuation after the program end. Especially, we…

Purpose: In this article, we review the literature from the organizational sciences to develop a grounded narrative of turnaround in education. Approach: The approach is a review of literature. We employ an integrated process to unpack and make sense of the turnaround literature from the organizational sciences. We rely on strategies appropriate…

According to Hargreaves and Fink (The seven principles of sustainable leadership, 2003; Sustainable leadership, 2006), sustainable leadership matters, spreads and lasts, and is fundamental to enduring and widespread school improvement. This observation is especially germane to the context of leading small primary schools in rural locations, where…

The two fields of leadership studies and school change have increasingly converged over the last 30 years. This paper reviews the origins of the intersection, and the development of research themes in three areas: The role of leaders in shaping and using organizational culture, the agency of teachers in the change process, and the importance of…