Co-teaching and various forms of team teaching are common in today's schools but have rarely been viewed in relationship to supporting novice special education teachers. Personal compatibility is consistently reported as a key factor in the success of co-teaching. Special educators who co-teach often take a backseat role in the general education…

Our detailed study of two secondary schools in Nova Scotia which had experienced regular principal succession examined succession and its impact on teacher morale. We found that the process of principal succession and the new principal's practices have the potential to change a school culture and both positively and negatively affect teacher and…

Project Achieve is a professional development (PD) project that utilizes teacher leaders (TLs), former teachers who have been reassigned to provide school-based mentoring, instruction, lesson plan assistance and modelling of lessons for urban middle school teachers. A primary goal of Project Achieve is to evaluate the extent to which TLs were able…

This article will argue that diverse national, regional and local contexts leave different rooms for manoeuvre for school principals. The social technologies applied by the authorities (like accountability systems) can be "tight" or "loose" and so leave little or much room for principals' interpretations of what a good school is and what…

For nearly 5 years, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) has been engaged in efforts to reduce the number of out-of-school suspensions for students with disabilities and their typical peers by applying the principles of positive behavioral support throughout its more than 700 K-12 schools. Initially, LAUSD focused solely on reducing the…

Administrative support is essential for reform efforts to take place at the building and district level. This study explored barriers teachers encountered while implementing science education reform and the impact those barriers had on change in instructional practices and reform. Findings in this study reveal that support from administration is…

The author recently left her position as special services director in an urban school district in Vermont, a state that embraces inclusion for students with disabilities, to accept the position of superintendent of schools in the same district. The new job requires overseeing the educational mission of six elementary schools, two middle schools, a…

Educational leadership is ranked as the primary variable associated with effective schools. A number of studies have examined the role of principals and the skills needed for administering special education programs. Other research studies identified important knowledge and skills principals should have in relation to special education. In an…

Utilizing critical incidents primarily from a year-long ethnographic study of a single gender middle school, the authors attempt to capture the mechanisms of symbolic violence as described by Bourdieu and Passeron in "Reproduction in Education," "Society and Culture" and by Bourdieu in latter publications. Our analysis suggests that problems of…