Currently educational research literature demonstrates wide discussion and endorsement of "distributed" leadership while concurrently traditional, hegemonic forms prevail in practice. This article investigates understandings about educational leadership held by Australian school principals. The article describes the contradictory…

There are in excess of 5000 English-medium international schools worldwide. This article reports a study of the governing of such schools that explored in particular the implications of ownership and profit motive. The research entailed a questionnaire-based survey of international school head teachers and interviews with representatives of…

In England, governing bodies continue to be responsible for the conduct of publicly funded schools. This article compares the governing of publicly funded primary schools (for 5-11 year olds) and secondary schools (for 11-18 year olds). The research analysed policy documents and the governing of 16 primary and 14 secondary schools. The main…

An exploratory study of two grammar schools in the South East of England is used to justify and demonstrate a self-assessed approach that investigates "trait" emotional intelligence (EI) among school leaders. First, the theoretical underpinnings of "ability" and "trait" EI approaches are critically compared based on…

This is a look at the political games within games that are enmeshed in a high-profile, heavily funded, politically charged collaborative focused on preparing new school leaders between a large prestigious university and a circle of school leaders and policymakers. This case specifically considers how power and money corrupt the original vision…

This study investigates how principals in a large US urban school district responded to two different superintendents who employed contrasting leadership styles and utilised divergent organisational schemes. We originally conducted interviews with principals in 2007, when the district's superintendent asserted fierce performance demands and…

Monitoring bullying behaviours is the key aspect of a successful anti-bullying intervention. Questionnaires among pupils and principals of the same schools were utilised to measure the agreement between pupil-reported frequency and principals' estimations of the prevalence of frequent bullying in the same schools and to identify monitoring…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine how district leaders of two school systems in the USA describe an effective principal. Membership categorisation analysis revealed that district leaders believed an effective principal had four major categories of characteristics: (1) documented characteristics (having a track record and being a…

Over the past 30 years, school principals have been exhorted to articulate a clear vision as a key tool for stimulating the improvement of teaching and learning in their schools. Over the past decade, as school systems have sought to distribute leadership more broadly within schools, the same imperative has applied to middle-level leaders. Indeed,…

This article reports the findings of a study that sought to identify Muslim teachers' constructions of "masculinity" and "femininity" of the school principal. The first purpose of the study was to trace Muslim teachers' perceptions of masculine and feminine features of school principals, and the second was to explore their constructions of the…

The aim of the study was to determine if Chinese school principals use influence actions differently from US principals. The concepts framing this study are leader influence actions, societal and local culture. The analysis was conducted with data from two independent studies conducted in each country using the strategic leadership questionnaire…

This article investigates the perceptions of English headteachers and Hong Kong principals on the kinds of pressures that they believed affected the way they did their job, and in particular the degree to which they felt their governments were affecting their leadership role. The research utilised semi-structured interviews to generate written…

School leadership is significant for student learning, but increased workload and complexity are believed to be in part responsible for the difficulties internationally in managing succession, with experienced leaders leaving the profession prematurely and potential future leaders reluctant to take on the role. This article draws on a national…

The research reported here analysed the role of the chair of the school governing body in England, drawing on a national survey of governors and the study of governing in 30 schools. The role encompassed: being a governor; appointing and working with the head teacher; acting as a change agent; active participation in the school; organising the…

This article presents the findings from the evaluation of the pilot of a new entry qualification for school principals in South Africa. The programme, Advanced Certificate in Education (ACE) School Leadership, had networking as a distinctive feature, and this article examines candidates' perceptions and experiences of networking as a leadership…