The introduction of school governing bodies in South African schools has largely been motivated by a democratic discourse of communal participation, belonging and accountability. How this has been interpreted has seemingly been limited to understandings of parental participation in the daily functioning of schools. In turn, research on school…

This introductory article attempts to set a conceptual stage for the special issue on identities of school leaders. We do this by beginning with a discussion of identity--its definition, philosophical roots, nature, and components. We then move to a discussion of identity development and the various dimensions that characterize this development.…

Principals play key roles in creating the conditions in which teachers can teach effectively and students can learn. Principals are increasingly being held accountable both for teacher quality and for student learning and development so that young people can become 'successful learners, confident and creative individuals and active and informed…

This concept article discusses the importance of developing psychic income as an administrative strategy to enhance the context of school environments and to curb high teacher turnover. The hope is to promote further debate and research in order to establish the extent to which psychic income influences retention rates in hard-to-staff schools.…

This article describes a grounded theory constructed from a study of Singapore neighbourhood secondary school principals' engagement of their lowest stream, the Normal Technical students, in their schools. This substantive theory is labelled the "theory of selective engagement". It implies that how principals engage their lowest streamed…

This article is written from the perspective of a practicing headteacher as a contribution to the theory and practice of spiritual leadership in education. By using a conceptual map derived from personality type theory it seeks to articulate several distinct facets of spirited leadership, intended to denote what engages, enlivens and enlightens…

Contrary to the claims of its critics, the introduction of self-managing schools under the ERA and its counterpart in other countries did not lead to the privatization of public education. Self-managing schools have been one manifestation of a general trend to decentralization in public education in many countries since the late 1960s. The…

Teacher leadership is a concept that is gaining increasing interest from both practitioners and researchers. This article presents findings from three case studies in the UK that can be characterized as exhibiting developed, emergent and restricted teacher leadership. Differences and similarities between the schools were examined, leading us to…

This article explores several issues about school leaders, career stages and performance. It draws upon various pieces of research, including the longitudinal study of secondary headteachers which began in the early 1980s at the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER), to raise some key issues about headteachers' careers, the various…

This article adopts "irony" as a frame for understanding some of the consequences of the reform movement in the UK. A distinction is drawn between the ironies that are endemic in all organizations and rooted in ambiguities and dilemmas, and the ironies that specifically flow from the disjunction between central policies and the…

This article is written from the perspective of a practising headteacher in the context of the Leadership Programme for Serving Headteachers and addresses the issue of how such training might be appropriated. It seeks to inquire analytically and critically into the bias of the programme, with a special interest in the topic of personal growth and…

Educational leadership has been seen by many as one of the most important factors in school improvement and effectiveness and is about providing a culture within which teaching and learning will prosper. The training of leaders has therefore become of paramount importance. There is a wealth of training in the UK for teachers in leadership roles,…

When co-principalships were initiated in Aotearoa/New Zealand during the 1990s, they encountered a range of issues around this country's new public management requirements for market, managerial and split governance/management accountabilities. This article draws on a case study of one initiative to discuss how elements of these requirements were…

Managing organizations in modern societies takes place through persuasion and the seductive use of language rather than, as in past societies, through physical violence and repression. In this respect new management discourses imply a linguistic process where actors within education gradually become defined within other frames of reference. This…

This article examines the relationships that link student experience in schools, student outcomes, the nature of society and school leadership process. Each of these areas of study has its own literature and this article does no more than indicate where some of that may be read. The linking of these phenomena indicates a tight relationship, which…