Many studies claim the importance of goal-setting for school improvement but few outline specific practices. This study highlights specific goal-setting practices associated with successful school improvement efforts. It reports on a 2-year collaborative research project, which closely examined three principals' goal-setting practices in the…

This article discusses the type of organization and leadership that underlies a competency-based management rule established in Mexico (2008) applicable to principals in public upper high schools. This rule, identified as the 449 Agreement, describes competencies and communicates expected behavior. Implementation, however, is mediated by the…

School leadership has been identified as a key function to assuring quality in education. Principals' leadership can have a direct effect on students' learning by improving teaching, or an indirect effect by creating conditions that foster learning. This exploratory study aims to understand how school principals exercise their leadership and its…

In recent years, a principal supply shortage crisis has emerged in the USA. This problem has been exacerbated by an increase in principal departures, which has been found to be negatively related to school outcomes. While research exists on several determinants of principal turnover, any examination of the relationship between principals'…

Using qualitative data collected from three high schools in Shanghai, this study explored the barriers to the development of professional learning communities (PLCs) in Chinese schools from the perspectives of school leaders and teachers. Results indicate that the barriers identified by teachers in the development of PLCs include insufficient…

Distributed leadership is one of the most prominent contemporary leadership theories in education. Its attraction in education is perhaps due to its potential to bring about school improvement. A review of the literature, however, reveals broadness in the way the construct is being conceptualized and operationalized; thus making it elusive. The…

This study provides empirical data about the role and work context of the school principal in the Lebanon. The study applied grounded theory methods in collecting and analysing the data. The data were collected through a series of open-ended interviews with 53 secondary school principals, and focus group interviews with 8 principals from public as…

In this paper I report on leadership for sustainability in regional schools in Western Australia (WA) in the context of the Australian Sustainable Schools Initiative (AuSSI-WA). Case studies are developed to examine leading cultural change in eight WA regional schools with data presented in three representative narrative accounts. Consistency is…

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…

As secondary school environments become increasingly complex, shifts are occurring in the way leadership is being practised. New leadership practices emphasize shared or distributed leadership. A senior executive leadership team with responsibility for school leadership is likely to be one of the many, varied forms of new leadership practices…

The goal of this research was to understand the managers' value system, the students' moral development, and their relationship in the high schools and pre-universities of District One in Kerman City. The research method used was descriptive-correlational. The statistical population was composed of high school and pre-university managers and…