Purpose: Leadership is as widely used as it is misused and misunderstood. This paper seeks to argue that in an educational context it is important not only to revisit and reframe conceptions of leadership but also to see it as having an essentially subversive purpose. The paper aims to discuss subversion in an intellectual, moral and political…

Purpose: To invoke Julian Le Grand's conceptual model of the interaction between human motivation and policy formulation in order to explain how motivational endogeneity in the university environment has distorted policy outcomes in the Australian higher education reform program. Design/methodology/approach: Le Grand contends that changes in the…

Analyzes and compares the results obtained from administration of the College and University Environmental Scales to college of advanced education and university samples. There appears to be a genuine difference in the learning environments of these two types of institutions. (Author/IRT)

Application of organizational models to the study of schools distinguishes rational, bureaucratic ideal types from natural, loosely coupled systems. Study of these models applied to selected schools in Australia and New Zealand illustrates that no one model fully describes schools. Factors that result in schools resembling certain models are…

A questionnaire survey of 52 secondary schools in the three school systems (public, private, and Catholic) of Australia's state of Victoria provided information supporting the theories that behavioral values are transmitted through a school's disciplinary system and that the application of disciplinary policy has a significant effect on school…

Reports on a validation study of Halpin and Croft's Organizational Climate Description Questionnaire (OCDQ) conducted in a sample of 72 primary schools in South Australia. Data from 727 respondents are analyzed to produce a four factor solution. The factors are identified as supportiveness, operations emphasis, intimacy, and disaffiliation.…

The responses of teachers in New South Wales (Australia) to a questionnaire developed and used in Britain have been factorially analyzed so that comparison could be made of the factorial structure of the scales that emerged in the different countries. (Author/IRT)

Responses of teachers and administrators in a sample of Brisbane (Australia) state high schools to the School Outcomes Questionnaire were analyzed to provide information about educators' perception of school effectiveness. A close relationship was found between perceived school effectiveness and the staff synergy dimension of school organizational…

The main finding of this investigation is that the effectiveness of the educational system could be increased through the provision of task-oriented leadership to schools having an unfavorable atmosphere. (Author/IRT)

Images of a School Through Metaphor (ISM) is a questionnaire consisting of 26 metaphors that can help administrators gain insight into schools' organizational behavior. The development of ISM involved substantial field testing; the instrument's validity was corroborated by a large study. ISM is simple, economical, easy to use, and sufficiently…

Investigates relationships between school and classroom environment by analyzing responses of 208 teachers and 2,211 students in Australian secondary schools. Assesses seven dimensions of school environment (empowerment, student support, affiliation, professional interest, mission consensus, resource adequacy, and work pressure) and seven…

Summarizes a report evaluating two Western Australian "Senior Colleges" designed to offer viable secondary education alternatives to students above the compulsory schooling age. The evaluation used both qualitative and quantitative methods. The most striking finding was the colleges' success in creating a positive ethos for students and…

Analyzes findings of a major research project examining the school-community interface and communications in New South Wales (Australia) comprehensive high schools. Data from nine Western Sydney schools reveal the significant role of senior school executives, particularly the principal, in developing communication methods in schools and their…

This article explores the relationship between teachers perceptions of administrative practice in high schools and students perceptions of the school, teachers and their own performance. It was found that where decision making is perceived by teachers as collegial, collaborative, co-operative and consultative and providing adequate opportunities…