This qualitative study used a critical intersectional lens to examine how two black female Canadian principals negotiated their professional identities in administrative contexts. Both principals encountered gender and race-related pressures to fit normative expectations of administrators as white males. Navigating their intersecting identities…

This study examines a teaching-oriented higher education community which undertook a major programme of change when planning a new campus and redesigning its pedagogics. This is a single case qualitative study based on in-depth interviews of community members and field observations and using activity theory as an analytical framework. It is…

As accountability systems have increased demands for evidence of student learning, the use of data in education has become more prevalent in many countries. Although school and administrative leaders are recognizing the need to provide support to teachers on how to interpret and respond to data, there is little theoretically sound research on…

This paper reviews a selection of literature on secondary principal practice from which to propose an approach for further research. The review demonstrates that applications of Bourdieu's theory of practice have contributed to understandings about secondary principal practice, and that the distinction he made between rules and strategies has the…

In the last six years, Chile has carried out major reforms in school climate policy. However, these reforms are tied to two different realities that conflict with each other: a formative reality, which promotes a school climate of local decision-making and the improvement of school performance; and a punitive reality, which prioritizes improvement…

This article considers distributed leadership in the context of the extensive literature on post-bureaucratic organisations. It suggests that both distributed leadership and bureaucracy are ideal types. It outlines the development of bureaucracy as an organisational form, challenges the often-stereotypical criticisms that have damned the theory…

The study of context-based leadership practices has gained currency during the last decade. This study aims to complement the recent efforts of researchers in identifying the context-based leadership practices of successful school leaders, and deliberating how these practices are enacted within their own unique contexts. An in-depth case study was…

The importance of effective school leadership is well known. The inevitable changing of school leaders raises concerns over the successfulness of the succession process. Directly linked to leader succession is socialization; therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the processes and practices of school systems that control the…

Collaborative leadership is increasingly cited as the key framework for leadership in the 21st century. Yet its meaning remains complex, contested and frequently school-centric. This article examines understandings and applications in developing inter-service and inter-professional practices for children and young people. Drawing upon desk…

In light of feminist scholars who have called for challenging the epistemology of existing theories and concepts in social sciences and recreating an innovative knowledge in which women are the focus, the current study aimed at tracing the career stories of 25 Israeli female deputy heads who explicitly do not aspire to headship. These deputies…

This article examines the significance of materiality for management and leadership in education using resources provided by actor-network theory (ANT). Espousing the idea that human interactions are mediated by material objects and that these objects participate in the production of practices, ANT affords thinking management and leadership in a…

Drawing on data from a series of semi-structured interviews this article reports on findings from a research project focusing on the responses of two local authorities and their secondary schools to the Academies Act 2010. The article considers the background and the development of the education system in both localities. It goes on to focus on…

In this paper, I explore the relationship of democracy to educational leadership; more specifically, to the notion of distributed leadership as it unfolds within policy-mandated multi-site school collaboratives, with particular reference to practices in go. Under the policy framework "For All Children To Succeed" introduced in Malta in…

Research increasingly points to the negative impacts of teacher absence from school on access to schooling and success in learning in schools, in particular in schools in areas of multiple-deprivation (including rural schools). South African schools are no exception. In this regard, like any other employer, the South African Department of Basic…

This article presents a critical review of instruments used to evaluate compulsory schools in Sweden and is part of a doctoral programme project investigating the relationship between school architecture and learning. In Sweden, as in many countries, evaluation instruments are used both to improve school quality and as a means to provide…