Editorial October 2024

It is once again a pleasure to introduce this latest issue of Management in Education. We are pleased to have received so many high-quality manuscripts which contribute to the journal's overall remit. We are delighted that the journal itself is gathering international attention and is now ranked 133 out of 756 in the Education and Educational Research Category in the top quartile for all journals (Q1). This is a result of the high quality, internationally relevant manuscripts we receive and is down in no small part to the reviewers who work tirelessly in providing timely and informative feedback.

The five articles in this issue reflect a broad theme of how teachers, leaders and professionals respond to challenges in their daily work. In the first article, Dimitrious Gkoros and Tharrenos Bratitsis analyse the contribution of principal leadership, conceptualised as e-leadership, in supporting the implementation of distance learning approaches during the global pandemic in Greece. Administering an electronic questionnaire to 104 primary school teachers where, in the majority of cases, the role of the principal through e-leadership was key to the effective implementation of distance learning programmes and activities, indeed: ‘electronic leaders’ presence and involvement as crucial’.

Similarly, Andy Coleman and Azhar Ali examine challenges faced by professional service team members within higher education institutes (HEIs) where they argue emotional intelligence (EI) is an important characteristic in the workplace. Team members’ views were gathered on the importance of managers displaying EI during times of organisational change and challenge. The researchers found perceptions of managers’ EI could be a powerful influence on team members’ mental health, including stress and anxiety. The researchers call upon organisations to think about developing an understanding of what EI is and how it may or may not impact workforce motivation.

Dung Thi Thuy Mai and Mark Brundrett focus their research in Vietnam where they call for teachers to develop their research capabilities in support of the new general education curriculum. A mixed method approach was deployed to over 100 high school schools followed up by in-depth interviews with four practitioners. The findings suggest that teachers currently lack motivation to become researchers because of their perceived lack of skills, training and perceptions of limited support from school leaders. The researchers call for more in-school support from leaders regarding incentives, developing key partnerships, research networks and the developing of research skills during the initial teacher education to support teachers becoming researchers.

Adele Moody offers a different challenge for women in educational leadership in South Africa HEIs. She highlights the dominance of men in positions of leadership. Moody focuses on the challenges women face from the perspective of men. Taking a social justice, critical and social realism epistemology, Moody asks the question of whether men understand women's lived experiences and the challenges of institutional culture, and other perpetual challenges which create barriers for women to progress. She calls for further work to be undertaken to enable a deeper understanding by men on the context in which women's lived experience in leadership is understood.

Chandrani Chattopadhyay offers a stimulating opinion piece on affordable private schools (APS) in India. These are fast-growing segments of private education within India providing affordable alternatives to government schools for low-income families while the Indian education system is highly fragmented, the conditions for teachers in these sorts of schools are rather poor compared to government school teachers where pay is extremely low thus the attrition rates of teachers within APS is very high. This was exacerbated during the global pandemic, Chattopadhyay Posits that a policy to address the inequalities around the education system is needed in order to provide a more systematic quality educational experience.

We hope you enjoy this issue as much as we have enjoyed curating it.