Educational Management Administration & Leadership

Few concepts are more noted in the leadership effects research than vision. It is a cardinal element in the school improvement equation as well. Yet, it remains one of the least well-specified components of that algorithm. Based on a comprehensive review of the research on effective leadership and school improvement from 1995 to 2012, we bring ‘concreteness’ to our understanding of vision. We identify its three essential dimensions. More importantly, we provide tangible scaffolding for each of these dimensions, scaffolding that should sharpen research in this area and guide the work of those who desire to bring this ethereal concept to life in schools.

This article considers the experiences and perceptions of practising English headteachers and the tensions that they face when juggling government prescription and government initiatives, which may be antagonistic to their educational values and beliefs. Managerial control over teachers work has been particularly acute and destructive to ‘human flourishing’. Headteachers have a moral and ethical responsibility for the welfare and education of pupils. Such professional ethics oblige the professional to seek the good of the pupil and therefore good is viewed as intrinsic to the work of an educator. Thus headteachers are directly involved in negotiating between sometimes contradictory imperatives and drivers. How then does the headteacher cope with what Colley refers to as ‘situated ethics work’? This article presents data derived from written responses from 10 headteachers that begin to open up this question. I argue that it is not uncommon for people to weaken in their values-driven stance when under great pressure. It is however important to recognize the extent to which educational values are constrained by neo-liberal value-based market agendas in order to continually question and re-evaluate what is happening within education rearticulating this for the benefit of pupils.

Literature examining effective leadership in education describe a number of models such as Transformational, Learner-Centred, Distributed and Situational. A similar example is ‘pedagogical leadership’, a phrase that frequently appears in literature and one referring to forms of practice that shape and form teaching and learning to be integrated in leadership. In this paper, however, we will argue that the term pedagogy is an ambiguous one when it is attached to the concept of leadership and requires further explanation, particularly in the 21st century. Our conclusions are informed by findings from research undertaken by us with headteachers and leaders of early years settings in England during 2012. One of the key findings is that we should shift from using models of leadership and instead to view leadership as a praxis that is not merely concerned with the dichotomy of teaching, learning and outcomes, but is also concerned with an integrated conceptualisation of the relations between teaching, the learning ecology of the community and the social set of axes in which the educational organisation is set. This understanding of pedagogical leadership is thus concerned with the links between desired educational outcomes and the set of social realities that surround the educational setting.

This article reports findings from a case study of school principals in Southern Thailand who work in areas targeted by Muslim separatist groups. Data were gathered and analyzed using a conceptual framework that conceived of trust as five interrelated constructs: benevolence, honesty, openness, reliability, and competence. This study builds on prior trust research by examining trust in a specific non-Western cultural context that is moderated by two cultural phenomena: violence and ethno-religious difference. This study is a unique contribution to both the broader research on trust and to our understanding of how leadership is enacted in different cultural contexts. More narrowly, this study also helps us understand the way school leaders in southernmost Thailand build and sustain trust with community leaders. Findings suggested that school principals experienced each of these forms of trust, yet each individual principal interpreted them in a unique manner. In addition, in regards to principal work, fear and problems with communication were found to hinder leadership efforts.

The effect of critical incidents on school principals has been marginally investigated. Principal leadership has many pleasures, but it is often replete with problematic circumstances. The skilled school-based leader requires rationality and diplomacy to manage conflict successfully. This study examined the perceived effects of a critical incident, the closure of their school, on the professional and personal lives of principals. The investigation employed a narrative analysis approach in the Province of British Columbia, Canada. Narratives from two superintendents and six principals generated the evidence used to study the professional and personal complications associated with a principal living through a school closure. The investigation generated understandings of the impact of this critical event. Principals were aware of their precarious position of having dual allegiances to both district and school community. The emotionally-charged environment manifested professional and personal concerns, anxieties and resultant health concerns in the life of the school leader. The study provides publics affected by a school closure with understandings and knowledge regarding communication issues and approaches in closure considerations. Principals benefit from both enhanced discourse and administrative practices. School districts profit from in-depth perspectives and improved preparedness for critical events.

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 data-driven decision making (DDDM) to guide their efforts. Drawing on sociocultural learning theory, extant empirical literature, and findings from a recent study, this paper develops a framework for understanding how to build teacher capacity to use data, specifically informing what practices administrators might employ, when in the DDDM process to employ these practices, and how these mechanisms may build teacher knowledge and skills. Given the global economic climate, administrators face difficult choices in how to invest scarce resources to support data use and once invested, how to ensure that teachers gain, and sustain, the needed capabilities once the supports are removed. The framework provided herein presents a set of concepts that may be useful in guiding these decisions. Implications for leadership practice, as well as suggestions to guide future research and theory development, are discussed.

The contemporary English policy discourse in higher education of ‘Putting Students at the Heart of the System’ has led to an increasing use of managing by performance ‘smart-data’ reinforcing a consumer-led representation of students as ‘partners’ in the ‘business of learning’ within the academy. This approach disguises ongoing fundamental changes to academic work by mixing an increased ‘market-driven’ transparency with ‘accountability’ in ‘institutional and organization management’, utilizing so-called research-led or evidence-informed practice. The policy discourse masks and limits any critique of such data production, or more particularly its purposes and uses, while perhaps yet more significantly, generating an associated ‘modernizing’ rhetoric impacting multiple levels of decision-making throughout the HE institution. Evidence from previous research into school sector reform as data-based decision-making became mainstreamed is used to support our prognosis for the future. Drawing upon documentary analysis of KIS (Key Information Sets) and other publicly available data, this article presents a critique of widespread institutional reform that is rapidly becoming reliant upon what we call ‘data-smart policy’. In conclusion, a series of emerging issues are identified as part of managing the way forward in meeting data access requirements, ensuring student satisfaction and consumer protection, while preserving intellectual values associated with substantive scholarship and sound academic leadership.

This article questions why leaders in post-compulsory education tend not to view leadership research positively or utilise it in improving their practice. Drawing on the theoretical literature of educational management and leadership, and the current political and economic context of post-compulsory education, it proposes a new direction of critical practice leadership informed by advanced practitioner research. Challenging assumptions about leadership practice and leadership research creates an opportunity for an ethical and practical perspective for leadership practitioners and a distinctive contribution to the field of leadership theory and research by resisting the false dualism between theory and practice.

We focus on gender stereotypes in West European university management by comparing two countries: Sweden and Ireland. In secular Sweden there are strong policies that are implemented at all political levels supported by the public discourse; while in Ireland such measures are few and the equality infrastructures and discourse have been weakened by the state. In Sweden women have come to dominate the Rector/President/Vice Chancellor positions and each gender has between 40 and 50 per cent of the other leading positions. In Ireland there are no women in the top position and their percentage of other leading positions is between 13-25 per cent. Drawing on interview data from senior ‘manager academics’ (Deem, 2003) in Irish and Swedish universities this article shows that in Sweden traditional gender stereotypes are not credible anymore-with senior manager-academics not seeing such stereotypes as mirroring reality. Thus, even if they acknowledge the existence of stereotypes, they distance themselves from them. In Ireland traditional stereotypes still have more of a grip on manager-academics. These country differences are seen in the context of different gender orders in the respective countries. It seems that more areas are still gendered in Irish society in comparison with Sweden, and the gender order is stronger and more hierarchical. Thus it appears that by actively recruiting women in leading positions in a societal context that supports feminist values, traditional stereotypes may be reduced. On the other hand gendered stereotypes in the absence of such a context reflect and reinforce patterns that legitimise and valorise men’s and women’s positions within hierarchical gendered structures.