The Democratic Potential of Parental Dissent: Keeping Public Schools Public,Legitimate, and Educational

In this essay, Sarah Stitzlein describes the democratic potential of parents choosing to opt out of school testing, explaining how they ought to engage in political dissent to best fulfill their responsibilities as citizens and to practice democracy on behalf of children and schools. Parents' decisions to opt out are often based on rights claims about their oversight as parents; moral claims regarding the potential undue pressure testing places on children and the misuse of students' scores; political and economic concerns with the role of corporations in testing; and educational claims about the validity of scores, the narrowing of curriculum, and the deprofessionalization of teachers who feel they must teach to the test. By building publics around these rationales and shared concerns, parents may increase the political legitimacy of public schools and create public schools that are more deeply public; in some cases, they may also provide an educational model of democratic life for budding citizens in schools to observe and learn from.     

Icarus Falling: Re‐Imagining Educational Theory

This article offers a critique of the notion of ‘capacity building’ in educational theory. Are the intentions behind the latter enterprise as benign and altruistic as they first appear? How is the term ‘capacity building’ to be understood? The article presents a radical and daring alternative for re‐invigorating educational research that foregrounds the ethical engagement of the researcher by exploring the expressive, cognitive and imaginative possibilities of language. Drawing on the Calvino's idea of the ‘lightness of thoughtfulness’, I suggest that the emphasis accorded to the notion of ‘capacity building’ may detract attention from the equally significant role of incapacity in helping us to move the discussion forward in a responsive and ethical way.     

Proteus Rising: Re‐Imagining Educational Research

The idea that educational research should be ‘scientific’, and ideally based on randomised control trials, is in danger of becoming hegemonic. In the face of this it seems important to ask what other kinds of educational research can be respectable in their own different terms. We might also note that the demand for research to be ‘scientific’ is characteristically modernist, and thus arguably local and temporary. It is then tempting to consider what non‐modernist approaches might look like. The purpose of this article is to sketch a case for one particular reaction against modernist thinking: romanticism. How might our understanding (apprehension, sense) of education be changed by readmitting the insights and perspectives of romanticism? And, crucially, what confidence could we have in educational research that was thus inspired and that took the ‘romantic turn’?     

Partnership for Faith-Based Leadership Development: An Educational Model

Parochial school leaders traditionally rise from the ranks of the teaching staff into the principal position, even if unprepared. Through a unique collaborative model, an outside partner and a university developed a program for formally preparing individuals to be Jewish day school leaders. The process of creating this model resulted in a reconceptualization of school leadership.     

章程时代公立高校领导体制的新样态

我国公立高校的治理已经步入章程时代,党委领导下的校长负责制作为常态的领导体制,领导权、决策权和监督权统归于党委行使,校长的行政权演变为执行权。新样态的领导体制,引入董事会、监事会或坐实党政联席会,适度剥离党委的决策权和监督权,使行政权得以强化,从而让各治理机构保有最擅长的权力。随着教育改革的持续深入,新样态会成为新常态并规范于章程之上。     

Leadership for Urban Public Schools

Not far from my office is a unique and important landmark: America's first public school. From this small beginning in 1635, a vast movement grew and resulted in public education for all the nation's children. The education of the young, at public expense, was important in the formation of the United States as a republic. The early leaders of this fledgling nation wanted to ensure that citizens would be prepared to make informed decisions about its governance.     

Beyond the Mission Statement: Alternative Futures for Today's Universities

ABSTRACT

Many post-secondary institutions utilize the mission statement as the key tool for positioning and marketing their strategic direction. Unfortunately, most mission statements found in higher education are far too simplistic and general to give substance and direction to differentiation and positioning of universities. This paper presents findings from a three-month participatory action research process at a large urban Canadian university seeking to establish a marketing mind set. Five possible futures reflecting the range of thinking regarding the role of universities emerged from the research process. Each alternative represents separate and different possible directions, the implications of which become more evident by contrast.     

基于变革型领导理论的高校教育创新机制研究

变革型领导理论作为一种科学的领导学研究与实践的范式,应用到高校教育理论与实践中去,具有十分重要的现实与理论意义。它有助于加深和丰富高校领导理论的内涵,有助于提高高校领导理论的品质,有助于构建高校教育创新机制。     

Advocating a Post-structuralist Politics for Educational Leadership

Abstract

Post-structuralist discourses have usually been associated with forms of critique and deconstruction of social, cultural and philosophical phenomena. However, this article attempts to provide a generative approach to understanding educational leadership through Michel Foucault’s notions of power and subjectification, and Judith Butler’s notions of performativity and discursive agency through re-signification. We argue that leadership is not simply a list of traits, characteristics or behaviours to be implemented. Rather, we argue that leaders are performatively constituted through everyday practices and discourses. The aim is to interrupt prevailing discourses that often re-inscribe certain forms of meaning and understanding in educational leadership. This disruption subsequently provides possibility for putting forward otherwise silenced ideas about what leadership is and how leadership ‘identity’ (subjectivity) is formed, thus expanding the methodological tools scholars can use to talk about leadership.     

Boston Public as Public Pedagogy: Implications for Teacher Preparation and School Leadership

The media play a major role in the construction of popular cultural “texts,” such as films and television programs. These media forms are conceptualized as “public pedagogies”—i.e., as texts that have great potential to teach the public about a wide range of educational issues. This article focuses attention on the representation of teachers and principals in the popular television series Boston Public. Specifically, the authors provide two complimentary accounts of how the representations of teachers and principals can be engaged through critical analyses or “readings.” One account develops a deconstructive reading of how Boston Public treats teacher preparation, teacher competence, and principal leadership. The second account examines how preservice teachers were engaged in multiple readings of the program. The article concludes by suggesting that analyzing popular representations of teachers and educational leaders in film and television can become one important strategy, among others, for developing critically reflective educational leaders and teachers.     

Educational Leadership Reconsidered: Re-Invoking Authority in Schools

By far the most challenging task faced by schools in post-apartheid South Africa, has been the distance educational leaders were mandated to put between the educational institutions and the apartheid legacy of racial discrimination and exclusion. It is therefore not surprising that there are two dominant approaches to educational leadership, namely the transactional and transformational leadership paradigms that were considered as apposite to ensure the implementation of new educational policy and curriculum developments. Indeed, the theoretical debates about educational leadership have extended expositions of the concepts of transactional and transformative leadership that are often perceived as forms of educational leadership that can enhance the democratisation of educational institutions, such as schools. However, after the demise of apartheid all attempts to move beyond authoritative practices have been shown to be undesirable; and the transactional and transformative forms of educational leadership might have too hastily and prematurely abandoned authoritative forms of leadership. Therefore, in this article the authors argue in defence of authority as constitutive of transformative leadership in schools by reflecting on current leadership practices in schools.     

Imagining a Monocultural Community: Racialization of Cultural Practice in Educational Discourse

In recent times reports into incidents of racist violence in Britain identified a prevailing institutionalized racism and social segregation (Cantle, 2002; MacPherson, 1999). In this article I present an analysis of authoritative educational discourse in the form of school inspection reports, focusing on a single issue: the cultural practice of minority ethnic families visiting their heritage country. Using critical discourse analysis, I suggest that the discourse of the inspection reports racializes the cultural practices of the Asian minority, defining them as the alien and foreign. In this discourse an uncontested, common-sense discourse emerges, which blames minority families for the presupposed harm done to their children's education by visits to the heritage country. I conclude that such cultural practices become an emblem of difference, whereas the dominant ideology in official discourse is one of homogenization. This discourse implies that for minority ethnic families to be part of the imagined community of successful learners in Britain, this cultural practice will have to stop.     

Faculty Governance in Neoliberal Educational Contexts: Challenges for Democratic Decision Making

Few faculty members are immune from the deleterious impact of neoliberal values, policies and practices that have resulted in the “corporatization” of universities, with the reduction of teaching and research to “products” and faculty to “producers,” and students to “clients.” The role of faculty governance in this process has been debated yielding diverse perspectives on its effectiveness in challenging this influence, particularly, in regard to the role of democratic decision making at the college-level of governance where administrators may push for furthering market-driven agendas. This critical action research project highlights how two faculty assembly leaders facilitated participatory decision making as they re-conceptualized their leadership roles as team-based representatives, and developed multiple communicative networks that supported faculty voice and leadership listening at the grassroots level—two processes that may thwart corporatization and marketization at the college-level. This article highlights how characteristics of desired communication practices for more democratic decision making at the college-level lay the groundwork for building the collective faculty capacity to respond in a timely manner to neoliberal agendas.     

Mentoring as Socialization for the Educational Leadership Professoriate: A Collaborative Autoethnography

In this study, we analyzed the experiences of an educational leadership doctoral student and aspirant to the professoriate (protégé) and an educational leadership professor (mentor) during our two-year mentoring relationship. Collaborative autoethnography was employed, and our analysis relied primarily upon a process-oriented model of mentoring. Four main themes emerged: (a) reciprocal trust, (b) experiential learning, (c) stability and change, and (d) mutual benefit. Our relationship also was marked by several critical features, and we described the timing and sequence of the socialization experience. This productive mentoring relationship offers a detailed model for doctoral students and faculty members who wish to pursue a similar relationship. From our research, we also contribute to the broader mentoring literature, in which previous researchers have rarely delved simultaneously into mentor and protégé experiences. Scholars who study mentoring will gain from insights into the manner in which anticipatory socialization unfolds, as well as critical features that emerge and evolve in the process.     

西方质的教育领导研究的兴起及其启示

在国际范围内,教育领导研究已由过去的实证主义独尊,发展为今日的多元范式并陈。其中,质的教育领导研究已成为一股重要的力量。反观我国,教育领导研究的多元范式尚未形成,对质的研究的认识还存在颇多误区。通过回顾国际上质的教育领导研究的兴起以及国内质的研究地位的分析,本文呼吁开展更多扎根田野的质的研究,为教育领导研究探索一条新的方法论路径。     

Educational Practice in Leadership Mentoring: The Singapore Experience

Findings of a study on the practice of school management learned through mentoring reveal that leading surfaced prominently as the prime aspect of what could be learned through formal mentoring and could be put into practice on the job. These principals, who have the opportunity to learn through mentoring, suggest their learning and practice of leading primarily through relating with people. The three features involved are: leading through relating with people actively, promoting trust in relating with people, and serving as worthy models in their dedication to service. As such, the learning of leading through formal mentoring could be of significance in the professional development of aspiring principals. It highlights a known practice of leading, learned through leadership mentoring, for an unknown future. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

促进基础教育信息化发展的领导力研究

本文通过分析当前基础教育信息化中的领导力建设需求和研究现状,阐明了领导者的教育信息化愿景与教育信息化领导力的关注维度,以及教育信息化领导力的能力发展方向和发展策略,以期通过提升领导力来促进基础教育信息化的持续发展和深入变革。最后,作者在文末进行了简要小结。