Leadership Effectiveness and School Development: Putting Reform in Perspective

System‐wide and school‐based initiatives continue to be linked through staff and leadership development programs. Factors such as reduced funding are having an impact on structures and organization. The clear focus on instruction and school based planning have helped the district maintain its direction while adapting initiatives to meet changing needs and resources.     

School Leadership and System Leadership

School effectiveness and improvement research shows that leadership plays a key role in ensuring the vitality and growth of schools. Yet, there is growing appreciation (Elmore 2000, 2) that “public schools and school systems as presently constituted are simply not led in ways that enable them to respond to the increasing demands they face under standards-based reforms.” For Elmore (2000, 2) and others, the way out of this problem is “through the large scale improvement of instruction, something public education has been unable to do to date, but which is possible with dramatic changes in the way public schools define and practice leadership.”     

西方变革领导理论对中国学校改革的启示

中国自20世纪90年代开始推行素质教育改革,改革的重点逐步由宏观教育体制落实到学校层面。素质教育改革客观上要求学校改变传统组织文化和结构,注重人的全面发展。变革型领导理论已被证实为推动学校变革和发展的主要模式。这一领导模式通过促进教师的专业发展,实现学校文化的重塑和教育质量的提升。本文对变革领导理论的核心内容和研究进展进行了阐述,旨在了解并掌握西方“学校领导引领变革”的知识基础,以期对中国学校改革有所助益。     

学校有效领导力：一种分布式领导实践的视角

“分布式领导“这一术语产生于2泄纪90年代中后期,它突破了单向的、静态的、线性的领导观念,从多向的、动态的、流动的角度再造了学校领导.从分布式领导实践的视角考察学校有效领导力,可以理解为在领导中采用一种针对行为的方法,在结构、状态和设计方面,将校长、教师和他们的状态互动的个体领导行为进行集合,以促进组织目标的实现.     

Bodies at Home and at School: Toward a Theory of Embodied Social Class Status

Sociology has long recognized the centrality of the body in the reciprocal construction of individuals and society, and recent research has explored the influence of a variety of social institutions on the body. Significant research has established the influence of social class, child‐rearing practices, and variable language forms in families and children. Less well understood is the influence of children's social class status on their gestures, comportment, and other bodily techniques. In this essay Sue Ellen Henry brings these two areas of study together to explore how working‐class children's bodies are shaped by the child‐rearing practices associated with their social class status, and the potential effects these bodily techniques have on their experience in schools.     

Structural Change,Leadership and School Effectiveness/Improvement: Perspectives from South Africa

This article comments on leadership within mainstream literature on school effectiveness/improvement, where it is almost always considered to be a factor of change. The article argues that systemic school improvement, particularly for disadvantaged children, is inextricably linked to wider social, economic and political conditions—in South Africa’s case, the political transition from apartheid to democratic government. These structural conditions and specific historical contexts are often glossed over in models of school effectiveness/improvement. Through an analysis of dysfunctional and resilient schools as a legacy of apartheid, and of the slow reconstruction of education in the post‐apartheid period, the article argues for the importance of political legitimacy and authority in school improvement. The article concludes by suggesting that states in transition require a different theoretical lens in order to understand the impact of wider social changes on schools. In such societies, the establishment of legitimacy and authority is a precondition for sustainable effectiveness and improvement, and this has implications for theorising the role of leadership in school change more generally.     

Toward a Theory of Liking

In the current essay, Kevin Burke and Adam Greteman challenge this thing called love by looking at how we might instead “like” in education. Within education, multiculturalism can be viewed as a way of loving, or learning to love, diversity and, as such, learning to love the self; this tendency is notably apparent in the recent rise of concern expressed about student self‐esteem. According to the authors, however, critical research on multiculturalism demonstrates how, in loving diversity, multicultural discourses limn the possibilities for subjects to come into being and be liked for their differences. Drawing on James Alison's On Being Liked, Burke and Greteman reframe the problem of relating in education instead through the language of liking. How does the shift from loving to liking — either our students, our teachers, or ourselves — create different social dynamics and ethical paradigms? In engaging this question, Burke and Greteman offer an alternative model of liking that is based on the practice of cruising.     

School Effectiveness and Effectiveness Indicators

In spite of continuing investigations, researchers have yet to satisfy practitioners, policy‐makers and the international research community about production of a defensible collection of important indicators for gauging school effectiveness. The research project described in this article had four major purposes: (a) to investigate and compare the perceptions of principals, teachers and area superintendents about the overall effectiveness of schools and effectiveness on specific dimensions; (b) to assess and compare the perceptions of these educators about the importance of the specific dimensions for overall effectiveness; (c) to assess the association between principals’ perceptions of effectiveness on, and importance, of these dimensions; and (d) to probe school‐level differences about the two types of organizations. Perceptual data were obtained from elementary and junior high school principals throughout Alberta, Canada, as well as from teachers and area superintendents in one major city. Schools were rated as most effective in maintaining an appropriate school climate, while the most important dimensions involved climate (elementary), and morale, climate and acknowledging achievements (junior high). Factor analysis produced eight underlying indicators, but it also demonstrated the complexity of the effectiveness construct. Comparisons of effectiveness and importance highlighted some important but least effective areas, such as encouraging academic success and maximizing staff satisfaction. Practical and research implications are elucidated.     

School Effectiveness and School Attendance

ABSTRACT

Given that the British Government is proposing to require all schools to provide the Secretary of State with details of, amongst other things, their respective truancy rates, this article sets out to demonstrate that attendance figures, as well as examination results, should be modified before publication. It reports on a study involving 5,429 pupils in their final year of primary education attending 138 junior/primary schools in a single authority in Wales and utilises child, home and school data.     

Toward a Bilingual School Psychology Model

The psychoeducational models currently used in schools have been ineffective in enhancing the academic achievement of Hispanic children. Concerns about improving testing and instructional programs frequently have followed disparate routes. Testing and instruction should be considered as inseparable and integrated elements in the process of providing quality. educational services for these children. It is argued that a sociohistorical perspective can provide a theoretical base to integrate testing and instruction and data on language and sociocultural factors. An integrated view of these factors can guide the development of a bilingual school psychology committed to the improvement of school experiences and academic progress of Hispanic children.     

Leadership and The Effective School

The article examines the origins and purposes of assessment for learning (AfL) within the National Curriculum Assessment context in England. As a part of the Primary Strategy, AfL became part of the government's drive to improve standards through measuring school outcomes. The authors describe their investigation into teachers' understandings of AfL, how AfL has influenced teaching, learning and assessment in the intervening six years and whether it has established a presence as part of teaching pedagogy.     

变革型领导理论视域下的中小学管理

在基础教育改革不断深化的背景下,现代中小学科层制管理模式日益显露出官僚气氛浓重、创造力缺乏、效率低下等诸多弊病,使其难以适应丕变的教育改革环境。变革型领导理论视域下的中小学管理凸显共同愿景、开拓创新、个体关怀、德性修养、人际和谐等内容,其积极特质能够营造出和谐融洽的校园气氛,激发教师工作的积极性和创造性,有效提升学校管理效能。     

Leadership, Quality and Institutional Effectiveness

Institutions of higher education have been slower than commercial enterprises to realise the links between leadership and quality. However, changes in the internal and external environment of universities and colleges are bringing these connections to the fore. This paper presents an overview of current thinking on quality and leadership in the context of institutional effectiveness. The authors explore different interpretations of leadership and quality, and examine their potential contribution to managing change and to the achievement of a culture of quality enhancement in higher education.     

社会变迁与学校领导

一、加速扩散中的全球化浪潮 随着经济贸易方面的全球化,文化层面的全球化同时在展开.由于传播科技与影碟录制的日新月异,文化产物(特别在影视与流行音乐方面)逐渐被当作一种可获取利润与适合大量生产的商品,站上市场竞争的世界舞台.文化产品不仅被精致地包装,而且成为创意产业的主角,透过跨国公司的行销网络,攻城掠地,抢夺市场版图.所以文化霸权(cultural hegemony)也在电影、电视、网络软件方面,配合流行文化的时尚造势,以一双"看不见的推手",主宰着全球多数社区的消费市场.     

实施名牌战略创建职教强校

在职业教育面临竞争与发展的今天，铜川煤技校从如何实施名牌战略、确立发展思路、提升教学质量、完善招生安置机制、调整专业结构等五个层面就中等职业学校如何把握机遇、加快发展、做大做强，探索了一些实践经验与发展思路。     

分布式领导——西方学校领导再造探研

分布式领导概念提出于20世纪90年代中后期，它基于对传统领导观念的突破，从领导方式、形态、范围等角度再造了学校领导。文章通过系统分析比较分布式领导定义，了解其研究状况和尚待研究的领域，阐述实施过程中的动力与阻力因素，从而反思国内学校领导实践和理论研究的现状及其发展。     

Modelling Distributed Leadership and Management Effectiveness: Primary School Senior Management Teams in England and Wales

This article argues that the notion of distributed leadership and management has potential to illuminate school-level relationships, a significant area of school effectiveness and improvement research and development activity. It reports how research findings were used inductively to model effectiveness of senior management teams in British primary schools, which represent one form of distributed leadership and management. Difficulties in establishing effectiveness are reviewed; a heuristic model of team operation is put forward as a basis for identifying team effectiveness; relevant criteria employed by informants in research schools and inspectors are summarised in relation to the model, supported by findings from observation of meetings; and key findings and judgements of effectiveness are synthesised as a speculative contingency model of team effectiveness focusing on balancing contradictory beliefs in a management hierarchy and in equal contribution within the team. An agenda for research, practice and policy is suggested.