Jordanian School Counselors’ Leadership Behaviors

The purpose of this study was to identify the degree to which Jordanian school counselors were seen by teachers and principals to possess and display leadership behaviors related to Bolman and Deal’s (1997) transformational ‘four framework approach’ to leadership. This was based on the view that such leadership would relate to counselors’ effectiveness in their roles. A questionnaire was administered to a sample of teachers and principals designed to assess counselor leadership on four key dimensions (i) structural leadership, (ii) human resources leadership, (iii) political leadership, and (iv) symbolic leadership. The results of the study suggest high levels of transformational leadership among Jordanian school counselors as perceived by both teachers and principals. Principals assessed the levels more highly than teachers, with a significant difference evident. The results also showed a significant difference based on geographic area of the participants, even though those from all areas rated counselor leadership quite highly.     

The role of principal empowerment within a site-based management environment: empirical testing of a structural model

A model examining psychological empowerment, transformational leadership and innovation for school principals is proposed and tested within a Site (School)-Based Management environment. Developed from management literature, the model was adapted for state school principals experiencing increased decision-making powers and accountability. Empirical results provide a level of support for the model. ‘Role clarity’ and ‘access to resources’ were found to exert a positive influence on principals’ feelings of empowerment, though the value placed by principals on strategic information was found to have a slightly negative influence. The influence of empowerment on transformational leadership was not found to be as strong as anticipated. The paper includes a discussion of the implications of these findings for theory and policy development.

Principal Leadership for Technology-enhanced Learning in Science

Reforms such as technology-enhanced instruction require principal leadership. Yet, many principals report that they need help to guide implementation of science and technology reforms. We identify strategies for helping principals provide this leadership. A two-phase design is employed. In the first phase we elicit principals’ varied ideas about the Technology-enhanced Learning in Science (TELS) curriculum materials being implemented by teachers in their schools, and in the second phase we engage principals in a leadership workshop designed based on the ideas they generated. Analysis uses an emergent coding scheme to categorize principals’ ideas, and a knowledge integration framework to capture the development of these ideas. The analysis suggests that principals frame their thinking about the implementation of TELS in terms of: principal leadership, curriculum, educational policy, teacher learning, student outcomes and financial resources. They seek to improve their own knowledge to support this reform. The principals organize their ideas around individual school goals and current political issues. Principals prefer professional development activities that engage them in reviewing curricula and student work with other principals. Based on the analysis, this study offers guidelines for creating learning opportunities that enhance principals’ leadership abilities in technology and science reform.     

实践理论:提升校长领导力的知识基础

校长需要完善在教育领导中的实践理论,以搭起理论与实践对话的平台。从问题意识出发,可以解读校长实践理论的内涵、知识基础和形成阶段,从洞悉和满足教师的需要动机、营造良好的学校组织气候、发挥在学校中的关键角色、力争成为学习型校长等方面可以深化校长实践理论的内容,可以为提升校长的领导力水平提供知识基础。     

Disciplinary epistemologies,generic attributes and undergraduate academic writing in nursing and midwifery

Generic attributes such as ‘holding a critical stance’, ‘using evidence to support claims’, and ‘projecting an impersonal voice’ are central to disciplinary academic writing in higher education. These attributes, also referred to as ‘skills’, have for a long time been conceptualised as transferable in that once learnt students are able to use them in a variety of contexts and for a range of needs. Over the past few years, however, the conceptualisation of these attributes as transferable has come under close scrutiny as they have been identified to be highly context-sensitive rather than context-flexible as they were once thought to be. Drawing on data from a 2-year study on undergraduate academic writing in nursing and midwifery at a university in the UK, this paper critically examines the role of disciplinary epistemologies in the conceptualisation of these attributes in the two disciplines, and demonstrates how these beliefs help to shape academic writing at undergraduate level, thus contributing to debates on generic skills and attributes and specificity in disciplinary discourses. The paper concludes by highlighting the importance for writers to examine how knowledge is displayed, constructed and communicated in their disciplines, and the significance of analysing the relationship between disciplinary epistemologies, generic attributes and academic writing as a way of gaining access to and producing central discourses in their professional community.     

Benchlearning – an action research program for transforming leadership and school practices

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we investigate how a Benchlearning program for principals in Norway and Sweden supports changes in Norwegian principals’ leadership practices. The program design builds on principles for practical action research. The aim of the program was to inspire changes in the principals’ leadership practices that encourage innovative school practices. The program includes learning modes such as theoretical inputs, sharing experiences, school visits, training, and trialling of new leadership practices. Drawing on data from participants’ reflections on their learning and changes in their leadership practices, we identify transformations that have been realized and the ways in which the Benchlearning program has supported the transformations. The findings indicate that the program can be seen as a systematic and disciplined process, a ‘meta-practice’, that supports changes in the principals’ leadership practices, their understandings, and the conditions of their practice. More specifically, the findings show that the theoretical inputs and practical learning modes stimulated transformations of the principals’ thinking about leadership practices, what they do in practice and how they relate to others. In particular, the study suggests that the principals’ active participation in trialling new leadership practices in their own schools stimulated transformations.     

Images of Leadership and their Effect Upon School Principals' Performance

The purpose of the present study is to identify how school principals perceive their world and how their perceptions influence their effectiveness as managers and leaders. The principals' views of their world were categorised into four different metaphorical ways of describing the workings of organisations: (1) the structural model (organisations as machines); (2) the human-resource model (organisations as organisms); (3) the political model (organisations as political systems); (4) the symbolic model (organisations as cultural patterns and clusters of myths and symbols). The results reveal that the best predictors of school principals' effectiveness as managers, according to their own assessments and teachers' reports, are the structural and human resource models, while the best predictors of effective leadership are the political and human-resource models.     

Urban School Principals and the ‘No Child Left Behind’ Act

This exploratory study investigated how six practicing school principals responded to the requirements of the No Child Left Behind law (United States Congress Public Law 107–110, 2002, January, No Child Left Behind Act, ) in light of the multicultural leadership demands presented by an urban setting. It examines perspectives of principals on the legal aspects of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and what they did to manage its requirements. Multicultural leadership literature provided a framework to understand the perspectives of school leaders. The findings suggest three principals were engaged in meaningful and practical work to both fulfill the requirements of NCLB and meet the needs of their students. Three principals were focused on the requirements of the law and did not see the connection between multicultural leadership and NCLB. The study’s recommendations include a multicultural leadership approach to current NCLB school reform. An earlier version of this study in progress was presented to the American Educational Research Association (AERA) in Montreal, Canada 2005.     

Teaching Science Inquiry in Urban Contexts: The Role of Elementary Preservice Teachers’ Beliefs

This paper reports on a study of elementary preservice teachers’ inquiry-based practices, their efficacy beliefs, and the role beliefs had on two preservice teachers’ practices in urban classrooms. Results show inquiry-based practices can be cultivated through field-based experiences and preservice teachers’ efficacy beliefs, as it relates to practice in urban settings, are malleable. Specifically, personal efficacy beliefs about teaching science improved or were sustained for one cohort of preservice teachers. However, beliefs about students’ ability to learn science, that is outcome beliefs, were less stable. The results of two case studies show that science content knowledge was a factor in preservice teachers’ inquiry-based practices. However, why preservice teachers’ beliefs about student learning declined is less clear. More research is needed, along with follow-up data on teacher induction, to learn how preservice teachers’ beliefs impact urban students’ science education.     

Educational research for professional practice: More than providing evidence for doing ‘x rather than y’ or finding the ‘size of the effect of A on B’

Educational research has been criticised by governments and practitioners. For some politicians and policy makers, there is a tendency to look for direct links between research and successful, effective and efficient practice. Research is needed to inform their evidence-based practice as policy makers, and to provide the kind of research teachers need to base their practice on the best available evidence for doing ‘x rather than y’ (Hargreaves 1996) or predicting the ‘size of the effect of A on B’ (Blunkett 2000). There is no doubt that both teachers and policy makers do make decisions on a daily basis based on some form of evidence. This paper explores Hargreaves’ notion of evidence-based practice, providing a range of criticisms. It also examines Carr’s historical account of ‘praxis’ and ‘poiesis’ to suggest a notion of evidence-based praxis based partly on the historical notion of ‘phronesis’ — practical wisdom. The basis for this is the argument that wise and practical ethical and moral judgements are central to an understanding of teachers’ daily work. What to do in a specific educational situation cannot be determined solely by theoretical beliefs or by ‘techne’. However the ethical dimension is not the only consideration. The paper suggests that evidence-based praxis use Stenhouse’s notion of ‘actionable evidence’, which includes the ethical dimension, but also Thomson’s concept of ‘thisness’, which describes the unique contextual characteristics of a school. If disadvantaged schools can make some sort of difference to learning opportunities for students, it is argued that teachers might engage in evidence-based praxis which involves them in reflecting on, and theorising what is happening in classrooms, schools and neighbourhoods. This ‘praxis’ also involves them in modifying their theories, critically analysing ‘what works’, questioning how they know and developing ideas about how things might be done differently. There will be an element of developing knowledge about teaching and learning strategies (Hargreaves’ ‘body of knowledge’), but it will be in the context of the ethical and moral dilemmas associated with education. It will take up the question of local differences as well as a realistic approach to what constitutes actual school improvement. Evidence-based praxis is also essentially a collective activity not an individual approach. Future development of the notion of evidence-based praxis might also include involving students in a more reciprocal and open learning process like that highlighted by researchers who focus on student participation linked to school reform.     

A shift in Hong Kong principals ’ leadership conceptions

Schools in Hong Kong are now undergoing many educational reforms. With so many ideas and demanding tasks ahead, principals have been expected to bear the responsibility for implementing change. In 1991, the leadership of Hong Kong principals was described as “dictatorial” in a government document, which painted a bleak picture of the leadership being offered by Hong Kong principals at that time. However, this recent study showed that teachers perceived that principals as exerting some degree of transformational leadership in schools. All the eight dimensions of the leadership were above the mid-point on the rating scale. It seems that there is a shift in Hong Kong primary school principals leadership conceptions. This paper describes the extent to which teachers perceived their principal ’s to be exercising transformational leadership. Issues concerning principal development are discussed.     

Pre-service Primary Teachers' Perceptions about Principals in Hong Kong: Implications for teacher and principal education

This study aimed to explore pre-service teachers' perceptions and expectations of principals, how these perceptions may influence attitude and behaviour when they start in school and how pre-service teachers' perceptions of the principalship may have been formed. In general, pre-service teachers do not expect to receive assistance from the principal during their first months of teaching. Past experience of principals has resulted in clear expectations of principal support, particularly in respect to beliefs about the influence of hierarchy, school authority and principal's workload. Others, however, expect the principal to be receptive to and supportive of innovations. Some expect support from their colleagues whilst others believe they must rely on themselves. Furthermore, the sources of beliefs about the principalship are predominantly formed during pre-service teachers' experiences in school life and teaching practice. Many of their images of the principalship tend to be negative.     

Distributed leadership and organizational change: Reviewing the evidence

This article explores the relationship between distributed leadership and organizational change. It draws upon the existing literature to consider whether distributed forms of leadership influence development and change in schools. The article examines the research base relating to distributed leadership and organizational outcomes. It focuses on how different patterns or configurations of distributed leadership contribute to organizational development. The article concludes by highlighting issues that require further study and more empirical confirmation. This article is based on a literature review commissioned by the Department for Education and Skills as part of a research project currently being undertaken by Leithwood, K., Day, C., Sammons, P., Harris, A., and Hopkins, D. (2006) ‘Leadership and student outcomes’ and Leithwood, K., Day, C., Sammons, P., Harris, A., and Hopkins, D. (2006) ‘Successful school leadership: What it is and how it influences pupil learning’. London, DFES.     

Changing Spatial and Synchronous Structures in the History and Culture of Learning

This paper argues that the conceptions of ‘space’ (and increasingly ‘time’) in the discussion of ‘the university’ (in its most transcendent sense) have gone through four distinct phases in the UK. Using a Heideggerian conception of ‘space’ where usefulness is more important than proximity, the ‘ancient’ universities were ‘useful’ to the gentry and thus were ‘closer’ to them than to the excluded ‘local’ poor in the institutions’ vicinities. The ‘civic’ universities on the other hand stressed ‘localism’ as part of their mandate – to educate the people of their locality (but only those of the new industrial middle class). The ‘Robbins’ universities were a partial return to the ‘ancient’ notion of learning as a ‘lived’ activity, providing scenic landscapes on green-belt campuses where students could ‘retreat’ from the ‘real world’ for the duration of their studies. The ‘spatial’ quality of these places was thus part of a conception of higher education as ‘lifestyle choice’ where young people moved away from their locality to study. As such ‘proximity’ was an issue only insofar as the greater the distance from one’s point of origin the better for successful immersion in the growing student ‘culture’. The ‘new/post-1992’ universities partially retained their polytechnic mandate to educate local people, but embraced a colonialist impulse regarding local space usage. ‘ ‘The discussion can be further refined to argue that these four stages are merely two phases which have repeated themselves: from ancient ‘exclusivity’ to civic ‘localism’ and back to Robbins era ‘exclusivity’ and thence to post-1992 ‘localism’ once more’. The opening up of higher education via the Internet in the late 20th and early 21st centuries provides for the possibility of the growth of entirely non-spatial and asynchronous learning experiences, and as such we may well be on the verge of the fifth stage of university development.     

Improper use of linear reasoning: An in-depth study of the nature and the irresistibility of secondary school students' errors

Several recent ascertaining studies revealed a deep-rooted and almost irresistible tendency among 12–16-year old students to improperly apply the linear or proportional model in word problems involving lengths, areas and volumes of similar plane figures and solids. While these previous studies showed to what extent students' improper use of linear reasoning is affected by different characteristics of the task, it remained largely unclear what aspects of their knowledge base are responsible for the occurrence and strength of this phenomenon and how these aspects relate to other more general misconceptions and buggy rules identified in the literature. This paper reports an in-depth investigation by means of individual semi-standardised interviews aimed at analysing the thinking process underlying students' improper linear reasoning and how this process is affected by their mathematical conceptions, beliefs and habits. During these interviews,students' solution processes were revealed through a number of well-specified questions by the interviewer with respect to one single non-linear application problem, as well as through their reactions to subsequent kinds of cognitive conflict. The interviews provided a lot of information about the actual process of problem solving from students falling into the ‘linearity trap’ and the mechanism behind it. Although some students seem to really ‘believe’ that quantities are always linked proportionally, their improper use of linearity often results from superficial and intuitive reasoning, influenced by specific mathematical conceptions, habits and beliefs leading to a deficient modelling process. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Looking at School from the House Window: Learning from Turkish-American Parents’ Experiences with Early Elementary Education in the United States

This retrospective study is an in-depth investigation of the perspectives of Turkish immigrant parents on their children’s early schooling in the United States (PreK-3). It specifically explores how these parents connect with or are disconnected from school culture, and how their socio-cultural understanding of education and teachers influence their relationships with schools. Using a qualitative research design, data were collected through in-depth interviews with 18 parents from 10 families. Findings suggest that Turkish parents negotiated the ways curriculum and instruction is constructed in American schools—such as their assumptions about the lack of academic rigor—while they also embraced sound pedagogies the teachers practiced. Through their experiences with schooling in the United States, Turkish parents reconsidered their sociocultural perspectives on the role of the teacher in their children’s lives based on their experiences with their children’s teachers. The parents also reported their challenges in understanding school culture and curriculum, and described how they negotiated their access to the school culture. The results indicate the need for a stronger partnership between home and school. Teachers could support parents in their struggle to access to the culture of schooling by establishing an eagerness for communication and a reciprocal personal connection with families, who already socioculturally assume the teacher’s role as part of family.     

价值、场域与愿景——论中小学校长的课程领导能力

随着我国基础教育阶段三级课程管理体制的建立与运行,中小学校长的课程领导能力日益成为一个重要的现实问题。在课程决策、实施、评鉴、运作机制构建等方面,校长要扮演好“首席教师”和课程领导的角色,承担领导课程改革的职责。教育行政部门应在评价、培训等方面为校长课程领导能力的提升提供外在支持;校长自身要通过自主学习、专家合作、同伴互助、校际联系等多种方法与途径,努力提高课程领导能力,这不仅是有效推进基础教育课程改革的重要保障,而且也是校长专业发展的重要向度。     

Alignment, cohesion, and change: Examining mathematics teachers’ belief structures and their influence on instructional practices

This collective case study reports on an investigation into the relationship between mathematics teachers’ beliefs and their classroom practices, namely, how they organized their classroom activities, interacted with their students, and assessed their students’ learning. Additionally, the study examined the pervasiveness of their beliefs in the face of efforts to incorporate reform-oriented classroom materials and instructional strategies. The participants were five high school teachers of ninth-grade algebra at different stages in their teaching career. The qualitative analysis of the data revealed that in general beliefs were very influential on the teachers’ daily pedagogical decisions and that their beliefs about the nature of mathematics served as a primary source of their beliefs about pedagogy and student learning. Findings from the analysis concur with previous studies in this area that reveal a clear relationship between these constructs. In addition, the results provide useful insights for the mathematics education community as it shows the diversity among the inservice teachers’ beliefs (presented as hypothesized belief models), the role and influence of beliefs about the nature of mathematics on the belief structure and how the teachers designed their instructional practices to reflect these beliefs. The article concludes with a discussion of implications of teacher education.