Shared Sense-making in Curriculum Reform: Orchestrating the Local Curriculum Work

This study aims to gain a better understanding of the Finnish national curriculum reform by examining how the educational practitioners, at the district level, orchestrate the shared sense-making concerning the reform work in their school districts. Qualitative focus group data was collected from 12 groups, throughout Finland, that were responsible for orchestrating curriculum reform work at the district level. Results showed that curriculum reform steering groups recognized the importance of orchestrating shared sense-making. They strived to develop functional, context sensitive, and shared strategies for reform implementation across their districts. They employed a range of strategies for managing, navigating, and regulating the shared sense-making of the local curriculum work.     

Perceptions of the school self-evaluation process: the case of Abu Dhabi

The Abu Dhabi Education Council (ADEC) has initiated educational change and school improvements. As part of the school reform agenda, ADEC has introduced school self-evaluation-Irtiqaa (SSE-Irtiqaa). This research probes the effectiveness of school administrators (SAs), including principals, vice principals, academic principals, and heads of faculty, and their perceptions of the implications and implementation of SSE-Irtiqaa. The study also intends to improve school quality and help benchmark Abu Dhabi public schools with international academic standards, by tracing challenges faced during the SSE-Irtiqaa process. Public SAs are the participants of this study. This research is an exploratory case study that employed a qualitative research tool. Semi-structured individual interviews were conducted with 14 administrators representing 6 public schools in Abu Dhabi. Findings and recommendations shed light on the areas and paths of development required to facilitate and improve the SSE-Irtiqaa process.     

Social justice dilemmas: evidence on the successes and shortcomings of three principals trying to make a difference

Social justice leadership has become a popular topic and catchphrase in the field of educational leadership. However, most scholarly and empirical contributions have ignored the inherent tensions, challenges and dilemmas associated with the practice of school leadership and the realities principals confront on a daily basis. This is partly because researchers have tended to ignore multiple facets of justice in their empirical investigations as well as how larger forces outside the school associated with historical, political, social and economic injustices marginalize students and communities. This article explores three cases of challenging school–community contexts that confound and partially subdue the efforts of well-intentioned principals. Each case highlights a dedicated principal committed to their school and community, and documents the significant progress made in addressing particular social justice issues, but also how they confronted justice dilemmas that they believed required them to prioritize certain social justice issues over others. These findings have important implications for how principals view their communities and engage in critical reflection about the leadership decisions and actions they take on a daily basis. This article concludes with implications for future research and a discussion of how aspiring principals can be better prepared to lead for social justice and effectively address justice dilemmas without ignoring or putting off other injustices.     

Home–school relationships: a school management perspective

Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE) is in the process of initiating major education reform designed to improve schools. Parental involvement in support of student learning ranks high on the reform agenda. This study explores managerial aspects of implementing home–school relationships in seven primary Public Private Partnership (PPP) schools in Abu Dhabi, UAE. Participants involved in this study were principals, social workers, teachers, parents, and students. Managerial aspects discussed in this paper relate to: (a) benefits of home–school relationships; (b) roles and responsibilities of stakeholders; (c) home–school communication; and (d) constraints and challenges faced in the management of home–school relationships. The findings elicit recommendations for improvement which may inform the work of policymakers, principals, social workers, teachers and parents in their continued efforts to build home–school relationships.     

Ideological dichotomies and practical realities in educational reform

The ideologies organizing recent educational reform efforts and the effects of these efforts are considered in multilevel case study. The study looks at the effects of reform efforts at the district, school, and classroom levels and at how one-sided reform ideologies, which provide little practical guidance, were reinterpreted and modified by principals and teachers. The case study is then used as a basis for some general reflections on the relation between educational ideology and practice using viewpoints provided by functional, conflict, and loose-coupling theories.     

The role of mediating organizations for school reform: independent agents or district dependents?

This paper examines the role of mediating organizations in helping schools engage in whole school change as part of a school district's reform agenda. Specifically, it examines the Learning Community Program in Los Angeles, a programme designed by an external school reform organization, to assist schools in planning and implementing LEARN (Los Angeles Educational Alliance for Restructuring Now). The programme's success is shaped by the district and school contexts in which it operates. As mediating agent, the Learning Community Program must balance the challenges facing the schools ‐‐ particularly their readiness to engage in reform ‐‐ with the demands of the district for scale, accountability and resources. As it does so, it faces the challenges of maintaining program flexibility, building sustainable changes, and preserving its organizational independence. These pressures generate three central dilemmas and threaten to undermine the success of the district's reform and the Learning Community Program ‐‐ scale versus sustainability, district mandates versus site autonomy, and organizational independence versus survival. It concludes that mediating agencies can be constrained by their dependence on policymakers for critical resources.     

School leaders’ dilemmas and measures to instigate changes for inclusive education in Hong Kong

The roles of principal leadership in change management have long been documented. The key concern to examine in this study was the dilemmas and measures confronting principals’ when they led changes to instigate inclusive education in Hong Kong. Thus, this paper aims to report sources of dilemmas and how principals tackled them in the change process. Ten principals of schools recognized for effective inclusive education practices were interviewed in a qualitative study. Findings suggested that the process of leading change was very complex. Two dilemmas were identified: (a) principals’ struggles between benefits and issues of participating in inclusive education and (b) autocratic initial decisions versus need for staff involvement. The second dilemma stemmed from not involving key staff while the implementation required their active participation. Thus, the existing organizational culture and personnel capacities became obstacles required for the success of inclusive education. The leadership measures to tackle the obstacles began by building a shared vision which in turn required both transactional and transformational leadership activities in order to increase teacher commitment to reforms. This study has contributed to change leadership theories in affirming the need to include socio-political contexts in examining leadership decisions toward school reforms.     

Global social issues in the curriculum: perspectives of school principals

In this article, we discuss principals’ perspectives on the priority given to the place in the curriculum of and the supporting practices related to health and sustainability education in schools in Denmark (for pupils aged 6–16). The study is situated within the discourses about critical health and sustainability education and treats the two issues as societal challenges that are important to address in schools as educational examples. We draw on the literature on school leadership challenges linked to global neoliberal trends in educational reform. The context of the study is the ongoing school reform in Denmark. The data were generated through an online survey of principals in Denmark (n = 118). The findings show that although the principals view school as an important arena for health and sustainability education, their actual support for such education lags behind. Health education is prioritized somewhat more than sustainability education; however, both are characterized by insufficient attention to teachers’ professional development and the low prioritization of collaboration within the school and between the school and community actors. Acknowledging the contradicting demands that principals face in the context of the reform, we argue for reconnecting the concept of leadership with the wider purposes of schooling and for providing space for an emergent, whole-school curriculum that addresses health and sustainability.     

US principals’ attitudes about and experiences with single-sex schooling

Despite a lack of scientific evidence supporting the use of single-sex education, the number of US public schools offering single-sex education has increased. However, our understanding as to why decision-makers have implemented single-sex education is lacking. To address this gap, we surveyed US public school principals and assessed their attitudes about and experiences with single-sex schooling. Sixty-seven principals from single-sex schools and 193 principals from co-educational schools participated. The results indicated that principals who had experience with single-sex schooling tended to have more positive attitudes about single-sex schooling, viewed it as more effective, and more often evoked gender-essentialist rationales for the use of single-sex schooling than did co-educational principals. However, both single-sex and co-educational principals noted issues with single-sex schooling. It was concluded that single-sex schooling is not a silver bullet to educational reform and that when single-sex schooling is implemented, one set of issues and problems is substituted for another.     

Autonomy and religious education: lessons from a six-year evaluation of an educational reform in an Israeli school network

This study investigated the tension that exists between promoting an educational agenda and practising an educational approach which emphasises autonomy within the framework of religious education. Our main thesis is that every educational deed contains a dialectical tension between endorsing an educational agenda and the promotion of autonomy. Moreover, this tension is not restricted to religious education. The intensity of such a conflict varies in accordance with the flexibility (or inflexibility) of the dogma, the conceptual cohesion of the educational agenda and the perceived importance of granting autonomy to students. The more cohesive and inflexible the educational agenda is, the greater the danger that autonomy will be discarded. The present research examined an educational reform implemented in the National-Religious School Network in Israel, which included the promotion of autonomy among principals, teachers and students. Conducted over a six-year period (2006–2012), the research employed both qualitative and quantitative methodologies and involved various stakeholders in the school network. The multifaceted picture that emerged of the relationship between educational autonomy and religious agenda is presented.     

The intersection of school context and teachers’ data use practice: Implications for an integrated approach to capacity building

The current emphasis on data is a powerful force behind educational reform strategies. Administrators and teachers are inundated with data and increased expectations for data-driven practices in an effort to drive school reform. This mixed method study examined teachers’ experiences in a pilot professional development program to enhance data literacy and data use practices among nine grade-level elementary and middle school teacher teams in a single school district. Pre, post and follow-up surveys of the 28 teacher participants revealed promising outcomes of the professional development program. Significant increases in teachers’ reported data literacy, efficacy, and collaboration were evident. The study also examined school-level factors that supported data use practices and data cultures. Interviews with 15 school principals revealed how structural features such as district requirements, school expectations, and established policies and routines influenced teachers’ data use practice. Structural factors facilitating collaboration were associated with instructional goals and improvement cultures.     

Gendered views of managing discipline in school and classroom

The current study explored male and female principals’ views of classroom and discipline management from a gender perspective. Based on semi‐structured interviews with 16 primary school principals from Israel, the study points to gendered views of school discipline, in that certain perspectives to prevent or handle discipline problems in school were indicated either by the male principals or by the female principals. Likewise, there are differences between men and women in principalship regarding the idealized role of the principal in managing school discipline and the essential aims of effective school discipline. Several research implications for the research on gender in educational administration are suggested.     

校长职业化:命题的分析与检讨

校长职业化是校长角色发展的必然趋势，同时也是我国教育改革的必然结果，进而将进一步推进教育事业的发展。校长职业化强调校长是一个独立的社会职业，而校长专业化则强调校长的专业水平和专业自主权。推进校长职业化应：1．转变校长的思维观念，树立现代教育产业经营观；2．强化校长的资格制度，建立校长市场化的配置模式；3．重视校长业绩的激励和权力的监督。     

美国教育行政演进过程概览及启示

本文主要涉及美国教育行政演进过程中的几个重要阶段:学区制的建立发展;学区制的衰落及州教育行政的建立发展;联邦教育行政的建立发展;学区制的改造及地方教育行政的完善。“地方分权”制是其教育行政管理的主要特色,是促进美国教育高速发展的有力武器。但认真分析后发现,依法治教才是美国教育管理得以高效有序运作的真正法宝,是我们应借鉴学习之处。     

Investigating instructional leadership in Kuwait's educational reform context: school leaders’ perspectives

This study explores the practices of Kuwaiti school principals acting as instructional leaders during education reforms, using qualitative content analysis of standardised open-ended interviews with 28 randomly selected school principals. The results showed that principals faced obstacles related to the deeply-ingrained centralised structure in the Ministry of Education, whose mandates conflicted with the stated goal of building principals’ capacity. There were variations in instructional leadership dimensions, including defining the school’s mission, managing the instructional programme, and creating a positive climate for teaching and learning. A gradual, planned decentralisation is recommended to improve educational leadership practices in Kuwait.     

Instructional leadership and the charter school principal

Few studies have investigated what occurs inside charter schools with respect to instructional leadership, teaching, and learning. To address this gap in the literature, this case study examines two major issues: how the principals at four charter schools enact instructional leadership in their respective schools, and what barriers the principals encounter when enacting instructional leadership at their school sites. The results highlight three main categories of instructional leadership practices: developing a school mission, managing curriculum and instruction, and promoting school climate and culture. In addition, the data reveal that while the principals attempted to engage in instructional leadership, they encountered barriers related to budgeting and staffing. The paper broadens the scholarly understanding of instructional leadership in schools with high levels of autonomy.     

Accountability,autonomy and stress: principal responses to superintendent change in a large US urban school district

This study investigates how principals in a large US urban school district responded to two different superintendents who employed contrasting leadership styles and utilised divergent organisational schemes. We originally conducted interviews with principals in 2007, when the district's superintendent asserted fierce performance demands and limited principals’ site-based discretion in favour of protecting and exerting central office power. We conducted interviews again in 2013 after a new superintendent had relaxed school test score expectations and distributed the central office's previously tight, centralised control into largely self-directing sub-regions. Our findings demonstrate that superintendent change noticeably affected how principals understood and encountered accountability, autonomy and stress. To help make sense of our findings, we employ a three-part conceptual framework drawn from the study of educational leadership. We conclude by considering implications, including the notion that unrelenting stress has become a permanent part of the modern urban US principalship.     

The micropolitics of school district decentralization

This case study of school district educational reform in the United States adds to the knowledge base of macropolitics of federal, state and local governing bodies and private sector agencies in formulating educational policies: It also contributes to our understanding the microplitics of policy implementation. Middle managers’ political acquiescence and resistance to district-wide decentralization and distributive leadership initiatives were studied using a longitudinal, ten-year (1998–2008) case study method. Middle managers were faced with a dilemma when the school district implemented a state sponsored decentralization policy that included adoption of distributed leadership and Total Quality Management (TQM). On the one hand, middle managers risked termination if they failed to implement legislated reform policies and the superintendent’s directives. On the other hand, if they succesfully implemented such policies their positions would become redundant. Initially responses of middle managers ranged along a continuum from acquiescence to resistance however as implementation of the decentralization initiative accelerated, middle managers’ political resistance increased in scope and intensity. Findings from the case study discussed in this article that superintendent’s success at implementation of district-wide decentralization policies is related to the nature and structure of microplolitics at the middle management level of the organization. In addition, findings suggest that internal evaluation processes used to assess the success of the district change process were compromised by miropolitics. Understanding that those who implement policy have the capacity to reshape and even prevent implementation as intended by officials at higher levels may contribute to reframing program evaluation methods as well as enhancing understanding of the politics of the superintendency.     

School Reform,Families, and Health in the Emergent National Agenda for Economic and Social Improvement: Implications

The school reform movement is under way. Like previous reform movements, this one has competing constituencies and goals. There is, however, growing consensus among powerful constituencies about the roles of schools in an emergent national agenda. This agenda emphasizes economic and social improvement via school reform. It also prioritizes the relationship among schools, familes, family agencies, and health organizations; it invites changes in schools and their relationships with home environments and cornmunitybased, family, and health agencies. Schools, in varying degrees, are being “reinvented.” The question is not whether physical education will be impacted, but how. After all, reinvented schools imply reinvented subjects and subject-matter relationships, including the relationship between physical education and health education. There are attendant implications for the preparation of teachers and teacher educators. These and other implications invite proactive planning and decision making.