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.     

黄遵宪地方自治思想初探

黄遵宪受日本地方自治的影响,萌发并初步形成了地方自治思想.戊戌时期,曾将其地方自治思想付诸实践,主要体现在筹建地方自治政权和地方议会两个方面.戊戌以后,在新的历史条件下黄遵宪地方自治思想日益成熟.他主张明确划分中央与地方的权限,提出了"合群"思想,以解决传统社会向现代国家的转型和社会整合.     

自主性外语学习的影响因素

长期以来我国的教学模式使学生依赖性较强，自觉性较差，而发展学生的自觉性应从转变学生的自主学习态度入手。文章认为自主学习受诸多因素影响，必须多方努力，发挥各方面的优势，实现内外因素结合的最优化．以培养和提高学习者自主学习的意识和能力。     

关于城市社区自治立法的思考

在新形势下,中国社区法制建设的重要性、迫切性与复杂性日益凸现。现有社区自治的主要法律依据是1989年颁布的《中华人民共和国城市居民委员会组织法》。本文从该法的特点开始,分析其存在的若干问题;对该法从宏观和微观角度进行了思考,认为它已不适应我国社会发展的需要,完善该法已是刻不容缓。     

试论村民自治与我国农村民主化进程

村民自治是伴随我国农村经济改革进程而出现的一种村民自治管理模式 ,它是农村经济和社会发展的必然结果 ,是民主原则在中国农村的具体体现。村民自治不但是推进农村民主化进程的有效途径 ,而且对中国的民主化进程也具有深远的意义。     

How autonomy support and ethical value alignment influences attitudes towards diversity in English police

ABSTRACT

Antagonism towards diversity, an attitude reflecting low egalitarian ethical values, has been a topic within policing that has received increasing attention in the last decade. Using two-wave data and applying self-determination theory, we investigated how autonomy support versus autonomy frustration, ways of being motivated either through encouraging one’s sense of volition, or otherwise, coercing and imposing pressures, can improve diversity attitudes through its relation with ethical values. Study 1 (n= 398 police officers and staff) found that autonomy-supportive communications fostered ethical values, and hence was negatively related to diversity antagonism. Study 2 (n= 859 police officers and staff) indicated that motivation to overcome prejudice mediates the relationship between ethical values and diversity antagonism. Perceptions of workplace culture as lacking in autonomy support acted as a boundary condition for the ethical values and diversity antagonism relationship; no relationship was present when autonomy support was low.     

高等学校自主权及其限度

高校自主权是法律范围内的自主权,从本质上说是高校在法律范围内的自由裁量权,其性质为公权利,其载体是高校法人;其有效性决定于法律规定的范围和学校的定位。     

The relationship of institutional size and complexity to faculty autonomy: A reconsideration and caution

Recent review and criticism of the role of size as a variable in the study of organizations prompts a reconsideration of the casual role attributed to size in the study of colleges and universities. Literature relating institutional size to faculty autonomy is reviewed and critiqued. Secondary analyses using multiple regression techniques are conducted on data from the Stanford Project on Academic Governance. Results show that the causal role of size in the determination of faculty autonomy in colleges and universities is modest, when other variables are controlled. Methodological difficulties in the study of size in colleges and universities are discussed.     

The serendipity of principalship: meaning-making of a filipino secondary school principal

Meaning-making is vital in the realm of principalship. It serves as the fulcrum of one’s practice which eventually leads to seeing the light and appreciating the serendipity of principalship. While explicit knowledge abounds in the literature and is communicated in professional development programs, the role of the principals’ tacit knowledge derived from their experiences, day-to-day dealings with the school’s stakeholders, observations, insights, and reflections are vital inputs in understanding the dynamics of school principalship. This narrative inquiry is an attempt to capture the tacit knowledge of a Filipino secondary school principal whose experiences were limited by the absence of a formal academic preparation in school management but illumined by herleadership reflective space (LRS) which enabled her to surface the serendipitous language of principalship.     

Science adjustment,parental and teacher autonomy support and the cognitive orientation of science students

Research has shown that autonomy support has positive effects on academic development, but no study has examined how systemising cognitive orientation is related to important outcomes for science students, and how it may interact with autonomy support. This prospective investigation considered how systemising and support from teachers and parents influence motivation, self-efficacy and science performance of science students. Totally, two hundred and eighty eight high school students (143 females and 145 males) completed surveys at two times and records of their achievements were collected. Teachers’ autonomy support and systemising were significantly positively related to motivation, self-efficacy and achievement over time, while parental support for autonomy was not directly related to the outcomes. Finally, two significant interaction effects showed that the relation of parental autonomy support to motivation and self-efficacy was moderated by systemising. This is the first study to demonstrate that autonomy support may be especially helpful for individuals with an intrinsic disposition in a domain.     

The relationship between university autonomy and funding in England and Taiwan

This paper aims to re-examine the effects offunding on university autonomy since therelationship between university autonomy andfunding is likely to be interpreted as a lineareffect; namely, the more funding the greaterautonomy. Such a simplistic vision is less than complete since it ignores the complicated nature of university autonomy. The nature of the latter should be defined contextually and politically. Itsinterpretation should also be placed in thechanging government-university relationships.This paper argues that the effect of funding on university autonomy is conditioned by the nature of university autonomy in a given country. While universityautonomy involves more than a financial tie,greater efforts on the part of universities todiversify their funding bases may well notenhance, at least directly, their autonomy.Through an extensive literature review, andempirical studies conducted in England and Taiwan, the argument of this paper is supported.     

School autonomy,accountability and collaboration: a critical review

English education has recently experienced radical policy reform in the areas of school autonomy and accountability. The key focus of this paper is on how schools might best navigate through these policy moves. It highlights how these moves have constructed schools, teachers and students in problematic ways but also how they are offering possibilities for improving the quality of schools and schooling. The focus here is on the promise and scope of school collaboration. The difficulties of creating socially responsive and responsible collaboratives in the current ‘heterarchical’ and market-oriented policy environment are acknowledged. Guided by quality democratic governance, they are, nonetheless, presented as crucial in supporting schools to productively deal with the demands of this environment.     

Theoretical notes on a relational approach to principals’ time use

ABSTRACT

Principals’ time use has emerged as a serious policy problem in an era of reported decline in school outcomes – both organisational and individual student – and with difficulties in attracting quality candidates for vacancies. The contemporary crisis of the principalship is centred on an ever increasing workload (volume and complexity) and a deficit of time for instructional leadership. Units of the clock are the orthodox version of time in modern Western society. This however is not a universal and is based on an external measure of practice. This paper presents a theoretical intervention for the field by proposing an alternate conceptualisation of temporality built on relational theorising that sees practice not as having time but generating time and space. It does not assume a single version of time and instead opens a fruitful scholarly direction for recasting principals’ time use literatures.     

调动学生情感 促进自主学习

介绍了自主学习的概念,分析了情感与自主学习的关系,重点探讨在外语教学中教师如何实施情感教学以建立教师与学生之间相互信任和良好合作的关系,增强学生的责任感和自尊心,从而提高他们的自主学习能力。     

Roles,requirements and autonomy of academic researchers

As an indicator of nations' prosperity and economic competitiveness, research impacts the mounting roles and requirements placed upon academic researchers. Internationally, researchers are expected to effectively operate in the fast-changing and demanding research environment. Such effectiveness corresponds mainly to their ability to establish international and interdisciplinary collaborations, secure internal and external grants, and most importantly deliver tangible research outputs. As such, this desired research excellence impacts researchers' academic appointments, recognitions and promotions. Driven by research productivity and pursuit of academic excellence, researchers' individual autonomy may become restricted. This work is based on (a) an international study exploring research productivity within higher education institutions across 15 countries and (b) a relevant international literature review. The voices of 32 participants portray competencies required from and requirements placed upon academic researchers at their respective universities. Findings show that the role of academic researchers is changing and the requirements pose challenges to researchers' autonomy. The research productivity quest along with opportunity-driven decisions may not only restrict researchers' autonomy but also compromise their academic integrity.     

Self-directed learning to develop autonomy in an online ESP community

Low foreign language achievers in vocational education often have a lack of learning strategies, a tendency to feel frustrated, and unwillingness to be involved. In order to develop vocational college students’ autonomy, this study integrated on-site workshops with an online learning community by means of self-directed learning English for specific purposes (ESP). The results show that the online ESP community developed students into autonomous learners by (1) employing resource-based approach to download learning materials for preview and review, (2) utilizing curriculum-based approach to view online photos for monitoring their role-play and interactions in the learning processes and taking e-assessment for evaluating learning progress, and (3) using technology-based approach for interacting with their peers. The students developed learner autonomy to achieve significant better learning outcomes in the post-test. It was implied that self-directed learning with little teacher intervention of integrating on-site and online learning community could develop learner autonomy in ESP.     

Academic identity and autonomy in a changing policy environment

The article draws on two research projects to explore the implications of policy change in the UK for academic identities within a predominantly communitarian theoretical perspective. It focuses on biological scientists and science policies. It examines the impacts of changes upon the dynamic between individuals, disciplines and universities within which academic identities are formed and sustained and upon individual and collective values central to academic identity, namely the primacy of the discipline in academic working lives and academic autonomy. Challenges to these have been strong but they have retained much of their normative power, even if the meaning of academic autonomy has changed. Communitarian theories of academic identity may need to be modified in the contemporary environment but they do not need to be abandoned.     

Environmentally active people: the role of autonomy,relatedness, competence and self-determined motivation

To identify pathways to lower environmental impacts, this research examined the motivation and antecedents of motivation (autonomy, relatedness, competence), of environmentally active people. Previous research suggests that people with more self-determined motivation for pro-environmental behavior (PEB) should carry out more PEBs, and have lower environmental impacts, than people whose motivation is more externally regulated. Path analysis in Sample 1 (N = 261) confirmed that self-determined motivation was positively related to both easy and difficult PEB. The more participants judged that their needs for autonomy and relatedness were met in relation to performing PEB, the more self-determined their motivation. Higher perceived relatedness was also directly related to reporting more engagement in difficult PEB. Perceived competence was not related to self-determined motivation or PEB. The pattern of results was largely supported when re-tested with a sample (N = 320) who completed a ‘carbon footprint’ measure of environmental impact as well as the questionnaire completed by Sample 1. In this sample, autonomy, relatedness, and competence were related to self-determined motivation. The research is the first to our knowledge to examine and find a relationship between higher self-determined motivation and lower self-reported environmental impact. These findings point to new approaches to increasing PEB.