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The role of a manager within any organisation is often complex and multifaceted. Overtime management theory has developed in an effort to appreciate these complexities and suggest frameworks from which managers should operate. However, should management and the role of a manager be considered generic? Or, instead should we appreciate the distinctions dependant on the context in which a manager is operating in? This paper focuses on education middle managers working in vocational education and training using the Further Education sector in England as a case study to investigate the role. Utilising systematic review the paper will discuss literature on management theory, competency theory and further education management. It considers a range of management theories such as scientific, human relations and open systems theory discussing how these have informed the development of competency theory and frameworks, highlighting the strengths and limitations of prior studies. Building from these studies, this paper creates a new way to develop management competency frameworks. This is illustrated by proposing a contextualised literature-informed competency framework for further education middle managers. Challenging the generic approach to management competency frameworks and providing a platform for empirical studies that develop frameworks contextualised to the external operating environment of the manager. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present research that focuses on pedagogical leadership that is evaluated by the staff in the early education unit. The evaluations relate to the observed indicators of the well-being of children and leadership evaluations conducted by the early education centre directors. The methods include systematic observation of children, educators' evaluation of leadership and directors' evaluation of their leadership. The measurements are independent of each other. The data were collected between 2017 and 2019 in Finnish early education units. The results indicate the connection between the pedagogical leadership of director and observed activities of children, including involved learning, positive emotion, physical activity and participation. The connection between pedagogical leadership evaluated by the staff was also connected with leadership evaluated by the director, highlighting the need for the director to focus on pedagogical leadership and staff involvement. The results provide a perspective to help the director to focus on the main task of early education, the well-being of the children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the school of the future, aiming to identify and aid the implementation of the most desired version of school autonomy in Cyprus. More specifically, the study initially forecasts the areas of financial decisions that the school of the future might autonomously manage, identifies the negative effects that may appear along the way and seeks support measures that could enhance an autonomous school’s efficiency and effectiveness. Moreover, after both the probable and the desired future emerge, the paper proceeds in examining the reasons causing the divergence between them, as well as ways in which the two futures may be better aligned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to document the perceptions of school leaders regarding the technological use, skills, and attitudes of high school teachers. Using a qualitative research approach, 11 educational leaders from Prince Edward Island (Canada) were individually interviewed. Participants represented the Department of Education, principals, vice-principals, and department heads. Analyzed through the concept of e-leadership, the findings indicated that participants used a growing array of technological tools and activities including Smartboards, flipped classrooms, Prezi, educational apps, YouTube, and teacher blogs. Participants identified lack of time as a possible reason why some teachers were not incorporating technology into student learning. Findings highlight the need for provincial and school district authorities to promote policies aimed at promoting e-leadership among teachers. We insert an appendix to provide descriptions of the technological terms included within the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is one of a series of papers generated from the Curriculum Reform study in Hong Kong with the purpose of understanding the impact of government’s role in the change process of the reform. This paper specifically examines the 17 government initiatives in the Curriculum Reform in terms of their adoption percentages of schools from before 2000 to 2006–7. These initiatives can be regarded as ‘soft’ measures of the Government, supplementing the hard policies on the Curriculum Reform. The adoption of these initiatives in schools reflects the extent of implementation of reform items and therefore should be crucial to the success of the Curriculum Reform. The study illustrates the impact of the government on the phase of adoption in the change process. The findings suggested that whereas the government initially played an important role in adoption of these initiatives it was not able to raise the adoption percentages further towards the end of the study. Other features of adoption and their impacts on policy and change are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to identify leadership practices and qualities of school teachers as they engaged in effecting change initiated by a curriculum reform in Hong Kong. Based on interview data of teachers from nine schools, this paper shows how teacher leadership manifested itself in schools. Three approaches to teacher leadership were identified, each delineating how teacher leaders approached the implementation task – as a compliance exercise, an adaptive exercise, or as a capacity building exercise. This paper confirms that different levels of teacher–leader engagement in professional enquiries constitute different teacher leadership practices, which have differential impacts on teaching and learning practices and the effectiveness of school improvement efforts. Implications for developing teacher leadership in schools are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper suggests that multiple deprivation is a concept as yet lacking in substantial theoretical analysis and that its application as a research framing tool in education is relatively recent. As a concept, multiple deprivation suggests a confluence of factors which depress learning and place unique challenges on leadership and which act in combination rather than in isolation. Given that more than three quarters of schools in South Africa are officially described as dysfunctional and that many of these schools serve communities facing multiple deprivation, the article calls for a new theoretical approach which focuses on how best schools in these circumstances can best be led. Based on extant evidence in the field, the paper identifies generative leadership practices upon which a new theory of leadership for these contexts could be constructed. Specifically, it suggests that a cocktail of leadership forms which include transformational, distributed, instructional, ethical and asset based leadership could offer the most promise for schools faced with multiple deprivation. The paper also provides an overview of the articles selected for this special edition. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Research increasingly points to the negative impacts of teacher absence from school on access to schooling and success in learning in schools, in particular in schools in areas of multiple-deprivation (including rural schools). South African schools are no exception. In this regard, like any other employer, the South African Department of Basic Education has a set of policies that govern teachers’ conditions of service. Among others, these include policies that govern leave and absence from school. While the policies are meant to enhance teachers’ conditions of service, they are also aimed at safeguarding the rights of learners to quality education by ensuring that teachers remain on task, and that teaching and learning is not interrupted. Using Lipsky’s theory of discretion, this paper takes the view that as street-level bureaucrats, principals use their discretionary power to manage teacher leave and absence from school, and that the strategies they employ are informed by their understandings and conceptualisations of policy. The paper reports on a study undertaken to explore teacher leave in South African schools. In particular, it critically examines principals’ use of their discretionary powers to make decisions about teacher leave-taking, and the coping mechanisms they use to manage teacher absence and to safeguard the rights of learners to quality education. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper argues that the success of schools in disadvantaged township communities is shaped by an interplay of four dimensions: strategy, regulation, pedagogy and compensation. The paper presents these dimensions of successful leadership in secondary schools by drawing on a research study focusing on cases of three Soweto township secondary schools. Data sources included interviews, informal discussions and focus groups. The participants included principals, other members of the school management teams, teachers and parents. The case studies generated outcomes that contributed towards an emerging model of successful school leadership in township secondary schools facing multiple factors of deprivation. The successful school leadership practices explored in this study revealed that there were three discernible ways to characterise leadership practices in the case schools: principal-driven success; participative leadership driven by senior management; and teacher-led success. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Multiple deprivation affects a large proportion of schools in South Africa. The past 20 years of democracy have tended to focus on reforming education through curricula revision and a raft of redress-directed interventions, through the application of what we call a broad-brush policy approach. The paper argues that a broad-brush policy application fails to recognise the contextualised challenges faced in specific schools. The central purpose of the research was to discover the specific challenges and leadership issues that schools in multiple deprived communities face, and to identify ways in which such schools dealt with these challenges. The research was conducted through a case study approach of three schools in one of the most impoverished provinces of the country. In total 3 principals, 3 parents and 26 teachers were interviewed. The study found that while the three schools shared many similar conditions of poverty that drove the poor to marginal performance, stories of success tended to be strongly related to four key factors: (1) leadership that went beyond an ordinary focus on instruction; (2) staff stability; (3) flexible scheduling that allowed parental involvement; and (4) a focus on a school-wide project that acted as a rallying point and a source of pride for the entire school. The paper identifies asset-based leadership and servant leadership approaches as generative in schools facing multiple deprivation. The paper concludes with a call for more school-based improvement initiatives that seek to interrogate the impact of factors of multiple deprivation, and a broad policy redirection towards school improvement rather than educational reform, which has been the focus in the past 20 years. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper reports on evidence from five school principals regarding leadership practices that work in multiple deprived contexts. The South African educational landscape is complex, often described as a cocktail of first and third world institutions. Looking at the schooling system on a continuum, on the one end there are first class schools which can compare favourably with the best in developed countries. On the other extreme there are dysfunctional schools. However, along the scale there are few schools in multiple deprived areas which display high degrees of resilience and perform at levels comparable to first class schools in terms of Matriculation examination results. This paper draws from a study based on the proposition that leadership was the greatest factor to explain such performance. The study was then informed by a quest for knowledge regarding the nature of such leadership. Such knowledge is needed as the country fights to turn around the many dysfunctional schools there are. While there is a corpus of scholarship that ‘speaks’ to this matter internationally, there remains need for home-grown insights in that regard. Two theoretical lenses (servant leadership and the asset-based approach) were applied. The study employed a qualitative approach involving individual face-to-face semi-structured interviews with five purposively selected school principals each representing their school. Findings suggest that the schools in question adopted inside-out development approaches involving the philosophy that they were masters of their own destiny. Time, commitment, and accountability were some of their greatest assets, things that did not have to come from outside the schools. Internal success paved the way for stronger and more fruitful synergies with the ‘outside world’. We conclude that schools in areas of multiple-deprivation need leadership that moves them away from notions of victimhood and deficit thinking towards asset-based approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Studies on school leadership in Hong Kong have mainly focused on primary and secondary schools, with only a handful of studies looking at leadership in early childhood education. This paper aims to report the findings of a study on strategic leadership in Hong Kong's kindergartens. It discusses the challenges that Hong Kong kindergarten leaders are facing and the need for practising strategic leadership. It then reports the findings of practices valued by the leaders of Hong Kong kindergartens. The findings of this study reveal, that apart from the abilities to exercise sound planning and management in school, leaders' reflective, flexible and systems thinking and their willingness in continuous professional and network development are crucial to leading today's kindergartens. This study also indicates that leaders' contextual intelligence is important for exercising strategic leadership. The significance of this study lies in its contribution to the investigation of leadership practices in early childhood education, the need to further explore how well kindergarten leaders are practising strategic leadership and the implications for the development of principal preparation programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the preparation of school principals in Malaysia, and the aspiration of the Malaysian Education Blueprint 2013-2025 to ensure high-performing school leaders in every school. It reports on the principal preparatory programme, the National Professional Qualification for Educational Leaders, which is mandatory to those who aspire to be school principals. Documentary analysis was undertaken on materials used for leadership training programmes by the National Institute of Educational Management and Leadership or Institut Aminuddin Baki (IAB), which is the country's main leadership training and development centre, equivalent to the National College for Teaching and Leadership in England. Eight primary and secondary schools, chosen by stratified purposive sampling, were selected for the study. Interviews were conducted with principals and assistant principals of the eight schools, to establish how they were selected and prepared for their leadership roles. Interviews with Ministry of Education and IAB officials offered a provider perspective while an interview with an education minister clarified the policy and political contexts of the study. The findings of the study draw attention to the need to refine the selection criteria, with a focus on higher entry standards to ensure excellent leadership in schools, an emphasis on instructional leadership to improve student learning in schools, the conflict between central direction and the importance of situational leadership, and the political imperative for programme outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I explore the relationship of democracy to educational leadership; more specifically, to the notion of distributed leadership as it unfolds within policy-mandated multi-site school collaboratives, with particular reference to practices in Malta. Under the policy framework 'For All Children To Succeed' introduced in Malta in 2005, Maltese primary and secondary state schools embarked on the process of being organized into networks, legally termed 'colleges'. I explore leadership distribution among the leaders constituting the college and the subsequent inherent tensions within this educational scenario. The notion of distributed leadership as perceived by the leaders is examined, and especially the leaders' reception of its presentation in the policy document as the leadership discourse; and its eventual (non-)enactment at both school and college level. A Foucauldian theoretical framework, specifically Foucault's concepts of power relations, governmentality, discourse, and subjectification, is used to carry out a case study of a Maltese college, collecting data via semi-structured, in-depth interviews, participant observation and documentary analysis. Narrative is both the phenomenon under study and the method of analysis. The policy discourse does not unfold in a participatory democratic manner in practice, resulting in an organizational paradox where leadership enactment in a Maltese college is 'directed' from above, rather than 'distributed'. These findings may be significant for educational practice, policy and theory in terms of the generation of problematization which may lead to further research on this contested topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educational Collaborative Networks (ECNs) aim to achieve educational goals at the community level and base their actions on collaborative partnering between schools and community organizations. These approaches are an emergent and innovative leadership and policy strategy being used increasingly across the globe, given the interconnected and pervasive nature of issues facing education. The enthusiasm and promise of such community-based initiatives are accompanied by concerns related to its leadership. This paper describes the insights of networked leadership as a driver, which facilitates ECN outcome achievement. This article examines the experience of leaders involved in the current leadership of 18 high-performing ECNs in Barcelona (Spain). The results stress that networked leadership may become a key driver of change in educational contexts, capable of building a collaborative culture to optimize the educational performance in every specific community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The provision of customized black and minority ethnic (BME) leadership courses and programmes is one of the measures being employed to address the under-representation of teachers and school leaders from minority ethnic backgrounds. This strategy has always attracted controversy as opinions have been divided about its value and benefits. Yet there is paucity of literature on the content and impact of customized BME leadership programmes. This paper examines the perception and reported experiences of participants of Equal Access to Promotion (EAP) and Investing in Diversity (IiD), two BME leadership development programmes, for the benefits and value-added by customized BME leadership development programmes. The paper also draws attention to current statistics on the positioning of BME teachers and school leaders within the school system in England and the perceived impact of customized BME programmes in addressing the barriers faced by BME teachers in their drive for development and progression. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper addresses if, and to what extent, the current working methods of the Dutch Inspectorate of Education affect the governance of school boards in schools for primary education. A key facet of the working method is the inspection meeting with the school board. Drawing upon a large quantitative study (n = 244) we are able to identify some changes in school board governance due to these inspection meetings. School boards that had an inspection meeting indicate changes in their governance of quality assurance and data use, and in the amount of data that they collect on the functioning of their schools. School boards indicate very small amounts of activities with regard to the curriculum and instruction in their schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing emphasis has been placed on leadership within educational theory, policy and practice. Drawing on a wide range of academic literature and policy documents, this paper explores how the discourse of leadership has shifted and for what purposes. The authors are critical of the lack of conceptual underpinning for that discourse, evident both nationally and internationally, and they identify key issues that the teaching profession has been left to try to understand and make sense of. They caution that, despite attempts to align contemporary policy developments to position leadership as inherent in the role of every teacher, flaws in the conceptualisation of leadership, and particularly in favoured forms such as ‘distributed leadership’ and ‘teacher leadership’, pose significant challenges to a serious attempt to ‘reprofessionalise’ teachers. Contemporary developments in Scottish education are referred to, exemplifying key tensions inherent in translating international trends into practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australian government concern for improved governance in the higher education sector over recent years has driven the implementation of governance protocols. However, there has been little evidence of any evaluation of the impact of the governance structures on the performance of universities. This paper presents an analysis of the impact of the governance structures on performance in government-funded universities since the Australian National Governance Protocols were introduced in 2004. The methodology involved analysing the relationships between indices of governance structures namely board size, board independence and board committees, and financial, research and teaching performances. Results showed that the board size did not relate to financial, research or teaching performance in any way. In terms of board independence, the more independent the boards, the less impact they had on both research and teaching performances. Financial performances were not impacted. This finding may suggest that boards dominated by internal members rather than independent ones could have a better influence on teaching and research performances. While stronger board committees positively impacted financial and research performances, this was not the case for teaching performance. Board committees showed a negative relationship with teaching performance, suggesting that excessive monitoring may negatively influence teaching quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the concept of instructional leadership and principals’ perceptions of the practices of instructional leadership. Despite the emphasis on the effects of school leadership regarding teaching practices and learning outcomes, research on direct instructional leadership is scarce. It is focused either on identifying overall leadership practices or on measuring the effect of various intangible school level variables, such as school climate, on student learning. The concepts related to instructional leadership are ambiguous and vague, and challenged by contemporary understandings of school leadership (transformative and distributed leadership). The data consists of narratives written by principals from Norway, Sweden and Finland on successful and unsuccessful efforts of guiding teachers’ work in the classroom. These narratives are used for enabling principals to communicate their experiences of the complexity of interacting with teachers in instructional matters. A theoretical framework of practice architectures is used to elucidate the material, discursive and relational aspects of instructional leadership. A three-step analysis of the data suggests that successful instructional leadership is characterized by solidity, co-production and direction. Interestingly, principals’ narratives on instructional leadership lack an explicit vocabulary of didactics, examples of face-to-face guidance of teaching as well as direct professional relationships for strengthening teaching practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past two decades scholars have called for a more concerted effort to develop an empirically grounded literature on educational leadership outside of mainstream “Western” contexts. This paper reports the results of a review of research topics and methods that comprise the literature on educational leadership and management in Asia between 1995 and 2012. The review of research employed a quantitative descriptive form of systematic review of 478 articles published in eight “core” international journals in educational leadership and management over this period. The review examined trends in publication volume and impact, as well as research topics and methods used by scholars studying educational leadership and management in Asia. The study concluded that Asian scholarship in educational leadership and management remains in the early stages of development. Knowledge production is highly uneven across the continent, with only a few pockets of research excellence. Significant growth trends were observed in terms of scholarly interest in studying leadership in K-12 schools, school change, effects and improvement, and organizational behavior in education. Although qualitative research methods were more popular in this literature prior to 2006, the use of quantitative research methods has increased sharply during the past six years. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Assessment of the legacy of apartheid at the end of the apartheid era in South Africa highlighted major inequalities between white and black, urban and rural areas, and several departments of education. Eighteen years into democracy, the country needs to distinguish between the initiatives taken by the government to address the apartheid legacy, the actual changes made in education and the results thereof, and the continuities and discontinuities in education. Historically disadvantaged schools now receive larger state funding (no-fee schools) and school fee exemptions are granted to lower income or unemployed parents who find difficulty in paying school fees for their children, regardless of race. The public schooling system, especially township schools, is still characterized by low pass rates, low teacher and learner morale, a resurgence of violence amongst learners, ineffective leadership by school managers, poor governance by school governing boards and generally declining school quality, efficiency and effectiveness. The purpose of this paper is to interrogate the National Norms and Standards for School Funding (NNSSF) policy, in order to assess whether this post-apartheid government policy has succeeded in addressing social justice and equity in public primary and secondary education [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Attempts to improve poor academic performance in South African public schools resulted in the Schooling 2025 mandate, which stipulated the academic standards that learners needed to achieve by 2014. As school leaders must do this through their teachers the emotional tensions associated with such changes are likely to increase. This paper investigates the use of emotional competence by school leaders via the perceptions of their teachers. Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analyses of the data obtained from a random sample of 2386 teachers indicated that the postulated five sub-dimensions associated with emotional competence could be reduced to two, namely intrapersonal and interpersonal. The Structural Equation Model suggested a strong positive causal relationship between the two competences and hence a good understanding and regulation of one’s own emotions, influences, understanding and relationships with others. A school leader with a good understanding of their personal emotional competence will have a greater influence on social orientation towards others and possibly lead to improved interpersonal competence. In the South African context it was found that both competences are associated with gender, school type, socio-economic contexts of the learners and home language of the educators. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the relationship between leadership roles and skills in secondary schools in Greece. Drawing upon a sample of 124 secondary public school principals, a structured questionnaire was developed to measure leadership roles and skills. The Competing Values Framework (CVF) was adopted to operationalize the eight leadership roles. The threefold classification of skills by Katz (1974) was enriched by a fourth categorization in order to identify principals’ skills. The results indicate that Greek principals are inclined to perform the roles of innovator, director, monitor and facilitator more intensely, giving less attention to the broker, producer, coordinator and mentor roles. The importance of the innovator role in explaining the variance of two of four skill categories was confirmed; while the monitor role was strongly associated with human skills. The administrative skills were negatively associated with the facilitator role while the conceptual skills were not found to be correlated to any role. It is argued that understanding the nature of the associations could enable education policy makers and principals to pursue these roles and behaviors, thereby contributing to improvement of the school. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Teacher evaluation policy is implemented in many countries to improve the teaching quality in schools. This paper explores the implementation of teacher evaluation policy in secondary schools in Flanders (Belgium). The case study method is used to explore the implementation process in six schools, which are selected based upon teachers’ perception of practicality of new teacher evaluation policy. We contrast three schools in which teachers perceive this policy positively with three schools in which teachers perceive this policy negatively. Due to the generic policy, responsibility for the implementation is shifted to the school. Our study focuses on school leadership actions and on teacher evaluation development characteristics during the implementation process. The results identify a difference in leadership actions and teacher evaluation development characteristics in positive perceiving schools compared to negative perceiving schools. In positive perceiving schools, school leaders formulate high expectations towards teachers, emphasize the importance of appreciation and trust and provide clear communication to teachers about teacher evaluation. Also, two teacher evaluation development characteristics, namely the meso-level support and the goals of teacher evaluation differ in the two subsets of schools. This leaves us wondering whether governments should take greater responsibility in supporting schools and local networks in order to implement policy successfully. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper I report on leadership for sustainability in regional schools in Western Australia (WA) in the context of the Australian Sustainable Schools Initiative (AuSSI-WA). Case studies are developed to examine leading cultural change in eight WA regional schools with data presented in three representative narrative accounts. Consistency is apparent across the study as school leaders occupying both formal and informal leadership positions articulate a desire to bring about change and represent an explicit shift towards sustainability in these regional schools. In the main, these school leaders envision their schools as a place where the community works for a sustainable future; they are firm in their belief that responsibility for change is to be shared and; they recognise the importance of strategies to introduce and embed change in their schools. Such findings have implications for whole of school approaches to embedding change in our schools. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As education’s main workforce, teachers have been the target of policies designed to shape and affirm new versions of professionalism. This paper examines this issue as it is exemplified by the Teachers of Teachers Network (TTN), a program developed by Chile’s Ministry of Education. As a program designed to identify and reward high quality teachers, it draws from New Public Management’s version of professionalism, which promotes managerial cultures based on individual, test-based incentives. TTN members are granted the opportunity to become entrepreneurs, offering professional development (PD) services to other teachers. As a program designed to develop high quality teachers, it draws from a sociocultural version of teacher professionalism based on the development of interpersonal relations that enhance the collective capacity to solve problems. The results of the current study highlight limitations of implementing teacher quality policies that simultaneously draw from contrasting ideas of professionalism. The five TTN teachers participating in the current study resolved these contradictions by concealing their TTN status and (re)presenting themselves as members of the regular teaching force (peers). Through these discursive moves they subverted the possibility of trust, a key nutrient for collegial learning. These findings are interpreted through Hargreaves’ capital theory of school effectiveness and improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Significant changes have taken place in the governance of education systems around the world. Shifts in education policy have led to a focus towards reform through leadership development and away from school management analysis. This shift in policy from management to leadership has fostered a large number of academic studies presenting a universal and decontextualised leadership discourse, which dominates the field of education research to the detriment of issues of school management and head teachers’ capacity to manage schools. This paper examines the domain of headship in the context of North Cyprus. Through the perspectives of head teachers and policy makers, it demonstrates that within the North Cyprus context, leadership, as defined in the dominant discourse, is not yet possible, and management is both difficult and sometimes inadequate. Findings suggest that there is a strong relationship between school leadership and management practices. The context within which head teachers operate influences their leadership and management practices and capacity development. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses various papers published within the issue including one on senior executive leadership teams in Sydney, New South Wales, another that examines headteachers' approaches to diversity in schools, and another on private schools in Kenya.

The article discusses several papers published in this issue including one by Shafqat Khan, Muhammed Saeed and Kiran Fatima on performance assessment of secondary school head teachers in Punjab, Pakistan, another by Anne West on pupil admissions in London secondary schools, and one by Martin Prew on school improvement in South African township schools.

Leadership, currently prescribed as a key requirement for effective school organization and management, is examined here as a rhetorical or discursive device, as a 'turn', in the sense used in literary and sociological discussion of the linguistic turn. In the educational sphere, a tacit separation of leadership from issues of governance and management is becoming apparent. This move may be significantly related to an aestheticization of learning, and what is said to be increasingly the performative nature of its application in educational institutions in England. Leadership is inherently relational, but institutes and sustains unequal power relations. The paper argues that a significant distinction should be understood between performance and performativity, analogous to 'event' and 'possibility', which affords unrealized ethical and emancipatory opportunities for educational practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes that effective leadership in intercultural schools requires authentic understanding and related action; and that this can only be sought through a dedication to ongoing leadership learning. After briefly introducing the metaphor of authentic leadership, outlining the influence of culture on school leadership and the context of intercultural schools the paper suggests a number of learning avenues through which leaders can consciously reframe and better understand problems and solutions around these intercultural school contexts. These interrelated avenues include learning beyond standardized leadership prescriptions, simultaneously trusting and mistrusting experience, learning through student learning, learning through variation, learning through looking beyond culture and learning through curiosity. The major theme running through related discussion is that authentic intercultural leadership is particularly attuned to the values, beliefs and behavioral uniqueness of the students, teachers and others which comprise the community. In other words, it aims to acquire intercultural understanding on an ongoing basis and use this to inform leadership belief?, and practice. Therefore, authentic leadership and learning can be viewed as inseparably twinned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article contributes to the literature on the internal management of colleges and provides a research based analysis of the college sector in the wider public management interface of strategy, policy and service delivery. Internal college management showed considerable evidence of a strategic approach to management practice within colleges. At the public management level, the work was contextualized within debates regarding the reduced role of central state delivery of public services, the concomitant and sometimes divergent positions of strong central executive action and local partnership delivery of services. The research indicated an absence of strong central control with instances of individual institutional influence on policy. Local partnership activity, as a key part of the public management and governance environment, was analysed. It was found that not all types of partnership were equally effective. The paper highlighted a key area to be addressed, the strategic capacity gap within the sector. It also signposted the need for further research on college participation in partnerships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discourses of diversity have supplanted those of equal opportunity or social justice in many Western democratic societies. While the notion of diversity is seemingly empowering through its recognition of cultural, religious, racial and gender difference within nation states, the emergence of this discourse during the 1990s has been in the context of neoliberal managerialist discourses that assume social action is fully explicable through theories of maximizing self interest. Thus notions of diversity, while originating in collective demands of social movements of feminism, anti racism and multiculturalism of the 1970s and 1980s, have in recent times privileged learning and leadership as an individual accomplishment and not a collective practice. Thus the dominant discourse of diversity is more in alignment with the deregulatory aspects of the increasingly managerial and market orientation of schooling, decentring earlier discourses of more transformatory notions premised upon reducing inequality and discrimination and developing ‘inclusivity’ in and through schooling. This paper provides a contextual and conceptual framework through which to explore the intersections and divergences of discourses of diversity in schools and their practical application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]