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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]

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]

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 presents abstracts of papers exploring education issues discussed within the issue including "Ethical decision-making by educational leaders: its foundations, culture and more recent perspectives," by Steven Robbins and Luc Trabichet, "Distributed leadership in Scottish schools: perspectives from participants recently completing the revised Scottish Qualification for Headship Programme," by Deirdre Torrance and "Supporting pupils and families: a case study of two English extended secondary schools," by Richard Rose, Andy Smith and Feng Yan.