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In this conceptual paper, we advance Transformative Leadership Conversation as a form of dialogue that relies on shared meaning-making to activate the motivational energy within people to transform social structures that impede aspirational realities. Transformative Leadership Conversation leverages the most commonly available resource for leaders—conversation—to approach transformation as a process that begins within individuals and moves outward to the relational context where actions and interactions define social structures. There are two interdependent parts to the paper: a conceptual definition and a theory of action. The conceptual definition describes TLC and situates its components in the social and psychological processes that drive transformation. The theory of action advances a simple framework for how leaders might engage TLC across different contexts and situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trust effects between internal school actors (e.g., teachers, students, administrators, parents) are well established in the literature, but less evidence exists about trust in district administration, leading to the question addressed in this study: Does teacher trust in district administration operate in a similar way as other trust forms? The study begins by situating trust within district leadership literature. A definition of trust in district administration is then advanced and its nature explained. From here, evidence on trust effects and self-determination theory are used to advance a hypothesized model that is tested in the empirical analysis. Results support the theory that trust in district administration may function as a relational support for teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to define student learning capacity and to examine the role of the school principal in nurturing it. Method: The study used cross-sectional data from 3,175 students in 70 schools located in a metropolitan area of a Southwestern city. We tested three hypotheses by following a conventional modeling building process in HLM 7.0: Hypothesis 1--Principal Support for Student Psychological Needs (PSSPN) is related to school differences in student-perceived autonomysupport; Hypothesis 2--PSSPN is related to school differences in studentperceived competence-support; Hypothesis 3--Student-perceived needsupport mediates the relationship between PSSPN and grit. Results: Evidence aligns with our initial theorizing about student learning capacity and principal support for student psychological needs. Student-perceived need-support, as a social characteristic of capacity, manifests itself through teacher-student interactions in the learning process. Need-supporting interactions varied significantly across schools, and principals played a critical role in developing an instructional environment that students experienced as nurturing autonomy and competence. Implications: PSSPN highlights the transformative effects that regular principal-teacher social exchanges can have on instructional practices. School principals who interacted with teachers about student psychological needs and need-supporting instructional practices contributed to a learning environment that students experienced as autonomy-supporting and competence-supporting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Education has much in common with professions that are using positive psychology and positive organizational scholarship to transform practice, yet the science behind peak human and group functioning has been slow to displace deficit-based framing of reform policies and improvement strategies in education. Purpose of the Study: This study used self-determination theory to identify a general type of instructional environment that has positive consequences for learning outcomes. We hypothesized that a self-regulatory climate is related to school-level differences in student reading growth and that student perceptions of autonomy-supportive instruction are related to student differences in reading growth. Setting: Data were collected during the 2013-2014 school year from a city school system, located in a metropolitan area of about 900,000 residents that serves approximately 42,000 students in 88 school sites. During the 2013-2014 school year, 80% of the students qualified for free or reduced-priced lunch (FRL); 26% were Black, 27% White, 30% Hispanic, 6% Native American, 9% multiracial, and 1% Asian. For this study, data come from students and teachers at all 51 elementary schools in the school system that have a 5th grade. Data Analysis: Hypotheses were tested using a three-level linear growth analysis in HLM 7.0. The first step was to estimate the average reading growth for fifth-grade students using an unconditional growth model. The second step was to test a controlled-effects growth model, with FRL and racial/ethnic minority status included as student controls and FRL rate and percentage of White students enrolled in the school as school-level controls; self-regulatory climate was entered as a school-level predictor in this model. The final step was to add studentperceived autonomy-supportive instruction as a student-level explanatory variable. Findings: Results showed that students in schools with self-regulatory climates achieved a higher reading growth rate than other students. Similar results were found with autonomysupportive instruction: Students who experienced classroom instruction as autonomy-supportive had higher average reading growth than other students. Conclusions: The aim of positive education is to develop a body of scientific evidence capable of explaining sources of exceptional teaching and learning. Self-regulatory climate and autonomy-supportive instruction appear to be two positive school conditions that enable students to flourish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Despite devotion of substantial resources and effort to increase parent/school partnerships, gaps remain between policy rhetoric and practice, especially in high-poverty communities. Current research focuses on parent involvement or effects of parent motivational beliefs on parent choice for behavior; however, it does not address the formation of beliefs or social factors that influence parent motivation to become involved. To gain a better understanding of factors that influence parent motivational beliefs, we examined the effects of parent social network, school outreach, and neighborhood health on parent role construction and parent efficacy in an urban school district. Method/Analysis: Survey data were collected from a random sample of 30 fifth-grade parents from 56 elementary schools in a large urban district in the Midwest. Using a partially latent structural regression model, we tested the relationships between school outreach, neighborhood health, parent social network, and parent motivational beliefs. Findings: The theoretical specification of the hypothesized model was observed in the pattern of the relationships among school outreach, neighborhood health, parent network, and parent motivational beliefs. Results: The results of the structural model confirm the association between parent social network and parent motivational beliefs. Combined parent social network and school outreach accounted for 10% of the variance in parent motivational beliefs. Implications for Research and Practice: Results from this study provide a different lens through which to view parent–school partnerships. Understanding parents as social actors whose perceptions are influenced through connections with other parents can help schools facilitate motivational beliefs that lead to effective partnerships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: We set out in this study to establish a foundation for a line of inquiry around teacher trust in district administration by (1) describing the role of trust in capacity building, (2) conceptualizing trust in district administration, (3) developing a scale to measure teacher trust in district administration, and (4) testing the relationship between district trust and teacher commitment. Method: Teachers were the unit of analysis. Data were collected from a sample of teachers in one urban school district. Construct validity was assessed by examining content, structural, and convergent validity of the scale. A fully latent structural equation model was used to test the relationship between teacher trust in district administration and teacher commitment. Results: This study makes a strong case for developing a line of research on teacher trust in district administration. It establishes a good measure to use in future research, and it provides initial evidence showing that teacher beliefs are sensitive to the actions of district administrators. Implications: A valid and reliable measure can be used by researchers to study systematically the formation and effects of teacher trust in district administration. Accurate information on district trust also allows central office leaders to formatively assess the capacity of the school system to accomplish reform objectives at scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/Context: Despite problems with accountability systems under No Child Left Behind, the policy has been widely commended for exposing the depth and breadth of educational inequality in the United States. As states implement new accountability systems, there is growing concern that attention to achievement gaps and the performance of marginalized children has faded. Many approved accountability plans no longer report achievement by student subgroups or include subgroup performance in the calculation of accountability indicators. Research Purpose: This study examined the informational significance of Oklahoma's A-F accountability grades relative to the policy objective of achievement equity. Informational significance as explained in self-determination theory provided a framework to explore the usefulness of an A-F grade for understanding achievement differences within and between schools. Research Design: We evaluated the informational significance of Oklahoma A-F school grades by analyzing reading and math test scores from over 25,000 students in 81 elementary and middle schools. The study was designed to address two questions: Do students in "A" and "B" schools have high average achievement and small achievement gaps compared to students in "D" and "F" schools? What is the difference in average achievement and achievement gaps between school grades when holding constant contextual school conditions?. Results: We found test score gaps attributed to Free and Reduced Lunch qualification and minority status. Free and Reduced Lunch and minority students average about one standard deviation lower in math and reading than their peers. Test score gaps varied across A-F school grades with the largest gaps existing in "A" and "B" schools. HLM results showed that A-F grades do not differentiate schools by effectiveness levels. For reading, we did not find statistically significant main effects attributed to letter grades. For math, the only statistically significance difference was between students in "A" and "B" schools and students in "F" schools. This difference had a small effect size. School grades did moderate achievement gaps, but gaps moved in a direction opposite from what would be desired of an accountability system that measured achievement equity. Conclusions: Progress made under NCLB in exposing achievement inequity in the U.S. has taken a step back with Oklahoma's A-F school grades. Our evidence suggests that a composite letter grade provides very little meaningful information about achievement differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/Context: Schools have differential effects on student learning and development, but research has not generated much explanatory evidence of the social-psychological pathway to better achievement outcomes. Explanatory evidence of how normative conditions enable students to thrive is particularly relevant in the urban context where attention disproportionately centers on the pathology of these environments rather than social attributes that contribute to student growth. Research Purpose: Our purpose in this study was to determine if a self-regulatory climate works through student self-regulation to influence academic achievement. We hypothesized that (1) self-regulatory climate explains school-level differences in self-regulated learning, and (2) self-regulated learning mediates the relationship between self-regulatory climate and math achievement. Research Design: We used expost facto survey data from students and teachers in 80 elementary and secondary schools from a large, southwestern urban school district. A multilevel modeling building process in HLM 7.0 was used to test our hypotheses. Results: Both hypotheses were supported. Self-regulatory climate explained significant schoollevel variance in self-regulated learning. Additionally, student self-regulated learning mediated the relationship between self-regulatory climate and math achievement. Conclusions: Our results suggest that schools, like teachers, have differential effects on the motivational resources of students, with self-regulatory climate being an essential social condition for self-regulation and achievement. We believe self-regulatory climate has value for educators seeking to provide equitable learning opportunities for all students and for researchers seeking to account for achievement differences attributed to schools. In both cases, selfregulatory climate advances a construct and measure that conceptualizes and operationalizes school-level support for psychological needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Family-school partnerships are difficult to initiate and sustain in ways that actually promote student learning, especially in high-poverty communities. This quantitative study was designed to better understand how social forces shape parent responsibility in education. Based on social cognitive theory as the conceptual framework, the relationships between parent responsibility and two types of parent social networks were tested according to a partially latent structural equation model. Findings indicate limited contact among parents in schools and a positive, statistically significant relationship between both types of networks and parent responsibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study aimed to determine whether collective student trust functions can be a resource for urban elementary students. The study is undertaken through the collection of data from 1,646 students in 56 elementary schools in an urban school district and the development of model-building process to evaluate the hypotheses raised in the study. The results of the study confirm the hypotheses raised on school identification, educational achievement, and self-regulated learning.

Our purpose was to advance and test a theoretical model of the nature and function of trust in schools. Unlike other studies, ours specified school trust as a latent construct manifested through parent and teacher trust perceptions. We hypothesized that trust would have a larger direct effect on collective teacher efficacy and achievement motivation than on school performance. Furthermore, we predicted that the total effects of trust on school performance would be stronger than the total effect of poverty. We used structural equation modeling to test our hypotheses. Results support the prediction that trust provides a lubricant for effective school performance by having more direct influence on social conditions than on actual performance. We also found that trust attenuates the negative relationship between poverty and school achievement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The authors' focus was on understanding antecedents of parent trust toward schools. Two questions guided the inquiry: Is there a systematic difference in parent-school trust across schools? If so, what organizational conditions predict between-school variability in parent-school trust? Research Methods /Approach: Using multilevel modeling, this study examined school-level determinants of individual parent-school trust from a sample of 79 schools and 578 parents drawn randomly from a Midwestern state. Findings: Intraclass coefficients were first examined on the school-level attitudinal variables to determine their collective disposition. Estimates indicated that these conditions were collective properties of schools. Results from the Level 1 Means-As-Outcomes analysis showed that 16%of the variance in parent trust was explained by school membership. Level 2 predictors were entered individually with significant variables retained and entered into a combined model. Affective norms of parent perceived influence on school decisions (β5j = 5.0, p < .01) and school identification (β4j = 2.7, p < .01) had larger individual effects on parent-school trust than contextual conditions. Conclusion: Findings support the conceptualization of school trust as a collective property of school role groups that forms through affective, cognitive, and behavioral norms. Parent trust is not inherently deficient in schools plagued by social and contextual challenges. Regardless of poverty status, school size, diverse ethnic composition, and school level, school leaders can build and sustain parent trust by aligning policies and practices to address the affective needs of parents. Doing so reduces parents' perceived vulnerabilities and risks within the parent-school relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]