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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.

Purpose: This study aims to draw on elements of diffusion theory to understand leadership reform. Many diffusion studies examine the spread of an innovation across social units but the objective is to examine diffusion of a collective leadership model within school units. Specifically, the strength of reform diffusion is tested to account for differences in instructional capacity and to explain the spread of leadership reform within Title I elementary schools. Design/methodology/approach: A mixed method design was used to understand how social factors facilitated the diffusion of leadership reform, and to test for a diffusion effect. Qualitative data were derived from interviews, field notes, observations, and documents using a grounded theory approach. Open and axial coding techniques were used to develop coherent categories of major and minor themes. Quantitative data were hierarchical, with teachers and students nested in schools. A random-intercepts, means-as-outcomes model was used to test for a diffusion effect on instructional capacity. Findings: Strong principal leadership, a commitment to collective responsibility and shared influence, frequent and open communication, and time to build capacity were conditions that supported diffusion of the leadership model. Diffusion of the leadership model mattered for instructional capacity. Each indicator of instructional capacity was more prevalent in schools that had diffused the leadership model to the mentoring and sustaining stages. Research limitations/implications: The study is limited to one type of reform and 36 Title I elementary schools from an urban and urban fringe district in a Southwestern state. Further, the study does not delve deeply into facilitative factors within various stages of the diffusion processes. It focuses on social factors that enable schools to bring the leadership reform to scale. Practical implications: Framing reform as an intervention to be implemented in schools, rather than a social process that institutionalizes planned change, trivializes the actual complexity of transforming practice. Regular interactions among school members around the school's vision, coupled with leadership and time, contributed to reform diffusion and improved instructional capacity in this study. Reform diffusion, a process that takes time, strong leadership, and regular social interactions, needs to be given more consideration as a valuable process to improve school performance. Social implications: The findings suggest that facilitative factors of diffusion can advance reform and improve capacity simultaneously. Successful reforms, defined as ones that disrupt traditional cultures and achieve goals, evolve through developmental stages that eventually lead to a changed culture. The rate of this evolution may vary, but the temporal process of establishing a shared understanding; designing, experimenting, and developing new tools; fostering expertise; and forming strong social networks are foundational supports for authentic and sustainable reform. Originality/value: Reform diffusion offers an alternative framework to better understand the institutionalization of planned change in schools. The findings, while limited to elementary schools engaged in leadership reform, provide support for studying reform as an holistic social process that encompasses the design, adoption, implementation, and institutionalization of planned change. (Contains 4 tables and 5 figures.)

This study investigated the effects of formalized and centralized school structures on 2 emergent concepts in the study of school reform, trust, and collaboration. Trust and collaboration were examined from the perspective of parents, as opposed to internal school agents such as teachers or students. Three hierarchical multiple regressions identified the effects of an enabling school structure on parent-school trust, parent-principal trust, and parent collaboration. The results suggest that rules and formal control structures can be applied in ways that foster a culture supportive of parent trust and collaboration. Further, such structures mitigate the negative influence of nonmanipulable contextual conditions. (Contains 6 tables.)

The purpose of this study was to explore sustainability of social conditions and achievement outcomes in six full-service community schools (FSCSs) in two districts (Tulsa and Union Public Schools) associated with the Tulsa Area Community Schools Initiative (TACSI). Three questions guided the inquiry: How has TACSI changed over the last 9 years? Have the six TACSI FSCSs in Tulsa and Union maintained strong conditions for learning compared to non-TACSI schools? Have the six TACSI FSCSs in Tulsa and Union maintained better achievement outcomes compared to non-TACSI schools? Findings suggest that FSCSs cannot be separated from the larger district context in which they are embedded. Differences in FSCS implementation and outcomes were visible as the TACSI network expanded, as district priorities shifted, and as leadership changed. Implications of these findings for educational reform, generally, and FSCSs, specifically, are discussed. [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]

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]