Search

This case study investigates aspiring school leaders' perception of political literacy in educational leadership, offering critical recommendations for principal preparation programs, policymakers, and future research. As a qualitative study, the case addresses integrating political literacy policy, developing relevant professional development opportunities, and initiating future research to gauge the possible impact of political literacy as a practice and subject. Moreover, findings reveal the challenges and strategies for implementing political literacy in school settings through the lens of experienced teachers with aspirations to be school leaders. The research suggests that a comprehensive approach emphasizing political literacy may empower aspiring school leaders, improve school-community relations, and promote an informed citizenry. This study signifies a crucial step towards cultivating politically literate school leaders equipped to foster democratic engagement and critical thinking within school communities.

Teacher accountability reforms implemented around the globe have heightened a sense that teachers are losing the support of policymakers and the general public. To examine the global pattern in teachers' perception of occupational value and identify possible outcomes and predictors, we analyzed the 2018 Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) data. We found an overwhelming majority of teachers feel undervalued in almost all OECD countries. In addition, teachers who feel undervalued reported less collective teacher effort for school improvement and job dissatisfaction consistently in four countries of comparison with different policy contexts--the United States, Australia, Finland, and Korea. However, the relationships between three working conditions impacted by accountability reforms--compensation, classroom autonomy, and involvement in school decision-making--and perceived occupational value varied across these four countries. Specifically, these working conditions seem to matter more in the United States, where the teacher policy context produces greater disparities across schools in teacher qualifications, distribution of qualified teachers, and degree of professional control.

Purpose: The study aims to investigate the state of higher education (HE) leadership research after the intensified focus on teaching and learning (TL) in academia. Design/methodology/approach: The authors clarify the use of key concepts in English-medium empirical journal articles published between 2017 and 2021 by analysing 64 publications through qualitative content analysis. Findings: The analysed papers on leadership of TL in HE activate a number of concepts, the commonest concepts being academic leadership, distributed leadership, educational leadership, transformational leadership, leadership and transformative leadership. Even if the papers highlight partly overlapping aspects of leadership, the study finds a rationale for the use of several concepts in the HE context. Contrary to the expectation raised in earlier scholarship, no holistic framework evolves from within the recent research to reveal the contribution that leadership of TL makes to leadership in HE generally. Research limitations/implications: Limitations: Nearly 40 per cent of the analysed articles are from the United States of America (USA), United Kingdom (UK), Australia and Canada, which leaves large areas of the world aside. Implications: The found geographical incoherence might be remediated and the research of leadership of TL in HE generally led forward by widening the cultural and situational diversity in the field. Originality/value: This research contributes to an enhanced understanding of the field of leadership in TL in HE in that it frames the concepts used in recent research and makes the differences, similarities and rationale between concepts visible.

Early childhood education contexts are complex and diverse and thus require leadership approaches that connect with the values and beliefs of that field. Currently the research on leadership in early childhood education is limited and it would benefit from research into innovative approaches employed in very different but comparable locations. This article presents findings from a cross-case analysis exploring the role of leadership in two early childhood education settings: a university laboratory school in the United States of America and a public school in Australia. Drawing on cultural models theory, we argue that co-constructing leadership in context is a useful alternative to traditional hierarchical approaches to leadership. Each site's co-construction of leadership provided an opportunity for leadership to be developed organically and to be shared amongst the community of learners. The findings demonstrate how co-constructed leadership promotes a democratic environment for all members of a learning community.

Distributed Leadership is a conceptual and analytical approach to understanding leadership that is focused on interactions between leaders and those they lead with the goal of driving instructional improvement and improving student outcomes by developing high-quality teaching and an educational culture that enables all students to thrive. This article provides an overview of the state-of-the-art research available on distributed leadership. As new social and educational demands emerge, leadership responses need to be reformed at all school levels to ensure a school's ability to provide a high-quality education. These transformations must be promoted from within each school center. The author describes and covers a deep review of the literature between 1981 and 2020. The source data for this research, (321 articles), is derived from SCOPUS, Biblometrix Studio, and VOSviewer. The terms and their clusters were illustrated on graphs, and density maps were utilized. General recommendations are provided and challenges are identified for the incorporation of DL changes into the management of schools. The findings show that the literature refers explicitly to DL, wherein there are a number of interesting insights provided by theoretical articles. A conclusion is given with recommendations for further multidisciplinary research at the intersection of the fields in order to show the holistic landscape of this field. [Note: The volume number 2 and the issue number (6) shown on the PDF are incorrect. The correct citation for this article is v4 n2.]

This study examines how socio-political divisions--particularly race/ethnicity and religion--were related to democratic civic engagement (DCE) in three divided societies: Northern Ireland (NI), South Africa (SA), and the United States (US). Adolescents exposed to well-evaluated, parallel civics curricula reported significantly greater civic engagement in SA than in the US; those in the US reported significantly greater engagement than those in NI. Within NI, Protestants and Catholics did not report different engagement levels; in SA, black and coloured groups expressed greater civic engagement than whites; in the US, white students expressed greater civic engagement than those from more marginalised groups. Analyses of aspects of DCE led us to conclude that varied social and political realities, histories, legacies of division, and power dynamics helped explain these results. Understanding such societal forces is critical for educators who seek to promote youth to become thoughtful and ethical civic actors.

Effective leadership is foundational to the success of all organizations. This qualitative case study aimed to explore exemplary principal leadership in the United States Virgin Islands (USVI). The study was based on Kouzes and Posner's model of exemplary leadership. Interviews were held with school principals, teachers, and nonteaching staff members in three schools in USVI. The principal leaders in the USVI were found to exhibit the five practices of exemplary leadership as postulated by Kouzes and Posner. The study recommends that the Education department in USVI should develop guidelines and professional development opportunities to enhance exemplary leadership practices among principals.

Democracy is in crisis around the globe, especially in the United States due to the results of the presidential election in 2016; it is now a bitterly divided society. In this context, this article reviews the democratic conception in education presented by John Dewey as his "Democracy and Education" celebrated its centenary also in 2016. A few key concepts of Dewey's ideas and structural features of democratic schooling were combined to develop a conceptual framework to analyze democratic schooling. Then, two U.S. democratic schools were comparatively analyzed using the conceptual framework, including participation in a small diverse community. This study concluded that democratic schooling has enormous potential to educate citizens who can become the effective agents of change desperately needed in the larger society, although the number of schools which systematically implement it is limited due to various obstacles. Lessons for Japan include the idea that giving students the authority to decide what to learn and how to learn it can lead them to take responsibility for their own education. There is anecdotal evidence that many graduates of the first democratic school examined here work in service and social justice professions, so further research is needed to pursue this theme along with others.

This systematic review aims to investigate the relationship between school principals' leadership behaviours and teachers' job satisfaction. With this purpose, studies that focused on this relationship in the literature were examined. Twenty-seven studies found in different databases (i.e. ERIC, WOS, SCOPUS and ULAKBIM) were included in the analysis. These studies mostly focused on the relationships between school principals' transformational and interaction leadership behaviours and teachers' job satisfaction. Additionally, job satisfaction was also studied in relation to servant leadership, ethical leadership, distributive leadership, individual- and task-oriented leadership and school leadership behaviours. Based on the findings of the studies examined, school principals' transformation leadership behaviours were found to have stronger relationships with teachers' job satisfaction compared to interactional leadership behaviours and were an important predictor of job satisfaction. Negative relationships were revealed between laissez-faire leadership and job satisfaction. On the other hand, school principals' servant leadership and ethical leadership behaviours were found to be important variables in ensuring job satisfaction. Lastly, school principals' administrative behaviours that encourage participation and are flexible, sharing leadership at school, and exhibiting individual-oriented and supportive leadership behaviours were revealed to enhance teachers' job satisfaction.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the nature of socially distributed leadership in Denmark and the USA, specifically teacher and staff leadership practices distributed in schools. Design/methodology/approach: This study used a confirmatory factor analysis and a second-order factor analysis to examine elementary USA and 0-9 Danish school educators' responses to the Comprehensive Assessment of Leadership for Learning. Findings: Findings from this analysis of leadership practice demonstrate (1) different approaches to teacher and staff leadership in Denmark and the USA; (2) the importance of a collaborative approach to developing and maintaining professional learning communities in schools in both contexts; and (3) different patterns of leadership practice that broadly reflect the local structure and approach to school leadership while responding to external policy demands. Originality/value: Drawing on the globalization scholarship, which acknowledges the connection between global policy development and local spaces of implementation, this comparative international study allowed us to examine how policy ideas are parlayed into practice through the use of a shared assessment of leadership practice. The results of this study suggest that while the work of teacher and staff leadership is important and something that educators in Denmark and the USA are engaging in to advance the overall instructional mission of their schools, the approaches taken in each context are different and reflect a local-level negotiation between contextual cultural norms and policy expectations.

External accountability policies have spread fast across various educational systems over the past decades. This research examines the relations of internal and external accountability with students' math achievement drawing on PISA 2012. With a sample of 44 educational systems, of which external accountability policies were identified, the research conducted three-level hierarchical linear modelling (HLM) analyses. This research found that some internal accountability factors had tighter relations with math achievement, while the relations of external accountability policies with student performance were rather tenuous. However, equity of student math achievement was better ensured under strong accountability systems. The results suggest that policy makers of each country should consider strengths and weaknesses of external accountability in their own educational contexts.

The aim of the current study was to extend knowledge of occupational commitment by examining predictors at the teacher- and school-level. Several job resources hypothesized to be positively associated with occupational commitment were examined: helpful feedback, input in decision-making, teacher collaboration, and principal discipline support. The moderating role of disruptive student behavior (which was hypothesized to negatively predict the outcome) was also examined to see whether the job resources help support teachers' occupational commitment even when disruptive behaviors are high. With 12,955 teachers from 827 schools in four English-speaking countries (Australia, Canada, England, and the US), findings revealed at the teacher-level that helpful feedback and input in decision-making were positively associated with occupational commitment, whereas the reverse was true for disruptive student behavior. An interaction effect also showed that helpful feedback was particularly important for occupational commitment when disruptive student behavior was high. At the school-level, input in decision-making and principal discipline support were positively associated with occupational commitment and disruptive student behavior was negatively associated with the outcome. Findings were similar across the four countries.

Social capital has recently emerged as an effective approach to rethink schools as wider learning ecosystems where students, teachers and families have greater access to learning resources through social interaction. Literature has not provided research-based assessment tools that document school leaders' abilities to weave social relationships between actors within the school and across the community. This paper presents an international experts' validation of the SchoolWeavers Tool, an online resource that supports school leaders to assess the health and potential of their school ecosystem and provides meaningful feedback to weave social and professional capital and lift learning opportunities and educational goals. Theoretical validation was conducted in the first round by 15 experts from 8 countries with prior experience in network leadership in education, and in the second round, with 54 school actors from the same 8 countries. The final model provides an internationally validated tool that supports school leaders' capacities to improve collective effectiveness, internal and external collaboration, innovation and equity. Furthermore, the Tool creates research opportunities by allowing school leaders and researchers to collaborate and support systemic impact and sustainable improvement.

Webster University is classified as a large masters granting private not-for-profit university. The institution has a home or a central hub campus in the Midwestern United States and enrolls approximately 9,700 students. The university exists on four continents with actual campus locations as well as affiliated partner campuses. Students attend classes online or at one of the 60 military or metropolitan campuses across the United States. Students also pursue Webster's programs from more than eight international campuses in Europe, Asia, or Africa as well as affiliate campuses. In this conceptual paper, the author examines the pathways through which Webster University deals with the continuing challenges posed by COVID-19 during March to September 2020. With a unique mix of distributed regional U.S. locations and international campuses, Webster University offers a distinctive case study of distance education and distributed communication in the global education context. Distinctively, Webster University has deepened distance learning to protect the core programs and student service offerings of the institution. Distributed communication has been rapidly standardized and organized to meet institutional responsiveness to global stakeholders. And the net effect of these two approaches has been an ongoing transformation of instructional delivery, operations management, and communication across the institution. By applying a systems approach to the operations and communications engagements prior to and during COVID-19, the case study reveals rapid and ongoing change. The focus of the analysis are personal journal notes, excerpts from select institutional communications, analyses of rapid responses surveys and other content analysis. Prominent themes in this study include tensions around institutional learning and knowledge management that has been applied to stabilize educational service offerings. Deepening distance learning modalities to meet student learning needs also figure prominently. Attempts to foster institutional resilience through operational shifts toward remote work is also a prominent theme. The rapid engagement of focused communication across a distributed network in order manage institutional shifts also figure prominently. Finally, a reliance on an elastic team-based deliberative process for decisionmaking and institution listening also emerge as important to institutional viability.

Student-staff pedagogical partnership is a rapidly expanding practice documented by a growing body of scholarship. That scholarship includes a wide range of empirical examples of what students and staff experience through pedagogical partnership, an emerging set of theoretical frameworks for analysing those experiences, and practical guidelines to support participant engagement in this work. Many publications have focused on identifying the possibilities and the challenges of pedagogical partnership and on developing premises and approaches that can create common ground on which to build such countercultural collaborative efforts. In this discussion, we provide an overview of that scholarship to situate our findings from a study focused on what happens when staff and student partners might find common ground for collaboration but nevertheless disagree about basic pedagogical questions. Using a narrative analysis approach, we examined qualitative data gathered through an ethics-board-approved survey that asked about pedagogical disagreements in classroom-focused pedagogical partnership as experienced by students and academic staff at 16 colleges and universities across Canada, Hong Kong, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Our findings suggest that when pedagogical disagreements arise, they can help clarify perspectives and pedagogical commitments, and when they do not arise, it may be due to the receptive and responsive stance students and staff take within their partnerships. These findings are important for the ways they normalise disagreement as a productive aspect of pedagogical partnership. They also point to opportunities for further research into how all staff and students might consider managing differences of perspective and disagreements.

This paper offers a comparative reflection on how two nations, the U.S. and Lithuania, are implementing inquiry-based science in elementary classrooms. The qualitative study explored how fourth grade teachers in Southern California and in Lithuania employed effective inquiry-based strategies in their classrooms. A teacher's use of questioning strategies to guide critical thinking and the role of inquiry-based pedagogy plays in promoting student engagement were commonalities in both countries. "Exercise moments", resource conservation, and "voyeuristic investigations" were noted in Lithuanian inquiry practices while pacing guides and standards coverage were prevalent issues in US inquiry practices.

In 2004, The U.S. Department of Education stated, "Great schools have great leaders" (p.1). Research supported their declaration as our nation actively pursued educational reform. School systems across the country searched for good school principals to lead, believing they were the "cornerstones of good schools" (DiPaola & Tschannen-Moran, 2003, p. 43). In 2004, the U. S. Department of Education published national statistics, which summarized that there was a shortage of top-notch principals to meet the demands of No Child Left Behind. As schools struggled, they realized the problem did not lie in the quantity of school principals but in the quality of the principal and learning environments (2004). However, the real challenge became finding effective leaders to facilitate successful learning environments for teachers and students to learn. In the meantime, teachers became frustrated and angry with weak leadership and promised changes with no results. Schools experienced declining assessment scores, an increasing number of students who were experiencing school failure, dropping out, and in trouble with the law because of involvement in crime and violence. Therefore, research continues to be necessary to find what makes an effective leader and successful learning environment in high schools to quiet the "Angry Voices" (Brown, 2009). (Contains 1 table.)

Worldwide, and especially in South Africa, change and decentralised decision-making have been topical issues in the provision of education for the past years. It appears that teachers--the key agents in implementing the policies concerned--are largely ignored in the pre-implementation phases, and treated merely as implementers of these policies. The results from an empirical investigation revealed that the teachers in the South African sample expressed an exceptional degree of eagerness to be involved in decision-making and responsibility-taking concerning school change, even in aspects of management that could be considered as the principal's "turf". Although the views of a group of teachers in six other countries showed very similar result patterns, the sample of South African teachers was considerably more eager to be involved in initiatives of school change and related responsibilities than the teachers in the samples of the other countries. The results are illuminating, taking into consideration the increased workload of teachers, as well as certain other factors. Possible explanations for these observations are discussed.

This article presents comparative empirical data from England, the US and Australia on academic boards (also known as faculty senates or academic senates) to highlight ways in which changes within contemporary academic governance effect a diminution of academic voice within decision-making about and that affects teaching and research. Drawing on Bourdieu's notions of academic and intellectual capital, it highlights the limited capacity of analyses of university power relations that are predicated upon managerial and collegial governance as being at opposite ends of a spectrum to account for the multiple academics who have taken up line management or executive-level roles, and the many practising academics who undertake quite substantial administrative roles alongside their teaching and research. The article concludes by arguing that a more nuanced reading of Bourdieu's academic and intellectual capital, combined with his concept of the divided habitus, offers significant potential for a deeper understanding of the complex ways in which the asymmetries of power within universities are developed and maintained. In turn, this opens the way to transformational academic governance practices that could reassert academic voice within decision-making about academic matters.

This article presents findings from a case study on the National College of School Leadership (NCSL) in Nottingham, England, an exemplary program that bridges the theory-to-practice gap using distributed leadership philosophies to develop leadership among school administrators and has manifested a positive impact on school leadership in England. It offers insights applicable to creating distributed leadership development programs for K-12 education in the United States. (Contains 1 figure, 1 table and 8 endnotes.)

Examined government legislation and institutional collective agreements between colleges and faculty in two countries, Canada and the United States, for impediments to shared governance in community colleges. Concluded that except in one legal jurisdiction, shared governance is either impeded legally or not supported by government legislation. (EV)

This article takes a contemporary look at distributed leadership in practice by drawing upon empirical evidence from a large-scale project in the USA. Initially, it considers the existing knowledge base on distributed leadership and questions some of the assertions and assumptions in recent accounts of the literature. The article also addresses some persistent misconceptions associated with the concept of distributed leadership and points out that certain fundamental misunderstandings still prevail. The article concludes by proposing that more evidence from practice would significantly enhance the current evidential base and that the future development of distributed leadership would greatly benefit from more input from practitioners.

This exploratory study contributes to the underexplored area of collaborative task formats in telecollaboration. The study investigates how English as a second language (ESL) student teachers in the US and English as a foreign language (EFL) student teachers in Turkey negotiated the design, implementation, and evaluation of technology-based English language learning tasks. The overall pedagogical goal of this spring 2014 project was to provide participants in different educational and institutional settings an opportunity to collaboratively explore and evaluate the affordances of technology tools in the design of joint learning tasks. This ethnographic case study triangulates questionnaires, telecollaboration logs, and computer-mediated communication data (blogs, emails) to examine the types of negotiation (personal, interactive, procedural) telecollaborative teams displayed at the project's micro levels (self, situated telecollaborative activity) and macro levels (institutional setting, political context). Findings indicate that one telecollaborative team, Global Team 2, effectively managed their learning as a group by making key decisions collectively about their work processes. The team's high number of procedural negotiation instances suggests a high degree of task-orientation, which may have aided their task completion. In contrast, the number of personal and interactive negotiation types was low. The latter, however, may have been called for midway through the project, when unexpected political developments in Turkey unfolded. Repercussions disturbed Turkish participants and affected social media, which were at the core of this telecollaboration. Implications focus on foregrounding personal and interactive negotiation via virtual Global Team check-ins, as well as on expanding collaborative tasks by incorporating perspectives on the wider institutional and sociopolitical contexts of participating institutions.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to report the formative evaluation results from the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development Healthy School Communities (HSC) pilot project. Design/methodology/approach: This study utilized 11 HSC pilot sites in the USA (eight sites) and Canada (three sites). The evaluation question was "What are the levers of change in a school community that allow for the initiation and implementation of best practice and policy for improving school health?" Pre- and post-site visits along with in-depth interviews with school teams, teachers, students, administrators, community stakeholders and other involved individuals, school site report reviews, Healthy School Report Card results and school improvement plans were used for evaluation purposes. Findings: This study identified nine levers of change: principal as leader of the HSC efforts; active and engaged leadership; distributive team leadership; effective use of data for continuous school improvement; integration of the HSC process with the school improvement process; ongoing and embedded professional development; authentic and mutually beneficial community collaborations; stakeholder support of the local HSC effort; and creation or modification of school policy related to HSC that increased the likelihood that school improvement via health promotion would be pursued and sustained. Research limitations/implications: Owing to the qualitative methods used in this study and the number of schools in the pilot project, the research results may lack generalizability. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to test the proposed evaluation question further. Practical implications: This study has implications for schools seeking to create sustainable, systemic integration of health and education for effective health-promoting schools and continuous school improvement. Originality/value: This study provides evidence that integration of health and education can become a sustainable and integral part of a school's culture.

This review essay examines three new books on higher education and sustainability. It explores a number of the issues raised in the books, in particular, the meaning of a transformative orientation towards sustainability. The idea of loose and tight conceptual framings of sustainability is employed. A tight framing is where an institution embodies a vision, values and values-informed practices that have been shifted to fit a particular conceptualisation of sustainability which gives meaning, not just to what that institution does, but also to what it is trying to become. A loose framing is where an institution takes sustainability seriously in what it does, without having in place values, dispositions and orientations, and an appropriate conceptually grounded vision. It is argued (i) that the essential distinction here is between that of doing sustainability, and a shift to being sustainable as a whole institution; (ii) that any developmental journey to a tight framing would need to be a deliberate one; (iii) that changes to curriculum, management, leadership and governance would need to be in place before this can start; and (iv) that an important step "on" the journey will involve institution-wide deliberations on the conceptual framing(s) to adopt.

This article seeks to establish a new research agenda on distributed leadership by linking early childhood and school leadership research. It begins with a discussion of how distributed leadership is conceptualized, including a discussion of the main features and meanings of distributed leadership as defined by key scholars who have maintained a sustained interest in this topic. It explores theoretical bases underpinning leadership research that have adopted a distributed leadership framework in general and within early childhood education organizations in particular. By critiquing the application of learning derived from school-based research within early childhood settings, this article aims to engage readers across different education sectors to collaborate in reconceptualizing distributed leadership in the future. (Contains 1 table.)

This chapter examines the following central question: How do direct democratic ballot initiatives affect the public good? A second, related question is this: When voters collectively make policy decisions, what responsibilities do researchers have to contribute to informing public deliberation about the relevant issues? In an attempt to answer these questions, the authors investigate how the direct democratic ballot initiative process, increasingly--and controversially--used to allow citizens to make education policy decisions, may serve to enhance or constrain the public good. The education policies affected by ballot initiatives, such as affirmative action and bilingual education, often concern issues of race, civil rights, and equality of educational opportunity. This analysis relies on political philosophy through the lens of deliberative democratic theory, relying in particular on the work of Amy Gutmann and Iris Marion Young. The more theoretical analyses are grounded in data from a recent empirical study on whether deliberative community dialogues on race-conscious policy issues serve to inform the dialogue participants. The aims of this chapter are to provide greater understanding of the education-policy-by-ballot-initiative phenomenon, bring to light the possibilities of "tyranny of the majority" when policies having to do with civil rights are left up to popular vote, and make the case that researchers ought to use their expertise in the service of public information and deliberation and, ultimately, the public good. (Contains 7 notes.)

People witness today in the US what might be considered a "generous hijacking" of educational policy. Policy debates on charters, vouchers, for profit schools, testing and evaluation companies, and "education reform" reveal a triple privatization of educational policy. Varied enactments of educational privatization dot the globe, linked in a commitment to concentrate policy-making upward, toward the stratification, gentrification, and privatization of the public sector. While many have written critically on this neo-liberal transformation of public education policy, in this brief essay the authors try to "recover a language of and for education articulated in terms of ethics, moral obligations and values" (Ball 2004, 24-5) by framing public science as a strategic intervention for educational justice and policy development. (Contains 1 figure.)

The involvement of persons with disabilities in formal decision-making processes is thought to have a range of benefits. However, research suggests that participatory processes may fail to match normative ideals. This study examines the participation of persons with disabilities in the development of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, from the perspective of key informants in the New Zealand disability sector. It found that participants viewed the participatory process favourably. Political activity from persons with disabilities and political willingness on the part of government contributed to this perceived success. More broadly, the participation of persons with disabilities provided a mutually enriching learning experience, reduced political machinations between nations, increased government accountability, and resulted in a more relevant text. The study provides an example of a successful participatory process involving persons with disabilities within an international context. (Contains 3 notes.)

Background/Context: Similar to the United States, government efforts to improve education in the Netherlands are focused on innovation and the development of collaborative structures to support the generation of new knowledge. However, empirical evidence of the relationship between social linkages and innovation in education is scarce. Objective: The aim of the study was to examine the impact of social network structure on schools' innovative climate, as mediated by teachers' involvement in decision-making. Setting: This article reports on a study among 775 educators in 53 elementary schools in a large educational system in the Netherlands. Research Design: A quantitative survey using Likert-type scales and social network questions on work-related and personal advice was analyzed using social network analysis and multiple regression analyses. Conclusions/Recommendations: Findings indicated that the more densely connected teachers were in regard to work-related and personal advice, the more they perceived their schools' climate to be supportive of innovation. Highly dense work-related network structures also typified teams that perceived strong teacher involvement in decision-making. Moreover, results suggested that the positive relationship between density of work-related advice networks and innovation-supportive school climate could be partially explained by increased shared decision-making. Implications of the study for teachers, organizations, leadership, and policy are discussed.

This study explored the active involvement of school and community members investing in leadership dynamics for change, especially considering the increasingly globalized world and the importance of preparing globally minded citizens. To explore how educators and leaders work to foster dynamic learning experiences in a highly mobile global context, we studied leadership dynamics in kindergarten through secondary American international schools' environments. We inquired, "What kinds of leadership dynamics may be found in international schools that further inform the field about generating sustainable environments for teaching and learning?" One case scenario is presented to illustrate how leadership in times of complexity and change may enhance sustainable environments for teaching and learning at both local and international contexts. The exploration culminated with a deep analysis of leadership dynamics for change, respecting the individual's participatory power as well as the importance of collective wisdom in action. (Contains 2 figures.)

Network learning supported by 21-century technology is reweaving the fabric of how educators acquire and create new knowledge. At the Alaska Educational Innovations Network (AEIN), educators believe this has the potential to change how a profession looks at professional development. They have learned that using technology to support networks around a shared purpose enhances professional development and provides fertile ground for professional learning communities. The goal of the U.S. Department of Education Teacher Quality Enhancement Partnership grant was to create a network of professional development and distributed leadership with educators across the geographically dispersed distances of Alaska, many not reachable by road. As Alaska makes up almost 20% of the total landmass of the United States, educators knew that it would be necessary to connect people through technology. One of their most productive uses of technology is to form, support, and sustain communities of practice, otherwise known as mininetworks. These informal, participant-guided groups are organized around themes such as leadership or content such as science literacy and language acquisition. In this article, the authors discuss how Alaska educators used technology tools to create communities of practice supported by careful facilitation.

The use of ICT in the Middle East is expanding at a fast rate; hence managers and decision makers must decide on the best learning solution for their organizations. This article describes how a small team of individuals in Jordan developed an effective learning solution to a social problem. This may provide some useful lessons for other organizations which would like to start using e-learning or are using e-learning but are facing financial constraints. (Contains 15 notes.)