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This interpretive, mixed-methods research explores the experiences of school leaders who coach. Located within International and UK Schools, it uncovers the effect that being a coach has on school leaders' leadership, learning, self-efficacy and professional agency. The topic is approached through a framework of Bandura's self-efficacy and agency theory, critically exploring the coaching experiences of school leaders and a small sample of leaders working in adult learning settings. Fieldwork includes a two-part online survey blended with twenty-one semi-structured, in-depth interviews. Findings reveal that along with elevated levels of self-awareness, school leaders who coach experience the benefits of generativity, coupled with increased knowledge, understanding and skills in coaching and leadership. Furthermore, leaders develop increasingly patient listening, more profound reflexivity, increased abilities in posing resonant and relevant questions, enhanced attentiveness to others' needs, greater empathy in building rapport and trust, and the capacity to develop emotionally safe environments in which colleagues can develop. Coaching appears to contribute to the leaders increased levels of self-efficacy belief, which acts as both a catalyst and a reinforcing mechanism for their agency. The thesis addresses a gap in research by exploring coaching in schools from the perspective of the coach, noting that there is little or no difference between the experiences of school leaders who coach and the sample of leaders who work in adult learning environments. The research advances the argument for school leaders to develop and use coaching skills in their work with colleagues. Using coaching as a tool to support the development of others, appears to sustain leaders who coach in their leadership and mitigates the pressures and challenges of their professional work. The thesis concludes with suggestions for an increase in knowledge, understanding and skill development of coaching and a wider uptake by school leaders.

School headteachers/principals (HT/Ps) are responsible for responding to wicked problems in complex organisations. The way they make sense of that complexity and the multifaceted problems that need to be solved is crucial for them and their organisations. In all adults, sense-making is undertaken by the ego. Loevinger's theory of adult ego development (AED) (Loevinger, 1966: Hy and Loevinger, 1996) describes how the functioning of the ego, and therefore sense-making, can shift through eight qualitatively different stages throughout the adult lifespan. These eight stages describe substantive differences in how adults interact with complexity, how they interpret multifaceted problems, how they interact with others, and how they work with their feelings. However, the way the AED stage of HT/Ps shapes their practice has not previously been the subject of study. Hence the rationale for the research reported in this thesis. The AED stage of 20 HT/Ps was assessed using the Washington University Sentence Completion Test (WUSCT). HT/Ps in the Self-Aware, Conscientious and Individualist stages were identified. How HT/PS would typically comprehend and respond to critical incidents within their schools was collected from the HT/P and those that work closely with them. The common theme from HT/Ps within the same AED group as to how they comprehended and interacted with organisational complexity and to wicked problems were analysed. There were substantive differences across the different stages of AED according to how HT/Ps: comprehended the complexity within their organisation; comprehended and responded to wicked problems; the role they gave others; how they processed feelings; and how those around them experienced the HT/P. The sense-making capability associated with later stages of AED appears to be advantageous in a range of ways. Based on these findings, I argue that this thesis and this novel data set offers several original contributions to theory, practice, and research methodology within educational leadership.

This research investigates two high schools and one middle school in the grip of a seismic policy change as they set aside generations of rivalry to work together as a newly formed Multi-Academy Trust (MAT). It adopts an insider case study approach; I taught at one of the schools during the research process and experienced the policy changes with those who participated in the study. The case study uncovers the different sensemaking processes employed by senior leaders and classroom teachers regarding the rationale for the MAT and examines evidence of the enactment of the MAT's strategic intent to work together. Actor- Network Theory is utilised as a sensemaking tool and revealed the sociomaterial factors shaping the enactment of collaboration. The research consisted of seven interviews with 'elite' senior leaders, two sets of teacher focus groups at each of the high schools and analysis of key national and school specific policy documents. The year spent conducting the research coincided with academy conversion and captured the experiences of becoming a MAT and how this altered established work practices. The findings revealed the MAT was a network rife with ambivalent belongings at all levels and material 'actants' stalling relations. The shape and extent of collaboration between the schools was mediated by contextual factors and their historical relationships. In this case study the same phase relations between the two high schools was more problematic to establish and maintain than the relations between one of the high schools and its feeder middle school. This can be attributed to the confusing policy priorities of the national MAT programme that continues the Neoliberal promotion of market values, whilst also pushing for school collaboration. I found that the policy decision to convert to an academy had paradoxical qualities; it secured the shape and direction of the three-tier educational provision in the town (for now), but resulted in policy changes that increased workload, accountability, stress and uncertainty. The thesis concludes with suggestions for future policy direction regarding the forming of local multi-phase MATs, whilst also highlighting the difficulties faced when enacting such policy into practice.

Teaching is a key contributor to a flourishing society and improvements to the flourishing of teachers has several benefits for schools and education, as well as for teachers themselves. Furthermore, philosophers argue that flourishing is intrinsically good. However, not all teachers flourish, and the aim of this thesis is to explore how school leaders could improve the flourishing of teaching staff. The project's research questions were: 1. What do teaching staff (including school leaders) understand by the term flourishing at work? 2. What do teaching staff believe school leaders could do to improve their flourishing? 3. What is the impact of the collaborative creation of interventions that aim to improve the flourishing of teaching staff? These questions were answered using a mixed methods research design with participatory and collaborative elements to bridge the perceived divide between academic research and teacher innovation. The collection of data began with focus groups to design an online exploratory questionnaire; this was followed by the collection of both quantitative and qualitative data from teaching staff in all roles in 78 British schools (56 secondary and 22 primary). Teaching staff from three schools in a range of roles reviewed the online questionnaire data; they then collaboratively designed and trialled interventions, with the aim of improving teacher flourishing. The interventions were yoga, coaching, positive boards, a WhatsApp group, and random acts of kindness. The interventions were reviewed and modified by participants after four and eight months. The inclusion of participatory and collaborative elements in the mixed methods design is unusual. The thesis contributes to the school leadership research through the proposal of a new perspective on, and associated model, of school leadership: 'leadership for teacher flourishing' (LFTF). The quantitative and qualitative findings suggested that key factors in enabling teachers to flourish, and therefore incorporated into the model 'LFTF', were positive relationships; opportunities for growth; positive impact on subjective wellbeing; and increasing teachers' sense of meaning at work. The ways leaders could impact these factors were reported as: being supportive and compassionate; being trustworthy; giving teachers autonomy; enabling teachers to grow; being appreciative and focusing on strengths; and enabling teachers to focus on meaningful work. It was also found that not only leaders could influence flourishing; teachers with no formal leadership role could also positively impact teacher flourishing. It is suggested that virtuous dispositions in leaders are required to ensure they are consistent in acting in ways that promote flourishing. The specific virtues a leader needs to influence positively the flourishing of teachers will vary depending on their relationships with those they lead and the context. The participatory and collaborative phase of the research showed that teachers wanted autonomy in deciding what would help them to flourish. Interventions that were implemented successfully included those that enabled the development of positive relationships; improved subjective wellbeing; facilitated growth; and did not take too much time, since teachers felt under significant time pressure. The conclusion sets out the implications of this research for policy on the training of school leaders, and on educational policy concerning the leadership of schools, to improve not only the flourishing of teachers, but also pupils and communities.

This study identifies and maps empirically grounded key conditions and components of 'system leadership' in the English context. It explores the role of 'system leaders', identified here as executive leaders who enhance provision and provide support for a group of schools, at different levels of seniority through Multi-Academy Trusts (MATs). The study provides insight and understanding on how these professionals enact their leadership and use their knowledge, experience and values in order to establish, manage and sustain school improvement across groups of schools. This research was guided by an ecological systems-centred approach which investigated the ways in which system leadership practices are (or are not) able to contribute to school improvement processes, conditions, and cultures of the schools within MATs. It emphasises the connections among all levels and components and thus attempts to capture the dynamic relationships and the influences of personal, interpersonal, and social contexts on the different perspectives that exist around system leadership. An ecological model, therefore, examined interactions between the micro-, meso-, macro-, exo-, and chronosystems, and was used to develop context-sensitive accounts of leadership across groups of schools. A qualitative-dominant mixed-methods design was adopted using a sample of five MATs. This involved an interview-based multi-perspective, multiple case study of MAT CEOs and members of the MAT executive leadership team exploring their roles and practices and a survey questionnaire of middle and senior leaders investigating whether and to what extent their MAT CEOs and executive leaders contribute to the individual schools' processes, culture and improvement conditions. The primacy of leadership at the executive level was central to efforts for school and MAT transformation and that was evident throughout the results of the study. System leadership was multi-faceted and was understood through the multiple layers of the organisational structure of MATs. Four major domains of practice highlight the efforts of these leaders to address complex, systemic challenges. These are: setting strategic directions, developing people and organisational capacity, providing instructional guidance, and establishing organisational infrastructure to support schools' improvement efforts.

This study endeavours to make a new contribution to knowledge in the field of mathematical learning in schools in challenging circumstances. By combining quantitative advanced secondary data analysis of International Large-Scale Assessment (ILSA) and a qualitative case study for investigating teaching and learning practices, the study aims to establish a methodological framework and a research design that help to harness TIMSS outcomes for school improvement. Availing of TIMSS (2011) data and applying a mixed-methods research design, the research aimed to find out what value-added Palestinian schools provide in teaching mathematics to their students. Furthermore, and moving beyond TIMSS, the research investigated in-depth the teaching-learning practices to improve mathematics education. The secondary data analysis of TIMSS, by applying the multilevel modelling (MLM) methods, formed the first phase of the study and informed the design of the second phase. School practices and characteristics were compared between schools in Palestine on the basis of association to students' performance in mathematics. The first phase findings revealed a weak relationship between students' mathematics performance and school level context, resources, and practices. Nevertheless, students' background, socioeconomic status (SES), self-concept and attitudes evidenced significantly stronger effects. In the light of the first phase study findings, a second phase was conducted. The second phase involved a qualitative case study of one of the schools that had mitigated for background effects and had students with high performance in mathematics. The case study focused on how the staff articulate the processes and practices that have facilitated the high value-added scores in the TIMSS data. The qualitative phase of the study emphasised and explained how efficient and competent staff at school overcame the challenging circumstances and improved learning. In addition to the important key findings from the two research phases, the current study ultimately suggests future theoretical and methodological frameworks that can be used in research at a national level in Palestine or any education system with similar circumstances.

This doctoral thesis inductively develops a grounded theory of school-to-work transitions of young rural-to-urban internal migrants in China. It seeks to explain why some young people persist, whereas others drop off their pathways beyond compulsory education. It draws on intensive interviews with young migrants (n = 35) and their parents (n = 15) conducted during 11 months of fieldwork in an outskirt district of Shanghai. The scope of this thesis covers school-to-work transitions of young people, particularly those in restrictive institutional and social contexts. It finds that an empirically grounded, multidimensional concept, 'interest-environment fit', and its link to motivation explain persistence and dropping out on all three major pathways beyond middle school: the academic, the vocational school and the work track. The underlying mechanism suggests that finding a good interest-environment fit around middle school graduation leads young people to subjectively link their interests to their pathway, achieve a higher level of motivation and persist, while the reverse holds for those who do not achieve a good fit. The concept of interest-environment fit explicitly incorporates social class and institutional restrictions, underscoring the sociological perspective taken in this thesis. Moreover, the analysis highlights that the decision-making phase in middle school is crucial for understanding young people's trajectories beyond middle school graduation. The thesis adds to the theoretical literature on dropping out and persisting in the sociology of education and work by (1) conceptually integrating the decision-making process about pathways in middle school, (2) analysing all three main pathways beyond middle school within one comprehensive theoretical framework that highlights important parallels, and (3) grounding the theory in a Chinese context. Moreover, through its application of grounded theory methodology, this study emphasises the benefits and potential of employing an approach that prioritises data over pre-existing theoretical knowledge.

The main aim of this qualitative research study is to investigate the perceptions and experiences of senior female educational leaders in the Department of Education in Malta. Although Malta's laws relating to gender equity are in line with those of the EU, traditional beliefs and values, including those influenced by the Catholic church, mean that in many areas of social life, women and girls continue to be perceived to be inferior. It is also the case that the gender gap in Malta in many sectors is one of the highest in Europe. The study is framed within the constructivist and interpretivist paradigm and took a narrative approach. I have looked at gender and leadership through a lens of social justice rather than feminism. Throughout 2017-2018 in-depth interview data was collected from the eight female senior leaders in the Maltese education department. Data were analysed manually using a hybrid approach method (Fereday & Muir-Cochrane, 2006), to decide on the relevant themes. An autoethnographic approach was also employed, whereby I critically examined and reflected on my experiences of female leaders. Data was crafted into a fictitious staged drama script to present the findings from the interviews, and another fictitious radio drama script to present some key relevant experiences from my life. To the best of my knowledge no such study has been conducted locally using a similar approach, and focusing on senior female educational leaders. The findings from the study demonstrated that women in educational leadership in Malta have to face challenges specific to them being females. Furthermore, the study contributes to understanding around women already in leadership posts, and also those aspiring to be leaders. The study recommends among other things, real family-friendly measures by organisations; organised professional development programmes for women in leadership and for those aspiring to be leaders; and training programmes focused on how to build healthy collegial relationships. Also, this thesis suggests some potential proposals for future research.

This thesis is a study of four school principals in Chile. It is a qualitative, phenomenological exploration of the experiences of these principals, how they may affect student outcomes and opportunities and the ways in which this might contribute to the lives of young people. The research posed four key questions: How do these four principals enact educational leadership within the Chilean context? How do the principals’ views of their role and influence compare with wider current conceptions of school leadership? What are the perceived consequences of each principal’s actions for student learning, opportunities and outcomes? Finally, how do principals engage with Chilean government policies to serve student learning and outcomes? The selection of the four principals was based on their consistent excellent results over time in national tests and also the local communities’ perceptions of their quality. The researcher visited each institution in Chile for two days over a two-week period, conducting semi-structured interviews with the principals and other participants in the project. In this way the key research questions were addressed as well as an opportunity provided for further findings to make themselves known. The data was collected via recordings, transcribed, translated where necessary, coded and then categorised via ATLAS TI 8tm software. This Computer Assisted/Aided Qualitative Data Analysis Software (CAQDAS) allowed the data to reveal emergent themes that represented the main findings, contributions and implications of this research for the general field of knowledge about educational leadership. The final observations serve to expose a possible connection between successful school leaders in Chile and that of the ISSPP (International Successful School Principalship Project) and the School Turnaround policy in the USA. This thesis argues that these four principals - regardless of system levels of development, funding and/or lack of training provision - seem to exhibit similar qualities presented in other international research about successful school leadership and what principals do to affect student learning.

Current educational policies based upon accountability measures and evaluation practices have been given considerable attention throughout the education system. The two-sided approach is to ensure and enhance educational quality with an increased emphasis on school improvement. The aim of this study was to find out if a coeducational secondary school is meeting the requirements as detailed within the school improvement agenda. The motivation for the study was to investigate if student performance data would provide a model of progress for school improvement. It focused on student outcomes at the end of five years of their secondary education. The data was also used to evaluate the impact of a critical incident when the school was placed in the Formal Intervention Process following a school inspection. The research design is that of a quantitative study which guided the procedure for data analysis. The nature and structure of the data enabled two approaches to be undertaken to judge if improvement in standards had occurred over the five years. The first approach examined data of students within year-groups. It was an important indicator of the impact that the inspection had on teaching and learning and reflected on the work required when the school was placed in the Formal Intervention Process. For the second approach the data was partitioned into pre- and post- the intervention measures to find if there was improvement after planned actions were introduced. The numerical analysis used multiple regression and multi-level modelling software. The hierarchical data structure enabled the construct of multi-level models which partition variance in student outcomes to demonstrate if progress had been made at different levels. The data showed that there was a statistically significant effect on improvement in student attainment. It confirmed that the performance of individuals had a greater impact than their cohort which means that students take responsibility for their own learning and are not reliant on the characteristics of their year-group. The intervention measures which were embedded in a Theory of Change had a positive impact on student outcomes across the curriculum.

This thesis contains three papers on school resource decisions and the implications for student achievement. Chapter 1 provides an introduction and describes how the three papers extend the academic literature. Chapter 2 studies the implications of an individual school offering higher teacher salaries from within a fixed budget. It exploits a natural experiment that forces some schools within a local area to pay teachers according to higher salary scales, but does not offer any extra funding. Schools largely follow this regulation and balance their budgets by making sizeable reductions in other expenditures. There is no evidence of any overall effect on pupil attainment. The paper argues that the positive effect of higher teacher pay is countered by the negative effects of reductions in other expenditure. Existing evidence shows how cash incentives can be used to improve teacher retention in hard-to-staff subjects, like maths and science. Chapter 3 extends this literature by studying the effectiveness of incentives to recruit new teachers. I evaluate the effects of an up-front cash payment worth up to £25,000 for teachers training in hard-to-staff subjects and who have high levels of college attainment. Using a triple-difference approach, I find no impact on the number of teachers or the distribution of educational attainment among teachers. Chapter 4 uses the synthetic control approach to estimate the effects of an area-wide campaign to improve the ways in which teaching assistants are used across a large, disadvantaged area of England. The results suggest the campaign increased English scores by a modest amount of about 0.03-0.04 standard deviations, with no evidence of an improvement in maths. The impact estimates are larger than under matching and difference-in-differences, suggesting that being able to relax assumptions of parallel trends and balance in unobservables represents a major advantage of synthetic control approaches.

This research focuses on the small but growing number of English all-through state schools. In the wider school system hundreds of thousands of children transfer schools for their secondary education each year. The social challenges faced at transfer and the curricular and pedagogical disconnects between primary and secondary education are well documented in the literature. This thesis explores the opportunities provided by the all-through configuration to ease these difficulties and create a cohesive approach across all educational phases. This is a sequential mixed methods study. At stage one a research questionnaire was sent to school leaders in all-through schools. Stage two consisted of field work in three case study schools, where data were gathered through interviews, focus groups and observations. Stage one uses quantitative data to create a contextual narrative about all-through schools. The larger qualitative dataset explores emergent themes in depth. The overall research philosophy is phenomenological, meaning that an emphasis is placed upon narrating research participants’ lived experiences. The study considered the blend of specialist and generalist teaching at all-through schools and found that all schools surveyed deployed some specialist teaching at KS2 and that half adopted some generalist practices at lower KS3, showing a blurring of the boundaries between primary and secondary practice. Drawing on the work of Etienne Wenger, primary and secondary practitioners are conceptualised in the thesis as separate communities of practice. The research found that all-through schools can counter the separatist mindsets of primary and secondary practitioners and that there was evidence of emergent boundary practice in curriculum development and pedagogy. All-through pupils reported that their social transition to secondary education is more comfortable than that experienced by their non all-through peers. Practitioners valued the ability to build strong relationships with families over the years of a child’s all-through schooling. However, all-through schools also face significant challenges: leaders perceived the pressures of performativity and accountability and the particular financial disadvantages faced by all-through schools as threats to establishing effective cross-phase working.

This thesis examines the paradox of autonomy through the journeys of three standalone schools: one maintained, one foundation and one academy towards forming a multi-academy trust. By examining the motivations and drivers of Governors and Senior Leaders in each school, it seeks to understand why, and how, decisions are made and the impact of these upon the present and the future. By concentrating on three key transition points: the start of the journey, the point of conversion and twelve months later, it explores the challenges and opportunities that arise throughout the conversion process, identifying those factors that both facilitate and hinder successful transition into a multi-academy trust. The research draws upon the reflections of Governors and Senior Leaders, as well as the influence of school context, and national and local pressures, on choices and decisions made. Through a conceptual framework of key themes, and by using qualitative methodology, it explores whether the original catalysts and impetus for conversion are realised, and whether the multiacademy trust model enables or constrains autonomy. This research project finds that, contrary to popular perception, the majority of issues surface not prior to conversion, but afterwards, with the multiacademy trust structure limiting opportunities to innovate and change. Whilst future governance structures assume a high priority during conversion, less attention is paid to the structures and powers of the centralised function in a MAT. This can then lead to role ambiguity and conflict, with the complexity of the conversion process detracting from the bigger picture post-transition. This study finds that, paradoxically, the most popular reasons for conversion: enhanced autonomy and increased funding are hindered by the very structures intended to promote them. As a result, schools within multi-academy trusts can find themselves with less freedom than in a local-authority led system. This research project also finds that the status of the converting school is less significant than the motivations and prior experiences of those its stakeholders working within them, and that school improvement activities and professional development opportunities are enhanced by schools joining together within a multi-academy trust.

This research was carried out in the Department of Education at the University of Applied Sciences in Windesheim, Flevoland, in the Netherlands. In recent years, the focus of the university has been on the teaching of basic skills in language and math to children of primary school age (4-12 years). However, conversations held with tutors within the university, the people from the werkveld1 and the students suggested that the university needed to develop a wider scope of skills to be able to face the challenges of the future. As a result of this view, in 2014 the university decided to focus equally on students developing an innovative, all-round professional image with a particular focus on leadership for learning. To facilitate the development of the all-round professional image, students were required to interact with lecturers, teachers and peers in order to question their practice on a regular basis. A two-year pilot was carried out with students and monitored to evaluate how effectively the new initiative assisted the development of their professional image. Using the methodology developed by Kouzes & Posner (2013) to support their professional image and develop leadership for learning. The aim of this research was: To explore how an evidence-based model within the curriculum can facilitate the development of the student's professional image growing into a professional identity. Leadership within this research is seen as everyone's business and not specially reserved for the ones who are set into leadership positions. It is about people transforming situations by bringing something ‘new' into the situation that will transform and change a person's identity. Leadership is the ability to move people towards shared aspirations. This means that leadership is a relation. It is a set of known skills available to anyone. Leadership is the ability to influence yourself and others to learn and to develop towards the set goals (Dufour & Marzano: 2011; Kouzes & Posner, 2013, 2012; Paalman, 2015). Where in this research the shaping of professional identity contains the process of integrating personal knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, norms and values with professional values and standards on teaching (Baumeister & Tierney, 2011; Beijaard et al, 2004; Darling-Hammond, 2007; Palmer, 2007; Ruijters, 2015). The study used an action research approach, which is described by Cohen, Manion and Morrison (2017) as a small-scale intervention in the functioning of the real world and a close examination of the effects of such an intervention. The intervention systematically used the leadership model by Kouzes and Posner (2013) with students in the last year of their Initial Teacher Trainer program (ITT). Questionnaires and in-depth interviews among students, lectures and people from the werkveld were held to answer the described research questions. The main question: “To what extent does the leadership model by Kouzes & Posner (2013) support students in developing their professional image in leadership for learning?” shows that students are more aware of the different aspects of leadership for learning but according to the data students don't show consciously competence in the described professional profiles towards the Leadership Challenge. Students as well as the werkveld show that in becoming a leader for learning aspects of the Leadership Challenge can be deducted but are not clearly mentioned. Lecturers of the bachelor program find the model supportive within their classes. The data shows that in the support needed for students to develop a professional identity, all address the importance of working systemically. The werkveld as well as the lecturers from the university need to find ways to connect their thinking about building professional identity with each other. An equivalent approach is needed to support students in developing their professional identity. The werkveld sees a major role for the mentor because this is the person who connects the most with students from the ITT program. Beliefs of the werkveld show that a leader for learning is someone with awareness of self, growing into the profession of a teacher. It is someone who believes and knows that learning is an ongoing process of interaction with children, colleagues and parents. Their professional identity show that reflection is a state of mind, a way of being. This initial teacher has an open mind towards learning situations within the educational setting and an open mind towards the learning questions that children expose. This professional has an inquiry state of mind. Recommendations for policy and practice are to work systemically with the Leadership Challenge method. People working within the field of education and those who are entering the field of education through the university of applied sciences benefit from working systemically with a method that provides structure and that deepens ‘Opleiden in de School' and building professional teacher identity. Re-design the role of the teacher. The educational system in the Netherlands has its focus mainly on becoming an instructional specialist, experts in performing a curriculum for or, sometimes, with children throughout the year and being executers of organizational activities like organizing the sports events or parents night. These are important things but when looking at the wider scope of education and its purpose within society asks for evaluation and maybe even a re-design of the role of the teacher for the global world. Growing into a professional teacher identity takes time. The university and the werkveld could design a framework for learning for professional identity, using the Leadership Challenge as foundation for addressing aspects of identity such as values, ethics and beliefs. Together they can develop a body of knowledge and related tools to make the profile of the professional teacher identity clearer, building professional capital in the widest sense possible. Teachers working in complexity will then develop habits of mind that can guide decisions and reflection on practice in support of continual improvement and a sustainable growing professional teacher identity. To obtain this continuous improvement learning networks need to be built with those working within the concept of ‘Opleiden in de School' and its mentors. In my opinion this means that the university and the boards of the schools have a strategic agenda for professional development that is developed together around mutual interests and challenges because building identity takes time beyond the designed educational program within the university. 1 Werkveld are the people from the schools that the university of applied sciences works with. This includes teachers, principals, supporting staff etc. In this thesis the Dutch term werkveld will be used.

The research study presented in this dissertation provides insight into the process of implementing the dynamic model of school improvement from the perspective of the practitioners. The Dynamic Approach to School Improvement (DASI) is a theory-based and evidence-driven model designed by Creemers and Kyriakides (2012) to improve educational practice in schools. While the dynamic model has been studied extensively through quantitative means, little is known about the practitioner perspective and experience implementing this approach. Teachers are thought to influence the extent of improvement observed by schools in the course of reform because they apply and engage with reform initiatives directly (Mendenhall, Iachini, & Anderson-Butcher, 2013). I base this study on the premise that teacher experience with DASI is essential knowledge for further development of the dynamic approach. I specifically focus this study on teacher experience with challenges and supports encountered over the life span of the reform, as these factors can influence practitioner motivation and engagement with the improvement process. This exploratory multiple-case study was undertaken in four English primary schools. Over the course of the 2015-2016 school year, I worked individually with four schools to introduce the DASI framework and support the implementation of an improvement project reflective of the schools' needs. Data collected for this study gave rise to several key findings. First, elements of the DASI framework were identified by practitioners in a number of cases to function as facilitators for improvement, suggesting that for participating schools the structure of the dynamic model was supportive of the improvement process. A second finding of this study was that that teachers identified some of the same barriers and supports as have been noted in prior school improvement research. Time, buy-in, inter-disciplinary partnerships and teacher collaboration were identified by practitioners in this study as factors that had an impact on their experience with reform (Rhodes & Houghton-Hill, 2000; Mendenhall, Iachini, & Anderson-Butcher, 2013; Ainscow, Dyson, Goldrick, & West, 2016). Additionally, the school culture appeared to have a significant influence over the reform effort as well as the development of factors into supports or barriers. The final finding of this study was that practitioner perception of reform success appeared to be influenced by the number and severity of barriers and facilitators teachers experienced in the course of reform.

This thesis is about headteacher professional development in Ghana and headteachers’ capacity to harness professional capital within their peer network to advance their practice. It is set against recent developments in Ghana around headteacher capacity building and the need to improve leadership practice in government basic schools where resources have been limited. Although networking and the notion of collaborative learning in professional learning communities are well-developed practices in some of the world’s best education systems, very little is known about such developments in Ghana and how the professional capital embedded in these network relations is contributing to practice. The research strategy is underpinned by pragmatic beliefs that research questions are the principal determinants of the research philosophy. Therefore, rather than committing to a research philosophy at the start of the study, the questions posed determined the methodological framework. Through a mixed-methods design, this empirical study deploys a two-phase sequential and exploratory strategy drawing on qualitative and quantitative datasets. The study finds evidence of a learning community of headteachers who, through frequent network interactions, build professional capital to enhance their practice. Headteachers indicated five key content-specific types of information and professional advice they exchange in this peer network. For these types of information and professional advice, the study reveals that age, experience, type of school or academic qualifications do not significantly influence headteacher choice of who to go to for information and professional advice. However, the data indicate a positive and significant relationship between headteacher gender and their likelihood of seeking information and professional advice about how to help ineffective teachers improve their practice and how to deliver the national curriculum effectively. The findings imply that policymakers should recognise network relations that exist among headteacher groups and direct resources to supporting peer learning and collaboration rather than the over-reliance on trainer-led workshops for headteacher professional development.

This study explores head teachers’ use of emotional intelligence (EI) in the context of three Cypriot primary schools. EI is a controversial issue because so many different models explain it and the literature includes heated discussions regarding the impact of leaders’ EI on leadership activity. A case study approach was chosen to gain a close understanding of both head teachers’ and staff’s perceptions of EI and leadership. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with head teachers to gather detailed evidence about school leadership and emotion. Semi-structured interviews were also conducted with deputy head teachers, while teachers were asked to complete a questionnaire. The interview schedule for deputy head teachers and the questionnaire for teachers were derived from the Leadership Questionnaire developed by Pashiardis and Brauckmann (2009). Policy documents, such as those concerning the school’s goals and the allocation of responsibilities to staff, students and parents (where applicable) as well as the schools’ timetables were carefully examined. Data were collected and analysed in Greek. Once the data were gathered, themes were generated from the EI ability model which consists of four abilities (Mayer and Salovey, 1997), and their impact on teamworking and/or shared vision with staff, parents and local authorities was evaluated. Key findings from the study indicate that the head teachers who participated in the study perceived and used EI differently. Their different EI perceptions do have an impact on teamworking and shared vision. The findings also demonstrate that shared vision is accomplished through teamworking, but the strict centralised educational system in Cyprus may restrict the effect of leaders’ EI on teamworking and vision sharing. Moreover, the findings show that teachers perceive EI differently than head teachers. These findings are the first in the Cypriot context. They are not generalisable but offer useful suggestions for further research in educational leadership.

Educational change has been a dominant feature of the educational landscape nationally and internationally whereby schools have been ‘subjected to constant and ubiquitous pressures to innovate’ (Priestley, 2011). Whilst the key objective is to enhance educational provision and to ensure more efficient and effective outcomes it is the strategic positioning of teachers as agents of change that is deemed to be integral to the success of innovation and its enactment in practice. Physical Education (PE) has not evaded this reform agenda as evidenced by the growing trend towards the adoption of movement orientated programmes. In Northern Ireland (NI) the implementation of one such programme, Fundamental Movement Skills (FMS) (STEPS Professional Development) provides the backdrop for this study and a platform through which to interrogate educational change within the context of primary Physical Education. The study explores the ways in which teachers enact and engage with a specific PE movement initiative, the FMS programme (STEPS PD) and utilises the lenses of change agentry (Fullan, 1993a) and Priestley et al.’s (2015a) ecological conception of teacher agency to provide insight into ‘the dynamic process through which change and continuity occurs in educational settings’(Priestley et al., 2012b, p193). The study specifically examines the influence of the macro level environment on how schools respond to educational change, how the school context shapes teachers’ agency and the factors that influence teacher agency at an individual level in the enactment of the FMS programme. A qualitative, interpretivist research methodology was employed as a means of understanding the experiences and multiple realities of teachers as they enacted curricular change in their own schools. Qualitative data were gathered by interviewing principals, PE co-ordinators and teachers in three primary schools involved in the piloting and subsequent implementation of the STEPS PD FMS programme. A specialist group of FMS experts was also purposively selected to provide a more detailed deconstruction of the policy context pertaining to FMS in Northern Ireland. All data was analysed thematically. Findings suggest that teacher agency is temporally orientated, highly situative and dependent upon existing cultures of thinking, working and doing which are specific to individual schools and to individual teachers (Priestley et al.,2015a).Findings also demonstrate that change is mediated by the macro policy context where competing policy imperatives distort and skew the objectives of schools away from the holistic development of the child to towards academic outcomes and performance. The infiltration of neoliberalist ideology which permeated school cultures undoubtedly created challenges for teachers in their enactment of a child-centred PE initiative like the FMS programme. However, despite this, analysis of the data revealed that individual teachers and leaders were able to challenge these prevailing macro level policy prescriptions and contradictions around PE to achieve agency in their own contexts. The findings of this study therefore present new perspectives surrounding the influence of neoliberal technologies and their impact on teachers’ constructions of change. This study provides valuable insights into the implementation of curricular innovation within the context of primary PE. It sheds light on the outworking of the FMS programme as a key PE initiative and presents new knowledge surrounding the ways in which teachers play out their roles as change agents in enacting this innovation. The study therefore provides a new interpretation of the FMS programme within the context of NI schools that has previously not been made. It applies existing theories to bring about new evidence to the existing knowledge surrounding educational change (Phillips and Pugh, 2010) within PE and raises important questions for policy and practice in the quest for transformational and lasting change.

Research studies in educational leadership indicate that principal transformational leadership practices impact directly on school effectiveness and teacher performance. Studies also show that teachers’ self-efficacy belief is a strong predictor of teacher performance. Teacher selfefficacy belief asserts that teachers may have the necessary professional knowledge to teach, but their self-efficacy beliefs regulate their ability to plan instructional materials and achieve instructional outcomes. Since principals’ transformational leadership practices directly impact on schools and teachers, research studies have identified this model of principal leadership as a viable means to enhancing teacher performance through their self-efficacy beliefs. In the many studies on the relationships between transformational leadership and teacher self-efficacy beliefs, results indicate positive statistically significant relationships between them. However, what is less studied and very much less researched is the extent to which tutors’ perceptions of their principals’ transformational leadership practices impact on their sense of efficacies in tertiary institutions. Consequently, this current study investigated the relationship between tutors’ perceptions of their principals’ transformational leadership practices and their self-efficacy beliefs. It also examined how these perceptions account for the variations in tutors’ sense of efficacies in student engagement, in instructional strategies and in classroom management. The TSES and PLQ instruments were used for the garnering of data in 15 colleges of education in Ghana. Valid responses from 434 tutors were analysed using inferential statistics such as t-test, ANOVA, correlational and multiple regression analyses in response to the following areas: (1) Tutors’ assessments of their self-efficacy beliefs: the impact of gender, academic qualification and experience on variations of tutors’ self-efficacy beliefs. (2) The extent to which tutors considered the leadership practices of their college principals to be transformational: the extent to which gender, experience and years of work with current principals influence these perceptions. (3) The statistical relationships between tutors’ perceptions of the transformational leadership practices of their college principals and their self-efficacy beliefs. (4) The extent to which tutors’ perceptions of their principals’ transformational leadership practices impact on their self-efficacy beliefs. First of all, findings from t-test results indicated that the self-efficacy beliefs of male tutors were relatively higher than those of female tutors. However, results of the ANOVA indicated that demographic factors such as academic qualification and experience did not account for the variances in tutors’ sense of efficacy. Secondly, there the t-test and ANOVA revealed no statistically significant differences in tutors’ perceptions of the transformational leadership practices of their college principals following their gender, academic qualification and years of experience. However, tutors’ years of work with current principals accounted for variations in their perceptions of leadership. Thirdly, the results of the correlational analyses indicated strong positive statistically significant relationships between tutors’ sense of efficacy in student engagement, instructional strategies and classroom management and most of the six factors measuring tutors’ perceptions of their principals’ transformational leadership practices. These included transformational leadership practices such as provides vision, fosters commitment, provides individual support, intellectual stimulation and holds high performance expectations. The transformational leadership practice of modelling best behaviour displayed weak positive but statistically nonsignificant relationship with all three factors of tutors’ sense of efficacy. These findings were consistent with findings of earlier studies in the area (Ryan, 2007); Shumate, 201; Ling et al., 2015; Mehdinezhad and Mansouri, 2016; Gkolia et al., 2018). Fourthly, following results of the multiple regression analyses, while the transformational leadership practice of providing vision impacted strongly on tutors’ sense of efficacy in student engagement, the leadership practice of holding high performance expectations produced the most effect on tutors’ sense of efficacy in instructional strategies. Furthermore, principals’ transformational leadership practice of providing vision and setting directions produced the most impact on tutors’ sense of efficacy in classroom management. While only few studies in the area conducted multiple regression analysis ( Espinoza, 2013; Ling et al., 2015 and Gkolia et al., 2018) to index the specific transformational leadership practices which significant impact on teachers’ sense of efficacy in all three factors, results of this current study were consistent with findings of the above studies. In this way, principals who seek to enhance their tutors’ performance efficacy through their leadership practices can find helpful guidance in the findings of this study. Keywords: Principal Leadership, transformational leadership, teacher performance, teacher self-efficacy belief.

This research focuses on exploring school change as experienced by students and teachers in an English, coastal secondary school. Following a series of external inspections, the school was deemed to be ‘failing’ and under government legislation was required to move out of Local Education Authority control to become part of a multi-academy trust. The study takes place over a two-year period during which the school was navigating this transition. The current articulation that government intervention is freeing up schools to act as autonomous sites of self-improvement, is placed within broader debates surrounding how change is mandated, enacted and monitored. It is argued that through policy and the relentless standards agenda, a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach has resulted in a paucity of context for those living and working in schools. Education and schooling are thus becoming ever more de-contextualised and de-historicised. Through narrative inquiry, this study creates a three-dimensional inquiry space which listens to and explores the stories told and lived of education. The teacher and student narratives recognise and place value on schooling as an experience grounded in conceptualisations of space and place as interrelational and plural. Attending to 'local ways of knowing' creates a multi-contextual approach which re-casts the change agenda and maps a school improvement counter-narrative which mobilises local agency. The thesis concludes with a critical engagement in debates linked to the possibilities for schools. Restorying educational change as a craft of place as meeting place, working by the light of local knowledge (Geertz, 1983), gives us hope for a re-imagined future.

The focus of the thesis is on how Nepali school head teachers develop awareness, understanding and practice of social justice within educational leadership. There is extensive international research into social justice and educational leadership. However, key influences and experiences in head teachers’ personal and professional lives shaping social justice consciousness in the Nepali context is under-researched. A mixed methods approach, underpinned by a pragmatic and transformative philosophy was adopted to gather qualitative and quantitative data from four focus groups, a survey with 108 respondents and interviews with 12 Nepali head teachers from different cultural, educational and geographical settings. Using an interpretive phenomenological approach, head teachers were provided with opportunities to share experience, insights and personal and professional stories through their own narratives. The findings suggest both personal and professional influences and experiences impact equally on head teachers’ social justice understanding and practice. Analysis of survey data revealed differences of approach and understanding according to heads’ gender, their years of experience as educators and more significantly, heads’ geographical locations. Nepali head teachers’ conceptualisation of social justice is primarily focused on students’ welfare, characterised by recognition of injustices and wider societal challenges of inclusion. In seeking to elicit head teachers’ visioning for more effective social justice educational leadership, the need to collaborate with other stakeholders and address the lack of professional development were highlighted. The study concludes with a model to enhance head teacher capabilities to promote social justice leadership within schools and encourage further professional development, especially at local and regional levels. Recommendations include utilising the interpretive phenomenological approach and narrativity analysis as professional development opportunities to assist head teachers in transforming their social justice leadership. Further research is proposed to capture a greater range of head teacher voices across this geographically and culturally diverse country.

The current study is an attempt to understand how teachers working in Qatari government schools understand the concept of teacher leadership. This topic has received little attention in the educational leadership literature in this context. Teachers came to Qatar during and after its massive educational reform (2003-2017), mainly from countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region and are employed in an advanced educational system equipped with the most recent educational technologies and resources. The Ministry of Education (MoE) offers comprehensive professional development programmes, and a licencing system guarantees uniformity in teachers’ qualifications to ensure quality education. These opportunities have made it imperative to investigate how teachers perceive the concept of teacher leadership, examine the factors that influence these perceptions and provide suggestions to foster teacher leadership in schools. Adopting the teacher leadership definition of York-Barr and Duke (2004), this mixed methods study used a questionnaire based on the Teacher Leadership Inventory (TLI) tool developed by Angelle and DeHart (2011) and semi-structured interviews to collect data regarding teacher leadership perceptions. 2,969 people responded to the questionnaire and 96 teacher leaders were interviewed. The results of the study showed that teachers define teacher leadership in terms of formal leadership roles, e.g. subject coordinators. However, teachers in Qatar practise many informal leadership roles to support other teachers socially and professionally. Contrary to previous research, school level (preschool, primary, preparatory, secondary or complex) was not a significant variable in the quantitative phase although interviewees stated that school level affected teacher leadership practices. The qualitative phase results revealed many factors that support teacher leadership (including support from other staff including the principal, and from family members) as well as factors that inhibit it (dealing with difficult people, lack of team support, language and cultural differences, continuous changes from the MoE).

This study explores distributed leadership from the perspectives of teachers at different levels within a secondary school, (with the exception of the head teacher). Scottish Government policy is manifest in secondary education in the deployment of distributed leadership practices that seek to maximise output by harnessing the talents of the teaching staff. Aligning with neo-liberalist tendencies, there appears to be an ever-increasing migration of responsibility away from government agencies and into the hands of teachers. This is further evidenced by the prominence within policy of teachers' roles in relation to school improvement and an emphasis upon teachers' agency. The rhetoric used to promote distributed leadership includes notions of increased individual agency, equality, democracy, empowerment, inclusion and collegiality. Despite the above, contemporary theorists contend that distributed leadership remains an ambiguous concept. In order to explore what distributed leadership means to teachers operating within secondary education, this study seeks the perspectives of key professionals who operate at the levels of classroom teacher, middle leader (faculty head teacher/principal teacher) and depute head teacher. The study employs a mixed-methods approach using questionnaires, interviews and a focus group discussion within a case study design in order to investigate how teachers experience and understand distributed leadership, its aims and values The principal results indicate that largely, teachers construe distributed leadership as leadership that is delegated or conferred by senior leaders through the school's systems, teachers understand distributed leadership in terms of the ways in which it has been engendered within the school, teachers experience leadership in a range of ways and teachers believe that distributed leadership has achieved many of its aims. Other results include caveats in terms of teachers' concerns in relation to exercising leadership. Such concerns include: issues of power and authority; teachers' sense of professional/personal identity; teachers' perceptions in relation to their abilities; workload - the influence of the conditions under which teachers have exercised leadership; incentives and perceptions in relation to how additional responsibility for leadership intersects with other duties.

This thesis is based on a six-year period of my first headship in a small village school. Through my story, I have investigated skills, attributes and knowledge that are required to 'succeed' in the endeavour of a small-school headship. I explain my approach to the research through a personal memoir and how this will draw out the learning. Then, Part One of this work positions my time as a headteacher in the wider educational context by examining the history of education from the Education Reform Act 1988 through to the coalition government of 2010. Part Two tells my story from the start of my headship in January 2006 through to March of 2011. Through these reflections, I draw out key skills, attributes and knowledge that have helped me to develop and 'succeed' as a small-school headteacher. I then draw upon a focused learning journal from April of 2011 to March 2012 and examine a series of 'critical incidents'. Each incident uses a key stakeholder group in order to consider their role in the life of the headteacher and examine how the learning from the earlier reflections is applied and developed through interactions with these groups. I conclude with a set of seven 'motifs' for successful small-school headship, drawing together the learning from my story, followed by a brief examination of how my claims speak with scholarly leadership research.

The current transnational climate is likely to continue to generate institutional and classroom situations whereby diverse experiences, beliefs, traditions, languages, and identities become the norm. Unfortunately, previous migrants have had less than favorable educational experiences in Britain due to standardisation, stagnation, and discrimination. This thesis uses life-world analytical autoethnography, research-based literature, and a bricolage of metaphors, stories, proverbs, and visuals, to explore ways in which historical and cultural experiences influence educational attainment. Whilst not entirely new, findings confirm that a reciprocal relationship exists between the professional, academic and educational attainment of Black migrant educators and their Black migrant students. It reiterates that the legacy of slavery is entrenched in education, society and family lives and is culpable for the negative educational achievement of Caribbean migrants in Britain and that narratives are capable of transferring stereotypical diaspora subject positions. However, the findings also confirm that when educators, which I use synonymously with teacher throughout, use and explore their personal and professional experiences, they are more likely to encourage and use their student's experiences to inform the curriculum; inevitably creating a more inclusive educational environment as a leverage for learning, and this can help to eliminate the perpetuating educational disparities for BME educators and students.

Using a unique data set which linked material from a multitude of sources, this research determined whether an association existed between education and subsequent achievement, in the Blue Coat Charity School in Birmingham between 1780 and 1850. The research followed the life course of pupils at the school from the time they were admitted to the time they left and then throughout their working lives to measure the extent of intragenerational and intergenerational social mobility. Subsequently, the mobility was then correlated to the extent of their educational achievements to determine whether their education enabled them to acquire a higher status role or move into a higher social class. The study found that the school provided quality education in comparison to other schools in the locality, and evidence suggests that overall those boys who excelled academically were more likely to obtain a beneficial apprenticeship. However they did not necessarily need academic skills to succeed and secure a degree of social mobility as the social capital they also acquired within the school was found to be as beneficial – if not more so – than their educational achievements. For the girls there was little sign that their education enhanced their status.

Pupils' transition from primary to secondary school has been debated for several decades and has been identified as a crucial time in pupils' lives. Evaluation of transition concluded that on average, 40% of pupils find this move problematic, which results in a hiatus in their progress both academically and socially. Studies on transition to secondary school have notably focussed on the process and procedures, and data derived from the stakeholders were devoid of the voices of pupils and teachers who were active participants in the process of transition. This thesis reports on the lived experiences of the participants and the pupils' and teaching staff's perceptions before and after engaging with 'Year 7 Project' intervention. The project is based in a secondary school, Erin Sinclair Secondary School (pseudonym), located in an urban area of South East England, the aim of which was to ease the transition to secondary school of at-risk pupils by providing additional support during the transition process. In order to understand the transition process, the study investigated the change in perceptions during the transition year through the experiences of pupils and teaching staff as they move into, move through and move out of the transition process. Drawing on phenomenography, 50 participants were interviewed, comprising of sixteen teaching staff, the head teacher, the deputy head teacher, and thirty-two pupils. Half of the teaching staff were class teachers who were divided into a project group and a comparison group while the others supported pupils who were unable to access the Key Stage 3 National Curriculum (mostly in the project group of classes). The findings indicated that the 'Year 7 Project' intervention had a positive impact on pupils in the project group; they experienced fewer anxieties and settled more quickly into secondary school. Data analysis revealed preparation and support as fundamental to ensuring transition success as outlined by Nancy Schlossberg's, transition theory.

Extended Schools formed part of a range of initiatives introduced by the New Labour government to address disadvantage and contribute to reducing the achievement gap. After-school activities were introduced as part of this policy offering additional learning opportunities for pupils and affordable child-care for parents. This research examines the impact the experience of after-school activities made on the attitudes and engagement on learning of disadvantaged children within an inner city primary school. Examining the current effect on pedagogy in schools by the external pressures of standards in core areas and statutory assessment it argues that aspects of learning no longer feasible in the school day may be realised in clubs. Whilst not arguing against the need for children to attain good standards in core subjects it examines the limitations of this policy. Explored through a single case study this research gathered the perceptions of the value attributed to this provision from a range of stakeholders. Fifteen children, 12 parents and three Extended School staff contributed to this qualitative research through semi-structured interviews, reflecting on the impact of their experience and participation over time. Additional policy and organisational data was provided by the headteacher, setting the context for this provision within the aims and aspirations of the school. Contributing to this area of research I would propose that these activities offer children a contrasting approach to learning and time to develop additional skills, develop expertise and to boost confidence through a range of activities, within mixed-aged groupings, unavailable due to time constraints during the school day. This is of particular value to disadvantaged children as my findings concur with research in this area that suggests the Extended School is the sole opportunity for these children to engage with formalised activities beyond the school day.

There is consensus about the potential of education to influence the lives of individuals and society. Governments and the international community try to harness the positive potential by promoting universal access to quality basic education through periodic global goals, constitutional guarantees, deliberate national policies and increased investments in education. However, despite the multiple imperatives, evidence from national education systems and the Global Education Monitoring Reports indicates that the number of school-aged out-of-school children (OOSC) continues to grow exponentially, especially in low-income fragile contexts. The most affected are children in their second decade of life. In this thesis I problematised the contradiction between imperatives to increase access to education and the rapid growth in OOSC numbers, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. I analysed existing data from the Eritrea Education Management Information System and then applied conceptual frameworks drawn from literature on OOSC (UNICEF & UNESCO, 2015); on risk (Hammond et.al. 2007; Rumberger & Lim 2008), motivation (Deci & Ryan 2004) and resilience (Masten & Powell, 2013; Schoon, 2006; Wright et.al., 2013) to explore the phenomenon of drop-in among lower secondary school students who were considered by their schools to be at risk of dropping out of school. My position as an insider/outsider facilitated me to conduct complementary analysis of existing official documents from the Ministry of Education and UNICEF. The key findings were that whereas the traditional EMIS provided information on basic education in general, it was not adept at accounting for all children of school age, particularly 'invisible' children (Carr-Hill, 2012; UNICEF, 2005) such as those in institutions including those offering non-education, children living on streets, working children, or those kept out of sight due to disabilities. The Eritrea EMIS had a blind spot for qualitative data, and consequently, it did not sufficiently document the risks faced by students nor the strategies by individual children and institutions to overcome those risks. In this thesis I argue that information, which is readily available at school and community level, can be collated and analysed to advance understandings on student flows and children's ability to enjoy their right to education. I also note that whereas existing frameworks for assessing risk, motivation and resilience are helpful, they only provide a partial understanding of the way those concepts operate within the fragile communities in sub-Saharan contexts, particularly in the way individual resilience underpins students' volition to drop into school. For example, external resilience frameworks tend to base on a single system of learning whereas the students in fragile contexts function in multiple concurrent learning systems. The thesis recommends ways in which EMIS can be strengthened to benefit from complementarities of qualitative and quantitative data to provide a more composite view of children's participation in schooling. It also makes suggestions on how drop-in can be nurtured into more sustainable participation in schooling for at-risk students in low-income contexts like Eritrea.

Globalization is inevitable and the inherent result is a work environment that is becoming increasingly diverse. Leaders must meet the challenges of globalization by being adaptable in dealing with the continual pace of change and the cultural diversity of their followers. Internationalization of education and the mobility of students and staff increase pressure on educational leaders to deal with diversity, thereby outlining a good context for understanding these converging factors. Cultural Intelligence (CQ) is "motivated by the practical reality of globalization in the workplace", whereas, the Full Range Leadership Model measures leadership types using the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ). Both of these two concepts, and leadership adaptability define the scope of this study. This research focused on school leaders, and aimed to estimate their CQ, identify their predominant leadership style, and to understand the relationship between CQ and their ability to adapt their leadership style. The Abu Dhabi education sector is amenable to an investigation of the links between CQ, leadership style, and adaptability. Focus groups were held in order to develop questions for a quantitative instrument measuring leadership adaptability. An analysis of the leadership adaptability scale found it met expectations as a survey instrument. The CQ instrument was further validated in the UAE, and has been translated into Arabic. School leaders in Abu Dhabi exhibit high levels of CQ, leadership adaptability, and predominantly demonstrate a transformational leadership style. Significant relationships were identified between transformational leadership style and CQ, and between CQ and leadership adaptability. The implications of this research are far reaching as they highlight the interconnection between the factors of CQ, leadership style, and leadership adaptability in a UAE education context. Further, they present a positive picture of the Abu Dhabi education sector, which is undergoing a period of modernisation in order to be considered world leading and to develop a knowledge based economy.

Educational reforms for training, based on constructivism, require trainers to become learning facilitators. Within this paradigm, the role of the educator changes: Learning facilitators are supposed to be more process- and student-oriented, reducing the role of the knowledge provider and giving more space for self-organised learning (Neville, 1999). The present study investigated the factors and motivations that contribute to trainers' adoption of educational changes. The study was undertaken in the context of the German Social Accident Insurance (DGUV), in which two yearlong training courses have been restructured based on constructivism. The study has a sequential, two-part, mixed-methods design. In the first part, 62 trainers who had participated in a course on learning facilitation completed an online questionnaire. Questions were related to their motivations for participation, attitudes and intention to implement learning facilitation in their seminars. As many of those who had responded to the online questionnaire were in favour of the approach, semistructured interviews with six trainers critical of the change process were carried out subsequently in order to generate a more complete picture. The results showed that the trainers' attitudes towards the educational reform strongly predict adoption and that adoption is not uniform. Three implementer types with different motivational profiles were identified from the questionnaire data: intrinsic implementers, extrinsic implementers and non-implementers. The interview converged with the results of the questionnaire as some of the interviewees corresponded well with the motivational categories found, although, in this part, a further non-implementing type of trainer also emerged. The findings of the two parts of the study are integrated, suggesting ways in which training motivation and attitudes influence the adoption versus non-adoption of learning facilitation. In addition, suggestions of how to integrate those who are critical into educational reform processes are made. Finally, potential implications useful for the consideration of educational organisations planning to implement similar educational changes are put forward.

In this dissertation I set out to apply Martha Nussbaum's Capabilities Approach to an exploration of the work of Education Support Professionals (ESPs) in the United States. ESPs are the non-teaching/non-administrative staff in schools. They are the clerical staff, the custodians, the food service staff, the health aides, the paraeducators, the security staff, the skilled trades such as plumbers, the technical services staff, and the transportation staff such as bus drivers. In the United States ESPs make up as much as a third of the adults working in a school district. Yet, they are often absent in the research and policy discourses. To consider their work, I used three major components. The first was Nussbaum's Capabilities Approach. The second was the idea of a holistic approach to children, often referred to as the whole child, and, in the U.S. policy framework, the Whole Child Approach. The third component was the consideration of the voices and views of Education Support Professionals. Nussbaum's Capabilities Approach is a normative framework that asks about the real opportunities people have to do and be. Framed around ten Central Capabilities, I believe it is a useful tool for considering what policies, programs, and practices should be in place in our schools and for examining the ones that are in place. The Whole Child Approach is a voluntary policy framework that is rooted in a holistic view of what children need to thrive. Derived from the work of Nel Noddings on the Ethics of Care, it has served as a reference point for educators, families, and policymakers seeking an alternative to a high-stakes, test-based accountability system. The idea of ESPs as a group worth considering is borrowed from the National Education Association (NEA), the largest educator organization in the U.S. I share the NEA's view that the nine disparate job categories of ESPs share common responsibilities for students that transcend their job descriptions. Because ESPs have been largely ignored in the prevailing education discourse, their voices and views are not often heard. In this Dissertation, I set out to engage directly with ESPs, doing so through a series of focus groups conducted in the fall of 2017 in Utah. In these groups, participants discussed their work, how they understood the idea of the whole child and they began to interact with Nussbaum's Central Capabilities. Based on the research conducted I offer the following broad findings. Nussbaum's Capabilities Approach can serve as a useful tool for engaging people who work in schools, as well as parents and students in considering what schools should be like and how they should treat students. Its application to the Whole Child Approach or other emerging policy frameworks can offer a better understanding of what is needed for students to have real opportunities and to develop the capabilities they need for adulthood. I also argue that ESPs can and should be seen as professionals in education, whose voices and views should be valued.

There is an apparent lack of women in 'top' educational leadership and management positions in the UAE, despite increasing number of women in higher education and the relatively high enrolment rates and academic performance of females at all levels of education. This study examines gender effects on leadership styles in public schools in Abu Dhabi, UAE. The study specifically examines the differences in leadership styles between male and female school leaders (principals) in the UAE, and the perceived challenges that women face in leadership positions, and when seeking higher leadership positions, contributing to knowledge on gender and educational leadership in three unique ways. First, it makes contribution to the literature on the under-representation of women in high leadership positions in educational institutions. Second, it contributes to the literature on the gender-based differences in leadership styles in public schools, using both the perceptions of teachers and principals. Third, it contributes specifically to literature on gender gaps, educational participation and leadership in the UAE at a time of transformation in the educational system. The present study adopted a mixed methods approach, combing both quantitative and qualitative paradigms of data collection and analysis. The study made use of data collected from the multifactor leadership questionnaire (MLQ) responses of 300 school principals and 300 school teachers (male and female), as well as semi-structured interviews of 12 (6 male and 6 female) principals selected by purposeful sampling in the Abu Dhabi, Al Ain and Western regions of UAE. The study used descriptive statistics, t-tests and thematic analysis to evaluate, analyse and triangulate the responses from both data sources. Findings from the MLQ survey conducted revealed that school leaders in Abu Dhabi use both transformational and transactional leadership styles and rarely use the laissez-faire approach. However, from the interview responses, school principals favoured what could be described as more of the use of transformational leadership styles than transactional leadership approaches. While women reported displaying more features of transactional leadership based on higher mean ranking of individual constructs, the t-test results showed that male leaders self-reported higher levels of transformational leadership, which was statistically significant (however, the teachers showed the opposite perception of their leaders, according to mean rankings). The study also shows that traditional and cultural barriers, such as family commitments and culturally learned gender discrimination affect leadership aspirations of women while training, skills and monetary rewards play a role in leadership effectiveness and school improvement. This thesis concludes with recommendations for practice, improving educational leadership in the UAE, and in reducing the real and perceived social barriers to women's full participation in the UAE workforce and leadership. Some of the practical implications include providing preparatory training for school leadership and in-service professional development, reforming the recruitment process, promoting gender equality in leadership participation and empowering women in authority.

The professional development and preparation of new administrative leaders so they can be equipped to work in a rapidly changing environment driven by the competitive consequences of globalisation is certainly a key aim of the government in Kuwait. Thus, this research explored the effectiveness of the current leadership’s preparation and on-going development of those responsible for leading the education system in Kuwait. This research used a qualitative interpretive approach and was conducted in two stages with a sample of 54 managers (30 from the Ministry of Education departments and 24 from six education districts). In the first stage, 48 questionnaires were distributed, with 42 being returned representing a response rate of 87.5%. The second phase included semi-structured interviews conducted with eight managers with different areas of expertise to obtain more in-depth and comprehensive information on the issues that emerged from the analysis of the questionnaires. The data indicated that no specific formal programmes exist to prepare managers and provide them with appropriate leadership skills. Although professional development activities are available, they are not dedicated to improving leadership capability, but only to developing some managerial and technical skills. These programmes do not specifically target this category of managers; thus, they have not been effective in improving their leadership skills. One of the more significant findings to emerge from this study is that the majority of participants were unable to demonstrate a clear understanding of management or leadership or distinguish between them. The results also indicate that the most effective method is informal learning. Evidence suggests that the observation of others at work play an important and key role in vii leadership development. Consequently, the data collected indicates that attending more formalised professional development courses has little influence on these managers' leadership knowledge and understanding.

The purpose of this research was to create a framework for my own practice that would also be a means to share practices with other Education Consultants locally and internationally. The aim of this particular research was to reveal the complexities, tensions and learnings which arise from the lived experience in this role. The methodology chosen was autoethnography using a metaphoric frame of Homer's Odyssey to navigate the complexities and Cavafy's poem Ithaka to show the learning opportunities which can arise when one is open to discovery of self and others. The experience that is explored here pertains to both personal and professional aspects of a range of education practices and requirements, often of an international nature, which impact on how the practice of the specific Education Consultant works. The activities examined range from research, networking and speaking at international conferences to setting up and running a consultancy in Greece. This research highlights the contradictions and obstacles faced by the Education Consultant and provides a set of actions which could be the basis for initiating standards of Education Consultancy recognized locally and globally.

Despite the widely accepted theories on transformational leadership and its impact on student outcomes, in the West, much less is known about this model in developing countries, including Nigeria. This study explored how learners' outcomes are affected by transformational leadership in Rivers State. The research mapped the prevalent leadership styles to see whether, and to what extent, they illustrated any components of transformational leadership, using Bass’s six transformational leadership (TL) measuring instruments. This exploratory study adopted a mixed-methods approach to investigate this phenomenon, with a multiple case-study design, in five schools from the rural riverine and urban communities of Rivers State, Nigeria. Learners' attainments were examined using a documentary approach while principal and teacher perspectives were obtained via semi-structured interviews. Existing Western theories relating to transformational leadership were confirmed, contradicted, modified, and extended, in this African context. The findings revealed that transformational leadership in Rivers State shares some similarities with Western research and literature but also exhibits certain dissimilarities. The research confirms the growing recognition that leadership theories and models need to be adapted when applied to new, and developing, contexts.

This thesis offers a rare insight into senior leadership in International Baccalaureate (IB) international schools. The IB international school profits from the perceived quality and consistency of the IB brand, however, international schools suffer from an endemic culture of change and reinterpretation. The International Baccalaureate Learner Profile (IBLP) offers scope for consistency and an overarching ethos, and previous research suggests that ‘buy-in’ to the IBLP, and modelling of it in all aspects of school life, are essential in achieving this. The IB itself promotes the IBLP as a valuable tool for leadership. It emerges that buy-in to the IBLP in directors is split between the personal and the operational. This interpretive study investigates international school leadership in the Western European context through six IB directors. It is noteworthy in its multi-phase research over two years, employing an aspect of critical phenomenology. It explores directors’ relationship to, and operationalisation of, the IB Learner Profile (IBLP) and Global Citizenship Education (GCE). All but one director show strong personal connection to the IBLP, however, only one of the six directors uses the IBLP in leadership. Generally, directors attribute the IBLP limited status; of use in teaching at junior and middle school, and helpful for new IB teachers. Analysis through Bourdieu finds IB directors have higher loyalty to (loosely defined) GCE through their Christian values. A foregrounding of individual values, over the secular IBLP, places IB directors as primary catalysts for the change culture unravelling the consistency of the IB international school, confirming the value of the IBLP in leadership. Societal values emerge as a key commodity in the character of leadership, steering leaders’ organisational values. IB directors’ uptake of IB organisational values is not given, whilst directors’ own ‘English’ Christian, values are significant, with one exception - Collegial views of leadership are the normative outlook for most participants. However, descriptive leadership is characterised by change and analysis finds this driven by participants’ societal values. Change is endemic and a commodity in itself. This manifests in a transformational model of leadership, usually accompanied by episodes of transactional leadership. In the main, IB international school senior leadership is characterised by permanent transformation linked with transactional episodes.

This thesis presents four case studies of Head Teachers whose schools received the lowest Ofsted inspection rating of 4 – Inadequate. It examines the impact of the judgement on the individual Head Teachers, both on their career and also on their emotional lives. It considers the role of Ofsted inspection within an era of increasing accountability, and looks at the extent to which these four individuals were able to lead their schools from this failure to a more successful and stable situation, and the emotional journeys that accompanied this process. The case studies are based on a series of semi-structured interviews with the four Head Teachers over a period of two to three years after the initial inspection. Other key sources of evidence are considered, including Ofsted reports, school achievement data, and interviews with other stakeholders. The study concludes that long-term success for the school and the school leader depends upon the Head Teacher successfully managing the key stages in this emotional journey, from surviving the initial emotional crisis, through a period of emotional labour, to emotional regulation, before achieving emotionally healthy leadership. The successful navigation of this process by some of the Head Teachers enabled them to focus on key leadership practices resulting in long-term improvement. Where this journey was not successfully managed, the impact on long-term success and career advancement was considerable. Hundreds of schools each year are graded inadequate by Ofsted, with a larger number judged to be requiring improvement. The outcomes of this research have potential implications for the way that Head Teachers can be supported to improve their schools following this failure, whilst at the same time safeguarding their own emotional health and wellbeing.

This dissertation presents an intervention-based study that aimed to enable teachers to improve teaching and learning in one school in Ramallah, Palestine. The non-positional approach to teacher leadership was adopted as a means to mobilise all teachers in the drive towards bottom-up, participatory school change processes that increase teacher self-efficacy and collaboration, build professional capacity and social capital, and promote sustainability. The Teachers Leading the Way programme provided a contextually tailored strategy, and set of instruments and tools that through reflective exercises and dialogic activities aimed to support teachers to innovate practice, and impact organisational structures and professional culture. This is significant in the Palestine setting for facilitating the building of locally based and sourced knowledge to inform an authentic Palestinian vision and agenda for policy-making and education reconstruction, with implications for countries of the Middle East and North Africa region. In the process, a grassroots change movement is intended to shift historical and continued reliance on foreign intervention and international assistance, and lay the foundation for democratisation and social transformation. The intervention was investigated using a critical action-based, participatory methodology that emphasised context and researcher reflexivity in one school and amongst a cohort of 12 participants. Data were collected using a range of research-designed and programme-based methods and instruments, analysed deductively and inductively, and narrated critically to maintain coherence, and convey experiential and temporal dimensions. The study outcomes indicate that teachers in Palestine are capable of leading school improvement, and impacting school structures and professional culture for system-wide change, when the proper support is provided. Non-positional teacher leadership is the vehicle and can be developed through Teachers Leading the Way. At the individual level, this is enabled through a transformation in teachers’ perspective towards a self-empowered, agential mindset that leads to action on ways to improve practice. The transition process underscores the role of effective facilitation as an enabling condition for developing non-positional teacher leadership in Palestine and similar settings.

This thesis sets out to investigate the newly developed aspiring headteachers’ administrative placement (AP) across several local educational departments in Taiwan, a topic under-addressed in most studies of Taiwanese headship preparation. It mobilises qualitative case studies of three AP schemes in three different local districts to explore the rationale, structural content, practices and effects of the AP schemes. Through a number of Foucauldian conceptual lenses, this research aims to question the role of the AP schemes by critically examining the interrelated issues of power relations, discursive meanings and subjectivity within the AP practices. The research reviews the relevant concepts and practices of headship preparation and administrative placement. In addition, Michel Foucault’s thinking tools are used to critically investigate the field of headship preparation and then to form the theoretical framework of this study. The central finding demonstrates that although the AP schemes make contributions to developing several aspects of aspiring heads’ capabilities, they also subject them to a range of disciplinary and dividing practices that on the one hand increase their capabilities and on the other hand strengthen their compliance to and cooperation with the local authority. Their participation in the AP also secures the local delivery capacity which chiefly serves to accomplish organisational and political ends. The thesis argues that the finding adds to what we know about headship preparation and moves us from viewing it as simply a developmental and progressive preparatory programme, to reading it as both a disciplinary and a governmental technology that renders participants knowable, administrable and governable, one that ultimately serves to effectively manage the population of heads at both micro and macro levels. This thesis holds significance for providing an alternative conceptualisation of the AP scheme through a robust theoretical framework which is sorely lacking in much of the headship preparation literature.

The school inspection regime in England and Wales has recently increased its focus on all state schools becoming 'good' or better. Schools deemed by Ofsted to be performing below this standard receive intense scrutiny from the school inspection regime before a subsequent short notice monitoring inspection. Although all schools may receive a short notice inspection, the perceived autonomy afforded to schools that are judged by the school inspection regime to be good or better is in contrast to those which are deemed 'failing' schools and are disciplined through tighter accountability to the inspection regime. This study examines the influence of intense scrutiny from the school inspection regime on school leadership and policy enactment. A coastal area of deprivation provides the setting for a detailed case study of school leadership in a state secondary school and a state primary school - both with recent or ongoing experience of intense scrutiny from the school inspection regime. Interviews were undertaken and the analyses of data and discussion form an understanding of how policy is enacted in relation to the dual responsibility that school leaders negotiate between the local context at Seatown and the school inspection regime. Both Foucault and Benjamin inform the discussions that demonstrate that the school inspection regime forces a privileging of a compliant and consistent enactment of policy - a hyper enactment of policy, that reduces the capacity of school leaders in the primary school to address the significant social context of the school. In this respect, the automaton replaces autonomy. By contrast, there are examples of acts of resistance undertaken by school leaders in the secondary school - school leaders often demonstrating a cynical view of the school inspection regime, and therefore willing to place the social context of the school first. A contribution to the panoptic/post-panoptic debate is offered.

This thesis examines leadership practices in which Kenyan school leaders have engaged to achieve sustainable students' achievement (SSA). Educational reforms focusing on effective school leadership are of major concern in developing economies seeking to improve their educational systems and enhance educational performance. Kenya, a developing economy, considers education to be a powerful driver of development. One of its immediate education reforms accentuated in Kenya-vision 2030 is the introduction of an expanded institutional leadership framework for the effective delivery and management of education. However, socio-political challenges around educational management have been shown to greatly influence school leadership working environments. Accordingly, school leaders persistently struggle with the problem of fluctuations in students' achievement and substantial disparities across schools. Reflecting on SDG4, Uwezo-Kenya report contends that learning outcomes are low and extremely inequitably distributed across geographical, socio-economical and school-type levels. While various factors (students, family, schools) inform student achievement trajectories, this thesis principally focuses on analysing how educational leadership, a school-level factor, is emerging in secondary schools in Kenya. The central aim of this research is to illuminate the school leadership contexts in which SSA might occur. To do so, the study adopted a sequential multi-strategy research design, with quantitative analysis of secondary data preceding the qualitative data collection and analysis. The study involved quantitative secondary analysis of students' achievement data of 300 schools drawn from 3 Counties and qualitative in-depth analysis of data from 9 schools, 9 principals, 92 teachers (holding senior, middle and junior leadership positions), 6 Board of Management and Parents Association chairpersons, 5 Local Education Authority officers. The overall finding is that context is a powerful mechanism influencing leadership practice in Kenyan schools. Existing contextual mechanisms have implications for school leaders' actions and decisions, which in turn inform teaching and learning activities. Consequently, this thesis argues for regenerative leadership practices as an alternative approach that creates enabling school environments for SSA to occur in challenging contexts, like those faced in Kenya. Regenerative leadership practices that prioritise the building of school system resilience by recreating structures, cultures, capacities, relations and pedagogical practices might circumvent the socio-political challenges and nurture environments that enhance SSA. This thesis contributes to existing knowledge by illuminating the importance of the context in educational leadership. Taking a systems perspective, the thesis demonstrates how socio-political demands inform school leadership actions and decisions, which in turn have indirect implications for teaching and learning activities, as well as SSA. Ultimately, justifying claims that encouraging schools to strive for SSA in Kenya and in other similar challenging contexts is complex and requires a comprehensive understanding of both structures and agency. This serves as a reasonable basis for questioning current assumptions about school leadership, which often partially focus on the principal's agency while ignoring the wider socio-political environment. Secondly, this provides grounds to criticise the blind adoption of educational leadership models created in response to these assumptions, such as approaches to leadership preparation programmes in developing contexts. In response to these findings, this thesis proposes an alternative multiple level conceptual model of educational leadership that better responds to complex leadership and learning needs in challenging contexts. This model emphasises the reflexivity that school leaders need to manage, change and counter complex and often unpredictable socio-political factors to achieve sustainability.

This research explores the relationship between leaders and organizational performance from the perspective of a public school education system that serves students from the beginning years of Kindergarten to High School graduation. Significant literature exists that acknowledges the known impact and behaviours of leaders for organizational success. It also highlights the need for further research into the design and impact of leadership development opportunities for both potential and current leaders in the organization. This research further explores the specific behaviours, actions and thinking of current leaders and school principals in the system that have a demonstrated impact on results, as defined by objective academic and culture performance measures along with affective responses from teachers. The literature review focuses on the impact of leaders in both education and management from the theoretical stance of transformational leadership given its direct link between leadership behaviours and organizational performance. It highlights current research related to the impact of the leader on organizational success and indicates multi-dimensional characteristics to develop and explore as part of an integrated leadership model. Research related to leadership development along with current models/frameworks for school leadership development are solely reviewed to assess the behaviours, actions, and practices identified as elements of a successful principalship. Having positioned the research in the literature, the proposal defines the reasons for a mixed-methods research design. The case is made for a relativist research paradigm in Chapter 3 which outlines the research design and methodology. Careful consideration is given to the specific research methods and data analysis techniques from both a quantitative and qualitative stance. The findings of this thesis support the effects of transformational leadership on student performance. In the quantitative study, the results showed a positive effect of principal leadership, as measured by transformational leadership on several student achievement and culture variables. There was also a positive effect on the teacher outcomes in relation to the actions of the principals. The qualitative study identified attributes, actions, thinking and practices that were common, integrating transformational leadership behaviours, instructional leadership, strategic thinking, networking and contextual awareness. The findings suggest that an integrated leadership approach is linked to student success. It supports past research that identifies links, both direct and indirect, between the transformational behaviours of the principal and student achievement and engagement. Furthermore, it adds to the research field by identifying multidimensional variables beyond those of transformational leadership that are essential actions, knowledge, and behaviours for effective principal leadership.

This thesis contends that the methodological approaches taken in exploring education inspections in the last twenty years are largely unhistorical and result in a particular view that contrasts current school inspections unfavourably with previous approaches, as a result of the particular methodoligical stances adopted, often analysing teachers’ experiences of inspections using Foucauldian and performativity theoretical frameworks. Even studies with a more-historical bent tend to present Her Majesty’s Inspectors (HMI) as belonging more to a less-destructive golden age of ‘professional relationships’. The evidence bases for the hypotheses tend to omit, to treat as incidental, or to dismiss as misguided the views of inspectors, particularly the experiences of HMIs. The literature suggests also that the office of HMI effectively ceased to exist by the year 2000. This research set out to locate previously unavailable evidence about the work of HMIs after 2000 and to consider what that evidence revealed about the nature of the role at that time, using the method of oral history. The research looked at the experiences of a small group of former HMIs, who were active in the period 2000- 2010, through semi-structured, recorded interviews, subsequently transcribed and analysed thematically, to see what the HMIs’ recollections reveal about the prevailing debates, and to contribute to the growing body of literature about the value of oral history as a distinctive branch of historical method. The study argues that, throughout the period, HMIs operated as independently minded individuals, who sought to transcend their particular circumstances, in order to sustain a sense of the purpose and values which they considered underpinned the office. It demonstrates also that oral history evidence is as valid and useful as any other historical source, notwithstanding some distinctive contigencies and limitations associated with it.

There are different criteria that affect active leadership styles that enhance the role of a principal as an Instructional Leadership. However, many principals lack such criteria where a strong principal considered as an Instructional Leadership. To become Instructional Leaders, principals must transform their practices from managerial to instructional. They need to exercise their leadership by exhibiting the leadership styles in their role and character, or their role will merely perform administrative duties that are akin to an administrative position. Furthermore, a school principal as a leader should play an important role in enhancing teachers' satisfaction. This study investigated the moderating effect of four leadership styles Directive, Supportive, Participative, and Achievement-oriented (D, S, P, A) on Instructional Leadership and teachers' outcomes (job satisfaction, job expectancies and acceptance of leader). The study used mixed methods, qualitative survey and quantitative focus group to develop a model based upon empirical data. The findings are based on a survey of 536 participants including teachers, principals and senior chiefs at various levels of primary, elementary and secondary schools across the Kingdom of Bahrain. The statistical and thematic analysis of the data shows that there is a direct and positive relationship between Instructional Leaderships and teacher's outcomes when moderated by the four leadership styles. The contribution of this study is the empirically tested relationships between Path Goal Theory and Instructional Leadership which shows that there are statistically significant relationships between D, S, P, A and the relationship between Instructional Leadership and the teacher's job satisfaction, job expectancy and acceptance of leader. Focus group finding shows that Leadership styles D, S, P, A transforms Instructional Leadership into a form that enhances the leadership role in Kingdom of Bahrain that Transactional Leadership influences Job expectancy, whilst Referent Power influences acceptance of leaders.

Purpose The study empirically examines the relationship between leadership styles (Transformational and Transactional Leadership) and knowledge management processes in context of private schools in Dubai. Knowledge processes and leadership styles have both been central to discussions within the academic literature. While the number of empirical studies looking at the interaction between these dimensions has been limited. Design /Methodology /Approach The study has adopted an explanatory design model (Thomas, et al, 2015; Creswell & Clark, 2007; Tashakouri and Teddlie, 2003). An explanatory design is a two-phased mixed methods design that begins with the collection of quantitative data followed by a subsequent qualitative data collection (Bentahar, et al, 2015; Creswell & Clark, 2007). The collection of qualitative data was intended to enrich the data collected during the quantitative phase (Bazeley, 2015; Creswell & Clark, 2007; Miles, et al, 2013; Tashakouri and Teddlie2003). The research methods have included a survey (quantitative Phase 1) that had 223 respondents followed by semi-structured interviews (qualitative Phase2) with 10 school leaders. Within this study structural equation modelling using SMART PLS for the quantitative data analysis was utilised to identify the implications when determining the most effective leadership styles for achieving knowledge transfer in the data analysis for phase 1. Thematic analysis was then used for the qualitative data analysis in phase 2 based on Braun and Clarke (2005) six-stage technique with Nvivo software to elaborate and explain the quantitative findings in order to gain better understanding and insights of the phenomena and the role leaders play to conceptualize knowledge sharing through leaders' emerging themes which represent the core values in their schools such as leading by example, empowerment of teachers, mentoring and culture of care, building cultures of trust, collaboration, and relationship, building cultures of knowledge and knowledge sharing and commonly celebrate success. Findings and contributions It was found and learned that a combined leadership approach was the most effective when considering knowledge processes through the SECI model in Dubai private schools. The research study contributes to the literature by allowing us to identify specific leadership style attributes being matched to specific knowledge process attributes for achieving maximum impact. Further, the study was based on and extends prior research by conceptualizing knowledge sharing in Dubai context. The research study also allowed us to test empirically the suitability and applicability of the leadership and knowledge constructs in the UAE. Originality/value This research originally examines the effects of implementing the core values of trust collaboration empowering teachers leading by example, and culture of knowledge and knowledge sharing with the appropriate leaders' attributes to foster knowledge sharing. No prior research has carried out such an integrated analysis. This study will have significant value for private schools trying to implement these core values and concepts coupled with appropriate leadership attributes to enhance knowledge management processes.

Reductions in school refusal behaviour (SRB), defined as a general difficulty with attending or remaining in school, have been a longstanding strategic priority for schools, local authorities and central government. Research into risk factors associated with SRB is vital for the development of effective assessment and intervention practices to address the problem. A systematic literature review, embedded within a theoretical framework of risk and resilience, was conducted to appraise the research evidence into anxiety as a risk factor for SRB. Twenty-one studies were reviewed, spanning the past three decades. Support was gained for anxiety as a significant risk factor for SRB in some cases, but not as an overall or central explanation for the problem. The need was highlighted in future research for collective commitment towards addressing a range of terminological, methodological and reporting issues in order to improve comparability between studies, and increase the generalisability of findings. The incorporation of physiological measures of anxiety in conjunction with self-report measures was proposed as a potentially fruitful extension for future investigations. The empirical paper presented a pilot study which extended previous research comparing anxious high-attenders with anxious low-attenders. The sample comprised 13 girls in Year 8 (n=9) and Year 9 (n=4) attending an average-sized mainstream secondary school, who reported elevated anxiety. The girls were grouped by attendance: high (n=7, M=99.7%, SD=0.63) and low (n=6, M=92.2%, SD=1.58). Physiological measures of psychological stress (i.e. heart rate variability: HRV) and sleep, assessed using electrocardiogram and wrist actigraphy respectively, were incorporated within an exploration of anxiety, sleep and sense of belonging as factors that may differentiate between the two groups. The groups did not differ on sense of belonging or any indices of psychopathology by self-report, nor on any physiological measures of sleep or psychological stress at the beginning of the week. However, the high attendance group showed non-significant trends towards poorer sleep quality and lower HRV, at the end of the week. The findings tentatively challenge the assumption that anxious students who sustain high attendance in school are demonstrating psychological resilience. Implications for Educational Psychology practice and future research are discussed.

Much has been written on the importance of increasing leadership capacity in schools and managing systems for leadership development. However, little focus has been given to creating the necessary conditions to facilitate the emergence of leadership in order to support school improvement. Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is a philosophy and method for promoting transformational change within organisations, shifting from a traditional problem-based orientation to a more strength-based approach to change, which focuses on affirmation, appreciation and positive dialogue. This research study examines an innovative appreciative approach to facilitating positive and rapid school improvement. This is achieved through qualitative analysis whereby I explore the emergence of middle leadership during an Appreciative Inquiry initiative in a large, urban Academy and identify those features of Appreciative Inquiry that were conducive to such emergence. In addition, I show that the initiative provided participants with many of the elements considered vital to leading a vibrant and democratic learning community. These are opportunities for professional reflection and sense-making, a safe and affirming learning community, time to dialogue with others within the organisation regarding their core values and commitments, a collaborative work culture, space for networking, and the freedom to take action.

This case study explored the nature of emotional experiences of a female newly appointed head teacher, the Novice, in a public Cypriot lower secondary school in Cyprus. Coping strategies and the development of interpersonal relationships with teachers, in association with trustworthy leadership, were followed in terms of a step by step process. The study draws upon qualitative research methods, rooted within the naturalistic paradigm in order to illuminate the emotions associated with the professional and organizational socialization of the Novice in the context of Cyprus. Data were collected through head teacher observation and semi- structured interviews, as well as semi-structured interviews and questionnaires with teachers. Emotional experiences were associated with challenges faced throughout transition and were classified according to four adaptation phases, accompanied by intense Emotional Labour. During the first phase, the Novice realizing the ultimate responsibility that was associated with the role, felt shocked, isolated and lonely. During the second phase, feelings of anger, anxiety, frustration and bitterness prevailed. Mental and physical exhaustion were tied in with being sad, depressed, desperate and feeling sorry for herself. Finally, during the last phase when the Novice accepted the situation, feelings of assertiveness and contentment finalized the successful adaptation to the new environment as she had successfully built trust, becoming a trustworthy leader.