Collaborative Leadership in Urban Schools of Melbourne.

This paper examines leadership and its links to success in five urban schools in Melbourne (Australia), reflecting the view that the role of leaders and the process of leadership are significant contributing factors to the achievement of successful school improvement. The elementary and secondary schools studied offer a range of the characteristics associated with Australian urban schools. Interviews, observation, and examination of documents provided information about collaborative leadership in these schools. Collaborative elements explored were: (1) structural frame; (2) human resource frame; (3) political frame; and (4) symbolic frame. A synthesis of hypothesized causal links was developed outside the four frames to effect a distillation of causal links. Dominant factors that were apparent included the development of the educational potential of students and the professional development of teachers, as well as good organizational health and the institutionalization of vision. These four demonstrable factors that generate a collaborative culture of leadership are inextricably linked and dependent on each other. (Contains 102 references.) (SLD)