This case study investigates aspiring school leaders' perception of political literacy in educational leadership, offering critical recommendations for principal preparation programs, policymakers, and future research. As a qualitative study, the case addresses integrating political literacy policy, developing relevant professional development…

For many years, teachers have been involved in developing the national curricula in Finland in various ways. Teachers' involvement in curriculum design and implementation has, during the last national curriculum implementation process, increased locally to strengthen their confidence in and knowledge of the national curriculum's multifaceted…

The purpose of this article is to report on research in schools to determine the views of teachers regarding points of which principals should take into consideration during periods of change in their schools. The research, based on a post-positivist worldview, was quantitative in nature, with one qualitative section. Eight hundred and eighty four…

The aim of this study is to explore what aspects the principals and the members of the management teams in the primary and upper secondary education schools in Vantaa support distributed leadership in their school and how necessary they see that distributed leadership is extended to the students in matters concerning the curriculum and the…

This paper presents how some Australian schools are changing their approaches to leading the teaching and learning in their diverse and multi-characteristic contexts. Experiences of these schools shows that the development of a school wide approach to pedagogy and its implementation needs to be firmly embedded in the leadership of learning.…

The purpose of this heuristic case study, also informed through the tradition of critical systems theory was to explore elementary principals' "voices" in instructional decisions made by central office administrators at a large suburban school district in a Midwestern State. Six elementary principals were interviewed for this study.…

Nation states around the world, including Singapore, are endeavouring to reform their education systems in order to successfully compete in the global economy (Carnoy, 1999). With human capital as Singapore's primary resource, it is unsurprising that the state has placed great emphasis on strengthening the economic-education nexus. This tight…

The role of a principal's curriculum leadership has become an educational issue in Taiwan's early childhood education. This study represents a pioneering attempt in adopting a target school interview, fuzzy Delphi, and analytic hierarchy process for constructing preschool principal's curriculum leadership indicators. Fifteen experts and…

This paper attempts to identify the leadership practices and qualities of school principals engaged in implementing a curriculum reform in Hong Kong. Based on interview data of school principals, this paper shows that the types of instructional leadership practices that school principals adopt and the contextual conditions in which these practices…

While by and large urban public schools continue to not serve the needs of all of the students in their communities, there are some school principals who are creating educational equity for all of their students and deserve to be called social justice leaders. This study aimed to expand the field of school leadership studies and focus on social…

During the past two decades, Taiwan's Ministry of Education has responded to globalization by restructuring school curricular, instructional, and decision making practices along western lines in an attempt to attain legitimacy on the world stage. As a result, Taiwanese principals, once kings within their schools, now must share power with other…

When Stephanie Smith became the principal of Seaford (Delaware) Middle School four years ago, she was told to accept the fact that the school would never be able to change its status as a school that needed to improve. She did not accept that. To improve performance levels, she set the expectations high. Her defiance paid off: the school is now…

To involve teachers in curriculum matters, an upstate New York principal formed an advisory committee on school improvement. The group of five dedicated teachers served as a sounding board, an information-gathering body, a goal-setting and policy-making body, and a decision-making partner. All decisions were eventually presented to the entire…

In the debate over school-management reforms, some policymakers have argued for greater accountability and centralized control, whereas others have supported greater decentralization through school-based-management approaches of various types. The 1990-91 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS), conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics…

Borrowing from Madeline Hunter, school districts should define staff development as school- or district-wide efforts to improve the quality of teacher decision-making. This article outlines a six-step process (including needs assessment, brainstorming, strategic plannning, communicating plans, coaching for effectiveness, and periodic monitoring)…