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School leadership in England and Wales is legally shared between the full‐time principal and the part‐time volunteers, the school governors. Their professional development opportunities during the last ten years have taken opposite directions. Principals’ development has moved to a training focus, with a nationalised, standardised, competency‐based qualification for aspirant headteachers. Governors’ education remains a non‐standardised, decentralised system but has now become largely school‐based and centred on educational issues. In exploring why such differences have occurred, the reasons suggested concern differing role expectations, training developments in related occupations, centralisation and decentralisation, uncertainties about the objectives of educational leadership and the costs of professional development.

This article seeks to centre on Cypriot, English, Greek and Swedish selection and training of principals. This was part of a 2001‐2002 European Union (EU) funded study which created a distance learning CD ROM for principals.

National education systems and principals' selection and training were analysed and compared using documents, focus groups, principals' interviews and an international seminar.

The most centralised systems of Greece and Cyprus had less principal preparation, and more government involvement in principal selection, than the less centralised Sweden and England.

The extent of training was perceived to matter less in successful principalship than selecting the right people, although even a good leader can be improved through training and principals were concerned about their lack of formal training.

The Hong Kong government recently reformed pre‐primary education with the introduction of a voucher scheme. At the time this policy caused considerable opposition from across Hong Kong Society. This paper seeks to use Fairclough's model of critical discourse analysis to explore a key policy text and seeks to assess to what extent such an analytical framework can help develop a better understanding of the processes of policy development.

The paper uses critical discourse analysis methods and applies these to a specific policy text relating to the reform of pre‐primary education.

The paper suggests that critical discourse analysis can provide a useful analytical tool for analysing the complexities of the policy development process. In particular it surfaces key tensions within policy, such as those between commitments to equity and efficiency, that may have a significant impact on the outcomes of subsequent policy implementation.

The paper is based on a small scale study. Its findings are tentative. There is some merit in the approach adopted, but the use of this approach in relation to policy development requires further work to develop it.

The paper adds to the understanding of how a range of methods of data analysis can help develop a more sophisticated understanding of the nuances of policy development.

The more it changes, the more it stays the same. This was the thought which launched this comparison of 1950s and 1990s Australian educational administration. It arose from the visit of this English academic to Australia in 1992 and the apparent contrast between what is happening now and the views of the seminal study made in 1955 by the American, Freeman Butts. Then, centralization was the dominant mode and Australia was much criticized for this. Freeman Butts proposed devolution to improve educational decision‐making. His views are once again topical as Australian states and other countries move to devolution.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the relationship between policy development and research evidence with specific reference to the Rwandan Teacher Development and Management Policy introduced in 2005. It aims to highlight the complexity of implementing large‐scale system wide change in the specific context of a small African nation emerging from a recent period of intense conflict.

The paper seeks to link analysis of teacher education policy in Rwanda with a review of international scholarship and research.

The paper argues that much has been achieved by the Rwandan Teacher Development and Management Policy, but that further work is necessary if the policy is to lead to tangible and meaningful change at school level. It also concludes that international research on teacher education and development can provide a useful rationale for Rwandan education policy, but it is vital that policy implementation reflects the specificity of the Rwandan context.

The paper has implications for contexts seeking to adopt similar system wide policy changes, and seeking to link international research with specific national circumstances.

Education research into the specific contexts of sub‐Saharan African nations remains underdeveloped. This paper makes a small contribution to addressing this deficit.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of new managerialism on junior academic‐managers (defined as those having informal leadership or management roles below the level of head of department). It aims to discover: whether junior academic‐managers experience the same tensions as Heads of Department; whether distributed leadership is possible and/or desirable in Higher Education; and what types of support junior academic‐managers might welcome.

The paper draws upon previous literature and a small case study of one university department in a mid‐ranking UK university.

Junior academic‐managers experience similar kinds of tensions to heads of department. Although distributed leadership is considered a necessity in higher education, in practice, devolved leadership is more common than genuinely distributed leadership. Junior academic‐managers would benefit from the same types of support as heads of department, but increased administrative assistance would be particularly helpful. Some, though not all, of the tensions felt by both groups could be alleviated if higher education institutions (HEIs) adopted a modified form of workforce remodelling, similar to that being implemented in English and Welsh schools.

The empirical data come from within one department of one university. It is debatable how far the findings of this study are generalizable to other contexts.

There are relatively few studies looking at academic heads of department, and virtually none looking at junior academic‐managers. The argument that school workforce remodelling might be adapted for the HE sector is not made elsewhere.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the current status of, and provide guidance for future direction in, the implementation of Indian Education for All, a multicultural education initiative, into Montana's statewide education system.

The paper reports on and analyzes the historical foundation, current status, and practical implications of Montana's Indian Education for All initiative. The abbreviated case study utilizes a combination of focus group and individual qualitative interviews of educational leaders representing the Montana state education agency, Montana K‐12 school administration, and the Montana University and Tribal College systems.

Montana educational leaders have made dramatic progress implementing Indian education into Montana's K‐12 schools and university systems. The process is complex on many levels; including political, cultural, organizational, emotional, and financial issues. Many challenges remain before statewide systemic change occurs.

The study's findings have implications for world cultures and educational systems regarding the creation, organization, and implementation of a multiculturally literate and responsive education system.

The article provides original data regarding the varying degrees of challenge and success experienced by educational leaders in their implementation of multicultural education, with special emphasis on indigenous populations.

This paper aims to explore and describe the limits of recent law‐based school reform in South Africa from an education management perspective.

The research design consists of a qualitative, investigative, descriptive and contextual design which Merriam would classify as a basic or generic design type.

The findings revealed specific problems associated with recent mandated changes in South African schools. These were classified as categories (themes) within the research design and described in detail: lack of local skills capacity at school and district levels; the “knowing and doing” gap; the tensions created by legal issues between teachers and learners; too many changes too rapidly; bureaucratic red tape; top‐down approach; contextual factors.

The paper explored the problems associated with mandated changes in South African schools in one province. The sample is very limited and therefore further study is needed to fully understand the lack of implementation in the 25,139 public schools country wide.

This paper recognises the seminal work done by De Mitchell and Fossey on the limits of law‐based school reform but adds illumination on the lack of implementation of mandated changes within the South African context.