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This chapter examines our leadership journey as Black female social justice leaders and culturally responsive leaders from the Caribbean Diaspora in Canada. Borrowing from Mullen, Fenwick, and Kealy (2014) and Campbell’s (2008) notion of leadership as a journey, we critically examine what it means to navigate educational leadership contexts. Through our lived experiences as racialized leaders, border crossing spaces and cultures, and with a deep sense and agency to resolve social inequities and injustice we critically gaze at our leadership contexts. This chapter examines ways we, as critical leaders, challenge inequities, issues of power and marginalization, and find transformative actions and purpose by critically reflecting on our leadership journey. This work will add to the educational leadership discourse by positing ways that leaders can develop agency and engage in leadership that is transformative – bringing theory into action.

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the ways that refugee and forced im/migrant (RFI) youth move across time and context in their educational experiences. In particular, the contextual characteristics of determinism, duration, and mobility are explained, and the factors most often associated with RFI youth educational experiences (i.e., trauma, identity, and language) are discussed in reference to the ways that educational infrastructure, capacity, and sustainability are typically established and maintained in educational situations worldwide. This chapter also provides a brief overview of the volume’s chapters and the ways that each chapter addresses one or more of these themes or topics.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight three important insights into educational quality assurance, using Singapore as a case study. It is useful to policy makers and practitioners to understand the phases and paradoxes in their educational quality assurance journey so that they may recognise and manage better the complex dynamics of quality assurance in education.

This paper utilises a phase model to analyse the development of quality assurance and the challenges and paradoxes involved. This phase model is a framework of analysis of the quality assurance dynamics of primary and secondary education in Singapore with the following phases: standardisation; local accountability; and diversity and innovation

The paper finds that: quality assurance develops in phases, each with its own characteristics and challenges; quality assurance changes the nature of education; quality assurance is a paradoxical journey.

The Singapore case study serves as a mirror to other developing countries in recognising and managing the delicate dynamics of quality assurance.

The paper illustrates the phase model of educational quality assurance in Singapore and the analysis of the delicate balancing act between conformity and diversity, and between standards and innovation.

This article, which is exploratory in nature, considers the experiences of migrant students enrolled in the transnational degree program of an accredited American college located in the Czech Republic. Migrant students have considerable experience in negotiating the different national cultures of their college and of the new country in which they live. Students, participating in a Cross-culture Management course, were asked to maintain reflective journals in which they recorded their experiences of national culture difference. The purpose was to encourage consideration, reflection, and the growing internalization of cross-cultural appreciation and negotiation.

Participants were asked to maintain reflective journals during the semester, in which they identified and considered critical incidents and defining issues in their cross-cultural experiences. Journals were analyzed from an inductive phenomenological perspective with no preconceived imposition of structure, although participants had been informed that the root-metaphor of the journal should be that of “journeys”. Ten emergent themes were identified and a number of these, which seemed to impact national culture adaptation, are discussed. In an attempt to retain the authentic voice of participants, verbatim quotations are reproduced in some detail.

The emergent themes identified give insight into the range of national cultural complexities that these migrant students confronted. Sharing these issues with those who have less national culture experience might increase their understanding of the adaption process. More importantly, the journal increased reflection, prompted deeper sensemaking, and allowed participants to articulate their experiences. Making explicit their own cultural adaption problems may also be beneficial for these participants.

Cross-culture education has often taken a didactic approach that emphasized teaching and learning. The reflective journal focuses on an experiential approach to making sense of cultural experience. From a learner perspective, the use of a reflective journal stimulates reflection and contributes to resolution. From an instructor perspective, journals provide valuable insight into issues significant in a developing awareness of a national culture. Journals also provide an unrecognized insight into the personal experiences of international and transnational students that may have implications in their general learning and broader education.

Although the international education sector is one of the significant contributors to the Australian economy, international students continue to experience various forms of social inequalities. This paper aims to focus on overseas doctoral researchers (ODRs) – candidates and graduates – and capture their experiences.

Drawing on the adaptive capacity framework, an exploratory qualitative study was carried out based on interviews with doctoral candidates (n = 6), doctoral graduates (n = 5) and supervisors (n = 4) in various Business Schools in Australian universities. Given this study’s exploratory and interpretive nature, the research question was deliberately broad: what insights can be generated for key stakeholders by capturing the experiences of ODRs in Australia through the lens of adaptive capacity?

Findings indicate that financial pressure, social exclusion and cultural bias were the three main challenges ODRs had to overcome; female ODRs perceived that supervisors and faculties often overlooked the mental health aspects; and better pedagogy of research supervision, institutional support and national policies are needed to develop adaptive ODRs.

If ODRs are to become an integral part of the knowledge economy, key stakeholders need to focus on support mechanisms for these researchers. That way, Australian universities can not only improve their image of treating international students only as a part of the revenue flow but also enhance the educational experiences of ODRs and set them up for future success.

The contribution of this paper is twofold. First, it demonstrates the utility of the adaptive capacity lens to capture the experiences of ODRs. Second, it discusses research implications for the three key stakeholders: supervisors, higher education institutions and the government.

With increase requirements and a more clinical approach for administrator internships in principal preparation programs, universities are taking a look at their internships and how they are implemented. The purpose of this paper is to propose a structure and framework incorporating promising practices from recent literature and explores how to successfully implement new standards and state requirements. Additionally, a framework for practice is included as a foundation for a clinical internship program that applies theory and promising practices.

Internships are a critical aspect of the principal preparation program and are crucial to preparing students to fulfill their future leadership roles. This brief reviewed the related literature, which revealed the lack of quality in various educational leadership programs and posited that the internship is an essential element to principal preparation. Key considerations to successful internships, and why they are necessary to overall candidate preparation were also presented. Additionally, a sample program was described that included aspects of both performance and accountability and served as a framework for new and revised internships.

Although the internship experience is but one part of a larger curricular sequence, it has a central role in the preparation of future school administrators. School administrator preparation programs have an obligation to allow participants to fully experience the breadth and depth of issues and environments that they will encounter. A structure and framework is needed that incorporates promising practices from recent literature, and explores how to successfully implement new standards and state requirements for a clinical internship program applying current theory and promising practices.

Creating and maintaining effective internship experiences is an ever-evolving process that requires dedicated faculty and resources. Learning through internships is a central element of future principal candidates’ overall success. Authentic practice and experience in real school settings ensures that future educational leaders receive the best preparation that universities and faculty can provide.

Poverty is a pervasive issue, which has wide-reaching, negative impacts on a range of outcomes including health, wellbeing, and education. Understanding poverty is therefore critical for students preparing to work in public-facing roles, many of whom have little knowledge or direct experience of poverty. Drawing on a student’s account of their own educational experiences and reflections on the Widening Participation agenda, this chapter outlines key considerations for educators planning to teach about poverty. While greater diversity within classrooms can be an enriching experience, this chapter acknowledges the additional educational, social, and emotional demands placed on some students in further and higher education as a result of their backgrounds. The inadvertent exacerbation of poverty-related stigma through the expression of certain attitudes, assumptions and behaviours within classrooms is also discussed.

With shifting student demographics in Turkey, which will include many more international higher education students, together with increasing refugee migration to the country, professional development intended to assist teachers to move toward intercultural competency is becoming increasingly important. In this chapter, local in-service teacher educator initiatives and associated cultural adaptation facilitation tools are explored as a means to find ways to build cultural dialogue in the Turkish higher education environment, and, practically, for teachers in the field. While this chapter draws on an in-service teacher education case, much of what is presented is applicable to preservice settings as well. The chapter concludes with a look at changes in Turkish higher education, particularly in the facilitation of cultural convergence transferable to different educational environments and their applicability to international situations.

Investment in graduate education is costly in various ways so completion success is a big concern for universities and stakeholders. Largely the graduate educational landscape moves along a commonly structured path from acceptance to graduation. Despite many having successfully attained the award, the research literacies that signal doctoral achievement remain obscure and scholars continue to struggle with developing clear and tangible measures for the competencies that represent attainment of the degree. Feedback gathered from faculty at a large research institution through a series of semi-structured interviews illustrated the challenge departments have to effectively communicate what it takes to get through graduate education. As a result students still have a difficult time understanding the complexity of graduate training. This study views graduate education from the lens of intellectual journeys, as opposed to the research lifecycle, as a way of uncovering distinct disciplinary discourse practices and offering libraries critical points to align services using this framework.

The methodology is highly flexible and adaptable to many contexts besides graduate education. This study takes a different approach from previous studies in its framing of discussions with academic faculty, using journey maps, to focus on the intellectual journeys of graduate students. Faculty from different disciplines participated in one-on-one, hour-long interviews. Discussions were audio recorded, transcribed, and then coded into NVivo. Iterative review on the data continued until themes emerged. The data gathered were used to compile a detailed map of the processes and requirements that make up graduate education. This approach to the data helped to identify what faculty perceive as the greatest struggles for graduate students and provide evidence of the key places within the intellectual journeys of graduate students.

This paper provides a discussion of graduate student personas revealed through intellectual journeys, assesses the issues students encounter, shares critical time points and key places within these intellectual journeys where significant development occur, and suggests how libraries can and should connect with graduate committee members to establish missing support structures. Practical suggestions for library support are given for the areas where students struggle most. These critical services can be aligned to key developmental phases that will not only positively impact the time to completion but also retention.

First, the methodology discussed is highly flexible and adaptable to many contexts besides graduate education. Second, librarians adopting this methodology can generate their own editable journey maps not only to offer the most critical services but these tools also double as visual communication and negotiation tools for graduate students and their mentors during graduate training. Third, previous research has suggested that the most instrumental factor for graduate students completing their degree was the concept of forward progress. Framing the graduate experience and orienting library graduate support through the lens of disciplinary intellectual journeys achieves an action-oriented approach that supplements and addresses structural inequities by providing consequential support at meaningful points in a student’s journey thus allowing students to make forward progress and ultimately lead to faster completion rates.