Search results

Our chapter examines the ways national developments in Australia and New Zealand over the past two decades reflect distinctively antipodean understandings of educational leadership and management. Our interest is twofold. We are concerned about the extent to which these understandings are reflected in strategies designed to enhance the quality of school leadership. We are also concerned about the extent to which these strategies represent progress towards achieving ‘sustainable’ school leadership. We define sustainable leadership in terms of both building leadership capacity within the organisation and embedding lasting organisational change (Fink & Brayman, 2006; Hargreaves & Fink, 2006; Spillane, 2006). The concept used here implies both models of distributed or shared leadership and leadership succession.

In a global context characterised by a growing recognition of the role that educational leaders play in ensuring school effectiveness and the consequent need to design effective leadership preparation programmes, many educational leadership preparation providers around the world have borrowed international standards and frameworks in order to guide their programmes and assure their quality. This trend has been on the rise as a response to globalisation pressures and a growing interest in acquiring international recognition through accreditation agencies. However, this raises important questions about the potential repercussion of using foreign, mainly Western, frameworks to develop or assess national leadership preparation provision. Evidence from relevant literature indicates that these frameworks, when applied to local contexts, need to take contextual factors into account. In this chapter, we engage with existing literature in relation to leadership preparation, internationalisation and professional standards to reflect on our experience of using international standards to develop the Masters in Educational Administration programme offered by Sultan Qaboos University (SQU) in Oman. We hope to contribute to existing internationalisation literature by providing a different perspective on educational administration and leadership preparation from a non-Western tradition, thereby expanding the understanding of meaningful leadership preparation in general.

This chapter describes the assumptions underpinning the International Study of Principal Preparation. It outlines how cultural reference points for leadership have changed. It explores the changing conceptualization of contemporary leadership, highlights the new economic dimensions of leading, and discusses the changing face of educational personnel. It notes that educational leaders must utilize knowledge of how technology has altered how we perceive the world, live our lives, relate to others, and practice our profession. It highlights the complexities for leaders who must thrive in a milieu characterized by a desire to preserve a civil society, balance student–professional–union–community needs, develop cultural literacies for learners, and respond to accountability demands. Other complexities include the multiple allegiances of leaders, conflicting loyalties of community members, varying levels of digital awareness, and the need for interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligences. The chapter closes with a set of principles and considerations for leadership development.

This chapter presents a cross-cultural comparison across the Commonwealth, namely, Australia, Canada, and Kenya. The three cases explore these indigenous principals’ perceptions of leadership development and how effectively these experiences prepared them to meet the challenges within their complex school communities. The chapter presents a discussion of the historical educational legacies of imperial rule, leadership preparation opportunities that were available to aspiring and novice leaders, the challenges the principals encountered in their leadership role in the school and within their communities, and these leaders’ beliefs and attitudes toward leadership. A final synthesis is presented, which identifies a number of commonalities in leadership approaches across these very different cultural contexts: the school communities were endeavoring to rediscover their cultural history, heritage, and beliefs and were frequently developing positive relationships with elders and others who held, and were willing to pass on, the historical and cultural knowledge and expertise. The leaders themselves held strong beliefs about the importance of cultural identity in order to forge new and contemporary pathways to success for their students. They all had a heightened ethic of care ethos that extended beyond the confines of the school building and office hours. These leaders adopted entrepreneurial leadership approaches to think and act innovatively rather than simply managing schools and were dedicated to promoting educational success for all students within their care. Leadership development implications included the need for formal, informal, and experiential experiences, as well as, for the inclusion of specific knowledge and skills that would enable leaders to effectively and sensitively lead within predominantly indigenous school communities.

In our case study, we explored the perceptions of female-led and male-led educational leadership cohorts mentoring teacher candidates (mostly female) under faculty supervision. The study compares the educational leadership candidates’ cohort experiences and the teacher candidates’ perception of leadership development of individual students and as part of a group. Student teacher candidates engaged in generative mentoring relationships with educational leadership candidates by applying feedback from previous seminars and then revising their experiences in subsequent sessions. Our preliminary findings suggested that the structure of the seminars and collaborative partnerships contributed to student teachers’ understanding and application of pedagogical content knowledge, while critique occurred in facilitated sessions and discussions.

The focus of this chapter is to compare and contrast two Master of Education programs, one in Louisiana, United States, the other in Ontario, Canada. Our discussion addresses program design including focus of the graduate degree; admission requirements; number of instructor contact hours; nature and dimensions of course content; culminating activities such as e-portfolios, Master's Research Projects, field experiences, internships, and theses; professional and program standards; as well as assessment procedures and accountability requirements. The ongoing pressure to improve our schools in an increasingly competitive global environment has heightened educational standards and expectations as never before (Cowie & Crawford, 2007). In these times of increased accountability and financial strain for publicly funded universities, this analysis of contemporary trends and processes may provide some relevant insight into current practices for those presenting graduate programs.

This chapter examines the process of ongoing planning and changing of an innovative urban school leadership development and preparation program at California State University Dominguez Hills. Currently in its fourth consecutive year, the five-year Urban School Leaders (USL) program is the result of a partnership with Local Districts 5, 6, 7, and 8 within Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and California State University Dominguez Hills (CSUDH). The program is intended to prepare, place, and retain leaders for high needs schools and provide staff development to these leaders with the ultimate outcome resulting in student achievement gains. LAUSD Local Districts 5–8 are contiguous and in close proximity to CSUDH. These districts encompass some of Los Angeles’ poorest neighborhoods, including East LA, South LA, South Central LA, and the Harbor area. In this chapter, we outline the various components of the USL program and share reflections on the planning and improvement process in our efforts to strengthen and improve the community of professional practice within the program.