Search results

In this chapter, I propose a model for how school-level leaders manage their emotions. This model consists of six components. School-level leaders typically have little direct influence over the first component of the model, which are the socio-contextual factors in the schools, school communities and jurisdictions in which they work. A school-level leader's identity, sense of self and their personal characteristics comprise the second component of the model. The third component of the model is a multi-directional arrow demonstrating connections and interactions between the socio-contextual factors and a school-level leader's sense of self. Factors that heighten school-level leaders' emotional experiences in schools are considered as part of the fourth component of this model for school-level leaders' emotional regulation. The fifth component are the emotional regulation strategies school-level leaders use to manage emotions that emerge as part of their workday, while influence of supports and professional learning are considered as part of the sixth component, Finally, the model also accounts for the chain reactions and feedback loops that can occur when an individual utilizes an emotional regulation strategy that is unsuccessful. Those processes produce new emotions that must be regulated using similar, or different, emotional regulation strategy(ies).

School-level leaders are suffering. They are experiencing a well-being crisis after years of working long work hours, managing an unrelenting workload, and navigating shifting policy contexts. School leaders that are experiencing work intensification and highly stressful work environments can suffer personal and professional consequences. On a professional level, school-level leaders are immersed in intensified work environments that mute the power and potential increasingly associated with their role. This chapter describes challenges that threaten school-level leaders' productivity, job satisfaction, happiness and well-being, such as work intensification, burnout, stress as well as loneliness and isolation. In these ways, the emotional aspects of their work can influence school-level leaders' ability to lead happy and healthy lives, while also having the supplementary effect of making the position less attractive for the next generation of school leaders. Research conducted in jurisdictions around the world is discussed throughout the chapter to demonstrate that the well-being crisis experienced by school leaders is an international phenomenon. I also use this discussion of the challenges facing contemporary school-level leaders to encourage them to reconnect with the reasons why, and the emotions they felt, when first pursuing a position in K-12 school-level leadership.

Interagency collaboration is an effective strategy for supporting students and families with resources and support to prepare students for life after high school. The Communicating Interagency Relationships and Collaborative Linkages for Exceptional Students (CIRCLES) is the only interagency collaboration model identified as a research-based practice, which means the CIRCLES model has the most and highest quality of evidence for its use among interagency collaboration models. Within this chapter, we overview the CIRCLES model and its history. School districts from multiple states have implemented CIRCLES, and, within this chapter, we overview stakeholder experiences with CIRCLES. When implementing any practice, evaluation and implementation fidelity are critical, so we provide suggestions for both. Finally, we discuss barriers and strategies to effective interagency collaboration, in addition to implications for policy and practice.

Purpose – This chapter discusses the application of the Gradual Release of Responsibility (GRR) to school change and the learning of groups of leaders, teachers, and students. Specifically, the authors describe the Seven Levels to Success, a model for school change that supports teachers in building their school’s own staircase (coherent) curriculum in literacy. The authors discuss the effectiveness of this model for capacity building – giving schools a “deep bench” of leaders and teachers who can sustain improved student achievement over a period of years.

Design/Methodology/Approach – The theoretical underpinning of this research is provided by the Vygotsky Space, a construct that shows how learning may be understood in terms of the intersections of collective and individual actions, and public and private settings. This construct allows us to understand what drives a school’s advancement through the Seven Levels and how that advancement can be restarted after it has been slowed or interrupted. The authors report findings about school change from 20 years of work in 264 elementary and secondary schools, reflecting a wide range of students and communities across the United States.

Findings – While schools’ typical advancement in the Seven-Level model is neither steady nor linear, it adheres to an overall pattern: Leaders must take ownership first, followed by teachers and then students. To build their school’s staircase curriculum, teachers must see themselves as creators rather than consumers of curriculum. Teachers who see themselves as creators take ownership of their curriculum. Their deep understanding of the curriculum promotes continuous improvements and related success in improving their students’ literacy learning. Four case examples illustrate change in a variety of school settings, providing existence proofs of how the Seven-Level model functions to improve students’ literacy learning.

Research Limitations/Implications – The authors highlight the importance of the school as the unit of analysis in change efforts, and of understanding a school’s progress over time. The authors emphasize considering the role of multiple constituencies, beginning with school leaders and encompassing teachers, students, and families. One implication of this study is that more attention should be paid to the role of school leaders – administrators, curriculum coordinators, and teacher leaders – in setting the stage for sustainable improvement.

Practical Implications – The authors provide guidance to practitioners working on school change within the framework of the Seven Levels to Success and other social constructivist models. Specifically, the authors give examples of relevant actions external consultants and school leaders take at critical junctures in a school’s progress.

Originality/Value of Paper – This chapter breaks new ground in applying the GRR model and the Vygotsky Space to the area of school change in literacy. Summarizing 20 years of work with the Seven-Level model demonstrates potential of teacher-developed curricula for the sustainable improvement of students’ literacy learning.

Purpose – This chapter explores the problem of school shootings as a source of anxiety and fear in schools. Such fear has generated calls for security in schools and has been a catalyst for the development and deployment of antiviolence policies in schools.

Methodology/approach – The chapter begins by examining the development of the Columbine Effect, which is a set of emotions surrounding youth social problems, particularly violence in schools. This Columbine Effect is then explored in relation to its role in the development of policies to mitigate the problem of school violence. These purposes are linked using a multilevel typology of school violence and their sources, created by Henry (2009).

Findings – The chapter explores the levels of violence addressed by six antiviolence policies: crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED), zero tolerance, anti-bullying programming, emergency management planning, peer mediation, and school climate programming. The analysis indicates the level(s) of violence each type of policy is designed to address and identifies research evidence regarding the efficacy of each policy. The analysis also focuses on the unintended consequences of school antiviolence policies, especially those which reduce violence on one or more levels, while exacerbating the problem on other levels.

Research limitations/implications – The analytical approach was selective, rather than exhaustive. Nonetheless, the analysis has suggested a number of ironies concerning the unintended consequences of antiviolence programming in schools. This suggests the need for broader analysis in this area.

Practical implications – The analysis identifies a number of detrimental effects that have resulted from school violence policy initiatives ranging from the socialization of youth toward a society of control and authority. In addition, the chapter helps to clarify the (often negative) effects of hype about violence in schools.

Originality/value of chapter – Although not often connected, this chapter explores the intersection between the discourse of school violence (typically, a social problems framing concern) and the development of school antiviolence policies (typically, an applied social scientific concern).

Emotions are everywhere and, as multiple scholars have argued, can be considered a fundamental part of the human experience. Individuals are expected to behave in socially appropriate ways in a variety of public and private social situations, which often involve managing one's emotions. The management and regulation of emotions are also key components of effective school leadership. This chapter unpacks the emotional aspects of school leadership by exploring how the management of emotions is fundamental to the success of headmasters, principals, vice-principals, and other school-level leaders. I also provide the rationale for using the term ‘school-level leaders’ and call for emotional authenticity in educational leadership. Then I outline several benefits an increased scholarly and practical focus on the emotional aspects of school-level leadership offers for teachers and other school staff, school-level leaders themselves, and the students they serve on a daily basis. I also provide a short description of the methodology used for the participant quotes used to add richness and contextualize key themes explored in Chapters 4 and 5. The chapter concludes with an outline of how the rest of this book is organized and offers additional insight into the topics explored in the forthcoming chapters.

Purpose: Sexual minority youth are more likely than their heterosexual peers to consider and attempt suicide, in part due to victimization experienced within schools. While existing research suggests that rates of school victimization and suicidality among sexual minority students vary by school and community context, less is known about variation in these experiences at the state level.

Methodology: Using data from a large, representative sample of sexual minority and heterosexual youth (2017 Youth Risk Behavior States Data, n = 64,746 high school students in 22 states), multilevel models examine whether differences between sexual minority and heterosexual students in victimization and suicide risk vary by state-level policies.

Findings: Results suggest that disparities between sexual minority and heterosexual boys in bullying, suicide ideation, and suicide attempt are consistently smaller in states with high levels of overall policy support for LGBTQ equality and nondiscrimination in education laws. Sexual minority girls are more likely than heterosexual girls to be electronically bullied, particularly in states with lower levels of LGBTQ equality. Disparities between sexual minority and heterosexual girls in suicide ideation are lowest in high equality states, but state policies are not significantly associated with disparities in suicide attempt among girls.

Value: Overall, findings suggest that state-level policies supporting LGBTQ equality are associated with a reduced risk of suicide among sexual minority youth. This study speaks to the role of structural stigma in shaping exposure to minority stress and its consequences for sexual minority youth's well-being.

In this chapter, the interest is directed towards how transnational policy messages (supra-level) can be tracked down through analyses of curriculum policy discourses at the national (macro-level) and municipal level (meso-level) in the Swedish school system. Drawing on discursive institutionalism, and organizational and institutional theory, we analyse central policy messages in the introduction of the national Swedish standards-based curriculum reform for compulsory school from 2011, focusing on discourses of communication between local authorities (meso-level) and schools (micro-level) within their area of responsibility for curriculum making. Two main features emerge. The local curriculum reform agenda is significantly shaped by the argument that explicit standards together with systematic governance through evaluation and accountability will increase students' performance. The second feature underlines strong accountability as a prerequisite for equity and equivalence and the importance of the local school authority for the organization of schooling, structural support and interventions for curriculum making in schools. Equity and equivalence are a challenge for the local authorities. They have problems to support curriculum making which tends to create considerable variations in how the curriculum reform is enacted in the different schools of the municipality.

This chapter aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the ways in which emotions, emotional regulation and emotional labour are treated by various theoretical perspectives that influence the work of school-level leaders. Notions of professionalism and the scientific/rationalist roots of administrative theory (e.g., Taylor, 1911) relegated emotions and other subjective leadership qualities to the sidelines of the seminal debates in the educational administration field. That has changed since the turn of the twenty-first century as scholars have begun to acknowledge that the very nature of school-level leadership involves emotional components and success as a school-level leader demands effective emotional regulation. The chapter includes an evidence-based analysis of the role(s) that emotions, emotional regulation and emotional labour play in school-level leaders' work. I also discuss two broad categories of theoretical perspectives surrounding the emotional aspects of school-level leadership. The first primarily considers how school-level leaders personally experience emotional phenomenon in schools, while the second prioritizes how socio-contextual elements that influence their emotional experiences in the workplace. I conclude the chapter by discussing how school-level leaders manage emotions they experience as part of their job is an important piece missing from the models and frameworks.

School-level leaders should not be expected to be mired in emotional turmoil and sacrifice their own health, happiness and well-being to do their jobs effectively. While the emotional aspects of school-level leadership have continued to evolve and become increasingly complex since the turn of the twenty-first century, the supports available to these individuals remain outdated, ineffective, and moribund. If mentoring, anonymous telephone support lines and other ‘old school’ approaches for supporting school leaders were still effective, they would not be struggling to deal with the emotional aspects of their work and workload. Further, there is a need to provide ‘just-in-time’ supports that are available to school-level leaders when concerns arise. Absent structural changes, isolated and individualized approaches to self-care cannot mitigate the challenges principals face or the physical, mental and emotional toll associated with their work and workload. Communal strategies and policy levers are recommended in an effort to go beyond mindfulness and other (potentially) individualistic and neoliberal approaches to self-care. This chapter also explores how principal preparation programmes and other formal professional learning opportunities are an untapped resource in terms of strengthening school-level leaders' emotional regulation capacity and building a general appreciation for the emotional aspects of school-level leadership.