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School leaders can significantly influence the conditions that affect teacher retention. Yet, leaders in rural and high-poverty schools often face limited opportunities to develop their abilities to enhance these conditions. In this case study, we examine how participating in a professional community supported school leaders' efforts to increase teacher retention and student learning outcomes.

We used case study methodology to study 14 leaders from rural, high-poverty or underperforming schools with greater-than-average levels of teacher turnover. The leaders were participating in a three-year research-practice partnership intended to assist them in using improvement science to address problems of practice related to teacher retention and student learning outcomes in their schools. We collected and analyzed data from interviews, exit surveys, artifacts and participant observations over a one-year period.

Participating in this professional community helped the leaders create the conditions for increased teacher retention and student learning outcomes by providing them with opportunities to collaborate with their peers, receive leadership coaching, exchange ideas and learn in a safe space.

These findings confirm and extend extant school leadership development research. A particularly interesting finding was the role of the professional community in reducing the leaders' feelings of isolation while providing them a safe space to learn. The findings also illustrate how universities and school districts can partner to provide professional learning opportunities that enhance school leaders' professional knowledge, leadership practices and well-being.

Educational accountability and student achievement polarization, which result in high dropout rates, pose significant challenges and pressures on teachers' pedagogical leadership. Whether pedagogical leadership, which originates in the Western educational environment, can significantly improve student achievement in Chinese high schools remains unclear. This concept has not yet been fully explored in the Chinese educational environment, and its direct impact on student achievement and the mediating role of English teaching methods remain to be investigated. However, existing research has concentrated on the effectiveness of principals' pedagogical leadership, with variations in teachers' pedagogical leadership practices. Many reform measures have been implemented in China to improve student achievement, but past educational practices have analyzed the impact on student achievement from a single instructional leadership, school capital or teaching method perspective. Furthermore, there is a lack of multidimensional and systematic assessments of the direct effects of teacher pedagogical leadership on student achievement and the mediating effects of English teaching methods.

To address this gap, this study analyzed the impact of teachers' pedagogical leadership on student achievement and the mediating effect of English teaching methods with the support of the theory of action for teacher leadership, specifically using pedagogical leadership and English teaching methods models.This study conducted a questionnaire survey of 968 participants in Taian City, China, and quantitatively analyzed the data using SmartPLS structural equation modeling (SEM).

This study revealed that pedagogical leadership has a positive direct effect on student achievement. Meanwhile, among the four mediating factors, the Direct Method, Audio-Lingual Method and Communicative Language Teaching had significant mediating effects.

This study shows that the effective use of academic and professional capital allocation in pedagogical leadership, combined with effective measures of using multiple effective English teaching methods, helps achieve high-quality student achievement.

This study addresses a gap in the knowledge on how longitudinal engagement in a school improvement initiative influences change in middle leaders’ (MLs') interactions and assesses how school–university partnerships around school improvement can support teachers with formal leadership roles (i.e. MLs’) leadership development.

Using a two-year longitudinal research design, university staff facilitated middle leadership training in a school-defined improvement initiative on lesson study. Results from a pre-test followed by two post-tests administered at one-year intervals were collected on social networks. Analyses examined changes in indegree and brokerage patterns among groupings of senior leaders (SL), subject leaders, cross-school specialists and teachers.

Accounting for staffing changes, 27 of 67 staff members participated in each survey, yielding 1,623 distinct ties connecting school members. Over the first year, advice-seeking increased by 225%. SLs’ initial propensity to consult peers shifted towards MLs and teachers. Subject leaders advising other leaders and teachers increased tenfold. Teachers’ peer-to-peer consultation increased by 2,000%. Specialists with school-wide responsibilities became the dominant group for advising other leaders, such as SLs and subject leaders. These shifts were sustained over the second year.

The study demonstrates that engagement in the school–university partnership support and the corresponding structural changes stimulated robust cross-school dialogue among teachers and various leaders. Brokerage patterns indicated an enhanced role for MLs in driving the school-defined improvement initiative which corresponded to university-designed development activities.

The purpose of this study is to highlight a paradox between inclusion/exclusion at the level of the organisation and classroom practices, as well as between general and disability/special educational needs (SEN)-specific approaches to diversity in the classroom. The authors recommend better alignment between school policies and teaching practices to offer all students an equal chance to benefit from inclusive pedagogies.

This study analyses a school that has gained public reputation as an innovative, inclusive school in Austria. Applying a case study with an ethnographic methodological approach, the authors explore what strategies are implemented to become more inclusive at the level of school organisation and classroom practices? What are the pedagogical beliefs and actions relating to diversity that drive inclusive efforts? How is this school's general approach to diversity enacted with students with SEN?

The findings show that context-specific circumstances shape inclusive school development, which comes with a set of affordances and challenges. The authors argue that in this case, striving for inclusion indicated two ways of “doing difference differently”. First, the school has built on many cornerstones of inclusion when relating and responding to student diversity, that was remarkably different than in other mainstream schools in Austria. On the contrary, while creating new educational and pedagogical norms, it also recycled conventional segregating tendencies, and as such, reproduced hierarchised difference, but in other ways than schools typically do in mainstream schooling.

This school and its pedagogical mission have never been analysed through the rich data that two researchers were able to gather and work through.

This study aims to examine the contribution of informal encounters outside the school walls between local Israeli families from “Waldorf Education” and immigrant families from Africa from formal state education and explore the consequences of these encounters on the development of lifelong learning competences. Research questions are as follows: In what way do non-formal encounters lead to the development of lifelong learning ability? What are the challenges and consequences of non-formal activity for research participants, families and educators from the pedagogical, social and personal perspectives?

The research uses a qualitative-interpretive case study approach that allows for in-depth observation of the phenomenon within the context of reality to understand the case, a non-formal encounter between two groups of parents from different cultures, languages and educational attitudes. In this case study, it is possible to generalize from the local to the global and examine processes, actions and behaviors in the studied case (Creswell et al., 2018; Yin, 2009). This empirical study allows description, analysis, understanding and explanation of the challenges and actions in organizing and holding non-formal encounters from personal experiences as a first source.

The analysis of the data brought up two main categories that represent the actions and insights from the non-formal encounters for developing lifelong learning competences: create a personal dialogue to strengthen trust and confidence; foster parental involvement. Non-formal encounters between families from different cultural-social backgrounds may promote lifelong learning competences such as tolerance, inclusion and openness. However, external intervention by a social association is required to organize, support and operate them.

The research’s limitation was that it was conducted in the country’s center. Therefore, the findings must be considered in the context in which they are presented and not generalized to other regions or communities from other cultures in Israel and the world. A few limited encounters may affect the author’s interpretation of the study data. In addition, expressions of “social desire” that may be expressed in interviews must be considered.

This study emphasizes social activism. Despite all the differences and tensions, creating an equal space in the families’ encounters is essential for lifelong learning. The immigrant parents participated in decision-making, the stages of organization and the activities themselves during the encounters. This partnership strengthened their commitment and responsibility. Because they are a powerless minority group, it should not be assumed that two encounters will improve their self-confidence. The proof is that fewer participants came to the last encounter. Education experts must maintain consistency and continuity in forming partnerships with immigrant families over time and as part of lifelong learning.

The non-formal encounters between the two groups of families create an atmosphere of equality: all are parents of children seeking to inculcate humane and social values. The collaborative atmosphere contributed to the understanding that closeness overpowers distance. Everyone is troubled by similar issues of parenting, enjoyment of children, nutritious food and a shared desire to be good citizens while maintaining tolerance, reciprocity and respect.

Non-formal encounters are actively performed to create belonging when the “others and we” join together for the community and the children. This is an extensive, open and accessible platform for strengthening social consciousness and understanding the connection between teaching, culture and society to promote equality in education. This study will allow schools to expand the boundaries of communication with parents and initiate additional activities with other social groups to foster children’s integration. It will enrich the academic knowledge about connections and communication of educators, families from Israel and immigrant families in developing a partnership in the school to promote lifelong learning.

This study examines the relationship between teacher leadership and learning in lesson study (LS).

A multilevel analysis of data was conducted based on the results of a questionnaire survey of 129 teachers collected through Google forms from 27 schools in the city.

First, in the sample, leadership and learning perceptions in LS did not differ depending on the school that teachers belonged to but appeared as a difference between teachers who perceived leadership and learning within their school and those who did not. Second, the influence of leadership on learning perceptions in the LS was found to be different depending on the socialization, externalization, combination and internalization phase. Third, the results suggested that principals should provide leadership supporting the research team’s leadership.

Previous research on LS has not focused on the relationship between the principal’s leadership and teacher learning. The findings of this study are significant both academically and practically, as they suggest in what settings of LS leadership can work effectively for teacher learning.

This manuscript examines how university coaches can use the Classroom Check-Up (CCU; Reinke et al., 2008) to support continuous school improvement efforts around teacher practice within a PDS model and how collaboration between university faculty can increase their coaching self-efficacy.

The paper is conceptual in that it presents an innovative idea to stimulate discussion, generate new ideas, and advance thinking about supporting educator coaching efficacy in school-university partnerships.

The paper provides insights and ideas for using a collaborative faculty coaching model based on the CCU (Reinke et al., 2008). Each coach provides insight about adapting the model to fit teacher, school, and district needs. Moreover, coaches report on how collaborating impacted their coaching self-efficacy.

This paper fulfills an identified need to support continuous school improvement efforts amid a teaching shortage using a collaborative faculty coaching model. Moreover, the authors explore “coaching self-efficacy” as a rare but valuable construct that is impacted by peer feedback.

Improvement science (IS) has become a popular approach to organizing school–university partnerships because of IS’s potential to increase schools' capacity for sustainable improvement. However, little research has directly examined whether and how specific elements of IS support school improvement, particularly during and post-COVID-19 when improvement was particularly challenging.

We draw on a longitudinal case study of a school-university partnership supporting a group of schools using IS to guide school improvement with data collected in Fall 2019–Spring 2022 including interviews and meeting observations. We compare how educators engaged with three IS elements: plan-do-study-act (PDSA) continuous improvement (CI) cycles, networked learning and driver diagrams. We qualitatively examine participants' perspectives of these elements through the lens of contingency theory, analyzing which elements were more or less successful at empowering schools to continue their improvement efforts throughout the pandemic.

IS processes are varied in their resilience to complexity. Schools mostly abandoned some elements during tumultuous periods (PDSA cycles) while others were successfully adapted to sustain improvement work (driver diagrams). Findings also discuss the perceived impact of university partners in school improvement work, primarily as coaches.

These findings are uniquely positioned to examine whether and how IS elements enabled sustained school improvement amidst the complexities generated by COVID-19. By focusing on strengths and limitations of three common elements, we offer valuable guidance to school–university partnerships about the conditions under which these elements might support sustained school improvement and how these elements might need to be adapted.

This chapter presents three Chinese teachers' narrative accounts about how they live in dilemmatic spaces due to excessive entitlement. Still, the teachers move forward with transformative agency. The thick description of the three teacher participants has been reported elsewhere as the narratives of Lee – a math teacher, Ping – a Chinese language teacher and Wang – a school principal. In this chapter, however, ‘excessive teacher entitlement’ is used as a new lens to assist me in revisiting their stories of living in dilemmatic spaces. Narrative inquiry as a method unpacks the three teachers' life experiences. Although Lee, Ping and Wang encounter different entitlements and various dilemmas, their transformative agency in transitioning from a survival mode to thriving human beings brings out the similarities in their experiences. Using Vygotskian philosophy and cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT), this chapter focuses on the teachers' transformative agency as breaking away from given boundaries in their professional lives and taking up initiatives that confront the tacit excessive entitlement in and around them. Furthermore, transformative agency is promising in that it helps develop new practices in teacher education. Finally, the new understanding emanating by viewing the three subjects' experiences from the angle of excessive entitlement has the potential to inspire teachers in other contexts to become conscious of manifestations of excessive entitlement not only in themselves or others they interact with but also in the macro context we live in. This consciousness also increases the likelihood of the urge to find ways to ameliorate excessive entitlement and to move closer to one's cherished professional values.

The development of innovative learning environments at the new Viscontini primary school started with the research and development of a sense of belonging to the new building. Initially, it was indeed difficult to get used to the new, spacious learning spaces, reformulating a different teaching approach than the classic traditional method based on frontal classroom teaching. Teachers and students were therefore able to identify and deepen, thanks to the support of the National Institute for Documentation, Innovation and Educational Research (INDIRE) Institute and the University of Milan Bicocca, the fundamental relationship between all learning environments (indoor and outdoor) and a teaching approach closely linked to the diversified use of the building's spaces. All the learning environments (entrance hall, atriums, corridors, laboratories, garden, playground, etc.), which were initially bare and aseptic, were given attention, analysed, developed, filled and finally fitted out and decorated, fostering a sense of physical and mental appropriation of the new school.