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The purpose of this paper is to compare measures of socio-economic status (Index of Community Socio-educational Advantage values (ICSEA)), school performance, school funding and school readiness in terms of their impact on student performance. In this respect, the paper tests the proposition – given research that suggests the teacher is the important ingredient in improved student learning performance – that a school principal who has strategical worked to “ready” their teachers for a whole of school teaching improvement agenda will generate increased student learning results than those who have not and further this improvement will occur irrespective of the circumstance of the socio-economic circumstance of the school.

In total, 22 Government schools from a single school district in Australia participated in the study, after having been involved in a system sponsored “teaching improvement program”. A survey, consisting of 30 seven-point Likert-style scale items, was administered to all teachers and school leaders in the school district. The survey was designed to rate levels of staff perceived alignment, capability and engagement to the programme as it was implemented by the Head in each school. The information regarding each school’s ICSEA value, funding per student and student learning performance, was obtained from the database provided by the relevant authority (ACARA). All statistical analysis was completed using SPSS Version 22.

The findings of this study indicate that high levels of organisational readiness, as defined by the alignment, capability and engagement (ACE) approach, are associated with effective teaching and improvement in student outcomes. In turn, the authors interpret this to mean that the internal organisation of a school has important effects on student achievement that are independent to external factors such as school funding or even the socio-educational positioning of the school.

The findings of this study indicate that high levels of organisational readiness, as defined by the ACE approach, are associated with effective teaching and improvement in student outcomes. The implications are that the ACE provides a framework for what the school leader needs to focus on when whole of school teaching improvement is the goal. The study did not investigate what the school leader did in each school to ready their staff.

These findings indicate the importance of leadership in a school and provide an insight into what the school leader needs to focus on when whole of school teaching improvement is the intended goal. This focus can thus be understood as the leader working to ensure all staff members are ACE to the improvement agenda.

The improvement of educational outcomes is a global goal of governments. In this respect, Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) school systems in particular have linked education system performance and international competitiveness in ways that place pressure on the “black box” of individual schools. Reports, such as the Programme for International Student Assessment and local testing regimes testify that governments and communities are interested in the academic performance of students within and across schooling systems. The benefits of high performing schools contribute to the standard of living of citizens and the well-being of a society more generally. This paper investigates propositions that focus the work of the school leader to achieving such inherent goals.

The paper introduces the concept of school readiness. The premise is considered important to the current research because it represents the ability of schools to participate in reform agendas that are characteristic of government policy positions. The “school readiness” approach lies outside the education literature, motivated by the idea that the literature on turning around failing organisations in sectors outside of education provides clear guidelines for reforming schools. The implications for turnaround leadership are particularly encouraging and important particular organisational factors, in common with sectors outside of education, are of significant importance in enhancing teacher motivation, teacher learning and consequential improvements in student outcomes. This paper seeks to add empirical evidence in support of these approaches by adopting what the authors refer as organisational “readiness” for reform developed by Schiemann (2014).

Purpose – This chapter examines the role of child health for the intergenerational transmission of human capital.

Methodology/approach – The chapter uses unique administrative data from German elementary school entrance examinations. The chapter considers child health conditions such as obesity, low birth weight, ear problems, eye problems, behavioral problems, asthma, and allergies. We control for socio-economic and demographic characteristics of children and their parents as well as for institutional factors such as duration of pre-school attendance.

Findings – We find that health conditions are more common among children of less-educated parents. We also find that health conditions have a substantially negative impact on school readiness, and the negative impact is considerably stronger for children of less-educated parents. In total, 55% of the school readiness gap can be attributed to health factors. Specifically, 19% of the gap can be attributed to differences in the prevalence of health conditions, and 36% of the gap can be attributed to differences in the severity of the impact. Thus, policies aimed at reducing disparities in child achievement should also focus on improving the health of disadvantaged children.

Originality – First, our study quantifies the extent to which the school readiness gap between parental education groups can be attributed to child health. Second, our data are of extraordinary quality, since they consist of a full sample of all children in one city and since they are collected during detailed examinations that were administered by government pediatricians.

The paper describes the relationship between parents’ and teachers’ demographic factors and their judgments about children’s activities and school readiness in primary schools of Tehran. The purpose of this paper is to determine: first, the relationship between the child’s gender and the frequency of parent-child activities; second, the relationship between the parent’s gender, age and educational level and the frequency of parent-child activities; and third, the relationship between the teacher’s gender, educational level and length of service with rate of frequency of the child’s school readiness.

Multi-stage Cluster Sampling was used to select samples, and the research instruments (questionnaires) were distributed among 36 first grade teachers and 756 parents.

The study found that there were significant gender differences in hands-on activities. With regards to the parent’s age and gender, there were significant differences only in hands-on activities, while, with respect to the educational level of fathers and mothers, there were significant differences in both hands-on and community activities among children. Finally, the finding indicated that there was a significant relationship between children’s skills and the teacher’s gender and length of service.

Although the research findings are consistent with the reality of Iranian families, more research is needed relating the types of activities in which parents and children engage.

This paper reports on research into Australian school principals' leadership. It explores an emerging construct – that of ‘readiness to lead’ – and showcases the development of a tentative tool for determining school principals' readiness to lead.

Seven principals from Australian and International Schools were interviewed about their leadership strategies, intentions and expectations for impending school reform. Qualitative analyses using grounded theory and an interpretivist constructivist paradigm were applied.

The construct of ‘readiness to lead’ emerged during initial analysis and a tool was developed from a compilation of literature on leadership. Findings revealed that five principals were well-aligned with the strategies, intentions and expectations the research literature indicates are characteristic of good leadership. These principals could be regarded as ‘ready to lead’ their schools in significant school reform. An unexpected finding was that the concepts of ‘hope’ and ‘trust’ also played a significant role in leadership. ‘Hope’ appeared important as a major strategy for the less-well aligned principals, whereas mutual ‘trust’ appeared to be evident in the principals with stronger leadership readiness.

The tool warrants peer review and validation; data revealed an emerging construct and review is welcomed. The authors are continuing to research and investigate in this field, and invite further academic dialogue.

The study has explored the fecundity of the tool for analysis, and evaluated the principals' preparedness to lead reform. Having a tool to determine whether and to what degree school principals are ready to lead would be advantageous for the profession.

The purpose of this study is to examine the extent of production of digital book titles and deployment of e-promotion and how they correlate with school, library, bookshop, consumer and author readiness, with a view to enhancing publishers’ understanding of and participation in e-publishing, which is now crucial for growth and sustainability

A questionnaire was completed by 109 publishing firms, 79 publishing websites were observed in search of digital titles and e-promotion, and data were analysed using the SPSS to compute frequencies, percentages and correlates of digital publishing innovation adoption

It is found that 2014 digital titles (mainly textbooks and scholarly content) were issued in four formats by 33 out of 109 firms. Authors and consumers were perceived to be more digital-ready than libraries, schools and bookshops. There was a significant relationship between the issuance of digital titles and author readiness (r = 0. 372), consumer readiness (r = 0.338) and library readiness (r = 0.255). There was also a significant relationship between the adoption of e-promotion and consumer readiness (r = 0.381) and author readiness (r = 0.265).

Book publishing innovation research, especially in Africa, focuses mainly on the adoption of mobile devices, infrastructural challenges and reading habits, paying inadequate attention to the correlates of digital publishing adoption. The results of this study, therefore, shed light on the correlates of digital publishing adoption and should help interested publishers and scholars to understand that author, consumer and library readiness are important determinants of digital publishing adoption, especially in developing economies.

The purpose of this study is to measure the willingness of general education schools (governmental and private) in the Mecca region to deal with the threat of earthquakes through the identification of the preparedness of school buildings, the differences in the willingness of schools, and examine the relationship between the exposure to previous crises and readiness for future crises.

The authors used a survey method to explore and determine the readiness range of schools by distributing a questionnaire to school principals. The questionnaire measures the readiness range of the institutions to counter earthquake threat through six main fields which were developed based on Federal Emergency Management Agency Resources (www.fema.gov) and were used in developing an earthquake consequences model (Al Momani), namely: previous emergencies measures, previous earthquake experience measures, earthquake mitigation measures, earthquake preparedness measures, earthquake response measures and earthquake recovery measures.

It is apparent that schools are not prepared to deal with future earthquakes regardless of their types (public vs private) and levels (primary, elementary, secondary) which require establishing a department for disaster and crisis management within the public administration of Education headed by a specialist in disasters and crises management to make sure that current school campus, under construction campus, or leased buildings be prepared to deal with disasters and crises as they occur in non‐hazardous locations, compatible with building codes, and equipped with safety means. It is important to prepare a public emergency plan for disasters and crises and to train school administrators and teachers to prepare contingency plans for disaster management in school. Finally, there is a need to prepare disasters awareness programs benefiting from public and private media, internet, and workshops through utilizing experiences of other developed countries in disasters and crises management especially for schools.

This research could be used to augment the need of developing education system preparedness in Jeddah Province through implementing effective mitigation, preparedness, and response, as well as recovery options.

The paper reports a study that was intended to develop a self-assessment instrument to measure high school students' readiness for pursuing independent online learning.

The instrument was developed through the following steps: (1) developing the draft, (2) checking the instrument's face validity and (3) testing the instrument's validity, reliability and discriminant capacity using PLS analysis.

The study has developed a tool to self-assess high school students' readiness for independent online learning. The instrument consists of 36 statement items and is statistically proven to have good reliability, construct and indicator validity and a discriminating power.

The instrument items were designed to fit the context of Indonesian high school students. However, only responses from high school students in rather urban areas were used to test the validity and reliability of the instrument. This could imply that the instrument is only accurate in urban settings.

As a result of the research, a tool to assess high school students' readiness for independent online learning has been created. To better prepare students for independent online learning endeavors, the school might use the results to enhance areas that need improvement.

The study succeeded in developing a contextualized self-assessment tool for measuring Indonesian students' independent online learning readiness.

The study examines how teachers and school administrative staff perceive external and internal barriers to the implementation of technologies into the teaching process and how teachers and school administrative staff technology readiness is related to these perceptions. These data were used for discussion and construction of an explanatory model.

The data from 8,188 Russian respondents who took the survey just before the first massive lockdown announcement due to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID 19) was used. First, descriptive statistics were shown for two groups: teachers and administrative staff. Second, confirmatory factor analysis was applied to construct external and internal barriers scales. These scales were then used as dependent in a series of regressions with the technology readiness index (TRI) and the respondent role in schools as independent variables.

Results showed that administrative staff compared to teachers were more likely to select internal barriers related to teachers, while teachers were more likely to choose external obstacles. The technology optimism scale was negative, and negative attitudes toward technologies were positively related to both barriers.

The originality of the study lies in determining the relationship between the technology readiness and choosing barriers perception as well as comparing the sense of responsibility for the introduction of technologies in schools experienced by teachers and administrators.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the perceptions of teachers toward national reform in education according to the reform stage (Initiation, Implementation or Institutionalization) attained in their school. The study aim to examined: How do teachers perceive the current reform?; Is there a correlation between teachers' perceptions and reform stage?; To what extent are teachers' perceptions affected by school's mechanisms and school's readiness?

The research methodology is quantitative. Teachers (N = 288) completed a written questionnaire. One-way ANOVA was used to investigate teachers' perceptions of the reform and its contributions to school effectiveness and to teachers' working conditions according to reform stage, while controlling for managerial position, teaching experience and school level. Multivariate modeling was used to examine the relationships between the variables.

Teachers' overall attitudes toward the changes associated with the education reform lay between moderately negative and neutral. Reform was perceived to have made a greater contribution to school effectiveness than to teacher working conditions. School readiness for reform and the presence of school mechanisms supporting reform explained much (41%) of the variance in teachers' attitudes. Teachers holding leadership roles and those whose schools were in the Institutionalization stage exhibited more positive attitudes toward the reform and perceived it as having improved their working conditions to a greater extent than those without leadership roles or whose schools were in the Initiation or Implementation stages, respectively.

Teachers' attitudes toward reform have not previously been examined in the context of reform stage.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the utility of an evidence-based suite of programmes, The Incredible Years (IY), to enhance outcomes for children using a parent-teacher partnership model.

A review of the broad evidence base for the IY parent, teacher and child programmes, uniquely focusing on the inter-relationships between home and school contexts.

Evidence suggests that it is beneficial to parents, teachers and children to deliver IY programmes applying a multi-modal approach.

This paper, read in conjunction with other contributions in this volume, demonstrates the growing viability of partnership strategies that support children, their families and teachers to enhance school readiness, and promote positive child outcomes.