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The purpose of this research study was to examine the role perceptions of superintendents and their supervisors in Palestine regarding the roles and training needs of superintendents. It was part of a larger study conducted by the Department of Administration and Educational Leadership at Teachers College, Columbia University.

A grounded theory approach was used in this study. Data were collected by interviewing 16 superintendents and four general directors using guided qualitative interviews, in addition to examining Ministry of Education documents and archival data.

The grounded theory approach analysis revealed that superintendents and general directors held variant perceptions regarding the roles and training needs of superintendents. Most superintendents felt they were ill prepared for the job and had to rely on the Ministry of Education for support and direction. They perceived their role as a combination of educational managers and educational leaders. Their supervisors, however, perceived them as keepers of the status quo. The findings showed that superintendents in countries similar to Palestine (newly emerging) appear to experience problems similar to their counterparts in other transitional societies.

The findings of this research are important to new educational systems. It shows clearly the difficulties experienced by superintendents in a newly emerging system. Furthermore, superintendents in such systems may require training needs different than their counterparts in developed systems. The findings are discussed in terms of their relevancy and contributions to educational leadership theory.

The purpose of this paper is to explore an integrative model which includes specific intentions that may explain the contradictory citizenship behaviors and misbehaviors among superintendents in Israel.

In total, 518 superintendents from seven Israeli Ministry of Education district offices were randomly selected. Based on sequence theory, the study examined motivational perceptions of authentic leadership, psychological empowerment and collective efficacy, and their relationships toward intentions to engage in organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and organizational misbehavior (OMB) which may lead to OCB and OMB. The research combined self-reports and computer records. The model was analyzed using Mplus statistical packages.

The authors found that intentions to be late positively predicted lateness, while intentions to leave predicted OMB. In addition, the study indicates several mediating relationships. For example, intentions to engage in OCB-organization and OCB-individual fully mediated the relationship between “self-determination” of psychological empowerment and OCB. In addition, intention to leave mediated the relationship between authentic leadership and lateness.

Across nationalities, superintendents greatly impact the educational processes in their districts. Their high status in the educational system makes them role models. Therefore, it is important to investigate their behaviors and motivations. The findings may contribute toward developing an integrative approach that can predict the superintendents’ behaviors by suggesting specific intentions that can explain corresponding behaviors. This model may also help in developing educational policies for reducing the superintendents’ OMB and increasing their OCB.

The purpose of this paper is to record Visual Arts education in Western Australia (WA) as it underwent significant change between 1967 and 1987, in administration, policy, curriculum and professional development.

A narrative inquiry approach was utilized to produce a collective recount of primary Visual Arts teacher education, based on 17 interviews with significant advocates and contributors to WA Visual Arts education during the aforementioned period.

This paper underscores the history of the role of Western Australian Superintendents of Art and Crafts and the emergence of Visual Arts specialist teachers in primary schools, from the successful establishment of a specialist secondary Visual Arts program at Applecross Senior High School, to the mentoring of generalist primary teachers into a specialist role, as well as the development and implementation of a new Kindergarten through to Year 7 Art and Crafts Syllabus. It also discusses the disestablishment of the WA Education Department’s Art and Crafts Branch (1987).

The history of primary Visual Arts specialists and advocacy for Visual Arts in WA has not been previously recorded. This history demonstrates the high quality of past Visual Arts education in WA, and questions current trends in pre-service teacher education and Visual Arts education in primary schools.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the governance of educational reform, as an interpretive process – “interpretive governance” – through a case study of five superintendents living in a predominantly Swedish-speaking region in Finland.

To foreground superintendents’ perspectives on reforms as simultaneously reflective and constitutive of governance processes, the research applies and extends Rhodes’ (2012) notions of “network governance,” “meta-governance” and “interpretive governance.” Interpretive governance, an underresearched area, is construed as particularly important for developing better insights into how school reform is understood by key actors involved in its enactment.

The research identifies what are described as three “deliberative” dimensions of interpretive governance; these modes of governance are elaborated as “dialogic,” “directive” and “defensive” in nature.

The study reveals senior educators’ interpretations of governance as multifaceted, and argues that these complex modes of deliberation need to be taken into account to better understand how school development is understood and enacted in municipal and school settings.

For documents specialists it was a schizophrenic year. On the one hand we waded through a Bicentennial flood of historical publications extoling the significance of the past two hundred years of federal existence. On the other we faced future shock as the Monthly Catalog was wedded to OCLC while the GPO moved further into micropublishing.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze two parallel processes in the Israeli educational system: first, the idea of school autonomy, exploring its origins and its pedagogical implications and effectiveness; and second, the development of the progressive education evident mainly in the cognitive domain of twenty-first century skills (21st CS), focussing on fostering “deep knowledge” and children’s thinking skills. The manuscript explores the various “waves” of progressive pedagogies that have taken place in the Israeli school system over the years, describing and analyzing the processes that characterize them.

Based on a historical perspective, the paper describes chronologically the main developments related to school autonomy and 21st CS policy initiatives, based on a literature review and analysis of policy documents.

The review indicates that the Israeli educational system is still caught in the “centralization trap,” inhibiting major changes in the patterns of central control and degrees of freedom granted to school-level educators. As for school pedagogy, it is evident that most of the changes in pedagogy suggested by the numerous policy documents over the years have not resulted in sustainable, system-wide change. In both issues a large disparity is evident between declarations about innovative pedagogies and school autonomy and their actual implementation.

The review reflects the idiosyncratic articulation of policy plans conducted by the Ministry of Education, producing discrepancies and incongruences at the school level. Some implications of the “declarative culture” created are further discussed.

THE Greater London Council's conference hall, which can hold several hundred people, was packed to capacity in the evening of March 3. The suspicion that it was a mass gathering to hear a party leader expound national issues was only dispelled by a realization that it was a trifle easy.

WHEN one considers the fundamental weakness of time study—the personal evaluation of performance—it raises the question whether the predetermined motion time system is going to absolve the time study engineer from future disputes as to standard times. And if it is, then at whose door, may we ask, are these disputes to be laid?

While most age groups in the United States show zero or near zero growth, older adults continue to increase in population. Futurists and demographers suggest that we are in a transitional period prior to an even more intense shift to an older society. They project that current increases in the education, income, activity, and advocacy of older adults will continue. Those rises, in turn, will enable elders to enhance public awareness of their development, role, and plight, leading to political and social action more favorable to them.

Project INISS is the first major investigation of the information needs of social services staff in this country. This paper describes the origins of the project, the method employed in the first phase of the study, some of the findings, and implications for information services in these environments.