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Focus group discussions were utilized to explore factors that facilitated the academic success of Kenyan high school students in spite of their adversities. These identified factors were instrumental in creating personal development modules that Kenyan school counselors implemented as a pilot intervention for enhancing academic resilience. While more research is needed on the most effective delivery styles for the modules, the intervention resulted in improved skills that support academic resilience. There is a need to continue to explore resiliency with respect to academic performance in Kenya. Educators, students, parents and policy makers will benefit from uncovering models of resiliency based on the contextual realities that the youth face on a daily basis.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a survey for co‐creating leadership dispositional values and contexts by examining the self‐perceptions of school leaders, teachers, and staff on the practice of co‐creating leadership behaviors and conditions that facilitate the practice.

Based on qualitative data and a literature review, survey statements were developed to gather quantitative data for purposes of establishing an instrument for studying the practice of dispositional values and presence of contexts that facilitate co‐creating leadership in schools.

The instrument internal reliability scales covering the seven dispositions and three contexts were calculated using Cronbach's α scores. All scores were above the suggested level of 0.70. The coefficient α reliabilities for the subscales ranged between 0.73 and 0.86. The survey resulted in a two‐factor solution (dispositional values and contexts). Correlation coefficients amongst the subscales of dispositional values and contexts ranged between a moderate r=0.460 and a high r=0.815 (p<0.01).

This study led to the development and verification of a quantitative survey instrument that may be used to assess the practice of co‐creating leadership dispositional values and contexts in schools. Dispositional values consisted of seven factors (trust and trustworthiness, humility, active listening, resilience, patience, collaboration, and cultural anthropology). Contexts consisted of three factors (deep democracy, quality relations, and evolving power).

The purpose of this paper is to examine teacher perceptions of the practice of co‐creating leadership and its potential impacts on student achievement.

Using a quantitative approach, the study compared the levels of the practice of co‐creating leadership dispositional values and institutional conditions that facilitate the practice of co‐creating leadership between high‐ and low‐performing high schools. Data was collected using a survey. The respondents were teachers from high‐ and low‐performing high schools. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, t‐tests, correlations, and regression.

Teachers in high‐performing schools scored significantly higher on perceptions of the practice of co‐creating leadership dispositional values and the presence of institutional conditions that facilitate the practice. Correlation analyses found positive significant relations between dispositional values and institutional conditions facilitating co‐creating leadership. High‐performing schools had high correlations. Regression analyses indicated that active listening, deep democracy, and evolving power significantly predicted teachers' perceptions of the impact of dispositional values and organizational conditions on student achievement.

The paper offers insights into how co‐creating leadership may have potential impact on student achievement.

The purpose of this research project is to explore the use of technology in enhancing and creating opportunities for collaborative learning by connecting prospective school leaders and practicing principals from multiple settings.

This was a research project in which an internet‐based network system was created in “LiveText” (software) for cross‐collaborative learning among intern prospective school leaders, practicing school administrators from different school settings and university faculty. Data were gathered through focus group discussions, surveys, reflections and the interns' portfolios.

Responses from participants indicated that the technology used in this project: created a forum for prospective school leaders to network and be involved in experiences spanning multiple settings and multiple mentors; enabled the participants to better understand issues of urban/inner‐city, suburban, rural, elementary, middle, and high schools; created opportunities for interns to assess their own knowledge, skills, and dispositions based on Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium (ISLLC) standards; and enabled the development of web‐based electronic portfolios through “LiveText.”

The project demonstrated how technology can be used as a programmatic tool to enhance collaborative learning by: first, countering logistical and structural challenges of organizing multiple setting leadership experiences for aspiring school leaders; and second, dismantling barriers that separate prospective school leaders from diverse practicing school leaders and schools and, thereby, building both strong and weak ties.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of an internship on its participants in an educational administration program.

The study analyzed the interns' reports or reflections on their internship experience to decipher what was learned by the participants based on Nonoka and Takeuchi's knowledge creation model (tacit to explicit knowledge).

The study found that tacit knowledge was both contextual and released spontaneously to capture the nuances of the task/issue/problem at hand. It was contextual because the situation provided meaning and connectedness. The tacit knowledge was externalized in the process of solving a particular problem or in response to a particular issue. It was spontaneous because the actions or conversations were not predetermined, or structured; they were provoked or emerged through deductions and inductions as interns and principals worked together to find solutions.

The findings of this research should be interpreted with the understanding that not all tacit knowledge is useful. This study focused on the positives. Certainly, some interns had experiences in which the tacit knowledge was not worth emulating. Hopefully, the interns have the capacity to decipher and choose what is best for their own leadership skills.

This study suggested that interns should expand their own awareness of learning opportunities posed by life experiences and gain insight into leadership.

This study concluded that opportunities provided for interaction and sharing during internship are the points where knowledge is created to prepare interns for leadership positions.

The paper aims to investigate the effect of multicultural knowledgebase on attitudes and feelings of preparedness to teach children from diverse backgrounds among pre‐service teachers. Currently issues of multicultural education have been heightened by the academic achievement gap and emphasis on standardized test‐scores as the indicator of learning.

This descriptive study was conducted using surveys. A variety of data were collected through pre‐ and post‐tests. Questionnaires included Multicultural Content Test‐Educational (MCCT‐E), Multicultural Questionnaire (MC), and Preparedness Survey (PS). Descriptive statistics were used for data analysis.

Results indicated that a class in multicultural education significantly increased knowledge about diversity, attitudes towards multiculturalism, and levels of preparedness to teach children from diverse backgrounds. There was no correlation between multicultural knowledge and attitudes and between attitudes and preparedness to teach children from diverse backgrounds.

As teacher education evolves, there is need to rethink opportunities to learn how to teach children from diverse backgrounds beyond multicultural knowledgebase. More extensive and well integrated methods (direct experiences, mentorship, observing and working in authentic settings) are recommended. These methods enhance internalization of concepts, and ability to confront fears, misconceptions and misinformation during teacher preparation. This study suggested that teacher education programs should provide more sustained interaction with diversity issues and/or children of diverse backgrounds in order to transform the gain in multicultural attitudes into practice.

The study challenges the assumption in teacher preparation programs that knowledge transforms pre‐service teachers’ attitudes and preparedness to teach children from diverse backgrounds.

In this chapter, we argue that injustices experienced by children in Kenyan schools can be traced back to educational policies and corruption in government. However, few studies have focused on the links between policies, injustices, and the work of principals. Data collected on the work of school principals indicated that individual commitments and developing capacity for leadership in schools through the practice of dispositional values resulted in success.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on social justice issues identified by American principals. A research question that guided this qualitative study was: do educational leaders relate to the concept of leadership for social justice?

The standardized protocol for focus group discussions was based on Krueger and Casey's work on how to conduct effective focus group interviews. Each focus group carefully followed the protocol, which was designed to give voice to the informants and not to be led by the moderator in preconceived directions. This procedure provided a framework to maintain consistency in eliciting and collecting information but not leading participants to discuss social justice issues just to please the researchers.

This paper both confirmed that principals are concerned with social justice and identified that some principals do not explicitly discuss issues that relate to social justice. Principals who raised social justice issues felt that leaders should be courageous enough to make decisions that are best for children, even though they may not be popular.

Qualitative research such as this adds to the breadth and depth of human understanding, but findings cannot be generalized to any larger population.

The term social justice has become pervasive in US academic discussions, yet there has been little dialogue with practitioners and even less data examined concerning if the term has any relevance to practitioners. This paper explores the voices of practitioners in relation to a pervasive term in US academic discourse.

Today's educational leaders are faced with a myriad of challenges. They must navigate through and meet the demands of a complex and ever-changing educational landscape, amidst the constant scrutiny placed on them by multiple interest groups internal and external to the school context. Further, while the concern for creating more equitable and just schools is given lip service in policy circles, the extent to which social justice and equity are placed in the forefront of existing educational leadership preparation programs remains problematic as those who prepare school leaders continue to grapple with what social justice means, as well as ways to embed such practices throughout their programs of study.