Holistic School Leadership as an Educational Leadership Framework

Author(s):  
Haim Shaked ◽  
Chen Schechter
1999 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-91
Author(s):  
Jianping Shen ◽  
Chia-Lin Hsieh

Through analyzing data from 147 professors of educational leadership and 457 future school leaders in a national sample, the study (a) inquired into the di mensionality of the instructional goals of the school leadership program and (b) com pared the importance of these instructional goals as perceived by the two groups. It was found that the respondents perceived there were multidimensions to the instruc tional goals of the school leadership program and that there was more similarity than difference between the two groups. Implications of the findings were discussed in terms of developing and improving the school leadership program.


Author(s):  
Peter P. Grimmett

Two themes, 1) administrative managerialism and 2) human kinship, are used to theorize an effective approach to educational leadership. The first arises from difficulty in Canada recruiting teachers into school administration. The second emphasizes human kinship, where we speak out of our materiality as an earthling. These themes suggest a leadership profile grounded in valuable experience gained in the practice of teaching. The intent of this chapter is to theorize an approach to leadership that emphasizes a sense of calling toward the public good, where school leaders can engage in the action that nurtures a culture encouraging teachers to be responsibly accountable and students to engage in assiduous study. “Careerists” rarely take time to understand the complexities of a symbolic/cultural approach and the author's claim is that we need to select leaders who understand how to infuse the work of teaching with value, meaning, passion, and purpose.


Author(s):  
Nikoletta Taliadorou ◽  
Petros Pashiardis

In this chapter, the authors investigate the social skills that school principals ought to exhibit in order to be more effective in the complex environment that characterizes modern schools. Thus, the main aim of this chapter is to provide an in-depth exploration of those social skills that are needed in order for school principals to become more flexible to external and internal requirements and to balance the need for change with stability. Therefore, an attempt is made to investigate the linkages between school leadership, emotional intelligence, political skill, and teachers' job satisfaction, as well as to examine the correlation of emotional and political skills of principals with the job satisfaction of their teachers.


Author(s):  
Nandakumar Mayakestan ◽  
Gopinathan Sarvanathan

A highly contested issue in educational leadership research is the place of narrative inquiry to study school leadership practice. While the study of narratives has had long epistemological roots in the works of Dewey, Bruner, Clandinin, and Connelly, its potential for revealing the human condition and providing deeper insights into critical issues like power, inequity, social justice, and oppression is often underestimated. Moreover, the method has also drawn much debate for its limitations ranging from its highly reflexive nature to issues of validity and reliability of “storied” experiences. This chapter outlines some arguments for the use of narrative inquiry and suggests a nuanced and expanded understanding of the method as a viable approach to study “wicked” problems in the age of Anthropocene. The chapter also aims to inspire further discussions of how narrative inquiry could be further re-conceptualized to study educational leadership in the anthropogenic era.


2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 147-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vicente Llorent-Bedmar ◽  
Verónica Cobano-Delgado ◽  
María Navarro-Granados

The increase in child poverty in Spain highlights the importance of equality and inclusion of students at risk of social exclusion in the Spanish educational system. Recent research emphasises the importance of educational leadership, particularly from school principals, as a tool to improve the learning of these students. The main aim of this study is to establish the characteristics of school management in disadvantaged contexts in western Andalusia (Spain), placing special emphasis on the factors considered to hinder or aid effective leadership from principals. A mixed methodology was used in this process, surveying 282 teachers and interviewing 14 principals, and employing descriptive and contrastive statistics techniques. According to the teachers surveyed, principals tend to follow good educational leadership practices. However, the disadvantaged contexts present obstacles to their effective execution. While improvements are observed in the continuity of teaching staff, there is an urgent need to improve the qualifications of teachers working with students at risk of exclusion. In conclusion, principals need greater autonomy in relation to teachers and teaching practice.


Author(s):  
Michelle D. Young ◽  
Noelle W. Arnold

Ongoing shifts in demographics, knowledge, and expectations require continuous critical reflection on the leadership of K-12 schools. The models of school leadership offered in the past, which focus on management, are no longer adequate. Today, leaders must also ensure that all the students in their care are being provided high-quality, developmentally appropriate, and challenging educational opportunities that prepare each student for college, careers, and life. In other words, leaders must engage in “Inclusive Educational Leadership.” Inclusive Educational Leadership is a reconceptualization of traditional education leadership, which is dedicated to equity, quality and inclusion. We emphasize “inclusive” because it is our contention that providing a quality education experience that is both equitable and fosters equitable outcomes requires an intentional focus on inclusion. Inclusive Educational Leadership has three key areas of emphasis: place, preparation, and practice. Place refers to social practices and policies that reflect competing meanings and uses of spaces, the role people play in a given space and articulations of locations (geographic positions), environments (conditions), and ranks (hierarchies). Preparation refers to education, training and mentoring that is provided to leaders, and practice refers to the work leaders do to cultivate dispositions that support inclusion, support inclusive and culturally responsive practice, and develop an inclusive school culture. The goal of inclusive leadership is to cultivate an inclusive, caring, and supportive school culture that promotes the academic success and well-being of each student. In other words, its goal is to offer more than expectations that lightly touch on all students; its goal is to deliver results for each student. Thus, the work of Inclusive Educational Leadership involves a restructuring of the education experience to prevent marginalization, while creating school cultures based on dignity and respect and focused on achieving equity, high-quality educational experiences, and life success for all students.


2017 ◽  
Vol 53 (5) ◽  
pp. 705-726 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle D. Young ◽  
Kathleen M. Winn ◽  
Marcy A. Reedy

Purpose: This article offers (a) an overview of the attention federal policy has invested in educational leadership with a primary focus on the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), (b) a summary of the critical role school leaders play in achieving the goals set forth within federal educational policy, and (c) examples of how states are using the opportunity afforded by the focus on leadership in ESSA. Findings: Through the examination of federal policy and existing research in this arena, we review the level of attention paid to educational leadership within Elementary and Secondary Education Act, its reauthorizations, and other federal education legislation. ESSA provides an enhanced focus on educational leadership and acknowledges the importance of leaders in achieving federal goals for education. Furthermore, ESSA acknowledges the importance of developing a strong leadership pipeline and, thus, allows states and districts to use federal funds to support leadership development. In this article, we delineate this focus on leadership within ESSA and offer examples of how states are planning to support leadership development. Implications and Conclusion: The important role that school leadership plays in supporting student, teacher, and school-wide outcomes warrants its inclusion within federal education policy. However, the opportunity to realize ESSA’s intended goals around leadership development could be undermined by forces at both the state and federal levels.


2009 ◽  
Vol 6 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Eric Tubbs ◽  
H. E. Holliday

The findings of this study identified practicum areas that meet the educational demands of candidates while highlighting practicum areas that need improvement. The study contributes to the knowledge base of the field by drawing upon feedback from university supervisors, school mentors and program candidates to evaluate and improve the practicum experience in the educational leadership program. Program candidates are in the best position to discuss their recent experiences of exposure to the real world. Supervisors and mentors can witness from their first hand experience how effective practicum activities work. Responses from supervisors, mentors and candidates regarding leadership practicum experiences are valuable to program developers in their future program redesign effort. Practicum experiences expose candidates to real-world school leadership experiences. Unfortunately, because of all kinds of conditional limitations, such practicum experiences can only be offered in conjunction with candidates' regular work in school. However, leadership practicum experiences can be well planned with a high collaboration of supervisors, mentors and candidates who have an invested interest in school improvement. In this study, what we learn from the differences of perceptions among supervisors, mentors and candidates is a caution to all stakeholders that we need to do a better job to prepare the next generation of school leaders. Supervisors, mentors and candidates need to form a coalition to explore other options, especially out-of-the-box strategies, to deliver a highly effective practicum program for potential educational leaders. 


Author(s):  
Amrita Kaur ◽  
Mohammad Noman

The nature of practices of educational leaders and their outcome in terms of productivity and teacher motivation are greatly shaped by the sociocultural norms that regulate them. The sociocultural norms proposed by Hofstede are widely considered as the benchmark for national cultural examination and comparison, which suggests that collectivist cultures are characterized by higher scores on power distance and uncertainty avoidance and lower on individualism, masculinity, long-term orientation, and indulgence. These dimensions may exert positive, negative, or mixed influence, especially on organizations such as schools that constitute intricate work structures with a variety of stakeholders influencing them from multiple directions. Educational leadership for effective change in school requires the ability to integrate traditional sociocultural norms with the global principles for effective outcomes. Work settings in collectivists cultures are characterized by hierarchy based on age, seniority, or position, and authority, conformity, and compliance are some of the prevalent elements that influence Asian school leadership practices. The issue of developing leadership practices by merging Western principles with indigenous ways that encourages more democratic participation of teachers is always been critical to effective leadership practices. In the context of work-organization, self-determination theory (SDT) has emerged as an effective motivational theory that proposes autonomy, competence, and relatedness as three universal psychological needs; satisfaction of these needs would predict optimal outcomes. Providing autonomous work environments has been widely found to be the most effective of these principles that lead to higher productivity and enhanced teacher motivation. We propose that just like their individualistic culture counterparts, it is possible for school leaders in predominantly collectivist cultures to function in a need-supporting way to provide autonomous work environment for their teachers to yield desired outcomes.


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