scholarly journals A District’s Journey of Transformative Leadership: Moving Beyond Open Access to the Improvement, Inclusion, and Success of Students of Color in Advanced Placement

2021 ◽  
pp. 105268462199447
Author(s):  
Ed Cartagena ◽  
Charles L. Slater

Leadership is a critical component of creating and sustaining a school culture that promotes the inclusion and success of students. The purpose of this study was to examine how school leaders helped to enact and sustain a reformed Advanced Placement (AP) culture designed to increase participation and success of students of color. Building on existing work of transformative leadership, this study describes the experience and challenges of educational leaders in understanding how leadership practices change the AP culture. The case study method examined one mid-sized urban district in Southern California that utilized transformative leadership. The methods included 15 open-ended interviews with educational leaders in a variety of capacities (i.e., district leadership, school administrators, counselors, and teacher leaders). The findings demonstrated critical components leading to deep and meaningful cultural change in AP. The analysis showed leaders in this district, who sought equity, were driven to create meaningful change, and were grounded in the community. Being grounded in the community had a great impact in promoting a transformed culture at the classroom, site, and district level.

NASPA Journal ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary G. Locke ◽  
Lucy M. Guglielmino

Today’s colleges and universities operate in a complex environment characterized by rapid and unrelenting change, and nowhere do the challenges inherent in change more directly impact students than in the delivery of student services. The need to integrate new models of service delivery, data-driven approaches to enrollment management, greater accountability for student success, stronger emphasis on customer service, and provision of “anytime, anyplace” services through technology are readily evident. Yet, many institutions are finding that their internal cultures are unreceptive, even hostile, toward adopting needed changes. This qualitative case study focusing on a 4- year purposeful change initiative at a community college was conducted to provide higher educational leaders with a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the influence of cultural change on student services staff. The results of this study indicated that student services staff constituted a distinct subculture that perceived, experienced, responded to, and influenced planned change differently from other subcultural groups. Specifically, student services staff more demonstrably supported the purpose of the change initiative; identified empowerment, inclusion and involvement in college decision-making, and improved lines of communication as the most important impacts of the change process; and expressed strong confidence regarding the sustainability of the changes that had occurred. Student services staff also indicated that they found greater meaning and developed stronger commitment to their work as a result of the change process. As a result of these findings, implications and strategies that may be helpful in designing and implementing a successful planned change initiative involving student services personnel are presented.


Author(s):  
Michele J. Dow ◽  
Amanda Claudia Wager

The purpose of this study is to find key supports for educational leaders to provide for transgender educators to succeed in an educational workplace setting. By being and becoming aware of the issues involved and conceptualizing interventions to help transgender educators function at their full potential in the workplace, a school’s leadership fosters social equity while also increasing the effectiveness of its organization. This paper draws from a mixed-methods case study that included a quantitative survey conducted with 27 transgender teachers and school principals and focuses on three qualitative in-depth cases. The results show that while some educational administrations support transgender educators in theory, they lack the proper tools to do so; alternatively, many other administrators remain openly hostile toward transgender educators, forcing some to find other work settings. For transgender educators of color, this task is more daunting because they face exponentially higher rates of violence and discrimination. To properly support and supervise transgender educators and principals, educational administrators must learn the necessary skills to provide a more welcoming environment for transgender educators, many of whom experience a myriad of personal struggles. These findings and the insights acquired have implications for transgender educators as well as state, district, and school administrators who wish to better support this growing segment of the LGBTQIA+ community.


2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Barbara Morrow Williams

Research interests in social conditions of women in leadership roles underlie this case study which explores the scarcely published voices of African American women in the superintendency of public education. This case study of the career of Dr. Charlie Mae Knight and her experiences in an urban district in California may contribute to the knowledge and literature of the superintendent's social capital and her ability to exercise political power equally with primary stakeholders in her district and in her community. Interpreting Dr. Knight's experiences may increase knowledge about the challenges faced by African American women, and by women generally as they balance competing roles as educational leaders and as political leaders in urban communities undergoing ecological succession.


2021 ◽  
pp. 004208592098728
Author(s):  
Karen Stansberry Beard ◽  
Sara I. Thomson

This qualitative case study explored administrators’ perceptions of family and community engagement activities that enhanced student well-being and ultimately impacted academic achievement in one urban district. Template analysis of 11 semistructured interviews and observation notes employed the positive psychology well-being theoretical construct, PERMA(H). Illuminated was the administrations’ focused attention to student attendance, engagement, and well-being preceded academic achievement gains. The narratives addressing identified non-academic barriers informed six key findings. The findings are supported by 19 specific administrator activities that could be useful for other urban administrators desiring to address non-academic barriers to improve academic achievement.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (14) ◽  
pp. 6452
Author(s):  
César Ricardo Soto-Ocampo ◽  
Juan David Cano-Moreno ◽  
José Manuel Mera ◽  
Joaquín Maroto

Increasing industrial competitiveness has led to an increased global interest in condition monitoring. In this sector, rotating machinery plays an important role, where the bearing is one of the most critical components. Many vibration-based signal treatments are already being used to identify features associated with bearing faults. The information embedded in such features are employed in the construction of health indicators, which allow for evaluation of the current operating status of the machine. In this work, the use of contour maps to represent the diagnosis map of a bearing, used as a health map, is presented for the first time. The results show that the proposed method is promising, allowing for the satisfactory detection and evaluation of the severity of bearing damage. In this initial stage of the research, our results suggest that this method can improve the classification of bearing faults and, therefore, optimise maintenance processes.


2015 ◽  
Vol 21 (6) ◽  
pp. 741-754 ◽  
Author(s):  
Llandis Barratt-Pugh ◽  
Susanne Bahn

AbstractThis paper explores the role played by a Human Resources (HR) department orchestrating culture change during the merger of two large State departments with dissimilar cultures. A 2-year case study determined what HR strategies were having the greatest impact on embedding new organisational values to produce a more flexible culture and how these practices could be accelerated. This paper indicates how a more strategic approach by HR departments can support and develop relational managing capability that accelerates cultures change towards a more flexible work environment.This paper describes the context of the change process, the relevant literature, and outlines the research process. The findings from the phases of the data collection are summarised revealing the traumatic perceptions of the change process, but also the instrumental actions of some managers, working creatively with their teams to tackle new tasks and projects. The evidence suggests that these informal practices of task allocation were at the core of change agency in this case study and put the new flexible organisational values into action. The findings illustrate how the organisation moves from valuing managers for their technical competence to valuing managers for their relational competence.The paper then discusses what strategic HR actions were accelerating this process and illuminates the critical role of building managers as change agents. The paper concludes by confirming the need for a strategic approach by HR during organisational change. Building manager capability and supporting informal change agency practices is presented as a core focus for HR during such organisational cultural change programmes.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Suzanna Elmassah ◽  
Marwa Biltagy ◽  
Doaa Gamal

Purpose Higher education institutions (HEIs) should play a fundamental role in achieving the international 2030 sustainable development (SD) agenda. Quality education is the fourth of the sustainable development goals (SDGs), and one of the targets related to this is to ensure that by 2030 all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote SD. Therefore, the SDGs provide a motive for HEIs to integrate SD concepts into their day-to-day practices. This study aims to introduce a framework for HEIs’ sustainable development assessment. Such a framework guides HEIs and educational leaders to support their countries’ commitments to achieving the SDGs. Design/methodology/approach This paper presents the results of a case study analysis of the role and successful techniques of HEIs in achieving SD in three countries, namely, Germany, Japan and Egypt. Primary data was collected by semi-structured interviews with three Cairo University officials, while secondary data was collected by reviewing the universities' official websites, reports, publications and related papers. This study introduces a novel framework for HEIs' SD analysis and assessment, which guides HEIs and educational leaders to support SD to fulfill their countries' commitments to achieving the SDGs. This framework is based on the following five categories: strategic direction and institutional working practices, supporting students, supporting university staff competencies, supporting society's stakeholders and networking and sustainable campus. Consideration is given to the potential role of HEIs to support SD in each of these areas. Findings Cairo University could learn from the novel and pioneer practices of the Leuphana University of Lüneburg, and the University of Tokyo to fill in the gaps it has in different roles. It can also put more effort into adopting the suggested higher education programs of Egypt's Vision 2030. Research limitations/implications This paper is limited to a case analysis comparing three countries, Germany, Japan and Egypt. Second, this study has not considered school education, which is equally essential in countries' SD. Practical implications HEIs can use the framework and the findings in this paper to evaluate their current roles in supporting SD, identify the gaps and take actions accordingly to address their weaknesses. Originality/value The paper compares three universities, one in each of the case study countries. It draws conclusions that identify ways in which the paper's framework and findings can guide SD practice in HEIs internationally, especially those in the developing world.


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 171-178
Author(s):  
Saipul Wakit ◽  
Indah Yuliana ◽  
Indah Yuliana

The transformational leadership style in higher education has four indicators carried out by the rector. These indicators include exemplary attitudes, inspiring motivation, intellectual stimulation and the rector's consideration for lecturers. Practically, the purpose of this article is to find out how the rector provides examples, inspires motivation and individual considerations in improving the performance of lecturers at Muhammadiyah universities. The operational research method uses a qualitative approach with a phenomenological case study design. Data collection activities were carried out by means of observation, interviews with informants, and extracting information from documents. To ensure the validity of the research data, several methods are used, namely credibility, transferability, dependability and confirmability. The results of the study explain that transformative leadership in Muhammadiyah universities objectively has provided an example with several things that are applied in attitudes, ideas, behavior and performance. While motivation is carried out by the Chancellor of the lecturers in several ways, namely through behavior, technical ability, supervision and policy. In stimulating the intellectuals of lecturers in several ways, namely to think modern and relevant, think forward and continue to make changes as well as productive, innovative, creative in carrying out tasks and performance. In individual consideration, the Chancellor is more humane towards lecturers, both in the work environment and in the community.


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