scholarly journals International school principals: Routes to headship and key challenges of their role

2019 ◽  
Vol 48 (6) ◽  
pp. 1007-1025 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucy Bailey ◽  
Mark T Gibson
Keyword(s):  
School Leadership ◽  
Cultural Differences ◽  
School Principals ◽  
International Schools ◽  
International School ◽  
School Leader ◽  
Extensive Literature ◽  
Senior Leadership ◽  
Structured Interviews

Although there is an extensive literature across a range of national contexts concerning the evolving role of the school leader, little has been written about the rapidly expanding world of international school leadership. This paper focuses on the top tier of leadership of international schools by drawing on semi-structured interviews with 12 school principals in Malaysia, during which they reflected on the nature of their job and the routes they had taken to headship. It is argued that although the overwhelming majority had taken a school leadership qualification and found elements helpful, they felt that it did not adequately prepare them for their role. Several ways in which international school leadership differs significantly from educational school leadership in other contexts are identified, with principals needing to pay attention to loneliness, transience, cultural differences, governance, business elements, and managing school composition. By identifying key challenges faced by international heads, and by charting the paths that individuals take towards headship, this article seeks to understand the nature of senior leadership in international schools.

scholarly journals The Principal at Risk: Stress and Organizing Mindfulness in the School Context

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (17) ◽  
pp. 6318
Author(s):  
Pierluigi Diotaiuti ◽  
Stefania Mancone ◽  
Fernando Bellizzi ◽  
Giuseppe Valente
Keyword(s):  
Path Analysis ◽  
School Leadership ◽  
School Principals ◽  
Stress Measurement ◽  
School Context ◽  
Analysis Model ◽  
Italian School ◽  
Operational Tool ◽  
Path Analysis Model

Background: In recent years the role of school principals is becoming increasingly complex and responsible. Methods: This study was voluntarily attended by 419 Italian school principals who were administered the Psychological Stress Measurement (MSP), Mindfulness Organizing Scale (MOS), Polychronic-Monochronic Tendency Scale (PMTS), and the Scale of Emotions at Work (SEW). Results: The study has produced a path analysis model in which the relationships between the main predictors of principals’ work discomfort were explained. The effect of depressive anxiety on perceived discomfort (ß = 0.517) found a protective mediator in the mindfulness component that recognizes the sharing as a fundamental operational tool (ß = −0.206), while an increasing sense of effort and confusion could significantly amplify the experience of psychological discomfort associated with the exercise of school leadership (ß = 0.254). Conclusions: The model developed in this study suggests that focusing on organizing mindfulness can be a valuable guideline for interventions.

Confronting methodological challenges in studying school leader time use through technological advancements

2017 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
pp. 659-678 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig Hochbein ◽  
Bridget V Dever ◽  
George White ◽  
Linda Mayger ◽  
Emily Gallagher
Keyword(s):  
School Leadership ◽  
Time Use ◽  
Overall Response Rate ◽  
School Leaders ◽  
New Technology ◽  
Extended Period ◽  
School Leader ◽  
Sampling Methodology ◽  
The Hours

Among the multitude of studies that have examined an array of variables related to school leadership, only a small percentage have rigorously examined how school leaders spend their time. The complex role of school leaders poses challenges to common methods of collecting data about school leader time use, which subsequently threaten the validity of researchers’ claims. In this study we identified three prevalent challenges to studying school leader time use, and applied technological advancements in an event sampling methodology framework to mitigate the challenges associated with studying school leader time use. We used new technology and event sampling methodology to collect data, between the hours of 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. during 28 consecutive days, on the time use of 11 school leaders. Our system of notification and response achieved an overall response rate of 85% and enabled the collection of school leaders’ perceptions of their time use as they worked in multiple locations over an extended period of time. Finally, we have proposed a research agenda to study rigorously the time use of school leaders.

scholarly journals Principals’ views on policies and practices for the educational inclusion of Roma people

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 234
Author(s):  
Christos Parthenis ◽  
George Fragoulis
Keyword(s):  
Data Analysis ◽  
School Principals ◽  
Residential Areas ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Roma People ◽  
Educational Inclusion ◽  
Central Level ◽  
Policies And Practices

The role of school principals is recognized as crucial for the daily operation of schools in general and specifically for the management of the challenges posed by the increasing diversity of the current era. In this article, kindergarten principals’ views regarding policies and practices for the management of diversity with reference to one of the most marginalized group, the Roma people, are examined. For this purpose, ten semi-structured interviews with kindergarten principals in areas in which Roma people live either in settlements or inside the residential areas were conducted. Data analysis indicates that principals are aware of the inadequacies of the policies regarding the Roma people and they propose a series of measures at local and central level for the improvement of the school inclusion of Roma children. However, principals are also trapped to a deficit discourse that transfers to the Roma people the major responsibility for their social and educational exclusion.

scholarly journals Unfolding of Filipino School Leadership Experiences in Doha, Qatar

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 97
Author(s):  
Kris Anne Del Rosario ◽  
Inero Ancho
Keyword(s):  
School Leadership ◽  
Lived Experiences ◽  
School Leaders ◽  
International Schools ◽  
School Management ◽  
School Leader ◽  
Capital City ◽  
Educational Institutions ◽  
Leadership Experiences ◽  
Filipino Teachers

Due to internationalization, Qatar is hiring foreign educators and leaders to share expertise in their country. Filipinos are mostly hired as domestic helpers, yet there are also Filipino leaders in educational institutions that exist, particularly in the capital city Doha. The researchers find it significant to examine the experiences of Filipino teachers abroad, due to the rising number of educators and school leaders in Qatar. Romanowski et al. (2018) cited that there is a very few studies regarding principalship and diversity of educators notwithstanding the enormous knowledge of research that emphasize leadership in school and diversity of students. The study attempts to unfold the lived experiences of Filipino school managers in international schools in Doha, Qatar specifically with:  1) the experiences of Filipino school managers in terms of:  (a) Planning; (b) Organizing; (c) Leading and (d) Controlling.   2) The challenges of being a school leader in international schools in Doha. Four (4) themes emerged from the study with subthemes that depicted the experiences and challenges of Filipino school leaders.  Theme 1 explains the Filipino school leaders in complying with mandates and policies.  Theme 2 discusses the Filipino school leaders in adapting with culture.  Theme 3 defines the Filipino school leaders conforming with programs.  Theme 4 depicts the Filipino school leaders in conforming with resources. The study is beneficial to the aspiring and current school leaders not only to Filipinos, but also to other nationalities interested in or are presently managing international schools in Doha. KEYWORDS: school leadership, school management, Filipino principals, experiences, culture

scholarly journals SCHOOL LEADERSHIP FROM THE OPINION OF HIGHER EDUCATION TEACHERS

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (12) ◽  
pp. 40-47
Author(s):  
Rubi Surema Peniche ◽  
Cristóbal Crescencio Ramón ◽  
Norma Graciella Heredia
Keyword(s):  
Educational Leadership ◽  
School Leadership ◽  
School Organization ◽  
Qualitative Approach ◽  
School Leader ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Daily Work ◽  
Long Period ◽  
Southeast Mexico

Educational leadership has been studied over a long period of time; It has determined characteristics, models, strategies to develop and implement an appropriate leadership; The profits of an organization have been guaranteed if a leadership is properly developed, however, the educational leadership is not deepened as broad with a more naturalistic view and seen from the opinion of teachers. A study was conducted under the qualitative approach, specifically a case study at a university in southeast Mexico. Semi-structured interviews, focus groups, observations and content analysis were used. In this study aims to establish the opinions that teachers have about what should be a school leader, as well as their feelings in the daily work. It seems that teachers feel that humility and good treatment, as well as awareness towards others makes a leader successful and accepted in a school organization.

scholarly journals Intercultural Mobility and European Identity: Impact of the Erasmus Exchange Programme in Terms of Cultural Differences

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-94
Author(s):  
Fatih Goksu
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
European Identity ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Semistructured Interviews ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
Exchange Programme ◽  
First Time

European mobility programmes have been seen as a promising method to promote European identity, particularly with a focus on young generations. In this article, I discussed the constructing role of the Erasmus exchange programme by employing the result of direct crosscultural interaction. Data from Eurobarometer surveys and outcomes concluded from the semistructured interviews revealed that socialising with other Europeans strengthened European identity but contact with the host country remained limited. Diff erent from other studies, this paper also reveals that the national identity of the participants precisely empower as a result of coaction. Furthermore, for the first time in the literature, semi-structured interviews unveiled that cultural differences such as stereotypes and prejudices have no negative effect in promoting European identity among students. Rather, it generates a positive impact for the awareness of national identity.

scholarly journals TWO FACES OF LEADERSHIP

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 489-523
Author(s):  
Kristin Kusanovich ◽  
Jerome A. Cranston
Keyword(s):  
School Leadership ◽  
School Principals ◽  
Leadership Education ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Arts Based Research ◽  
Emotional Labour ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Anonymized Data ◽  
One Act ◽  
Artistic Product

Leadership has two faces: an outward-facing, public, performative dimension as well as an inward-facing, private aspect. The emotional labour performed ‘behind the scenes’ by leaders often remains hidden from observation. Nevertheless, it exacts a toll on their wellbeing. Opportunities to gain insights into the socio-emotional toll experienced by leaders are therefore limited. This arts-based research stages that oft hidden drama in the form of a five character one-act play, or ethnodrama, created from anonymized data generated from semi-structured interviews with school principals in Canada. The data was first coded using emotional codes developed from the positive and negative affect schedule [PANAS] (Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988). The most pronounced affects were incorporated into an original ethnodrama using the interview data and were subsequently validated by readers of the final artistic product. Stakeholders in education, leadership or the arts might engage in ethnotheatre, through performing or witnessing this work, to understand the hidden dynamism of the socio-emotional toll of school leadership. This article offers insights into the transdisciplinary intersections between leadership education and arts-based research, followed by the full script of the ethnodrama, and concludes with a description of the unique process through which data generated from classic, qualitative methods was artfully fashioned into The Two Faces of Leadership.

School principals as leaders: Pre-service and in-service teachers’ perspective

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 146-154
Author(s):  
Pelagia Ant. Stravakou ◽  
Evangelia Ch. Lozgka
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
School Leadership ◽  
Research Method ◽  
School Principals ◽  
Leadership Skills ◽  
School Leader ◽  
Relevant Research ◽  
Leadership Models ◽  
The Ideal

Scholars have highlighted that the existing school leadership models are incomplete and the relevant research is dominated by the principals’ perspective. This study explores the pre-service and in-service teachers’ views about what they want and expect of the school principals as leaders to willingly follow them. The sample consisted of 36 teachers purposefully recruited. Written texts, in which the participants were asked to spontaneously write down their thoughts, were used as a research tool; and content analysis was used as a research method. Overall, the findings indicated that the ideal school leader from the teachers’ perspective predominantly has leadership skills, and rarely has both specific personality traits and enduring goals to pursue, whereas specific necessary qualifications are considered as the least desirable. These findings are discussed in the context of the broad literature on leadership and in relation to the proposed leadership models.   Keywords: School leader, principals, teachers’ perspective, qualitative research.

Shifting borders: a case study of internationalisation of education within a Dutch school group in Amsterdam

2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 164-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Boris Prickarts
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
International Schools ◽  
International School ◽  
Social Boundaries ◽  
Institutional Diversity ◽  
Process Of Change ◽  
Value Differences ◽  
School Group

This article focuses on a case study of internationalisation of education, a process of change pertaining to the mission, vision and delivery of education. Teachers working in international schools can be understood as gearing a student’s disposition towards the ability and preparedness to handle and value differences and diversity. In an effort to cope with a number of challenges from within and outside of the Netherlands, a Dutch school group in Amsterdam embarked on a process of change by adopting an international dimension to the students’ experience. Instead of these schools becoming more similar to each other, i.e. converging towards an internationalising ‘master-viewpoint’, the schools’ alignment under pressure showed a process of ‘anisomorphism’: their education’s primary function, approach, tasks, role and objectives for society were changing into different internationalising directions. However, the pragmatic expectations and actions, particularly of the parents and the students, were creating new boundaries and rationales for the schools as bargaining zones. The ‘shifting borders’ between the schools were becoming more connected with a growing international focus, yet had different pragmatic and ideological implications for each of them. The result was that these borders became permeable, a nominal erosion of differences between the ‘international’ school selectively catering for children of internationally mobile families and the other schools catering for all children in the Netherlands. ‘International schools’ became places where students were trained to engage with difference and diversity and where the students had not necessarily been crossing geographical borders. This raises the issue of the role of education in a multicultural and globalising society, as – in this case – an increase in institutional diversity within the specific Dutch national context, and an increased uncertainty about the multiple aims of education, stretched the educational as well as social boundaries which constrain the futures for which students are being prepared.

scholarly journals Modeling with Stakeholders for Transformative Change

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 825 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne van Bruggen ◽  
Igor Nikolic ◽  
Jan Kwakkel
Keyword(s):  
Model Building ◽  
Simulation Models ◽  
Environmental Modeling ◽  
Boundary Object ◽  
Extensive Literature ◽  
Group Model ◽  
Transformative Change ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Group Model Building

Coherent responses to important problems such as climate change require involving a multitude of stakeholders in a transformative process leading to development of policy pathways. The process of coming to an agreement on policy pathways requires critical reflection on underlying system conceptualizations and commitment to building capacity in all stakeholders engaged in a social learning process. Simulation models can support such processes by providing a boundary object or negotiating artifact that allows stakeholders to deliberate through a multi-interpretable, consistent, transparent, and verifiable representation of reality. The challenge is how to structure the transdisciplinary process of involving stakeholders in simulation modeling and how to know when such a process can be labeled as transformative. There is a proliferation of approaches for this across disciplines, of which this article identifies Group Model Building, Companion Modeling, Challenge-and-Reconstruct Learning, and generic environmental modeling as the most prominent. This article systematically reviews relevant theories, terminology, principles, and methodologies across these four approaches to build a framework that can facilitate further learning. The article also provides a typology of approaches to modeling with stakeholders. It distinguishes transformative approaches that involve stakeholders from representative, instrumental and nominal forms. It is based on an extensive literature review, supported by twenty-three semi-structured interviews with participatory and non-participatory modelers. The article brings order into the abundance of conceptions of transformation, the role of simulation models in transformative change processes, the role of participation of stakeholders, and what type of approaches to modeling with stakeholders are befitting in the development of policy pathways.

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