Rural principal perspectives of leadership development needs

Rural school principals often face issues of professional isolation and lack of access to leadership development opportunities. To address these challenges, the Elgin Children’s Foundation launched its Principal Support Program (PSP) in 2017 to support the development of effective school leaders in three states with high rural student populations in the Appalachian region. The PSP posited four components as essential for principal development: professional development, networking, mentoring, and learning plans. The aim of this qualitative study was to determine what PSP participants believed to be the most effective in terms of principal development. Results indicate that because of PSP training, rural principals grew from managers to instructional leaders and changed their mindsets and practices regarding shared leadership. Principals believed that they benefited most from the networking and coaching that the PSP provided. Future professional development for rural principals should consider a focus on opportunities to learn with and through others.

An Examination of Principal Professional Development and its Alignment to Professional Standards and Professional Development Constructs

Principals need and require specific professional development that is rigorous, effective, and aligned to professional leadership standards and effective professional development constructs. This case study examined the professional development strategies, and practices, used by school districts and their alignment to the California Professional Standards for Educational Leaders (CPSEL) and effective professional development constructs. School district administrators and principals representing the Southern San Joaquin Valley, a predominantly rural area of California, participated in this research via interviews and focus groups. This research is critical as rural areas are often underrepresented in educational research. The findings indicate a lack of intentional alignment of principal professional development with professional standards and professional development constructs. The findings call for districts to take an intentional approach to principal development that is aligned with these frameworks to ensure principals are provided with effective and rigorous support for their educational leadership, growth, and development.

Cosplay Phenomenon: Archaic Forms and Updated Meanings

Cosplay is considered as a modern mass practice of copying and public demonstration of the costume, image and behavior of famous heroes in the mass culture: heroes of movies, cartoons, comics, video games within the framework of festivals, processions, activities of clubs of the corresponding subject. The empirical material for the study was observations, publications in specialized mass media, recordings of Russian and foreign electronic broadcasts of cosplay events, interviews with Russian cosplayers. The article provides a cultural and historical analysis of cosplay, on the basis of which it is concluded that the archaic cultural forms of totemic primitive holidays, medieval carnival, and the first forms of theater are reproduced in cosplay. Traditional cultural forms in cosplay are endowed with new cultural meanings, among which are the game principal development in culture, the implementation of special mechanisms of young people socialization through individual and collective forms of identification and imitation of famous characters, creative development of screen culture characters. In cosplay, there is a partial revitalization of archaic cultural forms, such as zoo-mystery, carnival, the first forms of theater. The conclusion is made about the role of cosplay in the development of the visual language of modernity, «de-virtualization» of the mass culture images and the development of the «instinct of theatricality» in a modern person. Cosplay in Russia demonstrates a wider thematic repertoire than cosplay in the USA and Japan: it includes not only images of American films, video games, comics, Japanese manga and anime, but also images of Soviet animation, which paradoxically are capable of direct competition with modern products of mass culture and art.

Surf Tourism in Uncertain Times: Resident Perspectives on the Sustainability Implications of COVID-19

Surf tourism is the principal development driver in many coastal communities around the world. Surf tourism development brings economic opportunities to residents in coastal destinations, but has also been criticized for associations with gentrification, pollution, and inequity. While many have speculated that surfers represent a crisis-resistant tourist segment, this had not yet been empirically demonstrated, nor had the sustainability implications of their travel during crises been explored. Building on ethnographic observations and two interview phases with 25 resident surfers in Bocas del Toro, Panama, this is the first study to do both. The findings reveal that the pandemic exacerbated existing sustainability challenges by accelerating development near surf-breaks, fomenting tensions within the surf community (related to surf tourism business operations and the distribution of benefits) and facilitating residents to surf more frequently—exacerbating surf-resource crowding. Evidence also revealed, however, a potential shift in surfers’ collective consciousness in the context of the pandemic, which reduced conflicts between visiting and resident surfers. This paper exposes the urgent need for stakeholders in surf communities, and particularly surf tourism business owners, to cooperate in order to preserve surf experiences that are vital to resident mental/physical health and well-being, as well as the attractiveness as a surf tourism destination.

Development of geomechanic studies in the Mining Institute of the KSC RAS.

The paper demonstrates the principal development stages of geomechanics as a basic Earth science and its role in providing safe and cost-efficient development of mineral deposits. The main achievements of geomechanics are determined by demands of mining-engineering practice and logic of scientific knowledge evolution and are shown in different publications.

The Principal Development Pipeline: A Call for Collaboration

The author identifies 10 phases of the principal development pipeline, some of which are seldom acknowledged and many of which are inadequately addressed. The author argues that various stakeholder groups should collaborate to provide continuous professional development to future and current principals through each phase of the pipeline. Examples of leadership development and stakeholder collaboration for each phase of the pipeline are also provided in this article.