Leading with humour and its effect on resilience in the workplace: The perspectives of principals in Kuwaiti secondary schools

This study aimed to explore the extent to which the principals of secondary schools in the State of Kuwait said they practiced leadership with humour and if it impacts on their level of resilience in the workplace. The study sample consisted of 121 male and female secondary school principals from six educational districts in Kuwait who were selected using the random stratified method. The study findings showed that the perceptions of school principals regarding the extent to which they practice leadership with a sense of humour were moderate in all fields. The study also found that school principals enjoy high resilience in their workplace, especially when solving a problem. Finally, the results showed that the more a school principal used humour the more resilient he/she would be in the workplace. The study concluded that humour should be considered as one factor in effective leadership and that leadership training programmes should include this dimension. The level of resilience can be clearly predicted by identifying the extent to which school principals claim to practice leading with humour.

High-performance work practices lecturers’ performance connection: Does working condition matter?

Poor performance of lecturers in Nigerian Polytechnics warrants independent research on lecturers’ job performance, given that the poor performance has seriously affected educational development in the country. Substantial evidence from the extant literature has highlighted that high-performance work practices are significant predictors and drivers of enhanced performance. Also, the functionality of high-performance work practices is context-dependent. Therefore, the current study investigates the effect of high-performance work practices (recruitment and selection, training and development, and employee involvement) on lecturers’ performance in the context of Nigerian polytechnics. It also examines the moderating role of working conditions in the high-performance work practices’ relationship with lecturers’ performance. Data were obtained from 539 academics in the North-west Nigerian polytechnics. The overall findings indicate that training and development and employee involvement are significant predictors of enhanced lecturers’ performance, and working condition strengthens the recruitment and selection–performance connection and employee involvement–performance relationship. This implies that the link between HR practices and enhanced performance could be affected by the environment within which organizations operate. The present study focused mainly on teaching staff from the polytechnics located in the north-central geopolitical zone of Nigeria. Thus, other geopolitical zones and non-teaching staff from various polytechnics could be studied further by future studies.

Teacher leadership and teacher identity in turbulent times in Iraq

This article addresses the professional challenges faced by teacher leaders in Iraq. The country is beginning to emerge from a period of political unrest and violent threats to personal safety. This has seriously affected the educational provision; nowhere more so than in Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city. The article examines three issues: how teacher-leaders describe and understand their empowerment to build inclusive education systems in the post-conflict city; how professional learning communities can support inclusive practices to optimise students’ learning and build community cohesion; and what role digital skills can play in the modernisation of an inclusive Iraqi curriculum. The naturalistic enquiry approach draws on interview data from two teachers, two headteachers and two inspectors; the latter work directly with the Iraqi Ministry of Education and local communities. The findings show that, as teacher leaders reframe their understanding of the role of educational leaders in the changing context of Iraq, they become better empowered to build sustainable learning communities. Digital skills are crucial in supporting learning within and beyond the school curriculum.

The architecture of school governance: Rebuilding democratic legitimacy within an academized system

Successive governments, in embracing a neoliberalist ideology of decentralization and privatization, have radically reformed the nature of community-based, comprehensive state education. The transition from ‘government to governance’ (Rhodes, 1997) combined with the ideology of academization (DfE, 2010a) has created a democratic deficit 1 (Corbett, 1977). Academies are placed outside of local elected scrutiny or community-based accountability systems and governance legitimacy is in crisis (Glatter, 2013). This article explores the problematization of academized governance (Allen and Gann, 2017) with respect to the democratic deficit and the consequential lack of stakeholder engagement – argued as unethical within a democratic society and a system that frequently leads to failings of accountability (Wilkins, 2016). Utilizing the conceptual lens of Empowered Participatory Governance (EPG) (Fung and Wright, 2003), the authors seek to present a new architecture of governance that seeks to restore democratic legitimacy. Democratic governance innovations, the micro-governance network (Allen, 2017) and a refreshed local education board (Gann, 2021) provide a new architecture for a post new governance environment and, in so doing, a counter-narrative to the rhetoric of academization.

Unbundling the approach to teaching in online Australian higher education

This paper illustrates how unbundling has progressed from university-controlled approaches to incorporating partnership organisations into the delivery of university functions, specifically teaching. In this paper, we limit the scope of unbundling to the management of online teachers using three Australian case studies. In the first section, we review the literature for reasons that support unbundling the teaching approach, the effectiveness of this approach, and criticisms posed. Then we use aspects of the literature to present an unbundled teaching hierarchy. We use three examples from the hierarchy in the context of three Australian case studies that are illustrative of how online teachers are managed in Australian higher education. As discussed in this paper, the opportunities and challenges associated with unbundling university teaching have implications for the quality of the student experience, teacher experience, and cost effectiveness for institutions.

The forgotten ECEC staff working with birth-to-3-year-olds: The imbalances between the workforce policies and ECEC staff employment conditions in Spain

In response to an international focus on Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC), Spanish scholars have recently started to explore the participation of early years practitioners in their educational organisations and their views on working conditions. However, a comprehensive review of the current challenges experienced by the Under 3 s early years educators and the examination of the imbalances in workforce policy and working conditions on literature, has thus far not been conducted. Three themes are identified related to the professional developmental path within the school settings that the Spanish ECEC educators follow. The first relates to the educators’ initial ECEC education and training, who the staff caring for this age group are, and how prepared they are. The second is linked to the ECEC programs available for children from birth until they reach three years, and how and where the inclusive programs are delivered to this age group, as well as the early years educators’ working conditions and the impact of the professional roles. Whereas the third relates to in-service professional development derived from interaction and collective learning. The article concludes with suggestions on how the practitioners’ professional development could operationalise policy requirements in order to achieve more inclusive and child-centred learning.

E-Learning during COVID-19: Understanding the Nexus between Instructional Innovation, E-Psychological Capital, and Online Behavioural Engagement

This current study is to empirically validate the importance of student's behavioural engagement on online teaching during a coronavirus-2019 disease pandemic. The global spread of coronavirus-2019 disease has affected every aspect of business, including education, resulting in the shift of classroom to online teaching. Keeping in view the growing concern about students’ attentiveness, connectivity, participation, and interaction in online classes, the authors underlined the critical need for paying empirical attention to this issue. While addressing a major empirical gap, the present study tested and found the significant role of e-learning efficacy, e-learning resilience, and teachers’ instructional innovation in boosting students` online behavioural engagement. Additionally, the study found a thought-provoking direct and interacting role of teachers’ instructional innovation. Therefore, the implications of the findings indicate that leaders in educational institutions need to invest in psychological resources that emphasize innovation and creativity in instructional methods for teachers to enhance student engagement in an online environment.