This research is underpinned by a conceptual framework which is based upon the theory that the principal should share leadership responsibilities with educators to inspire commitment in creating a quality learning environment. The research investigates the role of the principal in creating a quality learning environment to improve school performance and the achievement of its learners. The research considered complexities surrounding educational reforms which require a collaborative approach wherein the principal invites educators to participate in a discussion on how instructional activities should be conducted in a school. When principals who are instructional leaders accept their instructional role and exercise it in collaboration with educators, they practice an integrated form of leadership. This report is relevant in the South African context because the situation in South Africa is made critical by the introduction of a new curriculum framework which requires an approach which will emphasise the principal’s interactive role with educators in the central area of curriculum, instruction and assessment. Shared instructional leadership is an inclusive concept, compatible with competent and empowered educators. Educators assume leadership responsibility when they interact with other adults in the school community around school reform efforts, encourage others to improve their professional practice, or learn together with their school colleagues (Moller & Katzenmeyer, 1996). iii A qualitative methodology was used which involved a secondary school in Gauteng.This case study was undertaken to establish the principal’s and educators’ perception of the role of the principal as an instructional leader. Although limited in its scope, the research revealed valuable information which identified contextual factors such as socio-economic, organizational climate and educator commitment which concluded that these are factors which play a significant role in creating a quality learning environment. What is needed in South Africa for a quality education to take place is an inclusive approach to leadership to promote a school climate supportive of teaching and learning. Instructional leadershipis shared, therefore, in that specific leadership functions are carried out by designated staff members working in collaboration, under the guidance and direction of the principal.

The purpose of this study was to determine what sources of professional knowledge are available to principals in 1 rural East Tennessee school district. Qualitative research methods were applied to gain an understanding of what sources of knowledge are used by school principals in 1 rural East Tennessee school district and the barriers they face to using knowledge sources. This study questioned whether these resources are adequate for, accessible to, and used by school principals. In this study I examined principals’ perceptions of the need for a district-led mentoring program. The study first consisted of a preliminary data collection procedure. Ten of the school district’s principals completed a demographic questionnaire and list of survey questions developed from the 4 research questions and elements of the literature review. These data were reviewed by the researcher in order to categorize the respondents’ responses into meaningful demographic data. The final data collection procedure involved 6 principals chosen to complete face-to-face interviews consisting of open-ended questions developed from an initial interview protocol. Results indicated the principals’ examples of seeking knowledge and information from data sources, collegial professionalism, readings of research and literature, and professional development. The principals presented evidence that they embrace teaching and learning within their roles as school principals. The 2 areas on which the principals focused their concerns were time and the current state department educational reforms. The principals provided recommendations for a future district-wide principal mentoring program.

The focus of this study was a comparison between the perceptions of school-based licensed educators in Title I and non-Title I schools in Northeast Tennessee as measured by the TELL Tennessee Survey and each school’s overall composite TVAAS score. The factor variables were professional development, instructional practices and support, teacher leadership, and school leadership. This dissertation was a quantitative study of teachers’ perceptions of data-driven professional learning and TVAAS composite scores. A one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted to evaluate the difference between teachers’ perceptions of data-driven professional development and student TVAAS data. An independent samples t-test was used to evaluate the difference between teachers’ perceptions and poverty levels, as determined by Title I status. The dependent variable was the response to the TELL Tennessee survey questions by Northeast Tennessee school-based licensed educators. Research indicated no significant difference in Northeast Tennessee teachers’ perceptions of professional learning as measured by the TELL Tennessee survey in the dimensions of professional development, instructional practices and support, and teacher leadership as related to TVAAS composite scores. The research found a significant difference in teachers’ perceptions in the dimension of school leadership as related to TVAAS composite scores. There were no significant differences in teachers’ perceptions as measured by the TELL Tennessee survey in the dimensions of professional development, instructional practices and support, teacher leadership, and school leadership between Title I and non-Title I schools.

The present study thesis aims to contribute to increased knowledge about how a shared leadership in the school can be constructed and understood. The study's knowledge object is shared leadership in the school. The study objects are school leaders who work together as well as their ideas about how they jointly construct a shared leadership in the school. In the present study, school leaders refer to the persons at the school who are the head of the teachers and other staff, with the task of leading the school's activities. This can thus be a principal or an assistant principal. The thesis is based on a qualitative study with interviews of school leaders who work together in what can be described as shared leadership. The interviews were conducted in pairs using a technique that in Swedish school development research has come to be called an interview with a performance chart. In the interviews, the school leaders who participated in the study were given the opportunity to jointly design the leadership as they perceived it to be designed whitin their activities. The study describes, analyzes and discusses these social constructions. The starting point for the analysis and the subsequent discussion is linked to previous research on shared leadership and organizational theory's way of managing leadership in relation to the business's need for structures that enable both stability and change. Based on an organizational argument, I discuss how school leaders working in shared leadership distribute tasks among themselves and how this distribution affects work organization and development organization. On the basis of the social constructivist theory as a theory of science in the study, I have found hermeneutics useful to describe how I have interpreted my results. The result shows that the different pairs of leaders lead with different kinds of shared leadership: co-leadership, functional leadership and in some cases even a mixture of these. The time spent on building a shared base for shared leadership influences the form of shared leadership that was constructed. The more time that was devoted to talking to each other and creating a common foundation to stand on, the more the school leaders came to lead together in a so-called co-leadership. Unless joint time was allocated, there was a tendency to divide work tasks between themselves and lead through functional leadership.

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to critically analyze the experiences and practices of Inland Empire urban school principals as they work to close the African American achievement gap. The achievement gap begins in elementary school and continues to persist throughout elementary and secondary schools producing differences in high school graduation rates, college and career attainment, and ultimately socio-economic differences in income between various racial and ethnic groups. We know the impact of school principals on student achievement is significant. The literature demonstrates that school principals play a key role in developing the structures and systems necessary to improve the outcomes for urban schools and more specifically African American students. Ten school principals from a large urban Inland Empire school district participated in the study and served to provide their lived experiences while leading diverse schools. Findings indicated three emergent themes: (1) relationship builders, (2) caring environments, and (3) courageous leadership were influential in principals establishing and maintaining a school that was sensitive to the needs of African American students. Another major finding from the study demonstrated the impact that race still plays within the public school setting. Several of the study participants expressed their struggles with providing overt support of African American students. Implications of these findings underscore the need to build principal capacity to effectively meet the needs of African American students. Additionally, the findings demonstrate the importance of building organizational sensitivity to culture and diversity in an effort to build equitable schools.

The purpose of this autoethnographic narrative inquiry was for the researcher to describe and explain how he discovered, constructed, and refined his sense of moral purpose as a principal during his seven-year tenure at Orange Pines Middle School. He inductively analyzed and reflected primarily on self-authored texts tied to critical professional ethical dilemmas so as to discover emergent themes, patterns, insights, and epiphanies in the development of his persona as a morally directed school leader. He then analyzed and reflected on how he applied those defined values in interactions with groups of teachers to design and implement elements of school reform. He re-created these critical events through descriptive vignettes in which he captured personal and social implications of the experiences using Clandinin and Connelly's model of three-dimensional narrative space. In this study the researcher probed especially problematic ethical dilemmas he experienced while working as principal. He viewed the events through the multidimensional ethical frameworks of care, critique and justice of Starratt; the ethic of community described by Furman; and the ethic of the profession, posited by Shapiro and Stefkovich. Included is a discussion of moral purpose by Fullan and Sergiovanni, ethics by Begley, Senge, and others, leadership theories, and perspectives regarding interpersonal conflicts between principals and their staff. The researcher found the ethics of care, justice, critique, community, and the profession provided a useful framework for his professional reflections. He was able to describe and capture the tensions within the dilemmas through the specific language utilized by Starratt, Furman, and Shapiro and Stefkovich to analyze and understand the issues packed within each dilemma. Through the application of these frameworks he determined that his moral purpose has been to approach the position of school leadership with a combination of compassion and justice, in order to establish a collaborative and synergistic school community that works for the greater good of students. The study calls for more autoethnographic research into the dilemmas administrators teachers face in their daily practice, arguing that the best way to improve public education in this era of intense scrutiny and accountability is through the qualitative analysis of individual cases. The author places his particular constructivist approach to autoethnographic narrative inquiry within the broader philosophical background of qualitative research. This study contributes to the literature by showing focused insights into how representative ethical conflicts and dilemmas school leaders face during their daily practice can shape and guide their moral pursuit of effective school reform. It also shows ways that theoretical knowledge can inform professional practice.

<p>Heterogeneous school communities are becoming more apparent under local and global conditions. A school community is more diverse and similar, not only racially but also in respect of&nbsp / economic, cultural, national and ethnic identities. Schools would require leaders who are mindful of the need for conflict sensitivity and social reconciliation within a globalising&nbsp / classroom.Through the lens of critical constructivism, I investigated the extent to which a higher education institution achieved the aims of the ACE in School Leadership, a continuing&nbsp / professional development programme. I relied upon a qualitative research approach to gather rich descriptive data from interviews conducted with nine school leaders who had graduated from the ACE School Leadership programme. The Literature Review is based on readings regarding critical constructivism, globalisation, conflict‐sensitivity and reconciliation.I found that the&nbsp / programme expanded the school leaders&rsquo / basic knowledge about conflict sensitivity and social reconciliation, but not sufficiently in terms of developing a critical consciousness to deal with&nbsp / conflict effectively. I concluded that conflict‐sensitive schools required school leaders that produced knowledge critically through a rigorous process of engagement and reflection. The ACE School Leadership programme had limitations in the extent to which it could prepare and equip school leaders in this regard.</p>

This study explored forms of distributed leadership in schools and the relationship between these forms and various personal and organizational factors. Though all empirical constructs used in this study were carefully grounded in the existing literature on the topic, the organization and empirical investigation of these constructs in a systemic manner is a distinct contribution of the study. The research was conducted in one large Ontario district that had been promoting distribute leadership for years. The evidence consisted of the surveys of 92 principals, 52 vice-principals, and 2190 teachers from the district’s elementary schools. Various statistical analyses, including descriptive, correlation, regression, and multi-level modeling analyses, were used to analyze the gathered data. In the study schools, administrators and teachers perceived leadership for high-priority school initiatives being mostly distributed in an egalitarian and coordinated manner. They also associated this coordinated way of distribution with wider distribution of leadership. At the same time, teachers often experienced leadership being distributed by principals in an authoritative manner as well. This finding indicates that principal delegation remains a dominant form of leadership and should be studied alongside more egalitarian distributed forms. This research brings to light the differences in principals’, vice-principals’, teacher-leaders’, and classroom teachers’ experiences with distributed leadership. It is recommended for researchers to take into account these differences in their studies of school leadership. District and school leaders should also consider staff’s varied leadership experiences while developing distributed leadership forms in schools. The study also suggests that school conditions have more effect on the way leadership gets distributed in schools than personal beliefs and experiences of principals, vice-principals, and teachers do. This implies that in order to develop extensive and coordinated distributed leadership forms, which are believed to be more productive, school administrators should devote considerable effort to encourage teachers’ engagement in leadership activities, build cultures of trust and collaboration, develop structures supporting shared decision making, ensure staff’s commitment to shared goals and provide incentives and relevant resources.

This study explored forms of distributed leadership in schools and the relationship between these forms and various personal and organizational factors. Though all empirical constructs used in this study were carefully grounded in the existing literature on the topic, the organization and empirical investigation of these constructs in a systemic manner is a distinct contribution of the study. The research was conducted in one large Ontario district that had been promoting distribute leadership for years. The evidence consisted of the surveys of 92 principals, 52 vice-principals, and 2190 teachers from the district’s elementary schools. Various statistical analyses, including descriptive, correlation, regression, and multi-level modeling analyses, were used to analyze the gathered data. In the study schools, administrators and teachers perceived leadership for high-priority school initiatives being mostly distributed in an egalitarian and coordinated manner. They also associated this coordinated way of distribution with wider distribution of leadership. At the same time, teachers often experienced leadership being distributed by principals in an authoritative manner as well. This finding indicates that principal delegation remains a dominant form of leadership and should be studied alongside more egalitarian distributed forms. This research brings to light the differences in principals’, vice-principals’, teacher-leaders’, and classroom teachers’ experiences with distributed leadership. It is recommended for researchers to take into account these differences in their studies of school leadership. District and school leaders should also consider staff’s varied leadership experiences while developing distributed leadership forms in schools. The study also suggests that school conditions have more effect on the way leadership gets distributed in schools than personal beliefs and experiences of principals, vice-principals, and teachers do. This implies that in order to develop extensive and coordinated distributed leadership forms, which are believed to be more productive, school administrators should devote considerable effort to encourage teachers’ engagement in leadership activities, build cultures of trust and collaboration, develop structures supporting shared decision making, ensure staff’s commitment to shared goals and provide incentives and relevant resources.

<p>Heterogeneous school communities are becoming more apparent under local and global conditions. A school community is more diverse and similar, not only racially but also in respect of&nbsp / economic, cultural, national and ethnic identities. Schools would require leaders who are mindful of the need for conflict sensitivity and social reconciliation within a globalising&nbsp / classroom.Through the lens of critical constructivism, I investigated the extent to which a higher education institution achieved the aims of the ACE in School Leadership, a continuing&nbsp / professional development programme. I relied upon a qualitative research approach to gather rich descriptive data from interviews conducted with nine school leaders who had graduated from the ACE School Leadership programme. The Literature Review is based on readings regarding critical constructivism, globalisation, conflict‐sensitivity and reconciliation.I found that the&nbsp / programme expanded the school leaders&rsquo / basic knowledge about conflict sensitivity and social reconciliation, but not sufficiently in terms of developing a critical consciousness to deal with&nbsp / conflict effectively. I concluded that conflict‐sensitive schools required school leaders that produced knowledge critically through a rigorous process of engagement and reflection. The ACE School Leadership programme had limitations in the extent to which it could prepare and equip school leaders in this regard.</p>