There has been considerable debate about how macro and micro studies illuminate the policy process. This study acknowledges that central government has assumed the main responsibility for setting policy for school education. The research examines the way in which such policy is refined and shaped by micropolitical activity in a local education authority (LEA) in England, taking the process for producing four statutory and strategic Plans as the context. This is a qualitative study undertaken by an insider in the LEA, although I was not directly involved in the preparation of the Plans. Fifteen participants involved in the policy process were interviewed. Micropolitical activity of the individuals who participated in the process is explored; a key component of such- activity is the way in which the participants exercised power and influence and how this can be understood in relation to existing conceptualisations of power. One of the key themes arising from the study is that Elected Members and officers in the LEA, as 'elites', have significant influence on how central government policy is refined. Their influence was moderated to some extent by key stakeholders such as headteachers and governors in the education service who were generally positive about their contributions to the policy process. However, a number of parents who were also involved in the consultations as the Plans were prepared felt that their views were not given sufficient consideration and as a consequence they expressed a degree of frustration with the process. Although there was a commitment to public consultations, many of the important decisions on the detail of the content of some of the Plans were taken in meetings in private between Elected Members and officers. The research has demonstrated how agenda setting and the management of meetings and consultations can circumscribe the areas for discussion, a matter of which Elected Members and officers need to be aware.

The promotion of innovation is a theme that is commonly found in many Labour Government policies and publications since 1997, especially in education. However, in practice, innovation is often difficult to define and can be challenging to implement. Since April 2000, small (Excellence in Cities) Education Action Zones have been developed as one strand of the Government's 'Excellence in Cities' (EiC) programme to raise standards of education in deprived urban areas of England. The whole Education Action Zone initiative (both large and small) has been promoted by the Government as a test-bed for innovation in order to improve educational standards. This study reviews the development of the Education Action Zone initiative and through an empirical study, investigates the impact that the introduction of small (EiC) Education Action Zones has had on stimulating educational innovation in zone schools in the inner city areas of England. The study considers how the directors of the small zones have interpreted the meaning of innovation, the types of innovation that have been implemented in the zones and the impact that these innovations have had on improving education provision in the zone schools, as well as the barriers and constraints that the directors have experienced when introducing innovations. The key findings from this study indicate that there is uncertainty about the meaning of innovation amongst zone directors, especially whether innovations have to be original ideas or just new within the context of their zone. The impact of the innovations that have been implemented so far is difficult to assess, due to the short timescales involved and the wide variety of innovations introduced. The innovations that have been introduced into the zones, mainly in the areas of pupil support, partnerships, curriculum, ICT and involving the wider community, have been new to the individual zones rather than 'new' per se. The zone directors do appear to have overcome many of the barriers and constraints that they have encountered when implementing innovations in the zones, resulting in thriving active partnerships developing between zone schools which should have positive outcomes for raising achievement in the future.

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This thesis studies the relationship between practices in learning organisation and social practices at the Abu Dhabi Education Council (ADEC). The research domain was broken down into six research (questions), which affect the development of a learning organisation at ADEC. 1) What is the impact of the roles of leaders on developing learning organisation characteristics with in ADEC? 2) What is the impact of the relationship between leaders and followers on developing learning organisation characteristics with in ADEC? 3) What is the impact of training and professional development on developing learning organisation characteristics with in ADEC? 4) What is the impact of social practices on developing learning organisation characteristics with in ADEC? 5) What is the impact of the teamwork on developing learning organisation characteristics with in ADEC? And 6) What is the impact of organisational factors (vision and mission of ADEC, division of work, information and reward system) on developing learning organisation characteristics with in ADEC? In order to answer the six research questions, interviews and focus groups were conducted with leaders and followers. The sample of study accounted for 10 leaders and 20 followers, four focus groups were conducted (two with leaders and two with followers) where 32 participants took part in the focus groups. The results of the study indicate that leaders do not play a supervisory or coaching role in the departments, which enables followers to work towards achieving the goal of being part of a learning organisation. The study found that leaders and followers have developed a good relationship based on accountability and transferability, and this has helped to transform ADEC into a learning organisation. It also shows that followers have not yet developed sufficient skills through training and workshops and formal education to enable them to learn. The study shows that social practices were the main motivator, encouraging leaders and followers to learn from one another and from expatriates. To summarise briefly, it can be concluded that ADEC has not yet become a learning organisation, and that further work is required to develop the role of its leaders, the relationship between its leaders and followers, and an effective reward system, as well as multiple sources of information.

The hypotheses for this thesis were developed in the early 1990s, following the implementation of the Education Reform Act, 1988, and relate to the possible impact of educational legislation on the secondary headteacher's role. Following a review of historical and contemporary literature, the research questions are developed using field study approaches. A number of issues are considered including secondary headteachers' perceptions of the effects of legislation on their role and potential changes in relationships and responsibilities. Of particular interest are the changed relationships with the governing body and the local education authority. Consideration is also given to the impact of government legislation on the headteacher's approaches to leadership. The author is particularly interested in examining the role of headship using Hughes' (1972) model of chief executive and leading professional to ascertain what changes have occurred over the past twenty years and the model's continuing relevance. After undertaking pilot studies, a postal questionnaire was used to survey all secondary headteachers in three shire counties. The outcomes of the survey indicate that changes have taken place in secondary headteachers' perceptions of their role, with less emphasis now being placed on leading professional aspects of headship and more on chief executive dimensions. The survey findings were categorised into a four quadrant model, which was used to develop approaches to the case study work. Four case studies were conducted to explore, in greater depth with headteachers and members of their role set, issues relating to the changing role of the secondary headteacher. During the case studies evidence was gathered from a variety of sources - interviews with the headteacher, review of documentation and interviews with five members of the headteachers' role set. Following an analysis and review of the evidence, the author has developed models to encapsulate the research outcomes. Hughes' model was found to be still relevant in the 1990s and suggestions have been made for updating his descriptors of leading professional and chief executive. The outcomes of the research have also been used to explore new approaches to secondary headship.

The thesis identifies current staff development issues in the United Kingdom through literature and research findings from the 1970's to the present. The focus of the research is to relate these issues to policy and practice in a global survey of British curriculum overseas schools with the central theme of "touching base" and the dilemmas of adopting British methodology. The case study material on professional development cultures (Glover and Law, 1996, p.p. 127-144) was used as the starting point for the questionnaire. The survey of 173 schools of all age ranges (which represents the target population in the European Council of International Schools database), illustrates the diversity of the staff development experiences of the 115 schools which replied, although they are linked by the common themes of isolation, financial constraints and staffing. These findings are supported in four case study schools in the Arabian Gulf which follow a British curriculum and represent the three major age range groups; primary, secondary and all-age range schools. The overall findings suggest the need for schools to adopt the idea of "internal consultancy" (Bennett 1997) and the need for a co-ordinator of staff development, and a model is suggested for this. Although the findings suggest that many staff are involved in their own professional development, in a climate of rapid change and increasing accountability, British overseas schools need to ensure that their management teams are sufficiently qualified to lead their schools into the new millennium and encourage staff development to occur in a strategically managed way.

This research emerged from an interest in education management at university level, aiming at studying the factors leading to the development, growth, and survival of the Lebanese American University (LAU) during the civil war and post war period i.e. from 1975-76 to 2000-01. The researcher used qualitative research to explain and understand how and why people at LAU accounted for, took actions, and managed their day-to-day lives during the period. The sample included eight people from the management group, eighteen faculty members and twelve alumni. The faculty members and alumni are divided into old-timers and new-timers, and the entire sample is divided into females and males. Semi-structured interviewing technique was used. In addition, the writer refers to magazines, bulletins issued by LAU, local and foreign journals and newspapers, and other published material. The investigation led to the development of three models for understanding leadership. The first model was developed from what theorists have said about the factors affecting leadership. The second describes the life cycle at LAU. The third model is a generalisation of LAU case, theorising about leadership during turbulent times. Findings show that institutions need a strong and rooted team spirit and a transformational, charismatic and distributive leadership (distributed among peer group) in order to face and survive turbulent times. The findings indicate the importance for institutions to adapt and change their internal culture(s) and their leadership style as environmental condition changes. When the force of change weakens, institutions enter a period of consolidation. The leadership style needed then is transformational, transactional, coupling delegated leadership with a distributive leadership (distributed among the management group).

The Education (Scotland) Act 1981 extended to parents the right to choose a school for their child subject to certain exclusions and restraints. This thesis examines such parents' decisions from the perspective of Expectancy theory. Three linked projects were carried out in Greenock and Edinburgh between 1982 and 1984. The first of these was a pilot study, which, although limited in scope and scale, clearly established the salience of the issue to parents. The second study was conducted by means of in-depth interviews with 45 parents within the catchment area of Ainslie Park High School in the North of the city of Edinburgh. For the third study, 110 parents from this, and an adjacent area were approached using a mailed questionnaire. The three studies in combination addressed the question of how parents were choosing to exercise their recently granted right. Parental choice as proposed by the Conservative government embodied certain assumptions central among which were that parents' desisions would be "informed" and of a sufficiently high quality to guide policy making at local levels. The research carried out in the three studies casts considerable doubt on this assumption. While parents' decisions could be successfully modelled using Expectancy Theory, its use was nevertheless shown to leave unanswered certain key issues within the process. The final model of parental choice proposed by the research attempts to both model and describe the process by which parents come to consider change, assess alternatives, and make their decisions. It does so using a synthesis of previously uncombined theoretical perspectives.

The thesis investigates a new method of solution of the school timetable problem. It uses the description of the problem in which the school's requirements are expressed in terms of year group layouts. the ziethod starts with a complete but infeasible timetable and proceeds to convert it into a feasible timetable. The infeasibilitios are reduced by interchanging meetings between pairs of periods. The interchanges used are the optimal solutions to small integer programming problems. Various strategies are defined which control the constraints and. objective functions that are generated. These interchange problems are solved by a new dynamic programming branch and bound algorithm. This interchange process is called phase one and it rapidly produces a tinetable which is either feasible or only contains a few infeasibilitios. Phase one cannot be guaranteea to always produce a feasible timetable when one exists. A second longer process, phase two, is defined which either finds a timetable with less infeasibilities or shows that the problem is infeasible. Phase two generates problems of the same form as the original but with less perioäs. These are solved by the phase one / phase two algorithm. The phase one / phase two algorithm is extended to solve problems which contain fixed periods or variable staff availabilitios. The phase one algorithm is extended also to solve problems with double periods. The phase one / phase two algorithm has been tested on four layout problems. For two of the problems feasible timetables were produced s, nä for the other two problems, timetables with better than 98 ö completion viere produced.