In Australia, traditionally a wide range of measures have been used to identify academically successful schools. The mix of these measures has varied from state to state. But recently, added to this mix, and perhaps becoming the most influential factor, has been the examination results of senior students. These have become far more available to the prospective parents and governing bodies. They are used to gauge the ranking of the school, and to whether parents can expect their children to gain entry into the more prestigious tertiary programs available. But these scores are also being used to rank staff, and in turn, the ‘quality’ of staff becomes yet another factor in identifying an academically successful school. In other words, the notion of high stakes testing is gaining wide spread use across all forms of schooling in Australia, including State, Independent and Catholic schools. This thesis is about teachers in academically successful Christian Brothers’ schools. It is an interpretive study that seeks to understand how these teachers respond to this form of assessment: high stakes testing. Their responses include emotional responses, how they change their teaching style and how they feel about teaching in Christian Brothers’ schools striving for academic success. In this research I interviewed teachers and administrators at three academically successful Christian Brothers’ schools in three different states in Australia. I developed three cases from these interviews and document searches, one drawn from each school, that indicate the range of issues that emerged, for them, as teachers in academically successful Christian Brothers’ schools. The specific use of high stakes testing was found to be very different in each of the schools. One school used high stakes testing as an accountability measure for staff, another used it as an accountability measure for students, and the third had no history of using high stakes testing. The study concludes that academic excellence can be achieved in Christian Brothers’ schools whilst remaining faithful to the ethos that underpins these schools: the Charism of Edmund Rice. Significant factors in the determination of the successful implementation of high stakes testing in these schools were found to be: the effect of senior management; influence of the media; the influence of culture; and changing culture and the nature of the schools. The thesis concludes with a blueprint for a hypothetical Christian Brothers’ school to follow that may lead to academic success.

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This study sought to understand the impact of a leader’s social justice orientation on their praxis of social justice. The study also sought to discover the successes and challenges associated with enacting social justice. Nine Catholic secondary school leaders in the California Archdiocese participated in the study. Semi-structured interviews and document analysis were used to understand how social justice orientation affects social justice praxis. The data analysis indicates that the social justice outcomes of a school site are greatly impacted by the school leader’s justice-orientation. Findings revealed that justice-orientation is dependent on two factors: the self-efficacy of the leader and the social justice impact of the leader’s actions. These two factors determine a leader’s position on the justice orientation continuum. The implications of these findings are discussed.

本研究係對台灣天主教中等學校校長道德領導、學校組織健康與學校效能三個變項進行受訪教職員知覺調查與描述、比較不同背景變項的教職員差異是否顯著、探討校長道德領導、學校組織健康對學校效能相關性及預測性，依據研究所得結論,分別對台灣天主教中等學校董事會、學校當局、教育人員及後續研究者提出建議，以做為推展校長道德領導、精進學校組織健康及提高學校效能之參考。 本研究使用問卷調查法，以t檢訂、單因子變異數分析、皮爾森積差相關、多元迴歸等統計方法，探討台灣天主教中等學校校長道德領導、學校組織健康與學校效能之關係。 經由文獻的蒐集與探討，提出本研究的研究架構模式圖。研究對象為台灣天主教中等學校435位教職員，研究工具係組合陳浩、秦夢群、蔡玲玲三位各自編寫之「校長道德領導」、「學校組織健康」與「學校效能」問卷。 透過統計分析與討論,本研究獲得以下結論: 一、台灣天主教中等學校教職員知覺校長道德領導、學校組織健康與學校效能之現況屬中高程度。 二、台灣天主教中等學校教職員在人員背景變項對校長道德領導、學校組織健康與學校效能的知覺，大部分未達顯著差異。 三、台灣天主教中等學校校長道德領導、學校組織健康與學校效能三者間具有正向關聯性。 四、台灣天主教中等學校校長道德領導與學校組織健康對學校效能均具有正向預測力。 / This study aims to examine the relationship among the principals’ moral leadership, school organization health, and school effectiveness in Taiwan Catholic secondary schools. Through the organization status description, comparison between different teacher background variables, the correlation with the principals’ moral leadership, school organizational health to forecast school effectiveness was discussed. Finally, it proposes suggestions for Taiwan's Catholic secondary school boards, school authorities, educators and subsequent researchers for further improvement of school effectiveness. This study uses questionnaires survey, t test, one-way analysis of variance, Pearson product-moment correlation, multiple regression and other statistical methods to explore Taiwan's Catholic secondary school moral leadership, the organizational health and schools' effectiveness. Through the collection and discussion of the literature, this study proposes the study frmaework. The questionnaire interviewing 435 Taiwan Catholic secondary school faculties, is developed by the results of moral leadership, school organization and school effectiveness relationship of health from the research of Chen, Qin, and Tsai. Through statistical analysis and discussion, this study obtains the following conclusions: 1. Taiwan Catholic secondary school staff has medium-to-high perception of moral leadership, organizational status of school health and school performance. 2. Taiwan Catholic secondary school faculty staff’s background variancees show insignificant differences in surveying the principals’ moral leadership of principals, school organization and school effectiveness of health. 3. Taiwan Catholic secondary school moral leadership, school health and school performance of the organizations have a positive correlation. 4. Taiwan Catholic secondary school moral leadership and school organization health have a positive predictive power for the effectiveness of school.