This thesis makes a conceptual contribution to the field of school leadership studies with a descriptive and analytical representation of the current practice and development of leaders in English Primary schools. The aim of the research is to investigate the development of nineteen school leaders, nesting their own vivid descriptions of their leadership development within a professional researcher enquiry for new knowledge and understanding. An extensive literature review locates the argument in a historical and cultural context, directed by the first research question: ‘What are the knowledge claims about the changes to school leadership and management in the policy and research literature in the last twenty-five years?’ The second research question asks: ‘What are the knowledge claims of the practice of school leadership in Primary schools as found in the official and research literature?’ Findings from the literature provide knowledge of the official expectations and advice given to school leaders in the implementation of their work. The literature also provides knowledge of leadership practice associated with issues of power, micro-politics, social and moral frames used by leaders as social agents in interpreting their leadership. Research questions three and four direct the field-research asking: ‘How are leadership roles practised and developed in Primary schools?’ and ‘What are the empirical findings that build knowledge of Primary school leadership practice and development?’ A case-study methodology structured the field-work, with qualitative research conducted in four Primary schools in North-West England during one academic year, 2008-2009. The empirical data for the case was primarily collected from nineteen members of four Senior Leadership Teams (SLT) through semi-structured interviews and observations of SLT meetings. The analysis of the full research findings is presented in an original construction of leadership, conceptualised as the PIVOT. This framework presents the key findings as integrated factors in a holistic frame around a central point, the PIVOT of leadership, which is explained as the Purpose, the Identity, the Values, the Options and the Trust, presenting wider issues for educational leadership decisions. The final research question five asks: ‘What recommendations can be made for policy and practice regarding school leadership development in Primary schools?’ Findings from the case-study make a contribution to knowledge about current school leadership practice and development, explained as a holistic, integrated approach underpinned by a wider, educative rationale, identified in the PIVOT framework. This raises issues for policy-makers and school practitioners in the development of Primary school leaders as educational leaders and provides a resource for further research enquiry by academic researchers with an interest in developing Primary school leaders.

Background: Research on rural educational leadership is often overlooked in educational research, specifically within the context of homegrown leaders, or leaders who have been lifelong residents in the districts where they were students, teachers, and now lead as principal. Rural districts face many challenges that differ from urban districts. Looking at how these homegrown leaders use transformational leadership to overcome these challenges can assist principal preparation programs in preparing administrators to lead in rural districts as well as policymakers as they look at policies and funding that impact rural districts. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to address the following research questions: 1) How do these participants identify themselves as educational leaders? 2) How do these rural principals, identified as transformational leaders, use transformational leadership to contend with challenges unique to rural districts? 3) Do the principals’ prior experience and personal history within a school district influence transformational leadership practices, such as building trust, maintaining a positive school culture, and enacting change? If so, how? Setting: Research for this study took place in two rural school districts in neighboring Midwestern states. The communities the participants in this study reside in are over 100 miles apart, yet both the school districts and towns share similar characteristics. These districts are housed in farming communities with a population between 1,500 and 1,800 residents. The demographics of both districts are very similar consisting of over 97% white students, with the town’s population matching that of the school. The similarities are also present in the physical description of the school sites and collaboration with neighboring districts. Both of these districts consist of one large building housing all students, and superintendent on the same campus, and share resources such as staff, transportation, and athletic and academic programs with neighboring districts. Participants: The two school principals in this study were chosen due to similar characteristics of being homegrown leaders who both reside in similar rural districts and communities in neighboring states. In addition to having similar contexts, the participants in this study share many similarities as well. Both are male and have lived in the district where they were former students, teachers, and coaches prior to becoming the school principal. In addition, both of the principals in this study were chosen via convenience sampling due to prior experience of the researcher within both of these communities and their qualifications of being homegrown leaders. Research Design: This is a qualitative case study analyzing two cases with two participants. Data Collection and Analysis: Data collected for this qualitative case study include multiple interviews with both participants; observations in school and community events; observations at staff, parent, and student meetings; district handbooks and information collected from the district website and state reporting agencies, including demographics, free and reduced lunch status, number of staff, per pupil funding, assessment scores, and school improvement plans. Open and axial coding is used to analyze data. Member checks, triangulation of data, memos, and peer review are used to help ensure validity. Findings: The findings of this study reveal that being a rural, homegrown, transformational leader is a strength to overcome rural challenges. These principals’ prior history and relationships within the district and community, as well as the deep understanding and background knowledge they have of the values and culture of the district and community, allow them an easier time building and maintaining trust and relationships, creating a positive school culture, and enacting change. Additionally, their understanding of the challenges of rural districts based on their prior knowledge as a student and teacher have given them foresight to help them better understand and manage the challenges they encounter specific to rural districts. Conclusions: This study demonstrates how transformational leadership assists rural principals in managing challenges specific to rural districts. Additionally, it adds to the literature addressing the challenges rural districts encounter from first hand experiences of two principals who have lived in their respective districts their whole lives. This study provides insight to principal preparation programs, especially those training principals in states with a high percentage of rural districts, regarding how transformational leadership can assist rural principals in managing the challenges they will encounter in a rural district. This study is also beneficial to rural superintendents as they look to hire new principals.

Thesis advisor: Patrick Proctor / This study aimed to explore middle leadership from a single K-12 district. To accomplish this, an exploratory, embedded single case study (Yin, 2018) was utilized. The district was the case while one elementary, middle, and high school were embedded “sub-units” in the case. A principal, middle leader, and 2 middle leader colleagues further represented each school. This method was employed in order to illuminate how middle leadership was experienced through multiple perspectives and contexts but within the same district. This dissertation also took a narrative approach, beginning in understanding the conditions that led to the creation of middle leadership roles, to the selection, conceptualization, and evaluations of middle leaders. Then, middle leaders were asked about how the district can further support their roles. Results indicated that external (standardized tests, changes in standards or curriculum) and internal (desire for district consistency and cohesion) and factors influenced the creation of middle leadership positions. Middle leaders were selected based on their teaching and leadership experiences. However, conceptualization of middle leaders in the district extended beyond teaching. In addition to teaching, middle leaders were also conceptualized as strategic planners, people with good interpersonal and communication skills, managers, coaches, and evaluators. Evaluation of middle leaders were based on state-based evaluation frameworks for teachers or administrators that showcased a misalignment of responsibility and evaluation processes. To support their roles in the district, middle leaders suggested a combination of internal and external support. Internally, they suggested the creation of a within-district, middle leader-specific professional learning community in order to have opportunities to share best practices and collectively think about problems and solutions. Externally, they would also appreciate the district’s support in attending formal professional development such as courses or certification programs. These results indicate that there is a need for middle leadership-specific classes, programs, and evaluation frameworks and that middle leaders would also benefit greatly in the creation of mentorship programs or professional learning communities. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2020. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction.

Thesis advisor: Lauri Johnson / This qualitative case study, part of a larger group study about how leaders support marginalized student populations in a Massachusetts school district, explored how leaders develop and maintain cultural awareness and self-reflection for themselves and for their teachers. The study asked: 1) How, if at all, does the leader develop and maintain critical self-reflection to support marginalized populations? And 2) What leadership practices does the leader enact, if at all, to engage teachers in cultural awareness and self-reflection? Data was gathered and analyzed from 20 semi-structured interviews, including the superintendent, two assistant superintendents, director of bilingual education, two secondary level principals, two elementary level principals, and 12 teachers, and document reviews. Findings indicate that almost all of the leader participants exhibited cultural awareness and reflectiveness which was attributed to either feeling marginalized themselves, or through childhood and professional experiences. Leaders utilized a variety of leadership practices to maintain their awareness, engage in self-reflection, and create more equitable environments for marginalized students, but these practices were not consistent, embedded, or persistent. Implications of this study reveal that district and school leadership practices to enact cultural awareness and self-reflection of leaders and teachers are critical to effectively address inequities and to support marginalized students. / Thesis (EdD) — Boston College, 2020. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.

It is well known that leadership plays a key role in the overall success of school and learner achievement. Therefore, this multiple case study investigates what developmental programmes and training opportunities are in place to prepare HoDs to meet the demands of a formal leadership position. How these programmes are perceived by HoDs s also be outlined and analysed. The importance of the role that HoDs fulfil in schools is explored, as well as the importance of investing in their leadership development through formal and informal leadership developmental programmes. This qualitative study used interview data obtained from eight purposefully sampled recently appointed Heads of Department (HoDs) in public primary schools in Pretoria. This study outlined the importance of middle managers, such as HoDs and what measures need to be taken into account to ensure they are adequately prepared to meet expectations. / Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria 2020. / Education Management and Policy Studies / MEd / Unrestricted

School principals lead and manage schools to achieve success. However, some schools are located in multiple deprived contexts, which affect the school internally and externally. Little is known about how principals in well-performing schools manage teaching and learning despite the contextual challenges. This study explored the role of successful school principals managing teaching and learning in schools in multiple deprived contexts in Gauteng Province. A qualitative case study within a constructive / interpretivist paradigm was adopted for the research. The theoretical framework of this study is grounded in the Context-Responsive Leadership theory by Bredeson, Klar and Johansson. Eleven secondary schools performing well in the Senior Certificate Examination in Tshwane North District were purposefully selected for the study. The school principals were the participants in this study. The data was obtained from different sources which include semi-structured interviews, observations and documents review. The data was thematically analysed and the results were categorised according to themes and sub-themes. The findings of the study highlight the economic and social factors used by the principals to describe the context of their schools as well as other external and internal factors that affected teaching and learning. Collaborative leadership, as well as instructional leadership of the school principal, seem to be a common strategy used by the principals of successful schools to overcome the contextual challenges. The principals also applied other relevant context-responsive leadership practices in their multiple deprived schools. The study concluded that leadership practices of school principals seemed to be based on an understanding and interaction of self and the context in which the school operates. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2019. / Education Management and Policy Studies / PhD / Unrestricted

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Thesis advisor: Shanta Pandey / Thesis advisor: Eduardo Abarzua / Stress among school workers and teachers is a growing global concern, specifically in Chile. This has worsened in post-pandemic times. School leadership can be a key factor for school performance and employee well-being. In Chile, although research in this area is still limited, it has suggested the importance of the role of school leaders in the work environment. The local context seems to affect the school leaders’ capacity to promote well-being. While the leaders’ influence on workers’ work stress and well-being is well established, we don’t know its mechanisms. It is not clear how personal and local contextual factors that influence school leaders' ability to manage work psychological risks are associated with work stress. Informed by conceptual frameworks of risk management, this dissertation helps to address current gaps in knowledge by probing the impact that leaders have on work stressors in a school setting within a school district in Chile. The author used mixed methods to accomplish this study’s objectives. Quantitative data were obtained from the Questionnaire of Psychosocial Risk Surveillance in the Workplace collected from 1,194 school workers of Talcahuano School District (DAEM) in 2018. The Qualitative data was obtained by conducting 12 semi-structured interviews with principals and pedagogical heads of the Talcahuano School District in 2022.Four key findings from this study will advance empirical knowledge of School leaders' abilities to manage and change the work environment: (1) The extent of school leaders’ influence on job stress is significant and relative. This influence is not the same for all psychosocial risks; for some, the leaders had no impact. Also, leaders’ capacity to influence the work environment varied by the school setting's meso and macro level factors that constrain leaders' abilities to mitigate these risks. (2) In addition to contextual constraints, School leadership substantially influences some risk factors compared to other predictors related to the school context and school leader characteristics. In the quantitative analysis, Quality of Leadership is a significant predictor of some stress-related risks and alone explains 8% of the variance in Psychological Demand and 23% of the variance in Meaningful Work. Qualitative results also suggest some possible ways for leaders’ practices and behaviors to influence other risks. (3) Leaders' general approach to work stress is characterized by their idea that work stress is a reaction to the whole environment of the educational system (micro, meso) and that they can manage stress among staff by focusing primarily on the socio-emotional aspect of the school and its environment. (4) School leaders implied that they can better reduce the stress level of workers with support at the meso and macro levels of management. The results also shed light on trends in pandemic and post-pandemic Schools’ work-stress. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2023. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Social Work. / Discipline: Social Work.

While scholars have investigated the impact of school start times on adolescent students, there is limited research on how school start times affect teachers. In addition, recent reports of declining teacher morale emphasize the need for further study on influences of teacher satisfaction. Using secondary analysis of data from the 2017–18 National Teachers and Principals Survey (NTPS), this study measured relationships between school start times and other characteristics of responding teachers (n = 44,319) and their schools. The results identified trends in school start times by school level and community density. In addition, a statistically significant positive relationship between school start time and teacher satisfaction was found, as well a statistically significant negative relationship between school end time and teacher satisfaction. These findings suggest a need for further research on the association between school schedules and teacher satisfaction, but other variables appear to have a stronger influence on teacher satisfaction, such as teacher engagement in professional development. / Educational Leadership