The leadership challenge addressed in this study focused on the policies and practice currently used in making college admission selections for graduate students and the criterion used to make these decisions using narrative and standardized application data. The research question analyzed this occurrence by searching for the best predictors of academic success that emerged from a group of women applicants in a Master of Arts in Psychology program taken from a private, adult-oriented University in Southern California. The research study randomly selected 50 graduate applications and applied grounded theory methodology to identify standardized and narrative trends to predict academic success. Using a framework provided by a 1989 GRE Board Research Report published by the Educational Testing Service, exploratory characteristics were applied to the applications. A comparison of the resulting themes to the candidates' progression in the graduate program occurred at the point of the first significant benchmark in the program, which was the advancement to candidacy. Throughout the study, the evolving data was applied to current leadership theory and policy reform concepts in higher education. This study revealed that the standardized and narrative application information provided limited corroboration of the ETS characteristics. Themes emerged, but due to the narrative prompt, little specificity occurred. In looking at predictors of academic success in graduate study in psychology, the following general clusters of themes emerged from the study: knowledge building predictors, diversity and cross-cultural predictors, learning opportunities predictors, and career planning and development predictors. If admission reform becomes an institutional value, graduate colleges will be confronted with four significant tasks: first to identify institutional objectives and predictors to be reflected in the application; second, to analyze the predictors in terms of the knowledge building skills which prospective students should possess; third, to select or develop simulations appropriate for the study of each applicant; and fourth, to encourage women for whom there is institutional fit and a reasonable probability of academic success to pursue graduate work.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether selected dimensions of school culture as measured by the School Culture Survey (SCS) (Valentine & Gruenert, 1998) were related to student academic achievement on Math, Reading, and Writing as measured by Arizona's Instrument for Measure Standards (AIMS). The SCS is a 35-item Likert, and the Likert is ranged from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree). The survey factored into six dimensions of school culture: Collaborative Leadership, Teacher Collaboration, Professional Development, Unity of Purpose, Collegial Support, and Learning Partnership. The school culture factor of Learning Partnership subscale was found to have a significant linear regression with Math, Reading, and Writing AIMS scores by analyzing the data from 1,120 teachers from a sample of 56 public elementary schools. A secondary purpose of this study was to determine whether school culture variables were associated with the characteristics such as principal's tenure, principal's gender, the number of administrators, the number of the teachers, the percentage of teachers earning a Masters Degree or higher, school size, school level, and socioeconomic status (SES). Principal Tenure and SES were found to have a significant linear regression with the school culture factor of Learning Partnership. A conclusion for the study is that the variance in student achievement in Math, Reading and Writing (AIMS) can be predicted and explained by the school culture factor of Learning Partnership, which is defined as the degree to which teacher, parents, and students work together for the common good of the students.

Educational reform movements have dominated educational arenas for decades. The public is demanding higher achievement of students and guarantees of equal opportunities and success for all. Many educational studies and articles document changes that need to occur, such as the implementation of high academic standards, effective teaching methodologies and leadership practices that support change. Some studies analyze how specific subgroups, e.g., race and gender, are influenced by the many educational reform movements across the nation, directed by local, state and federal entities, but few analyze how social class differences impact student achievement and future success. Even less scrutinize the specific behaviors used by educators that typically occur with different levels of social class, demonstrating unequal opportunities for students. This study utilizes specific and effective communication attributes used with teachers working with students from middle level socioeconomic backgrounds documented from another study and compares the findings to the same specific communication attributes used by school principals with their staff members during staff development meetings. The specific communication attributes are external and internal standards of authority, present versus future role orientation, cognitive skills and achievement, and verbal presentation skills. This study qualitatively examines the relationship of two principal-leaders working in middle schools with very different social class demographics. The study analyzes the types of communication attributes and behaviors commonly used by each principal during staff development meetings. The leader from the higher socioeconomic school consistently uses communication attributes that reinforce high expectations and effective techniques that promote problem-solving, critical thinking and self presentation skills. These specific communication attributes may serve as a learning model for teachers that may transfer to more effective classroom practices with students. The study also examines the characteristics and influences of social dominance in educational settings, effective leadership practices and the understanding of organizational culture, and how all of these foci illuminate the overall success of a school. The results of this study provide insight into how educational practices need to consider the knowledge of socioeconomic status and how this information can be used to establish more effective training opportunities for educational leaders.

This study attempted to investigate the characteristics of vocationalization and localization of program structure and curricular system at Chinese vocational universities. As a case, Nantong Vocational College was chosen for an in-depth study. Both interviews and document analysis were applied as data collection to reveal the nature of programs and curricula. A field research strategy was adopted. Institutional administration and external management network were examined and organizational behavioral change was analyzed. Both vocationalism and localism were developed and adopted at Chinese vocational universities along with China's modernization campaign and China's involvement into the global world. In this unique social transitional process, localization of global influence was visited as both significant and magnificent. The local economic structure was altered and a new labor market rose. In addition, China's national bureaucratic structure under the Communist Party of China and the central government played a decisive role in guiding the transition from the mandatory planned economy to a market oriented economy. In this turbulent social economic context, Nantong Vocational College was forced to internalize the institutional initiatives for adaptation to the external transformation. Consequently, the college organizational structure and management mechanisms altered both at the institutional and departmental levels. Business management strategy was adopted. Programs and curricula were further vocationalized and localized as a result in line with the globalized local economic structure. Academic pursuance retreated to vocational training, to job skill building and competency acquisition for local economic development and the needs of the labor market. Following conclusions are drawn: (1) Program structure and curricular system has changed and is changing toward vocationalism and localism. (2) Chinese vocational universities have become semi-political and semi-economic institutions serving the national interests under the guidance of the Party and the central government. (3) Program restructuring and curricular reconfiguration were initiated and managed to serve the changing local economic needs. (4) Institutional administration adopted business type mechanism for marketization and competition. (5) Global forces contributed to the localization of the institutional change.

Six female, Hispanic elementary school principals from a southwestern urban school district were asked to describe leadership for school change through personal narrative in response to two central questions: (1) How does the Latina elementary school principal define and enact leadership for school change? (2) How does the variable of ethnic culture interplay in the Latina educational leadership role? A phenomenological research approach was used to seek answers to these questions. The participants were interviewed on three separate occasions within a one-month period using three in-depth, phenomenological interviews designed to draw out the participants' subjective, intuitive, personal, and metaphorical interpretations of the meaning of educational leadership as well as to identify any leadership characteristics they might attribute to Latina culture. The participants' metaphors defining educational leadership depicted a vibrant living mosaic of a leader responsible for developing the human potential of children and adults on a stage with ever-changing directors, props, and costumes. The more literal definitions of leadership conveyed a common belief that leadership is a collaborative effort of moving others forward toward some defined goal, generally of improving student learning. They identified three unique features of educational leadership. Educating children and youth creates a different kind of leadership when one must accept all students. Secondly, educational leaders are change agents responding to reform agendas primarily emanating from government sources. Lastly, educational leaders must be able to deal with limited budgets in creative and resourceful ways. The participants described how Latina culture influenced their leadership development and roles. They reported various kinds of barriers, tensions, conflicts, and ambivalence in realizing education and career goals. However, they found ways to circumvent or transcend obstacles along their career paths All participants reported cultural differences in their leadership styles. Dominant features of Latina leadership included speaking Spanish and understanding Latino culture, respect, service, sense of family, empathy, and use of personal narratives. Three other themes emerged from their stories--their need to "prove" themselves in academic and professional endeavors, their passion and urgency to right inequities, and the need to serve as cultural "brokers" to lead others to greater cultural understanding.

This study investigated the perceptions of 11 successful elementary school principals from seven school districts in southern Arizona. The principals were identified by their district superintendent or assistant superintendent as exemplifying the eight characteristics of successful principals described by Joekel, Wendel and Hoke (1994). Qualitative methodology was used to inductively analyze and describe response data collected through in-depth interviews. These interviews consisted of open-ended questions regarding: effective leadership, school culture, vision, school improvement, empowerment, staff motivation, shared decision making, teacher instructional leadership, conflict, the changing nature of the principalship, and educational administration pre-service education. These perceptions were then compared to descriptions of effective practice as described in current literature on transformational leadership, leadership standards accepted by the National Policy Board for Educational Administration, and current literature on educational administration pre-service reform efforts. The following are some findings that emerged from this study. These successful principals placed the needs of students in the center of all their decision making. This appeared to be the prime transformational behavior that awakened intrinsic motivation among staff members. Moreover, they demonstrated transformational leadership behaviors that included meeting intrinsic needs of followers, visionary leadership, building collaborative school cultures, and putting teachers in roles of instructional leadership. However, despite the presence of these behaviors, it appeared that they had a poor objective understanding of the transformational epistemology. Specific recommendations were made to better prepare school leaders to be the transformational leaders that researchers believe are necessary to successfully lead schools as we approach the turn of the century. The principals in this study believed their pre-service educational administration program was inadequate in preparing them for their role as principals. They believed pre-service programs need to define a body of knowledge and create a cohesive curriculum to teach the skills that administrators need to know to be effective leaders in their schools. Specific recommendations were made to improve educational administration graduate programs.

This study utilized a correlational research design to investigate the relationships between facilitative, transformational and transactional leadership behaviors in elementary school principals. Quantitative data was collected on elementary teachers' perceptions of their building principal's leadership behaviors and leadership outcomes using two reliable and valid survey instruments, The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (Bass & Avolio, 1995) and The Leadership Practices Inventory (Kouzes & Posner, 1995). One hundred forty-six elementary teachers completed the complete Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire and a portion of The Leadership Practices Inventory that included only those questions that were designated by Kouzes and Posner (1995) to measure the construct enabling others to act. For the purposes of this research, facilitative leadership was operationally defined as enabling others to act, defined by Kouzes and Posner (1995) as fostering collaboration by promoting cooperative goals, strengthening others by giving power away, providing choice, developing competence, and offering visible support. Pearson's Product-Moment Coefficients were used to examine the relationships among principals' leadership outcomes and each of the three leadership constructs. Three multiple regression analyses were completed, one for each dependent variable of leadership outcomes, to determine which, if any, were significant predictors of a dependent variable. Facilitative leadership was the strongest predictor of each of the leadership outcomes of the principals' effectiveness (65% of the variance), the teachers' satisfaction with the principal (70% of the variance), and the teachers' willingness to put forth extra effort (63% of the variance).

The purpose of this study was to identify the relationships between principal leadership style and teacher empowerment. The principal leadership styles, transformational and transactional, were measured using the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ; Bass & Avolio, 1995). Six subscales of teacher empowerment, as identified by Short and Rinehart (1992), were measured using the School Participant Empowerment Scale (SPES; Short & Rinehart, 1992). This study was conducted in a large urban school district in the southwestern United States during the Spring of 2002. Subjects in this study were high school teachers who were serving on their high school's school council. Teachers provided their perceptions of their principal's leadership style and their own empowerment through their responses to the MLQ and SPES. They also provided information regarding the content of the meetings through their responses to a survey designed by the researcher. Seven hypotheses were tested using multivariate analysis of variance, univariate analysis of variance, regression analyses, and t-test. Significant positive correlations between transformational leadership and each of the empowerment subscales were observed. A significant negative correlation was observed between transactional leadership and the subscale Self-Efficacy. Marginally significant negative correlations were observed between transactional leadership and the other empowerment subscales. Significant relationships were observed between transformational leadership and the meeting content questions that addressed the frequency with which issues related to budget, curriculum and instruction, and facilities and operations were discussed. Significant relationships also existed between transformational leadership and the frequency with which council recommendations were carried out. Principal leadership style as reported by the teachers was not found to be significantly different among the principals in this study and all principals demonstrated higher levels of transformational than transactional leadership. Educational researchers have called for the practice of transformational leadership by principals, and for the empowerment of teachers, suggesting that they are essential to educational reform. This study confirms that significant positive relationships exist between transformational leadership and teacher empowerment, and demonstrates marginally significant negative correlations between transactional leadership and teacher empowerment.

Purpose of the study. The purpose of this study was to identify the relationship that exists between school culture and school safety. The principle school culture subscales measure (1) Collaborative Leadership, (2) Teacher Collaboration, (3) Professional Development, (4) Collegial Support, (5) Unity of Purpose, and (6) Learning Partnerships. The safety subscales utilized were (1) Valuing Influence of Teachers and Staff, (2) Feelings of Fear and Lack of Safety, (3) Stressors and Daily Discomforts, and (4) Positive Attitude Toward School Environment and Community. This relationship was surveyed using the School Culture Survey (Gruenert & Valentine, 1997) and the Inviting School Safety Survey (Lehr & Purkey, 1997) among seven metropolitan elementary schools in one Southwestern section of the United States. Procedures. The study included seven elementary schools. Teachers in each school were surveyed on numerous aspects of culture and safety. Teacher data were collected through surveys. Two hypotheses were tested using Pearson-Product Moment Correlation to determine if any of the six subscales of culture from the School Culture Survey correlate with the four safety subscales of the Inviting School Safety Survey. Ordinary Least Squared Regression was used to identify school culture factors that predict school safety factors. The six subscales of culture from the School Culture Survey were used as predictor variable for each of the four Inviting School Safety Scales. Findings. A high level of correlation was found between teachers' perceptions of school culture subscales with School Safety subscales when controlling for the variables of SES, percent of special education students, mobility rate, and number of students. A statistically significant predictive relationship was found for the School Culture subscales with each of the School Safety subscales. Low correlation and low predictive relationships was found for the six School Culture subscales with the School Safety subscale of Feelings of Fear and Lack of Safety. If schools are to be safe for all students, school leaders must change the culture of their schools.

<p> The knowledge that school principals acquire on the subject of leadership skills will provide them with a solid foundation for leading schools towards the success of their students, be it academic or social. The aim of this qualitative research, designed as a case study, was to determine how well prepared a school's principal is in leadership practices and in the competencies that are promoted by Emotional Intelligence to deal with the situations that take place in schools. During the investigative process the strategies that a principal uses to handle difficult situations were identified, as well as the insight that a principal has as a leader, the knowledge and mastery of leadership theories shown, and the understanding of Emotional Intelligence competencies. The data collection sources were interviews, reflexive diaries, and document reviews, which were used with the study sample. This sample was comprised of five principals of various school levels in the central area of the Island.</p><p> The findings indicate that most of the principals who participated in this study do not have a strong foundation in leadership skills and/or leadership competencies. The findings suggest coordination between the Puerto Rico Department of Education of (PRDE) and universities with the purpose of having masters programs that offer courses that strengthen the teaching of the diverse theories of leadership styles and that offer emotional intelligence courses aimed at educational environments, in a way that enables principals to be proficient in these skills and competencies when they assume their duties. Likewise, the findings recommend that PRDE continues to reinforce this foundation through professional workshops that will build upon the knowledge acquired; this will result in school principals that are well prepared in leadership skills and emotional intelligence competencies that will enable them to work effectively with the entire school community.</p>