If judged against prevailing understandings of community schools (CSs) in the scholarly literature, all Romanian schools should qualify as CSs in light of the regulatory framework. However, few Romanian schools are genuinely CSs. This article describes a recent NGO-led initiative to assist Romanian schools in becoming CSs and explores the nature…

Over the past 20 years, federal and state reforms have drawn on heavy-handed attempts to close the achievement gap through top-down management of teachers. Such approaches have often included high-stakes accountability systems that mandate what to teach and how to teach it and that evaluate teachers on the basis of annual standardized test scores.…

This article reports on the collaborative efforts undertaken for systematic statewide support for the recruitment, development, and retention of quality leaders in schools and school districts in Kansas, USA. The author presents the case of a strong sense of "collaboration" that made the difference and stimulated movement from vision…

A rapprochement between managerialism and collegialism has become commonplace within policy discussion on governance within higher education. Processes of deliberation within university governance are suggested as one means of fostering this apparent accord. I suggest that Dryzek's notion of meta-consensus can assist processes of deliberative…

Urban schools often experience rapid turnover among teachers and leaders. Yet, research and practice highlight the importance of sustained leadership over time as an integral component of school improvement. Successful leadership requires principals who operate in multiple dimensions at once, moving from individual capacity to group empowerment,…

This article presents an alternative participatory pedagogy in Early Years as a contribution to the promotion of equity and social justice for children, particularly those from ethnic minorities and low income families, enhancing their chances of educational success. The development of mass education was implemented in many countries by…

The scientific community has provided a wide range of evidence that family and community involvement in schools benefits not only students' learning but also their surrounding community. The INCLUD-ED project has conducted case studies of successful schools around Europe that have strong community participation. Some of them are engaged in the…

This article aims at analysing and discussing student participation in Portuguese higher education institutions and, specifically, in university governance. In a first moment, it describes this participation under both the previous (1988-2007) and the new legal frameworks (since 2007). A discussion of the changes introduced by this last framework…

Education for citizenship is firmly on the policy agenda throughout Britain, and there is an expectation that teachers will create a participative, consultative ethos in schools. This paper identifies three main vehicles for pupil consultation: elected pupil councils, democratic and participative classrooms and opportunities for pupils to engage…

This paper reports an evaluation of Quality Teaching Action Learning (QTAL) projects conducted at New South Wales (NSW), Australia public (state) primary and secondary schools and explores how distributed leadership facilitated and was an outcome of the QTAL projects. The evaluation encompassed all 50 projects at 82 NSW public schools, and nine of…

The values and principles underpinning the "Leadership for Learning: Cambridge Network" support the distribution of leadership to all members of the school community. This paper introduces the HCD (Highest Common Denominator) Student Partnership as a key way in which the "Leadership for Learning" team learns from, explores and…

The purpose of this article is to improve our understanding of data-driven decision-making strategies that are initiated at the district or system level. We apply principal-agent theory to the analysis of qualitative data gathered in a case study of 4 urban school systems. Our findings suggest educators at the school level need not only systemic…

This article describes and reflects on a novel course developed at China Agricultural University to introduce Community-Based Natural Resource Management at the postgraduate level. This course, part of a larger educational renewal initiative addressing the current reform of China's higher education system, was developed through a participatory…

Used Jungian psychodynamics in investigation of participative community planning to enhance interpersonal cooperation, initiated primarily to aid the economic revival of Montana. Used search conference technique with Jungian psychodynamics and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator to achieve better understanding of group economic revitalization.…

Describes one principal's experience working with teachers to overcome their reluctance to collaborate in the decision-making process. Includes guidelines for effective group participation. (PKP)