Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the nature of socially distributed leadership in Denmark and the USA, specifically teacher and staff leadership practices distributed in schools. Design/methodology/approach: This study used a confirmatory factor analysis and a second-order factor analysis to examine elementary USA and 0-9 Danish…

Purpose: This paper aims to apply the garbage can model to identify factors that affect managerial decision-making processes in educational systems undergoing reforms. Design/methodology/approach: This paper used a qualitative approach using semi-structured interviews with 39 teachers and managers in schools undergoing a system-wide reform.…

Purpose: Although high-quality comparative data from international assessments are now more widely available, to what extent is that data being used to trigger, inform, and direct educational change in non-Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) countries? The purpose of this paper is to develop a theoretical framework to…

To explore group maturation in an educational setting, the policy board of a teacher center consortium was studied over a year, using ethnographic research methods. The group proceeded through various development stages, but not according to the predicted pattern, and failed to reach maturity. Maturation was disrupted by the director's dominating…

Following a literature review on policy development and decision-making--their participants, processes, innovative directions, and contexts--this study develops a series of analytical questions exploring the aspects of curriculum innovation. (JW)

Examines superintendents' attitudes toward community participation at the advisory and control levels in four areas of educational policy-making. (Author)

Some current teacher organization claims to an increased influence in the control of education policymaking are assessed in the light of Dahl's criteria for determining legitimate, democratic authority. The rival claims of alternative, non-professional groups are weighed against the teacher organization claims. (Author/WM)

This paper suggests that educational administrators have yet to examine closely the questions of social and political philosophy that underlie their decisions. A number of contextual factors within which these philosophical issues may be discussed are examined. (Author/MLF)

Interviews with administrators and reviews of official reports in 12 Ontario school districts provided data on the processes and participants involved in policymaking, the size of the central office administrative staff, and the nature of changes in administrative organization over the preceding decade. (PGD)

This article closes off a debate in this journal between the author and James D. Kaminsky concerning the latter's philosophical analysis of a "Freedom and Authority Memorandum" delivered to South Australian public schools in the early 1970s by then Director-General of Education, A. W. Jones. (TE)