This article reports on research regarding the leadership experience of women middle leaders in secondary schools. Previous research has focused on women in senior leadership in schools. Internationally, the teaching profession tends to be dominated by women, and yet in most countries, women do not occupy a commensurate proportion of senior…

Principals in Sweden face leadership challenges as pedagogical leaders of School-age educare Centers (SAECs). This study examines how principals identify both professional development needs as well as challenges they face in supporting the SAEC teachers. The empirical data is based on reflections from 29 principals and vice-principals from four…

The aim of this study is to describe the actions carried out by school management to promote inclusion and the learning of all students, from the perspective of teaching staff (members of management teams and teachers), and to find out whether these initiatives are determined by the school environment, the educational stages taught, and the…

As COVID-19 unfurled around the world in early 2020, it triggered volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA) for school leaders. This study explores the experiences of four school leaders, working in inner Melbourne, Australia, through a VUCA lens, and identifies their perceptions of such contextual disruption. Data were collected…

New vice-principals (VPs) inevitably experience high levels of uncertainty when assuming the position, and undergo a process of socialisation, involving engaging with both professional and relational sources of support in schools, to adjust to their changing role. Drawing on socialisation theories, this exploratory study proposes that novice VPs…

Leading school mathematics is a complex task and the responsibilities and activities involved are not always clearly defined. School mathematics leaders (SML) in Australian schools are often expected to lead improvement in mathematics teaching and learning. Previous research typically focuses on the qualities of effective leaders rather than the…

In Australia, there is a national education agenda for school improvement with an increasing focus on how school leaders can fulfil this agenda. As school principals are arguably faced with increasing demands, the importance of school middle leaders is increasing. This article presents the initial findings from a larger project on middle…

This study builds on research which contends that just as effective principals must lead across a broad purview of responsibilities in order to build successful schools, so too must middle leaders. Decentralisation of school management has resulted in an expansion of school principals' responsibilities, contributing to a further distribution of…

The aim of this study is to explore what aspects the principals and the members of the management teams in the primary and upper secondary education schools in Vantaa support distributed leadership in their school and how necessary they see that distributed leadership is extended to the students in matters concerning the curriculum and the…

The Abu Dhabi Education Council (ADEC) has initiated educational change and school improvements. As part of the school reform agenda, ADEC has introduced school self-evaluation-Irtiqaa (SSE-Irtiqaa). This research probes the effectiveness of school administrators (SAs), including principals, vice principals, academic principals, and heads of…

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the gender of school building leaders (principals and assistant principals), teachers (including intervention specialist, vocational, literacy specialist, special education teacher, etc.) and other school-based roles (school counsellor, school psychologist, social worker, library media, etc.)…

Work-shadowing is an under-researched aspect of leadership development. This paper places workshadowing in the broader context of responses to the challenges of managing leadership succession in schools, drawing on an evaluation of a pilot shadowing programme for aspiring primary headteachers. The paper identifies a number of key themes in…

The article is based on data from in-depth interviews with 13 deputy or assistant head teachers who had taken part in "Investing in Diversity", a leadership course, unusual in that it is designed for Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) aspirant school leaders. This course is at present only offered in London and Leeds, but it is intended to…

The recruitment and retention of senior school leaders is high on the UK Government's agenda with much attention currently being given to succession planning. Future Leaders and other fast track leadership development programmes are, in part, a response to this "crisis" brought about by demographic change--many headteachers are due to…

Vice-principals' role and their relationship with principals are of paramount importance in shaping the effectiveness of school management, particularly after the implementation of school-based management (SBM) worldwide. This paper reports primarily on prior studies on the vice-principalship and suggests a framework to help explain the different…