This article explores how leadership and gender are constructed by women principals of schools located in communities of multiple deprivation in two provinces of South Africa. Analysis of interview data uncovers a hierarchy of goals related to establishing a school, recruiting and retaining learners, ensuring they are ready to learn, developing…

This article draws on data collected from a wider, longitudinal life history study conducted in South Africa between 2010 and 2014. The study focussed specifically on the personal and professional pathways to principalship of a sample of women leaders of co-educational high schools in South Africa, in both rural and peri-urban provinces: a role…

This paper argues that the success of schools in disadvantaged township communities is shaped by an interplay of four dimensions: strategy, regulation, pedagogy and compensation. The paper presents these dimensions of successful leadership in secondary schools by drawing on a research study focusing on cases of three Soweto township secondary…

This paper reports on evidence from five school principals regarding leadership practices that work in multiple deprived contexts. The South African educational landscape is complex, often described as a cocktail of first and third world institutions. Looking at the schooling system on a continuum, on the one end there are first class schools…

Multiple deprivation affects a large proportion of schools in South Africa. The past 20 years of democracy have tended to focus on reforming education through curricula revision and a raft of redress-directed interventions, through the application of what we call a broad-brush policy approach. The paper argues that a broad-brush policy application…

Research increasingly points to the negative impacts of teacher absence from school on access to schooling and success in learning in schools, in particular in schools in areas of multiple-deprivation (including rural schools). South African schools are no exception. In this regard, like any other employer, the South African Department of Basic…

The principal aim of this article is to describe and document a comparison of public and private school effectiveness in the marginalized (often referred to as slum) district of Aguablanca, in the city of Cali, Colombia. The data suggest that teachers and parents are largely satisfied with the current status of education provision in Aguablanca.…

The article identifies key dimensions of effective leadership for change in historically disadvantaged, township and rural schools in South Africa. It is based on original case study research in 13 schools in Kwa-Zulu Natal. Although the sample included mainly township and rural primary and secondary schools it also included a smaller sample of…