Purpose: Instructional leadership is a school leadership approach that emphasizes improving teaching and learning. This study explores how school middle leaders -- teachers holding leadership positions in schools, who are responsible for a particular area or discipline of the school's curriculum -- fulfill their instructional leadership role.…

Little is known about primary school mathematics middle leaders' aspirations for mathematics learning. We sought to give mathematics middle leaders a voice to articulate their desires for mathematics learning based on what was most salient to them. Statements collected from 149 primary school mathematics middle leaders through an online survey…

This paper presents an examination of identity "in" and "as" practice as it relates to a group of educational practitioners known as middle leaders. Drawing on the theory of practice architectures as a site-ontological approach for conceptualising educational leading, the paper considers an individual's identity as being…

Purpose: Instructional leadership is a school leadership approach that places great emphasis on enhancing the quality of teaching and learning. This study explored the enabling factors of instructional leadership in subject coordinators. Design/methodology/approach: The participants in this qualitative study were 24 subject coordinators in…

Purpose: The present study aimed to investigate whether the sub-dimensions of transformational leadership are differently influenced by middle-leaders' personality traits from the Big Five typology, namely, extraversion, conscientiousness, openness to experience, agreeableness, and neuroticism, and whether the sub-dimensions of transformational…

In what are often described as modern Western school systems, the supervision of elementary schools generally shifted from the hands of clerical administrators to genuine state officials during the nineteenth century. The Prussian state, like other predominantly Protestant states, relied on clerical personnel and church supervision structures to…

Much research is concerned with the contribution of middle-level management in the education system. Yet, little research has been devoted to investigating supervisors' considerations in outlining job definitions of middle-level managers, and how these elements shape diverse middle-level managers' leadership models. This study draws on role theory…

The ignorance of the role of middle leaders as a 'key broker' between school principals and teachers in the literature has motivated this study to investigate the effects of middle leaders' learning-centred leadership on teacher professional learning through teacher mastery goals and their self-efficacy with the moderating effect of the quality of…

This paper picks up and elaborates on the conception of policy translators in schools -- key actors in the enactment of policy. The qualitative data presented here highlight how it is often middle leaders doing high-profile policy work in schools, turning ideas into actions and bringing policy to life. As translators, they organise, manage, lead,…

Background: Middle leaders are well placed to exert a positive influence on teacher learning, due in part to their proximity to the classroom. However, to maximise that potential, more needs to be understood about the complex connections between instruction-oriented middle leadership and professional learning, particularly in non-Western contexts.…

This study aims to examine which middle leaders' distributed leadership factors (cohesive leadership team, participative decision-making, leadership support and leadership supervision) are sufficient and to what degree these four factors are necessary for fostering high teacher commitment to change (TCTC). Data were gathered from 1018 Malaysian…

The research on Early Childhood Education and Care leadership has mainly focused on the kindergarten manager's perspectives. However, to fully understand leadership in ECEC settings, the middle-management level of pedagogical leaders must be included. The distributed framework is applied to investigate how the pedagogical leaders at the…

This study explored characteristics that principals, senior leadership team members, and middle leaders perceive as supporting the effective functioning of senior leadership teams (SLTs) in high-performing Catholic composite and secondary schools (CCSS) in Western Australia. Composite schools include both primary and secondary students. The…

This study contributes to the field of educational careers by exploring all educational career choices, whereas existing literature has focused on only a few. Deploying the push-pull-mooring framework (PPM), several undiscovered influential factors regarding educational career choices were captured. Using qualitative research methods, more…

There is an increased focus on schools and school systems to develop teaching teams to improve school teaching and learning practices. As such, effectual school leadership has become synonymous with creating the conditions for teachers to work collaboratively to improve school teaching and learning. Middle leaders, teachers who are formally…