The purpose of the study was to analyze the support roles and responsibilities of Circuit Managers' (CM) as middle tier managers to principals during education change in South Africa. Change management theories were used as theoretical frameworks to underpin this study. Using semistructured individual interviews data was collected from four CM and…

This mixed methods exploratory case study illuminates work of educational governance in a rural school district that has experienced dramatic improvement over a five-year period between 2017 and 2021. As such, we offer practical insights about how these leaders support continuous improvement, and theoretical insights about rurality, leadership,…

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…

This article explores the research question: How does the nature of interest group influence on school superintendents vary across school district locale/? Utilizing a survey of Wisconsin superintendents, the author tests several hypotheses related to the relationship between school district locale and superintendent perceptions of interest group…

More than sixty years after "Brown v. Board of Education," racial and economic segregation in American schools is deepening. At the same time, dynamic racial and economic change in cities and suburbs offers new opportunities for intentional school integration. School leaders are an integral part of those opportunities. We draw on the…

This study uses a new, contemporary dataset of nearly 13,000 traditional public K-12 school district superintendent names to examine superintendent gender gaps. Superintendent gender gaps are described at the national and state level, and in conjunction with district demographic data. I find significant superintendent gender gaps across the…

Purpose: In times of reform and consequential changes, school superintendents act as mediators between government policies and those who implement them in the field. This article explores the perceptions of school superintendents in Israel concerning their professional development (PD) process, especially during the implementation of Israeli…

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are required in most of the nation's public schools, and many superintendents have been tasked with implementing them in their school systems. Using leadership for learning as a conceptual framework, this case study examined the leadership behaviors of one superintendent in a Midwestern state, whose district…

In this article, we explore political race theory as a framework for building coalitions between Black and Brown communities as part of a shared struggle for educational justice and community power amid neoliberal reform. Inspired by the Black and Brown alliances for economic justice of the 1960s and 1970s and informed by previous scholarship on…

This study examined the performance of superintendents and leaders of the Arab education system in Israel in reducing achievement gaps and promoting curricula that empower and advance students. In-depth interviews were conducted with school governance officials in an attempt to address these key issues: (1) The steps administrators in the Arab…

This case study followed the implementation of the co-principal leadership model in a K-8 school district for three years. A district superintendent implemented the co-principal model to (1) resolve issues around merging existing schools with well-established principals; (2) provide leadership stability and succession planning; and (3) serve as a…

This mixed-methods study inquired about characteristics of districts which influence changes in student achievement and how those characteristics are developed. Staff in 49 Ontario districts were surveyed to estimate the status of nine district characteristics on changes in provincial tests of math and language achievement over five years. A…

During recent decades, the rise of the global economy launched a wide array of social, economic, and political changes in nations throughout the world. Heightened concern about the quality of schools launched what is arguably the most pervasive, intense, and protracted attempts at educational reform in recent history. Examinations of the…

The underlying theoretical argument in this article views municipal school superintendents in the Nordic context as middle managers in organizational theory terminology. Empirical support for this discussion emerges from national data collected among Norwegian school superintendents in 2009. Findings show that the actual work and leadership…

Finland's education system is regarded as one of the most effective in the world. Shared values of the Finnish welfare society continue to influence national education policies that determine how education is organized, governed, and led. Findings from a national study of the superintendency, however, suggest recent demographic and financial…