Including democratic principles in a traditional public school general music program can be challenging, but the benefits are significant, including greater student independence and motivation for learning. Democratic practice is both an approach to teaching and an outcome of the experience. It prepares students to be participants in society by…

This paper examines how digital technologies shape the use of space in universities with a particular focus on the implications on organisational level. In order to maximise the potential of new technologies, I argue that universities will have to reconsider their use of space. This includes addressing the impact of new technologies on pedagogies,…

Education in Ireland presents an idiosyncratic context. Study of this lends depth and insight to any international consideration of education, complex as this must be. This paper considers student teachers' perspectives and interpretations of leadership in primary (national) schools in Ireland. It focuses on the findings of research undertaken…

The aim of this study is to reveal the level of secondary school teachers in participating to the decision making process, organizational cynicism and the relationships between these two variables. The participants of the research, which was conducted in the relational screening model, consisted of 14 secondary schools selected by the random…

Social and technological changes demand constant updating, this implies that schools must be prepared to face these changes. As a result, they need to have the capacity to innovate as part of their organizational culture. Although it is true, that not all schools are examples of innovative organizations, it is possible to identify some that have a…

[This paper is part of the Focused Collection on Curriculum Development: Theory into Design.] Common models of curricular development in physics education research (PER) have typically involved a hierarchical relationship between researchers and students, where researchers lead the design and testing of curriculum for students. We draw from work…

Polish higher education provides a particular example of a system that, until very recently, has been largely reform-resistant as it has a long-standing tradition of bottom-up 'academic self-governance' at both the system and the institutional levels. This article explores the process of the structural reforms of the higher education system,…

Shared leadership enables employees to develop positive feelings for their organizations and themselves. Especially, their devotional feelings and behaviours towards their organizations increase with the sharing of leadership. In this study, the shared leadership of the school and the organizational commitment levels of the teachers, their…

This paper describes one child voice enabling strategy that allowed children in sixth class in an urban primary school in Ireland to have a say in the organisation of their learning. The lack of involvement that children have in the organisation of their school week was questioned and this prompted an investigation into a new approach to enabling…

Teacher attrition is a considerable burden for students and school leaders. Therefore, it is important for administrators to develop policies which increase retention rates. The purpose of this study is to explore teacher retention policies utilized by highly effective school districts. Through the use of semi-structured interviews with three key…

China has adopted policy experimentation (PE) as a means of introducing and testing innovative policy options for reforms in higher education (HE). This paper explores how PE plays out in the HE sector, involving state actors and university actors in a dynamic interactive process and bringing about institutional changes. This paper proposes a…

An inter-organizational team, which consists of diverse members from different organizations to conduct an initiative, has been widely treated as a critical method to improve organizational innovation. This study proposes a multilevel model to test the relationship between shared leadership and creativity at both team- and individual level in the…

This research study explored through an embedded case study how selected Non-tenure Track Faculty (NTTF) in Puerto Rico perceived governance and how they participated in the decision-making process. The theoretical framework of this research was based on the principles of shared governance and the Social Exchange Theory. To explore how NTTF…

Adolescence is a developmental stage during which American students are typically disengaged (Pianta, Hamre, & Allen, 2012), yet learning depends upon engagement (Finn & Zimmer, 2012; Reschly & Christenson, 2012). For middle school students who struggle to read, school-based reading support represents a last chance to help them succeed…

There has been a long-standing call for the participation of young people in decision making in school. However, research to date has mostly focused on pupil councils and is rarely conducted in areas of socio-economic deprivation -- the contexts for this study. In national examinations, the schools chosen had higher than average attainments given…