Conference Agenda

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Research Question:

Main question:

What is the schoolteachers’ understanding of job commitment and what factors influence their commitment to the profession at secondary schools of Zhambyl region?

Subsidiary questions:

How do secondary school teachers understand and define their professional commitment in Zhambyl region?

What factors influence their commitment to the profession?

Objective: The purpose of this mixed-method study is to explore schoolteachers’ understanding of professional commitment and what factors influence job commitment in secondary schools in the Zhambyl region, Kazakhstan.

Theoretical framework

There are several theories concerning professional commitment that guide the study. One of them is Meyer and Allen’s Multidimensional Theory (1997). This theory emphasizes three components of teaching commitment: affective professional commitment (APC), continuance professional commitment (CPC), and normative professional commitment (NPC). According to the affective component, intrinsic factors such as emotional attachment to, identification with, and involvement in the profession impact an individual’s decision to stay in the profession. Continuance Professional Commitment (CPC) is when an individual stays in the job because of recognition of the costs associated with leaving the job (Meyer et al., 1997). Thus, extrinsic factors are more valuable for an individual to retain. Normative professional commitment (NPC) includes elements of intrinsic and extrinsic factors (Meyer et al., 1997). Unfortunately, there is a lack of further research on that theory (Bagraim, 2003).

The second theory exploring the factors influencing the professional commitment of teachers is the Self-Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985, as cited in Sylvester, 2011). This theory (1985) stated that teachers were mostly willing to stay at their job when they met their needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. SDT suggests that leaders of the organization should foster workplace conditions where employees can feel support for their autonomy (Deci et al., 2017). Thus, it will lead to job satisfaction for employees, and increase work effectiveness (Deci et al., 2017).

The behavior of workers and their attitude towards their jobs are known to be defined by several factors, the exploration of which allows us to understand reactions displayed by individuals. Additionally, individuals' motives are derived from needs. Secondary school teachers like other workers have their unique motives based on necessities, longings, and expectations which power their behavior towards their job and everything it involves (Adiele & Abraham, 2013).

To explore teachers' commitment to the profession and the factors influencing it. The Maslow Hierarchy of Needs (1943) was used as a theoretical framework. This theory can be applied in the context of schools to understand individuals' behavior at the workplace and the reasons leading to it. The theory is based on the belief that human needs are arranged in a hierarchy, with basic physiological needs at the bottom and more complex needs at the top (Kaur, 2013).

This information can help understand the factors influencing the enhancement of the professional commitment of teachers because it provides a framework for understanding human behavior and motivation. In addition, Maslow's hierarchy of needs applies to individuals of different cultures, backgrounds, ages, and genders (Wahba & Bridwell, 1976).

The hierarchy theory (1943) is illustrated as a pyramid consisting of five levels ordered in terms of their significance: physiological, safety, love and belonging, esteem needs, and self-actualization needs. In the school context, psychological needs may be referred to earnings and work conditions; safety needs can be referred to job security; affiliation needs to involve a sense of recognition; respect, autonomy, and accountability can be related to esteem; and realization of teachers' professional potential may be seen as self-actualization needs (Ololube, 2006).

For the past two decades, scholars have extensively studied teacher collaboration and collective teacher efficacy (CTE), investigating their associations with various outcomes at the teacher level (e.g., job satisfaction, teacher commitment; Klassen et al., 2010), the classroom level (e.g., instructional quality; Goddard & Kim, 2018), and the student level (e.g., reading or maths achievement; Goddard et al., 2015). Teacher collaboration involves interaction within a group with the shared goal of accomplishing a task (Vangrieken et al., 2015). This collaboration manifests in various forms of joint work, such as subject or grade-level teacher teams, co-teaching, or professional learning communities (Vangrieken et al., 2015). CTE refers to the belief individual teachers hold about the collective capability of the entire teaching faculty to make an educational difference for their students, surpassing the educational impact of homes and communities (Tschannen-Moran & Barr, 2004).

Concerning the causal relationship between teacher collaboration and CTE, previous empirical investigations followed two distinct theoretical approaches: (1) Founded in social cognitive theory, CTE can emerge from mastery and vicarious experiences gained through interactions with colleagues and observing their professional behavior (Bandura, 1997). That is, teachers who engage in collaboration are more likely to feel efficacious as a group (Moolenaar et al., 2012). (2) According to expectancy-value theory, however, the anticipation of success plays a pivotal role in predicting an individual's motivation to undertake a specific activity (Wigfield & Eccles, 2000). From this standpoint, teachers are more inclined to collaborate with their colleagues if they anticipate successful joint efforts (Authors, 2020). However, existing studies used cross-sectional data to examine the relationship between teacher collaboration and CTE (Authors, 2020) or missed to investigate bidirectional temporal associations to find evidence for causality (Goddard et al., 2015). Further, the role of principals in shaping the possible interrelations has not been taken into consideration.

In the present study, we suggest that the relationship between teacher collaboration and CTE is likely to be both reciprocal and mutually reinforcing. We further assume that principals play a crucial role in shaping teachers' collaborative efforts because they can guide and support these processes (Honingh & Hooge, 2014). In particular, principals can foster joint work of teachers by creating the necessary conditions for collaboration at the school-level (Authors, 2023; Honingh & Hooge, 2014). That is, principals can establish teacher teams by moderating teacher conferences and allocate time slots for teachers to collaborate when scheduling teachers’ class times (Authors, 2023). Based on our assumption on the reciprocal relationship between teacher collaboration and CTE, we finally hypothesize an indirect relationship between PLP and CTE. Therefore, our study aims to explore the causal relationship between teacher collaboration, collective teacher efficacy, and principal leadership practices for collaboration. Using a random intercept cross-lagged panel model (RI-CLPM), we address the following research questions:

1. Is there a causal relationship between teacher collaboration and collective teacher efficacy?

2. What is the effect of principals’ leadership practices on teacher collaboration?

3. What is the effect of principals’ leadership practices on collective teacher efficacy?

In this symposium we invite participants to explore understandings and practices of partnership in the education sector from a leadership perspective. We are interested in how leaders frame and enact their roles when involved in partnerships, and furthermore, how a focus on leadership practices might enable richer understandings of partnerships in education.

Partnership is an elusive and imprecise concept (Tomlinson, 2005), and partnerships have various intentions and structures according to context as well as the organisations and individuals involved. Partnerships are imbued with positive expectations, largely based on an assumption that more can be achieved through co-operation than by individuals (Tomlinson, 2005). Within the education sector, there are long traditions of partnerships between higher education institutions (HE) and schools, reinforced in recent years by being mandated in many countries (Bernay et al, 2020). There exists a considerable body of research about these partnerships in their various forms (e.g. training, developing competence, carrying out research and bringing about improvement), but there has been little attention afforded to the role of leaders, especially within a European context (Valli et al, 2018). Outside of the education sector, emphasis has been placed on leaders as vital to the sustainability of partnerships, and their centrality in developing relationships characterised by trust, respect and dialogue (Lasker & Weiss, 2003). This symposium is, therefore, intended to shed light on leading partnerships within the education sector in different countries, providing an opportunity for exploring leadership practices within partnerships, and potentially creating a springboard for future knowledge-creation.

Why partnerships may be positive and for whom is not always clearly defined (Tomlinson, 2005). Whilst the importance of egalitarianism and mutual respect in partnerships within the education sector has been widely emphasised (Lefever-Davis et al, 2007) and despite intentions of ‘power sharing’ (Farrell et al, 2021), there are considerable barriers (Walsh & Backe, 2013). The intention of this symposium, therefore, is not to seek prescriptive or normative solutions for leading partnerships. Rather, we consider the idea of leading in partnership: understanding and working with aspects of power, formal demands and the dynamic needs of those involved. We seek a critical and hopeful approach to the question: how might educational leaders bring about positive change by leading in partnership?

The presentation of findings and reflections from four different partnership projects in Norway, Sweden and England will be an introduction to exploring how partnerships in different educational contexts are framed, organised and led. Whilst the four projects vary in purpose, organisation and outcomes, the roles and actions of leaders are equally significant. In Norway, research was conducted on partnerships for improvement between underperforming municipalities, a county governor and two universities. Findings suggest that although an egalitarian approach was mandated, there were considerable barriers. In Sweden, findings from researching a partnership between a university and a network of schools indicate two key aspects of leading partnerships: the need to lead for unpredictability, and how partnerships enable leaders to expand their understandings and practices of leading. The first project from England is a university-school partnership in which schools are being supported to develop curricula shaped by the UN Sustainable Development Goals. This project reveals the efforts of leaders navigating tensions between moral obligations and the limitations of compliance. The second project from England is a case study of eight partnerships in different regions, demonstrating the importance of contextual factors in the framing and practice of leading partnerships.

The diversity in experiences and understandings presented reflect and highlight the complex nature of partnerships. The projects provide rich ground on which to develop critical perspectives and further thinking about the roles and significance of leaders in partnerships.

Time is running out to ensure a habitable planet for our children. The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set out principles and pathways but because governments aren’t yet doing enough, the Secretary-General has called for urgent, worldwide public action ‘to generate an unstoppable movement pushing for the required transformations’ (Guterres, António 2019). Schools have a moral duty to take a lead but many school leaders in England feel isolated, overburdened by systemic pressure for competitive performance, and torn between conflicting moral and professional priorities (Hammersley-Fletcher 2015; Variyan and Gobby 2022). Some, however, are overcoming these barriers by using the SDGs as a framework to reshape their core mission and curricula, motivating and enabling children to thrive in the present through addressing the threats to their future (Bourn and Hatley 2022). Other schools, led by passionate headteachers with a background in environmental activism, are bringing lasting transformation to their schools by reorienting and integrating priorities to make sustainability their baseline rather than an additional aim; this often requires the courage and experience to ‘game the sytem’ where national policy doesn’t sufficiently prioritise sustanability education (Dixon 2022). These exceptional schools cannot change wider policy and practice alone – but by connecting with others, and with strategic support, they could share powerful examples, generate hope and exert significant pressure on policy. Equally important is the need to support schools without exceptional, visionary leadership in CCSE. In this symposium paper, we will present our findings from interviews with 10 headteachers from English schools on their engagement with Climate Change and Sustainability Education (CCSE) (Higham, Kitson and Sharp, forthcoming), and report on our ongoing work with sustainability lead teachers in a network of 10 schools. We will illustrate the moral and professional tensions headteachers feel, and the forms of defensive compliance to which it drives them in justifying the sincere but limited and piecemeal approaches to CCSE in their schools. For example, will highlight the gap between their recognition of the need for cultural change and cross-curricular integration and the current distribution of CCSE into a few subject areas and initiatives. We will then outline how sustainability leads have so far collaborated, with our support, to build morale and share ideas and best practice in order to try to build leadership for change from below.

Bourn, Douglas, and Jenny Hatley. 2022. ‘Target 4.7 of the Sustainable Development Goals: Evidence in Schools in England’. Dixon, David. 2022. Leadership for Sustainability: Saving the Planet One School at a Time. Crown House Publishing Ltd. Guterres, António. 2019. ‘Remarks to High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development’. Presented at the UN SDG Summit, New York, NY, September. https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/speeches/2019-09-24/remarks-high-level-political-sustainable-development-forum. Hammersley-Fletcher, Linda. 2015. ‘Value(s)-Driven Decision-Making: The Ethics Work of English Headteachers within Discourses of Constraint’. Educational Management Administration & Leadership 43 (2): 198–213. https://doi.org/10.1177/1741143213494887. Variyan, George, and Brad Gobby. 2022. ‘“The Least We Could Do”?: Troubling School Leaders’ Responses to the School Strikes for Climate in Australia’. Journal of Educational Administration and History, December, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220620.2022.2153110.

An emerging body of research shows that external support and partnerships with different actors in the surrounding community can support schools in their school improvement work and strengthen the school’s improvement capacity (Muijs et al., 2011). School leaders are vital in this work (Huber & Muijs, 2010; Sun et al., 2017). In this study, the intention is to deepen understandings of how principal leadership practices are constructed in collaborations beyond the school. Furthermore, how they relate to capacity building and school improvement at the local school level in a Swedish context. The main theoretical perspectives guiding the analysis of this study are an institutional perspective on the school as an organisation and a sensemaking perspective on principals’ and teachers’ construction of the meaning of the principals’ leadership practices. A qualitative case study design (Yin, 2011) with a purposive sampling method was used in this study, in which schools working with collaborations beyond the school within the local community in the framework of a collaborative improvement project were examined. Data was collected for three years and consisted of semi-structured individual and group interviews with principals and teachers at three schools. Qualitative content analysis was used (Miles et al., 2014). This study identifies key dimensions of principals’ practice: building professional capacity, fostering a supportive learning organization, and engaging actively in beyond-school collaborations. Principals co-created these collaborations, aligning them with schools' needs and establishing mutual goals. The principals’ roles in communicating school needs contributed to mutual trust and shared focus on improvement within the partnerships. External actors, acting as critical friends, played a pivotal role in shaping leadership practices and providing essential support. The research-based approach to working in partnership widened principals' views on educational leadership, fostering a qualitative shift in their reasoning about school development and leadership. External support, particularly through beyond-school collaborations, strengthened their formal leadership roles and professional practices. The study also revealed challenges such as time constraints, staff issues, conflicts, and turnovers affecting beyond-school collaborations. Principals’ practices raised awareness of these issues in partnerships, whilst also demonstrating how they might be navigated successfully. Collaboration beyond school not only supported distributed leadership but also encouraged teacher involvement, fostering collective responsibility for school development.

Huber, S. G., and D. Muijs. 2010. “School leadership-international perspectives.” School leadership effectiveness: The growing insight into the importance of school leadership for the quality and development of schools and their pupils 10: 57–77. Miles, M.B., Huberman, A.M. and Saldaña, J. (2014). Qualitative Data Analysis: A Methods Sourcebook, Sage, Los Angeles, CA. Muijs, D., Ainscow, M., Chapman, C., & West, M. (2011). Collaboration and Networking in Education. Springer Science+Business Media B.V. Sun, Jingping, Pollock, Katina & Leithwood, Kenneth A. (2017). How School Leaders Contribute to Student Success: The Four Paths Framework [Elektronisk resurs]. Springer Yin, R.K. (2011). Qualitative Research from Start to Finish, The Guilford Press, New York, NY.

This contribution explores the potential for co-created development of organisational learning, leadership development and student learning based on collaborative partnerships between municipalities, universities, and the county governor. The partnerships in this study (project abbreviation: FUS) were initiated and funded by The Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training, with the intention to raise achievement in underperforming municipalities during a period of three years. The research presented contributes to understandings of how universities, county governors, and municipalities may establish and sustain equitable partnerships, with a particular focus on the significance of leaders. The main research question was: How might equal partnership between universities, county governors, and municipalities lead to continuous development in the education sector? This study draws from the existing field of organisational and leadership research regarding national/local educational policy (English, 2011; Townsend & MacBeath, 2011), partnerships (Bradbury & Acquaro, 2022) and school development and capacity building in the educational sector (Fullan & Quinn, 2016). The overall research approach is designed as a qualitative case study (Creswell, 2013; Silverman, 2013). The data consists of 14 semi-structured interviews in total, taking place in 2023-2024, after the FUS-partnership was concluded. We interviewed advisors from universities and educational leaders at both municipality and school levels. Thematic analysis (Maguire & Delahunt, 2017) was deployed, with focal points being: understandings of intentions, competence development, organisational collaboration and capacity building. Respondents experienced learning whilst participating in the partnerships and were able to develop new understandings of each other's contexts and needs. There were, however, significant issues with continuity and communication. Turnover and unexpected challenges created uncertainty and frustration. Preliminary findings indicate that rather than rigorous planning and rigid structures, successful collaboration depends on leaders in the partner organisations jointly driving development processes which reflect the dynamic and complex nature of educational contexts. Furthermore, that there is the need for a clear focus on developing flexible organisational structures which support, rather than hinder the need to work responsively. There is limited knowledge of how universities, county governors, and municipalities may establish and sustain longitudinal and equitable partnerships. This research has brought to light a crucial set of experiences that, in turn, highlight the importance of establishing equality and mutual respect and responsibility in partnerships. We see the need for commitment within and between the partnership's participants, both in terms of investments of time and resources and in developing a shared understanding of values and intentions.

Bradbury, O. J., & Acquaro, D. (2022). School-university partnerships : innovation in initial teacher education. Springer. English, F. W. (2011). The SAGE handbook of educational leadership : advances in theory, research, and practice (2nd ed. ed.). Sage. Fontana, A., & Frey, J. H. (1994). Interviewing - The Art of Science. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of Qualitative Research. Sage. Fullan, M., & Quinn, J. (2016). Coherence: The Right Drivers in Action for Schools, Districts, and Systems. Teacher (Halifax), 54(5), 6. Kvale, S., & Brinkmann, S. (2009). Interview : introduktion til et håndværk (2. udg. ed.). Hans Reitzel. Maguire, M., & Delahunt, B. (2017). Doing a thematic analysis: A practical, step-by-step guide for learning and teaching scholars. All Ireland Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 9(3), 14. Mikecz, R. (2012). Interviewing elites: addressing methodological issues. Qualitative Inquiry, 18(6), 482-493. Townsend, T., & MacBeath, J. (2011). International Handbook of Leadership for Learning (Vol. 25). Springer. UDIR. (2014). Kravspesifikasjon for Nasjonal rektorutdanning [Qualification criteria for the national post graduate education programme for educational leaders]. Oslo: The Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training

Two significant strands of education-policy reform dominate the English system: an emphasis on the power of market forces to facilitate school improvement and the development of new governance structures that may not be based around traditional localities (Author, 2020). These policy moves are both positioning schools in a competitive market and loosening the links between schools and their local communities. In this context, new forms of area-based partnerships have emerged, where schools are encouraged to work together with neighbouring schools and community partners (Author, 2018). In this paper, we report on the Area-Based Partnerships Project (ABPP), which investigates examples of collaborative working in eight regions in England. Our case-study research is framed by the following questions: What are the conditions that facilitate the establishment and sustainability of area-based school partnerships? What are the features and benefits of these partnerships? What barriers do they face? And, what are the implications for effective forms of local coordination within education systems? A multiple case study design was adopted encompassing eight area partnerships located in different regions in England. Data were generated through documentary analysis followed by interviews and focus-group seminars with key actors, including governors and Trust members, Chief Executive Officers, local- (district) authority representatives and school principals. Key factors underpinning the purposefulness of such partnerships, include the establishment of professional networks, often led by experienced school leaders; the contribution of local-authority officers; a commitment to collaborative working; and a clearly-articulated statement of principles. Our findings underline the importance of contextual factors in shaping area-based cooperation. In particular, how the historical, political, and cultural characteristics of a locality shape how and why the partnerships evolved, and the extent to which they can be seen as purposeful and sustainable. We argue that these are crucial factors that need to be acknowledged, understood, and accounted for in addressing social justice within education and wider society (see also Kerr et al, 2014). This highlights the importance of localised policy enactment (Braun et al, 2011). Notably, these partnerships have no formal status or mandate, instead drawing their influence from soft power and the social capital of local educational leaders and professionals. While the extent to which these partnerships can be seen as ‘successful’ and sustainable is variable between regions, there are lessons we can draw from this project that will inform thinking around how school systems are structured in ways that promote equity and excellence.

Author (2018) Removed for review Author (2020) Removed for review Braun, A., Ball, S. and Maguire, M. (2011). Policy enactments in schools introduction: towards a toolbox for theory and research. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 32(4), 581-583. Kerr, K., Dyson, A. & Raffo, C. (2014). Education, disadvantage and place: Making the local matter. Bristol, UK: Policy Press. Raffo, C., Dyson, A., Gunter, H.M., Hall, D., Jones, L. and Kalambouka, K. (2007). Education and Poverty: A Critical Review of Theory, Policy and Practice. York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation

This symposium explores the expanding field of Edupreneurship (Pashiardis & Brauckmann, 2019). By elucidating three distinct studies (comprising a scoping review, a study with a European perspective, and a Cypriot study), our aim is to shed some more light into the leadership behaviors and actions that could be undertaken for schools to survive in today’s turbulent environments and unprecedented changes they are confronted with (Pietsch et al. 2022). As the educational landscape is undergoing a transformative shift to challenge several megatrends, conventional educational leadership frameworks struggle to adapt to these challenges, prompting the need for a novel approach. The emergence of Edupreneurs (Pashiardis & Brauckmann 2019) – entrepreneurial leaders in the field of education – becomes pivotal in navigating these complexities, necessitating a deeper examination of their role in shaping the future of education.

According to Pashiardis and Brauckmann (2019) edupreneurial leadership emerges as a hybrid as it combines the entrepreneurial with the instructional/pedagogical leadership style, which are two of the five leadership styles that make up their leadership framework (for a more detailed description of the Pashiardis-Brauckmann Holistic Leadership Framework, please see Pashiardis & Brauckmann, 2008; Brauckmann & Pashiardis, 2011). The call for entrepreneurial activities in the school context aligns with the search of originality as well as strategic alliances outside the school environment. Breakthrough innovations stem from a unique knowledge search. They highlight the importance of fostering original ideas in schools for entrepreneurial relationships. Therefore, promoting originality enhances a school principal's entrepreneurial leadership (Jung & Lee 2016; Pashiardis & Brauckmann-Sajkiewicz 2021). To adapt to the evolving edupreneurial leadership style, schools must embrace flexibility and accommodation. School leaders, guided by innovative thinking, should incorporate risk-taking behavior, leadership training, and experience. They need to assess the education landscape, considering autonomy, accountability patterns, and personnel readiness, to formulate effective strategies (Pashiardis & Brauckmann 2019).

Recent studies highlight the multifaceted nature of Edupreneurship. They emphasize its dynamic potential within educational institutions and explore the school principal’s entrepreneurial mindset, competencies, resources, and motives as well as the relationship between entrepreneurship and educational leadership. Yemini, Addi-Raccah and Katarivas (2015) characterize school leaders as change agents. Their study investigates school principals as institutional entrepreneurs, exploring the meaning of entrepreneurship in schools. Examining 10 identified entrepreneurial principals in Israel, it delves into their motives and resources driving entrepreneurial activities in diverse educational streams. Another study by Eyal and Kark (2004) emphasizes leadership for its impact on simplifying and reinforcing realities, while entrepreneurial activities introduce new products, services, or ideas. The study establishes a (yet) complex existing link between leadership and entrepreneurship, noting a stronger correlation of transformational leadership with proactive behavior than innovativeness. Another study by Hörnqvist and Leffler (2014) delves into the entrepreneurial mindset of school leaders, highlighting the internal and external responsibilities associated with leadership in an entrepreneurial school setting.

While existing research has made valuable contributions, a notable gap exists in comprehending how the concept of edupreneurship is understood, contextualized, or theorized, in relation to school leadership. It is also not yet clarified which long-term implications of edupreneurial initiatives by school leaders do exist. Future research should focus on unraveling the sustainability of edupreneurial practices, providing perspectives that are crucial for informing evidence-based educational policies and practices. Therefore, the symposium addresses the following research questions:

• What is known about edupreneurial acting and thinking among school leaders?
• What is the long-term impact of edupreneurial initiatives on the organizational sustainability of schools?

*This term was introduced by Stefan Brauckmann-Sajkiewicz and Petros Pashiardis.

Entrepreneurship is conceptualized as a dynamic process of creative destruction, acting as a catalyst for economic development by disrupting established patterns and fostering the emergence of innovative products and services. This perspective is designed to identify, evaluate, and leverage entrepreneurial opportunities (Shane & Venkataraman, 2000). Within the domain of educational leadership in schools, entrepreneurship represents an emerging field of academic research (Herbert et al., 2012; Pihie et al., 2014). Given the multifaceted contemporary challenges, including ecological, societal, and economic complexities, school leaders encounter challenges that surpass conventional managerial responsibilities. Consequently, their roles encompass the perpetual upkeep and enhancement of the existing status quo while remaining vigilant and prepared for unforeseen circumstances. To navigate these challenges successfully, SL must not only exhibit innovative thinking beyond conventional parameters but also demonstrate the adaptability to dynamic circumstances (Pietsch et al., 2020). The primary aim of this scoping review is to deliver a contemporary and comprehensive analysis of existing research, thereby contributing substantially to the progression of knowledge regarding the entrepreneurial actions and thinking of school leaders in the K-12 setting and its impacts on educational institutions. Preliminary findings from the review indicate that the subject has gained increasing significance within the academic discourse over the last 15 years. Notably, in most publications there is a predominant focus on elucidating the meaning of entrepreneurial actions and thinking within school leadership, both theoretically and empirically. This has led to the identification of a, hitherto, vague use of the term entrepreneurship within the context of school leadership: In addition to entrepreneurship and corporate entrepreneurship/intrapreneurship, there is also an exploration of concepts such as social entrepreneurship (Melinkova, 2020), social intrapreneurship (Yemini et al., 2015), and edupreneurship (Pashiardis & Brauckmann-Sajkiewicz, 2021). Regarding the impact of entrepreneurial thinking, actors, and actions on educational institutions, there are currently limited indications of their impact on students' learning outcomes and school development, except, of course, parental involvement, which is always a strong positive indicator of student achievement. This paper is a work-in-progress and will be finalized in time to present results at the ECER conference in August 2024.

Melinkova, J. (2020). Leading complementary schools as non-profit social entrepreneurship: Cases from Lithuania, Management in Education, 34(4), 149-156. Herbert, K., Bendickson, J., Liguori, E.W., Weaver, K. M., & Teddlie, C. (2012). Re-desingning lessons, re-envisioning principals: developing entrepreneurial school leadership, In Sanzo, K., Myran, S., & Nomore, A.H. (Hg.). Successful School Leadership Preparation and Development. Advances in Educational Administration, 17, Bingley: Emerald, 153-163. Pashiardis, P., & Brauckmann-Sajkiewicz, S. (2021). The rise of the Edupreneur. Exploring School leadership through an evolutionary perspective, In Nir, A. E. (Ed.). School Leadership in the 21st Century, New York: Nova Science, 47-68. Pihie Z.A.L.; Bagheri A.; Asimiran S. (2014). Entrepreneurial leadership practices and school innovativeness, South African Journal of Education, 34(1), 1-11, DOI: 10.15700/201412120955. Pietsch, M., Tulowitzki, P., & Cramer, P. (2020). Principals between exploitation and exploration: Results of a nationwide study on ambidexterity of school leaders, Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 50(4), 574-592, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1741143220945705. Shane, S., & Venkataraman, S. (2000). The promise of entrepreneurship as a field of research, The Academy of Management Review, 25(1), 217-226, DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/259271. Yemini M., Addi-Raccah A., & Katarivas K. (2015). I have a dream: School principals as entrepreneurs, Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 43(4), 526-540, DOI: 10.1177/1741143214523018.

To improve school organisational performance and innovativeness, and meet diverse student needs, school leaders should be innovative/creative pioneers, risk-takers, and proactive, thus applying entrepreneurial practices/strategies and market mechanisms (Brauckmann-Sajkiewicz & Pashiardis, 2022; Eyal & Kark, 2004; Pihie et al., 2014). This study investigated, from a schoolteacher’s perspective, the degree of entrepreneurial leadership behaviour (ELB) applied by school principals in European primary schools. Given that school autonomy is an important predictor of leaders’ entrepreneurship (Eyal & Kark, 2004); this study investigates the impact of educational macro (autonomy and accountability) and micro (demographics) contexts on ELB by comparing centralised and decentralised European school systems with the highly centralised Greek school system. This comparative study was conducted in Greece (630 participants) and in 14 European countries (972 participants). Thornberry’s (2006) Entrepreneurial Leadership Questionnaire was used, comprising general entrepreneurial leader, miner, accelerator, explorer, and integrator behaviours. The results revealed that ELB is a multi-dimensional concept, and that participating teachers perceive ELB application moderately, with more focus on the internal (than external) school environment. Furthermore, the dual-directional macro-contextual influence found in applying ELB indicates that high school autonomy and accountability activate ELB owing to the school’s freedom to engage in entrepreneurial ventures, while low autonomy/accountability still activates ELB, but only for organisational survival within hierarchical-bureaucratic school environments. This feature differentiates ‘intrapreneur/intrepreneur’ from ‘entrepreneur’ school principals (Hentschke, 2010). The school micro-context was found to influence ELB in European decentralised school systems. However, ELB was not majorly influenced by school-level variables in centralised school systems owing to the uniformity resulting from educational macro- and micro-level centralisation. Our findings suggest optimism regarding the pedagogical added value of applying ELB in schools, thus arising implications for school leadership research and practice.

Brauckmann-Sajkiewicz, S., & Pashiardis, P. (2022). Entrepreneurial leadership in schools: linking creativity with accountability. International Journal of Leadership in Education, 25(5), 787–801. Eyal, O., & Kark, R. (2004). How do transformational leaders transform organisations? A study of the relationship between leadership and entrepreneurship. Leadership and Policy in Schools, 3(3), 211–235. Hentschke, G.C. (2010). Developing entrepreneurial leaders. In B. Davies & M. Brundrett (eds.), Developing Successful Leadership, Studies in Educational Leadership 11, 115–132. Berlin: Springer Science+Business Media B.V. Pihie, Z.A.L., Bagheri, A., & Asimiran, S. (2014). Entrepreneurial leadership behaviour among school principals: perspectives from Malaysian secondary school teachers. Pertanika Journal of Social Science and Humanities, 22(3), 825-843. Thornberry, N. (2006). Lead like an entrepreneur. Blacklick, OH: McGraw-Hill.

Entrepreneurship in education, as discussed by Hisrich and Drnovsek (2002), is a central theme, interpreted as an initiative by school leaders to establish additional support networks (Pashiardis, 2014). In fact, in school organizations, the involvement of external stakeholders, especially parents, is emphasized as crucial in enhancing educational achievements, as supported by existing research (Balasi et al., 2023; Castro et al., 2015; Fox & Olsen, 2014; Van Voorhis et al., 2013). Despite the fact that recent changes worldwide are aiming to improve the quality of teaching and learning by strengthening the independence of individual schools, it remains to be seen whether, how, and to what extent the successful exercise of more entrepreneurially motivated leadership can succeed in the social reality of school organizations. Therefore, to better understand how successful school leaders promote entrepreneurship within their school organizations, this paper maps out the external leadership dimension and entrepreneurialism exhibited by successful school leaders in Cyprus, using case studies from a decade-long research study. The study intends to provide prospective pathways for successful external school leadership, considering the contextual perspective within which school leaders operate. The centralized education system in Cyprus, governed by the Ministry of Education, imposes directives, policies, and oversight on school organizations, limiting autonomy and disregarding unique characteristics. This paper argues that the contextually dependent nature of centralization influences the external practices of school leaders, urging them to navigate challenges related to resource acquisition and external support. In fact, the lack of decentralization hinders critical inquiry, emphasizing the pivotal role of school leaders in fostering improvement despite the prevailing conditions. Therefore, inspired school leaders in Cyprus promote external strategies for engaging external stakeholders beyond parents to address challenges and improve school organizations. Having said that, this paper contends that school leaders should explore diverse approaches for engaging external stakeholders, and that their capacity to regulate interactions depends, also, on personal values and circumstances.

Balasi, A., Iordanidis, G. & Tsakiridou, E. (2023). Entrepreneurial leadership behaviour of primary school principals across Europe: a comparative study. International Journal of Educational Management, 37 (5), 1067-1087. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJEM-04-2023-0208 Castro, M., Expósito-Casas, E., López-Martín, E., Lizasoain, L., Navarro-Asencio, E. & Gaviria, J. L. (2015). Parental involvement on student academic achievement: A meta-analysis. Educational Research Review, 14, 33-46. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2015.01.002 Fox, S. & Olsen, A. (2014). Education capital: Our evidence base. Defining parental engagement. Canberra: Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth. Hisrich, R.D. & Drovsek, M. (2002) Entrepreneurship and small business research – a European perspective. Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, 9 (2), 172 – 222. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/14626000210427348 Pashiardis, P. (2014) (Eds.). Modeling School Leadership Across Europe: In Search of New Frontiers. Dordrecht, Heidelberg, New York, London: Springer. Van Voorhis, F.L., Maier, M.F., Epstein, J.L., & Lloyd, C.M. (2013). The impact of family involvement on the education of children ages 3 to 8: A focus on literacy and math achievement outcomes and social-emotional skills. Retrieved from http://www.mdrc.org/sites/default/files/The_Impact_of_Family_Involvement_FR.pdf

Research indicates that planning is an essential element contributing to improve organizational performance, outcomes and processes in schools (Bickmore, Roberts & Gonzalez & 2021; Caputo & Rastelli, 2014; Fernandez, 2011; Huber & Conway, 2015; Strunk et al 2016; Meyers & VanGronigen, 2019; Mintrop, 2016; VanGronigen & Meyers, 2020), especially in educational systems that are data-driven, results-oriented, where accountability is a trend (Caputo & Rastelli, 2014; Mintrop & McLellan, 2002). Typically, the process of improvement planning culminates in a yearly “school improvement plan” (SIPs) led by principals and their teams. SIPs are comprehensive documents that help to establish priorities, goals, strategies, actions, indicators and results, among other elements (Férnandez, 2011). Some studies have shown a correlation between the quality of SIPs and student learning outcomes (Fernández, 2011; Strunk et al 2016), thus careful planning is key to obtain positive changes. Unfortunately, there is evidence that SIPs are not well-designed suggesting an unwillingness or inability of school teams to engage fully in a meaningful planning process (Meyers & VanGronigen, 2019, p.274). A significant challenge is moving from a perception of SIPs as a bureaucratic and administrative tool for documentation, essentially perceived as an external accountability demand, to an authentic plan responding to real improvement needs and organizational learning (Meyers & Vangronigen, 2019; VanGronigen & Meyers, 2020).

Following the international trend, Chile has implemented SIPs as a national educational policy since 2014. Based in a continuous improvement cycle, The Ministry of Education mandates schools to design and implement a four year-long SIP. This cycle is composed of two phases: a first strategic phase and then an annual phase. The following steps contain the continuous improvement cycle in Chile: (1) Analysis of the educational project and developing a self-assessment process, (2) Planning goals and objectives strategically, (3) Planning annual strategies and actions (4) implementation and (4) evaluation. Schools submit their plans to an online platform to be checked by their school district. This traditional approach of school improvement may not create a sense of urgency required for schools who need to improve quickly (Mintrop, 2016; VanGronigen & Meyers, 2020). An alternative and complementary approach for improving more rapidly to the constant environmental changes is the short-cycle planning. This approach builds confidence, increases collective efficacy and allows to gauge progress and assess outcomes (VanGronigen & Meyers, 2017).

Using the short-cycle planning approach, this research presents perceptions of 19 schools in 6 different districts in designing, implementing and evaluating the first short-cycle plan during 2023.This qualitative study addresses the following research questions: How do participants compare yearlong improvement planning to short-cycle approach? How do participants perceive short-cycle plans as a approach to improve with sense of urgency?

Neoliberal imperatives have arguably driven education policies in England and Europe (Wilkins et al., 2019: Grimaldi et al., 2016) over the past four decades, leading to the depoliticisation (Flinders and Woods, 2015) and radical marketisation of the sector (Ball, 2021). The creation of an education marketplace purposely fuels competition between providers, positioning parents and communities as consumers and schools are corporatised entities (Gunter, 2018). Successive British and European governments (Gunter et al., 2016) have proactively adopted dominant private sector methods and practices transforming the operations in the education system to become more like businesses; a process coined by Ball and Youdell (2007:13) as ’endogenous privatisation’. As such, the utilisation of ‘brand’ has arguably become a distinguishing indicator which establishes positionality and thus, positions the organisation advantageously in the field. Significantly, Simon et al. (2021) have postulated brand advantage, or positioning, in the edu-business world is crucial, securing status in what they deem as a hierarchical system of MATs. Multi-Academy Trusts (MATs) are groups of publicly funded, independent schools (Wilkins, 2016) and are comparable to Charter Schools in the USA or Friskolor in Sweden (Simkins et al., 2019). The more prestigious brands are privileged or positioned in the high-stakes play of school acquisition and the promotion of their brand to potential consumers or clients. Subsequently, risk mitigation strategies are needed to maintain and gain brand market advantage, but also brand protection in the performative, marketised and choice-focused context of education (Courtney et al., 2018).

A growing national and international distrust in the functioning of public services such as education (Wilkins and Gobby, 2022), combined with governments driven to achieve political and economic goals, determines the need for governments to perceive and manage risk to their own brand. Disintermediation (Lubienski, 2014), where power and influence are withdrawn from the traditional meso-layer of education, has responsibilised this new private middle tier of educational leadership and governance for the risk and responsibility of the sector, and brand advantage. This has facilitated an extension of central control in new spaces, removed from local or federal government influence and controlled at a distance (Wilkins and Gobby, 2022). The resultant hegemony of managerialism and New Public Management (NPM) (Gunter et al., 2016), and corporatisation, which has removed decision-making from representative institutions to corporately controlled entities (Gunter 2018), have transformed the management and governance practices of schools (Newman, 2001). The professionalisation of education leadership and school governance, a neoliberal political rationality and a new middle tier have signified a democratic deficit raising questions over stakeholder representation (Connolly et al., 2017) and the accountability of school governance, to be responsive to community and parental needs (Woods and Simkins, 2014).

This research explores the relationship between MAT brand objectives, brand advantage and subsequent risk mitigation strategies employed by educational leadership in England. Specifically, the Co-operative Academies Trust’s (CAT), sponsored by The Co-op Group, model of school governance, and the tension between democratic practices, co-operative values and brand advantage are illuminated. Democracy is one of six values determined by the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) a significant feature of a co-operative enterprise to which CAT is committed to. The research explored how the CAT engaged with parents and community groups in an area of deprivation, to secure authentic decision-making partnerships based on ICA values, specifically democracy. As such, given its association with the Co-op Group brand, the CAT makes for a significant case to investigate as an alternative in the marketised context of education in England and internationally, given the Euro-prevalence of neoliberal contexts of education and interest in democratically engaging educational leadership internationally (Caravantes and Lombardo, 2024; Scuola Democratica, 2024).

This paper focuses on an empirically grounded insight into the experience of leading an educational organisation in complexity. A case study of executive leadership in an English Multi Academy Trust (MAT) is used to illustrate the nature of the complexity leaders experience in that context. Qualitative and Social Network data are combined to characterise the experience of complexity and significant features of leaders’ responses and some conceptual tools are introduced.

Drawing on a complexity perspective that starts with the experiences of people in organisations, the implications of the perspective for conceptualising leadership and designing an empirical study are presented. The methodological approach is explained followed by presentation and discussion of data to illuminate the experience of complexity and relevance of the perspective adopted.

The argument is made initially for a complexity perspective drawing on the principles of complex responsive processes of relating (Stacey, Griffin & Shaw, 2000), recognising that starting with leaders’ experiences in organisations means understanding them to be participants in processes rather than actors on systems (ibid). The experience of complexity thus involves paradox, ambiguity, ambivalence and uncertainty, which are all also features of a social process of sensemaking (Weick, 2005).

The complexity perspective adopted leads to a conceptualization of leadership that is understood as influence (Northouse, 2021), but is relational (Eacott, 2018) arising in human relationships whether they are direct, indirect or mediated. Leadership is also considered as plural (Denis et al 2012), having multiple loci which may be dyadic, group, collective or contextual (Hernandez, 2011). It follows that to explore leadership of, for example, educational improvement in a MAT, it is necessary to study the enactment of practices and the processes of relating taking place.

A case study of an English MAT comprising seven schools led by a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) is introduced and the methodological approach to the single embedded case study (Yin, 2017) is described. Qualitative data is presented revealing practices and underlying thinking frames on which leaders drew as they talked about enacting educational improvement. The qualitative data is combined with social network data that reveals the socially constructed networks of relationships relevant to leadership in which a core group of people, identified by the CEO, perceived themselves to be embedded.

The empirical data is discussed in terms of the sensemaking processes taking place, their dynamic patterning, what is revealed about the emergent nature of executive leadership in the trust and the experience of complexity. The paper concludes by highlighting some significant conclusions and the value of embracing a complexity perspective to fully understand current realities and future possibilities.

This is a two-part symposium focussed on educational leadership preparation and development and draws upon research from members of the International School Leadership Development Network. The first part has four papers describing programs and ideas focussed on equity, inclusion and social justice, with the second part having four papers focussed on the future through discussion of exemplary existing programs and future trends. The papers in the symposium will eventually be published in an edited book along with other papers.

School leadership is a priority in education policy internationally, as it plays the essential role in improving school outcomes by motivating teachers, building teacher capacities, and developing good school climate and conditions (Leithwood, Sun, & Schumacker, 2020). A major finding has been that effective educational leadership is important in enhancing quality and equity in schools (Pont, Nusche & Moorman, 2008; Kemethofer, Helm, & Warwas, 2022).

Schools in recent times have faced many challenges and there are many challenges ahead such as: the impact of the COVID pandemic; the rise of AI in schools; teacher shortages in many countries; and massive migration driven through refugee crises in many parts of the world. Along with environmental and humanitarian issues, we know that there is major issues to do with school quality and equity (United Nations, 2015). Leadership preparation development is crucial to building qualified and capable leaders for schools who can take responsibility for fostering students who can deal with the challenges of the world in the long run (Harris & Jones, 2020; Lozano, Garcia, & Sandoval, 2023).

In the face of these challenges, we think it is timely to have a futures focused discussion on educational leadership preparation and development. To facilitate this, we have reached out to members of the International School Leadership Development Network (ISLDN), one of the largest and longest serving international school leadership research networks, and through an interactive development process identified four broad areas of focus that will be covered through 14 papers:

- Teacher and middle leader preparation and development.

- Preparation and development of leadership for equity, inclusion and social justice

- School, community and university partnerships for leadership preparation and development.

- Leadership Training Programs for Future Leadership Development

For the two-part symposium at ECER, we have eight groups reporting on their research and writing.

Part A: School leadership preparation and development for equity, inclusion and social justice

Part B: Future focussed educational leadership preparation and development

This symposium is Part B.

Current studies have identified that there has been insufficient research on effective professional development activities for school leaders (Daniëls, Hondeghem, & Dochy, 2019). In particular, the research on school leadership development is short of exploration of how school leaders can be educated to cope with the challenges raised by changing technology, environment and social dynamics in the next decades. Therefore, this symposium focusses on exploration of leadership training programs and literature that can provide guidance for future educational leadership preparation and development.

The symposium begins Jami Berry and Karen Bryant who describe a continuous learning leadership development program in the USA that signposts how to ensure these programs are always contemporary and future oriented. Gurr and colleagues then consider the future preparation and development needs to middle and teacher leaders and use some Australian examples to illustrate this. The next two papers focus on current programs that have much to offer in terms of development of future programs. Julie Harvie describes the Scottish headship preparation program, whilst Sylvia Robertson and Michele Morrison describe cases of principal preparation in New Zealand.

Principal preparation programs have traditionally been designed to meet the needs of those who seek to lead schools or school districts. Departments of educational leadership sought to design and offer degree options that met students’ career and professional goals, as well as the needs of districts and departments of education. Post-pandemic, this challenge is increasingly more complex as education organizations continue to serve more diverse communities. This work highlights a university in the Southeastern United States that is engaging in a process of continuous improvement to redesign its principal preparation program in addressing current and future leadership challenges through action research. Leadership that views student success as essential to the mission and promotes a sense of belonging for all stakeholders is a major focus of the program with program faculty striving to further develop leaders who recognize the individualized needs of each student. With this mission in mind, the research highlighted in this session seeks to address the following questions: 1. How do university faculty members conceptualize the redesign and implementation of a leadership preparation program grounded in action research to meet the needs of school leaders? 2. How do school and district leaders describe the impact of an action research grounded dissertation process on their professional growth? The paper will begin with an overview of the current literature on leader preparation and the underpinnings of action research as a method through which educational organizations can strive toward improvement via collaborative processes. It continues by offering an overview of Transformative Learning Theory and how the components of critical reflection, communicative learning, and collective discourse have guided the continuous improvement process. It continues by describing the initial action research cycle whereby the process and components of the Doctorate of Education (Ed.D.) program were created and implemented. Next, it offers the findings from the second action research cycle in which three cohorts of candidates matriculated through the program during the refinement process. It closes with an overview of the forthcoming action research cycle, focused on gathering data from program graduates and current students via an inclusive leadership self-assessment and focus groups aimed at responding to the first research question, and document analysis and individual program faculty interviews designed to gather responsive data to the second question.

Darling-Hammond, L., Meyerson, D., La Pointe, M. M., & Orr, M. T. (2010). Preparing principals for a changing world, San Francisco, CA, Jossey-Bass. Darling-Hammond, L., Wechsler, M. E., Levin, S., Leung-Gagné, M., & Tozer, S. (2022). Developing effective principals: What kind of learning matters? Learning Policy Institute. https://doi.org/10.54300/641.201. Updated September 14, 2023. Orr, M.T. (2023). Reflections on leadership preparation research and current directions. Frontiers in Education 8:1206880. Doi: 10.3389/feduc.2023.1206880.

Teacher and middle leadership, as concepts and practices, have gained growing interest and momentum in education globally (Harris & Jones, 2017). As a result of this increased attention, there are diverse views regarding definitions, characteristics, and associated practices (Gurr & Nicholas, 2023). However, there appears to be consensus on the positive effect of teacher and middle leaders in exerting influence (Campbell et al., 2015; Di Nobile, 2021; Gurr, 2023) that is used to enhance professional practice through collaboration, trust and a strong focus on teaching and learning and school improvement (Gurr, 2023; Nguyen et al., 2020). At a time when the teaching profession in the world is experiencing higher than ever levels of stress and an increase in work intensification resulting in teacher shortages, the role of teacher and middle leaders seems to be more important and will likely remain features of future schools. With this in mind, this paper explores and highlights the leadership preparation and development that will be required to equip teacher and middle leaders, irrespective of context, with the necessary skills and knowledge to lead their colleagues during an uncertain and fast-changing educational landscape. This paper begins with an overview of the literature on teacher and middle leadership and teacher and middle leadership preparation and development from a global perspective. Then preparation and development in one geographically large jurisdiction, Australia, is described. Using the case of Australia, the paper then considers how over the next two decades the role of teacher and middle leadership might change and what implications this will have for changes in leadership preparation and development. Implications for schools across the world are considered.

Campbell, C., Lieberman, A., & Yashkina, A. (2015). Teachers leading educational improvements: Developing teachers’ leadership, improving practices, and collaborating to share knowledge. Leading and Managing, 21(2), 90–105. De Nobile, J. (2021). Researching middle leadership in schools: The state of the art, International Studies in Educational Administration, 49(2), 3-27. Gurr, D., & Nicholas, D. (2023). Teacher and middle leadership: Resolving conceptual confusion to advance the knowledge base of teacher leadership. Asia Pacific Journal of Educators and Education, 38(2), 5–22. https://doi. org/10.21315/apjee2023.38.2.2 Gurr, D. (2023). A review of Research on Middle Leaders in Schools. In Robert Tierney, Fazal Rizvi, Kadriye Ercikan and Graham Smith (Eds.) International Encyclopedia of Education (London, UK: Elsevier), pp. 115-122. Gurr, D., & Nicholas, D. (2023). Teacher and middle leadership: Resolving conceptual confusion to advance the knowledge base of teacher leadership. Asia Pacific Journal of Educators and Education, 38(2), 5–22. Harris, A., & Jones, M. (2017). Middle leaders matter: Reflections, recognition, and renaissance, School Leadership and Management 37(3), 213-216. Nguyen, D., Harris, A., & Ng, D. (2020). A review of the empirical research on teacher leadership (2003–2017). Evidence, patterns and implications. Journal of Educational Administration, 58(1), 60–80. https://doi.org/10.1108/JEA-02-2018-0023

In recent years, leadership and professional learning and development have become part of an international lexicon associated with school improvement. Much is now known about the significance of leadership in raising expectations around pupil attainment and achievement and in fostering the conditions for effective learning for children and young people in school (Grissom et al. 2021). However, across the world there are difficulties in recruiting suitably qualified senior school leaders. Scotland provides a good case study of such a system because it has been grappling with issues of headteacher recruitment for over a decade and the current policy programme is focused on reforming the governance of school education. Reducing the ‘poverty related attainment gap’ for young people has become the mantra of the Scottish Government over the past few years and headteachers (school principles) have been focused on as key actors in realising educational policy ambitions. In Scotland headteacher preparation is now seen as an essential element in readying teachers for this role, reflected in the fact that since August 2020, there is a statutory requirement for aspiring headteachers to gain the Standard for Headship (General Teaching Council for Scotland, 2021), mainly through a masters level programme called Into Headship. This paper presents the findings of a research project which explores the lived experiences of a cohort of aspirant school leaders undertaking the Into Headship programme, to understand how engaging in this process impacted and influenced their leadership development, practices and their preparedness for the headteacher role. An ecological model of agency (Priestley et al. 2015) has been used to shape the research design and to analyse the data. Ways in which this sustained learning programme impacted the agency of the participants in developing their professional identity and leading school improvements were considered. This paper concludes with a futures-oriented stance considering what lessons can be drawn from this research to enhance the development of future principal preparation programmes. This is done by examining how the underpinning values, concepts, design processes and practices of the programme, impacted the agency of participants in terms of equipping them with strategies to navigate their way through political tensions, competing demands and expectations in leading school improvement and the effect this had on their knowledge and understanding of strategic leadership and their own professional identities.

Grissom, J. A., Egalite, A. J., & Lindsay, C. A. (2021) How Principals Affect Students and Schools: A Systematic Synthesis of Two Decades of Research. Research Report. Wallace Foundation. GTCS. (2021). GTC Professional Standards for Teachers. [online] Available at: https://www.gtcs.org.uk/professional-standards/professional-standards-for-teachers/

Like other international jurisdictions, New Zealand is facing an escalating recruitment and retention crisis within the school principal workforce. However, unlike their international counterparts, New Zealand principals are not required to possess postgraduate qualifications nor are they compelled to complete formal leadership preparation programs prior to appointment. Over the past two decades, the influence of school leadership on student outcomes has become evident (Leithwood, et al., 2020). Yet in New Zealand, programs to prepare Aspiring and First Time Principals were stopped. Given prior experience in a school leadership role is often deemed the best pathway to principalship, attention is turning to those in middle leadership roles and their preparation for educational leadership. This paper explores leadership preparation in urban and semi-rural schools in New Zealand. Drawing on a multiple case study conducted during 2020-2022, the views of three aspiring leaders are considered with regard to their perceived level of preparedness for leadership in terms of key competencies as outlined by the Leadership Strategy (2018) and the additional challenges to preparation brought about by ongoing and new crises. The paper is framed by research and policy that addresses successful school leadership in New Zealand and research undertaken globally, and aims to contribute to a growing body of international literature about leadership of high-needs schools as evidenced in the work of the International Schools Leadership Development Network (Angelle, 2017; Murakami et al., 2019). The paper builds on other research that seeks to understand the influence of government policy and strategy on school leaders and the educational outcomes of students (Cranston, 2013; Gunter & Thomson, 2009). Insights into leadership preparation in New Zealand are heard in the voices of middle leader participants as they decide whether to step up or step away from school leadership. Thus, the barriers and opportunities faced by these leaders contribute to a discussion about the function of school leadership in the next decade and beyond. Given no current mandatory leadership preparation in New Zealand, this paper contains important recommendations for policy makers and school practitioners.

Angelle, P. S. (Ed.) (2017). A global perspective of social justice leadership for school principals. Information Age Publishing, Inc. Cranston, J. (2013). School leaders leading: Professional responsibility not accountability as the key focus. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 41(2), 129-142. Gunter, H., & Thomson, P. (2009). The makeover: A new logic in leadership development in England. Educational Review, 61(4), 469-483. Leithwood, K., Harris, A., & Hopkins, D. (2020). Seven strong claims about successful school leadership revisited. School Leadership & Management, 40(1), 5-22. Murakami, E., Gurr, D., & Notman, R. (Eds.). (2019). Educational leadership, culture and success in high-needs schools. Information Age Publishing, Inc. Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand (2018). The leadership strategy for the teaching profession of Aotearoa New Zealand: Enabling every teacher to develop their leadership capability. Retrieved from https://teachingcouncil.nz/professional-practice/rauhuia-leadership-space-home/rauhuia-leadership-space/leadership-strategy/ and development. Professional Development in Education, 47(1), 22-35.

The World School Leadership Study (WSLS) has three aims. First, it aims to gain empirical insights into compulsory education school leaders’ leadership work and their professional health in around 40 countries. Second, based on the national data gathered in each country, comparative analysis will be conducted to identify similarities and differences across countries. Third, the WSLS aims to generate knowledge which can support policy formulation and implementation for the professionalization of school leaders and their work environment. Hence, this study contributes to the knowledge base of different human resource management aspects, e.g. attracting, recruiting, training and developing school leaders. The WSLS also has implications for institutions to provide professional support infrastructures for school leaders. The data will be analyzed and reported nationally with an ideographical perspective and internationally with a comparative perspective. The WSLS draws on several strands of literature originated in different positions in the field of educational leadership. This is necessary to understand the challenges of leadership related to shifting policy contexts and governing regimes where perspectives on leadership roles and core practices may differ over time and across countries.

The WSLS intends to answer the following research questions:

1. What are school leaders´ roles and functions?
2. How do school leaders’ work settings and conditions look like and how are they experienced by school leaders?
3. How do school leaders practice their leadership, what are preferences and strains, how do they experience their competences as to professional challenges?
4. What programs exist for preparation of school leaders?
5. What programs exist for introduction of newly appointed school leaders and what programs exist for established and experienced school leaders in the different countries?
6. Which are the particularities and challenges of these programs?

Corresponding to the above research questions, particular research design, methods and instruments are designed to support the researchers from the participating countries to collect data. The aim of the symposium is to develop the research design and methodology further as well as examining theoretical models which will be used as frameworks for the project. A further aim is to provide insights into educational systems, role of school leadership and state of research on school leadership from different continents and stimulate discussion with the international audience.

 Data for the WSLS will be collected using a mixed-methods approach. The mandatory part of the study comprises a country report (document analysis and expert interviews) and an online survey. The optional part of the study includes an end-of-day log and in-depth follow-up interviews. Each contribution presents findings but also some critical key questions about the profession of school leadership. First results will be presented based on the findings of the country reports from various countries including Sweden, Ireland, Iceland, Spain, Australia, Kenya, India, and Russia

Sweden has a long tradition in educating school principals. As early as the 1960s, state involvement in the training of school leaders was introduced, with courses in a number of pedagogical and administrative areas. In 1976, the Swedish government decided on a two-year national training program for all principals in the school system. Today´s 3-year national in-service principal training program is administered by seven universities and compulsory for all newly appointed principals. Besides that, universities offer a one-year recruitment course for teachers as aspiring principals, as well as courses in various topics to experienced principals. The municipalities and school owners offer in-service training in cooperation with universities and consultants mostly with the aim to increase organizational quality. A new government initiative wants to promote professional development programs to increase the possibility to individual professional development in addition to courses to provide organizational development. There is a widespread belief that learning is crucial for development and quality among all professions. At the same time there is a challenge how to transform the new insights into action. Another challenge is that the various actors within the governing body do not agree on what topics or learning should be prioritized. While in Ireland the spectrum of professional supports available for educational leaders has often been regarded as ad-hoc, in more recent times, become central in the practical preparation and development of individuals in leadership roles (CSL Report, 2015). Current requirements for principal leadership in Ireland do not include mandatory leadership qualifications or previous experience. In an attempt to respond to the urgent need of more diverse supports, newly developed programmes for the induction of newly appointed principals (Misneach) and a developmental programme for school leadership teams (Forbairt) are provided for principals by Oide, a new service organisation which integrated previous professional learning support services into one body since September 2023. Oide also provide learning opportunities and supports throughout the academic school year where school leaders can choose to participate from the wide range of services available that include mentoring, coaching, induction, curriculum, pedagogy, leadership practice and school improvement. Other formalised school leadership development programmes available in Ireland include a postgraduate programme in school leadership (PDSL) and a master’s in educational leadership at third level Universities. Both postgraduate programmes are available for principal leaders or aspiring school leaders.

1. Johansson, O, Guest Editor: Democracy and leadership, In Journal of Educational Administration, Vol. 42 No. 6, 2004. Emerald Group Publishing Limited. 2. Johansson, O. “Introduction - Democracy and leadership – or training for democratic leadership” in Journal of Educational Administration; Guest editor Olof Johansson, Vol 42, Number 6, 2004. Emerald Group Publishing Limited, England, pp 620 - 624 3. Johansson, O,. “A Democratic, learning and communicative leadership” in Journal of Educational Administration; Guest editor Olof Johansson, Vol 42, Number 6, 2004. Emerald Group Publishing Limited, England, pp 697 – 707 4. Helene Ärlestig, Christopher Day & Olof Johansson, Editors (2016) A Decade of Research on School Principals – Cases from 24 countries. Dordrecht: Springer. 5. Petros Pashardis & Olof Johansson, Editors (2016) Successful School Leadership: International Perspectives. London: Bloomsbury Academic. 6. Sigurdardottir, S., Skedsmo, G. & Ärlestig, H. (2023). Principals’ preparation and professional development in Nordic countries. In: AE Gunnulfsen, H. Ärlestig & M. Stoorgard(Ed.) Education and Democracy in the Nordic Countries. Springer.

Since 2014, the main requirement for Spanish school principals to be recruited consist of an initial training course of at least 120 hours. While its goals and content are stablished by a nation-wide order, the course is implemented by the Departments of Education of the 17 regions plus 2 autonomous cities. A variety of education professionals are eligible for teaching its content, including supervisors, experienced school principals, university lecturers and researchers. Additionally, other institutions like universities or private companies can obtain the permission from the regional authorities to organize the course. Such pre-service training is considered by consulted experts as scarce, too theoretical, and too focused on bureaucracy. Besides, induction for newly appointed principals is almost inexistent. There is also a wide margin of improving principals’ in-service education, as it is mainly based on traditional methodologies and very few courses keep a focus on the analysis of the practice. Activities like participation in colleagues’ networks for professional development, or peer observation and orientation under formal structures are clearly below OECD average, according to TALIS 2018 report. However, we are in the way of improving leaders’ professionalization, fuelled by an increasing claim for better results to the schools and their management teams. The aim of the presentation is to give overview of the educational governing system in Iceland and historically map the existing research trends on governance and leadership in upper secondary and compulsory education to identify research opportunities. In doing so we focus on the six topics stipulated by the World School Leadership group (hereafter WSLS). The preliminary findings reveal a growing field and a hidden treasure of research in the area. We found studies that fall under all the six topics set by WSLS. Some fields are still weakly represented, such as values and professional understanding. The available topics are highly depended on the manpower within the academia, educational opportunities, political interventions, and other development. The study suggests the importance of filling the gaps we identified and highlights the important role of the universities to uphold and renew academics and educational opportunities within the field to construct more diverse knowledge.

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In Australia the preparation and development of school leaders is important for school success and there is now interest in the leadership demands of early career teachers, teacher leaders, middle leaders, senior leader and principals (Gurr et al., in press). Australia is an example of a country where there has been considerable interest and research on school leadership preparation (Watterston, 2015), but there is little in the way of formal requirements, with, for example, across the many systems (government, Catholic and independent schools) there being no general mandatory certification process for school principals (Drysdale & Gurr, 2021). Despite many systems now having leadership institutions of some form, generally aspirant leaders must navigate their own career pathway and self-identify as a leadership candidate (Gurr & Drysdale, 2015). Unfortunately, the self -managed process offers little guidance to judge preparedness for middle leader and principal/senior leadership roles. Despite a variety of leadership preparation and development programs being available only a third of principals will report having formal leadership qualifications (McKenzie, et al., 2014). School leadership management in Kenya falls under the Teachers’ Service Commission (TSC). This is the singular body mandated to managing the teaching workforce in Kenya’s schools. It hires teachers and principals for public schools, but those in private schools also have to register with it. In 2018, the TSC introduced the Career Progression Guidelines. This document outlines promotion criteria for principals and deputy principals. To serve as a deputy principal, one needs to be at the level of Senior Master III T-Scale 10 for a minimum of 3 years. The deputy principal position consists of three levels: level III (T-Scale 11), level II (T-Scale 12) and level I (T-Scale 13). These are promotional levels that involves transitioning form level III to level II to level I. Upon competition, the individual can apply for promotion as a Principal. The three promotional grades for secondary school Principals include: Principal (T- Scale 13), Senior Principal (T- Scale 14), and Chief Principal (T- Scale 15). In all these levels, there is a requirement to have a master’s degree in a relevant area. However, there is no specification of it being in school leadership.

Drysdale, L. & Gurr, D. (2021). Finding and Promoting Effective Leaders, in F.W. English (Ed.) The Palgrave Handbook of Educational Leadership and Management Discourse, (London, UK: Palgrave). Gurr, D., Gurr, A., Gurr, Z., Jarni, B. & Major, E. (in press) Leadership demands on four early career teachers. Liu, P. & Thien, L.M. (Eds) Understanding Teacher Leadership in education change: An International Perspective, (London: Routledge). Gurr, D. & Drysdale, L. (2015). An Australian Perspective on School Leadership Preparation and Development: Credentials or self-management?, Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 35(3), pp. 377-391. McKenzie, P., Weldon, P., Rowley, G., Murphy, M., & McMillan, J. (2014). Staff in Australia’s schools 2013: Main report of the survey. Camberwell: Australian Council for Educational Research. Prikaz ot 26 avgusta 2010 goda N 761n (red. 31.05.2011) «Ob otsenke Yedinogo kvalifikatsionnogo spravochnika dolzhnostey bukhgalterov, spetsialistov i sluzhashchikh, razdel “Kvalifikatsionnyye

Improving schools is at the heart of all reform measures in recent years in India. The National Education Policy 2020 has highlighted the importance of professionalizing school leadership by providing various opportunities for in-service principals to avail themselves of professional development in diverse areas. It has been emphasized in the policy that school Improvement is a developmental trajectory leading to long-term and sustainable changes in school processes, practices, and outcomes. It includes but is not limited to, better management and utilization of resources, progressive changes in teaching-learning processes, staff participation in decision-making, strengthening school-community ties, and most importantly, enhancing student learning and outcomes. This paper addresses the current educational reforms, ground realities, School leadership programs, and future directions in India with research on evidence-based challenges of school principals in India. The research focus revolves around the changes in the requirements for the position of a principal in the Russian educational system. The unified qualifying directory, the certification itself created a system, where the professional training and education for principals is not homogeneous. Moreover, a candidate could become a principal having no experience in the educational field at all (Order dated August 26, 2010 N 761n (red. 31.05.2011). With the endorsement of the law, the majority of principals urgently completed a master’s degree or a professional retraining in the required fields which were not always related to the educational field (Bysik & Kasprzhak, 2016; TALIS, 2018). TALIS revealed that the majority of school principals (88% of those polled) undergo the required managerial training only after they have already taken up their positions (TALIS, 2018). Moreover, few of the candidates for school principal in Russia are aware of their impending promotion and are able to prepare for the position in advance (Bysik et al., 2015). Despite the fact that Russia has the unified qualifying directory, there is no information on the required skills for the position (Order dated August 26, 2010 N 761n (red. 31.05.2011). The striking point of the Russian education system is that no unified principal certification system, no professional standards for principals, no national qualification exists in the Russian education system. The first professional standards for principals were elaborated and adapted only in March 2022. As a consequence, the definition of the school leader’s profession is becoming more multifaceted.

Bysik, N., Evstigneeva, N., Isaeva, N., Kukso, K., Harris, A., & Jones, M. (2015). A missing link? Contemporary insights into principal preparation and training in Russia. Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 35(3), 331–341. https://doi.org/10.1080/02188791.2015.1056588 Bysik, N., & Kasprzhak, A. (2016). Direktor sovremennoy rossiyskoy shkoly: Statisticheskiy portret, sistema podgotovki, praktika upravleniya [Principal of a modern Russian school: statistical portrait, training system, management practice]. Fakty Obrazovaniya, 5, 17. kharakteristiki dolzhnostey rabotnikov obrazovaniya”». (2010). [Order dated August 26, 2010 N 761n “On the evaluation of the Unified Qualification Directory for the Positions of Leaders, experts and civil servants, section “Qualification Characteristics of the Positions of Educational Workers”»]. (in Russian). https://docs.cntd.ru/document/902233423 TALIS. (2018). The OECD teaching and learning international survey. Watterston, B (2015a). Environmental Scan: Principal Preparation Programs, prepared for the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (Melbourne: AITSL). Watterston, B. (2015b) Preparing Future Leaders: Effective preparation for aspiring school principals (Melbourne: AITSL).

ECER, 2024, will be organized in Cyprus and the Cyprus Educational Administration Society (founded in 1977) as a dynamic and forward-thinking organization dedicated to advancing the field of educational leadership in Cyprus and as part of its commitment to knowledge exchange among different contexts, along with fostering international collaboration, is organizing a symposium titled “Exploring the Evolving Landscape of School Leadership: Insight Stories from the Field”. Since, modern societies, are increasingly dealing with "unknown unknowns" (Ansell & Boin, 2019), school organizations must deal with "unknown unknowns" caused by conflicts, abrupt changes, unexpected crises, and a range of other evolving challenges. Within, this perspective, the symposium will feature participating countries, including Cyprus, Austria, and Greece, fostering a cross-cultural exchange of stories within the evolving landscape of school leadership. This approach aims to provide tangible perspectives for participants, fostering a collaborative and enriching environment. In particular, within the dynamic area of education, the role of school leadership is undergoing a transformative journey, marked by the integration of cutting-edge technologies (AI, ChatGTP), the importance of innovative marketing strategies, a heightened emphasis on monitoring educational leadership practices in general and the sustainable educational future of school organizations. Therefore, from Cyprus, the 1^st paper informs how AI and other emerging technological tools are influencing school leadership by arguing on the important topic of AI and school leadership and presenting the questions that will guide the future plan of integration and utilization of AI within the school leadership domain. The 2^nd paper from Greece will examine the changing dynamics of school leadership in Greece towards a more sustainable educational future. Also, the 3^rd paper from Cyprus, based on empirical research conducted in Cyprus, presents how educational marketing in public secondary schools could affect school leaders’ leadership roles. Finally, the 4^th paper from Austria, sheds light on the question of why it makes sense to place school leaders at the centre of educational monitoring studies without even addressing performance indicators in German-speaking countries. In general, by combining these evolving themes from various countries in Europe, the Cyprus Educational Administration Society is dedicated to facilitating an inclusive and engaging symposium that contributes to the ongoing dialogue on evolving school leadership practices in an ever-evolving educational landscape.

Current crises and changes have catalyzed significant transformations in the educational sector, shifting from traditional formal education to an increased reliance on informal learning facilitated by virtual teaching and learning technologies (Steinbauer et al., 2021). From the perspective of informal education, the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a potential tool to enhance the teaching process for educators. Recent scoping reviews by Chen et al. (2020) and Feng & Law (2021) underscore the growing acceptance and utilization of AI in education, evolving from computer-based technologies to web-based intelligent education systems. In addition, the emergence of OpenAI and GenAI, particularly the ChatGPT tool, is poised to significantly impact the educational community. Yet, in the broader context of educational leadership, the literature is scarce on the intersection of AI and leadership roles (Wang, 2021). Also, the potential impact of AI and ChatGPT on the future of educational leadership remains uncertain, as emphasized by Fullan et al. (2023) and Karakose et al. (2023). Having said that, there exist a multitude of questions that necessitate the collective engagement of the research community to address or, more broadly, to reflect upon. In fact, the intersection of AI and school leadership requires a nuanced understanding of benefits, challenges, ethical considerations, and the necessary competencies for effective implementation. Therefore, in this paper, the important topic of AI and school leadership will be highlighted by addressing the questions that will guide the future plan of integration and utilization of AI.

Chen, L., Chen, P. & Lin, Z. (2020). Artificial Intelligence in Education: A Review. IEEE Access, 8, 75264-75278. Feng, S. & Law, N. (2021). Mapping Artificial Intelligence in Education Research: a Network‐based Keyword Analysis. Int J Artif Intell Educ 31, 277–303. Fullan, M., Azorín, C., Harris, A., Jones, M. (2023). Artificial intelligence and school leadership: challenges, opportunities and implications. School Leadership & Management, DOI: 10.1080/13632434.2023.2246856 Karakose T., Demirkol M., Yirci R., Polat H., Ozdemir TY. & Tülübaş T. A. (2023). Conversation with ChatGPT about Digital Leadership and Technology Integration: Comparative Analysis Based on Human–AI Collaboration. Administrative Sciences, 13(7).157. Steinbauer, G., Kandlhofer, M., Chklovski, T., Heintz, F. & Koenig, S. (2021). A Differentiated Discussion About AI Education K‑12. Künstliche Intelligenz, 35, 131–137. Wang, Y. (2021). Artificial intelligence in educational leadership: a symbiotic role of human-artificial intelligence decision-making. Journal of Educational Administration, 59(3), 256-270.

The role of school leadership in Greece has undergone significant changes over the years. These changes have been driven by various factors, including the need to improve educational performance, adapt to a rapidly changing environment, and address the challenges posed by the country's multifaceted crisis (Lazaridou & Antoniou, 2017; Christopoulou, 2014). School principals are expected to play a central role in driving these changes and creating a conducive environment for learning and growth striving for a more sustainable future for the country’s schools. Unfortunately, the operational framework of the Greek educational system stands as an obstacle to sustainable school leadership with its limited capacity of intervention for school principals and teachers, its lack of communication and collaboration within Greek schools, its formalism and bureaucracy, and its inadequate evaluation of school units and principals. Despite these challenges, there are opportunities for school leaders in Greece to embrace sustainable practices and drive positive change. Model and experimental schools are such an example and can play a crucial role in promoting sustainable education (Tsouris, 2016). These schools serve as innovative platforms for testing and implementing new approaches, strategies, and curriculum that integrate sustainability principles into the learning environment. By adopting a holistic and forward-thinking approach, model and experimental schools contribute to the development of sustainable practices and mindsets among students, educators, and the wider community. In the Greek educational system, historically, model and experimental schools have been associated with schools of education and they have served as training schools to future teachers (Tsouris, 2016). In an effort to promote excellence and innovation in education, recently, the Ministry of Education has issued a mandate for schools to voluntarily align their orientations with the goals of normal and experimental schools. Currently, 112 model and experimental schools operate in Greece. In this paper, I will explore the role of school leadership in model and experimental schools in three sustainable pillars: a) curriculum development, b) student engagement, and c) community involvement. I will focus on two cases, a model school and an experimental school to show how, by providing innovative and experiential learning opportunities, these schools can contribute to the development of sustainable practices and mindsets that are essential for creating a more sustainable future.

Bamber, P., Sullivan, A., Glover, A., King, B. and McCann, G. (2016). A comparative review of policy and practice for education for sustainable development/ education for global citizenship (ESD/GC) in teacher education across the four nations of the UK. Management in Education, 30(3), 112–120. Christopoulou, S. P. (2014). Model Pilot Schools: Designing the Schools of the 21st Century. Schools of skills and innovation. In: S. Bouzakis (Ed.), 7th Scientific Conference on the History of Education with International Participation. Topic: Model Experimental Schools. Which knowledge has the greatest value? Historical-comparative approaches, June 27-29, 2014 (pp. 46-53). Athens: Gutenberg. Lazaridou, A., and Antoniou, Z. (2017). Margins of autonomy of secondary schools in the exercise of internal educational policy: teachers’ views. Step Soc. Sci. 17:68. in Greek, Tsouris, N. (2016). The New Model of Experimental Schools: Reform or Distortion? In: G. Alexandratos, A. Tsivas & T. Arvaniti-Papadopoulou (Eds.), 2nd Panhellenic Conference of the Panhellenic Association of School Counselors. Educational Policies for the 21st Century School, March 27-29, 2015, vol. A. (pp. 483-491). Athens: Panhellenic Association of School Counselors.

Pardey (1991, as cited in Oplatka & Hemsley-Brown, 2012) defines Educational Marketing (EM) as the processes through which the needs of customers of the educational organization are identified and satisfied, ensuring the achievement of its goals. In the educational context, customers are not only students and their parents but also all external factors that collaborate with the school or are affected by its activities. Given that EM aims to satisfy the needs of the customers of the educational organization, Oplatka & Hemsley-Brown (2012) emphasize that it has become an essential function of educational administration. Without it, a school cannot survive in today's competitive environment. Indeed, the environment in which schools operate today, reflecting contemporary societies, is highly competitive due to daily and intense changes. Therefore, EM is tasked with bridging the gap between the school, which is essentially a static entity resistant to changes and modernizations, and a constantly changing society. Operating in a competitive environment with limited resources and unattainable goals requires the establishment of marketing relationships with various partners, as emphasized by Morgan and Hunt (1994). Recent research conducted in public secondary education in Cyprus has yielded two intriguing conclusions. Employing a Mixed Methodology approach, the study utilized questionnaires, documentations of learning outcomes, and interviews with school administrators. The findings revealed the pivotal role of the school leader in implementing and adopting entrepreneurial relationships with external factors affecting the school. This aligns with the outcomes of international research by Brauckmann and Pashiardis (2011∙ 2016) and Pashiardis and Brauckmann (2019), who observe that a contemporary and successful school leader combines two leadership styles, the Pedagogical and the Entrepreneurial, characterizing this combination as the Edupreneurial Leadership Style. Furthermore, the research concluded that in Cyprus, the number of partnerships developed by public schools is limited, whereas in other countries, as mentioned by Yang and Robson (2012), this number is considerably higher. The reason for this is that schools seek to establish partnerships with external collaborators who could primarily reinforce them financially. Thus, through these financial resources, they can implement their educational programs. On the other hand, abroad, public schools aim to build collaborative relationships with more exogenous factors, thereby having the opportunity to gain additional benefits from them.

Brauckmann, S., & Pashiardis, P. (2011). A validation study of the leadership styles of a holistic leadership theoretical framework. International Journal of Educational Management, 25(1), 11-32. Brauckmann, S., & Pashiardis, P. (2016). Practicing successful and effective school leadership: European perspectives. In Successful school leadership: International perspectives (pp. 179-192). Morgan, R., & Hunt, S. (1994). The commitment-trust theory of relationship marketing. The journal of marketing, 58, pp. 20-38. Oplatka, I., & Hemsley-Brown, J. (2012). Research on School Marketing, current issues and future directions, an updated version. In J. Hemsley-Brown, & I. Oplatka (Eds.), The Management and Leadership of Educational Marketing (pp. 1-47). Emerald Group Publishing. Pashiardis, P., & Brauckmann, S. (2019). New public management in education: A call for the edupreneurial leader? Leadership and Policy in Schools, 18(3), 485-499. Yang, H., & Robson, J. (2012). A Conceptual Framework for Classifying and Understanding Relationship Marketing Within Schools. In H. Yang, & J. Robson, The Management and Leadership of Educational Marketing: Research, Practice and Applications (pp. 185-205). Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

The so-called “Schulleitungsmonitor” (Educational Leadership Monitor = ELM) has been introduced in Germany in 2019 (Cramer et al., 2021), in Switzerland in 2021 (Tulowitzki et al., 2022) and more recently in Austria in 2022 (Groß Ophoff et al., eingereicht). In all three German-speaking countries, there was a broad media response to the country-specific implementation of the project, and the educational authorities are very interested in the results of the study, too, which is why it is to be repeated prospectively at regular intervals in all three countries. Our presentation aims at shedding light on the question of why it makes sense to place school leaders at the centre of educational monitoring studies without even addressing performance indicators? Instead, constructs such as professional values, professional self-image, job satisfaction, career prospects and leadership styles are investigated (Groß Ophoff et al., submitted). One reason for this is that school leaders are viewed as key drivers of change and innovation in schools (Brown et al., 2021; Bryk, 2010; Fullan, 1993). Beyond traditional administrative and pedagogical tasks, today’s school leaders are responsible for instructional, staff and organizational development at their own school (Pietsch et al., 2022), and are required to being able to deal with periods of high stress in view of their wide-ranging task profile (Kemethofer, 2022; Pont et al., 2008). Against this backdrop, the implementation of the ELM in each of the three German-speaking countries will be presented (Germany 2019: N = ; Switzerland 2020: N = ; Austria 2022: N = ) and some insights into the specifics of the study implementation will be given. The comparison of the survey results makes it particularly clear that there are significant differences between the three countries. On the one hand, school leaders everywhere are particularly interested in informal learning. On the other hand, there are significant differences between the three countries regarding the availability and organization of such qualification programs. The conception and concrete implementation of ELM have the side effect that the focus of the public discussion is primarily on development rather than accountability, especially as there are no binding standards for school leadership in Germany or Switzerland available to date, which is why no summative evaluation based on performance measures is possible. In conclusion, an outlook is given on how this project will continue and which topics should be addressed in future.

Brown, C., White, R., & Kelly, A. (2021). Teachers as educational change agents: What do we currently know? Findings from a systematic review. Emerald Open Research, 3, 26. Bryk, A. S. (2010). Organizing schools for improvement. Phi Delta Kappan, 91(7), 23–30. Cramer, C., Groß Ophoff, J., Pietsch, M., & Tulowitzki, P. (2021). Schulleitung in Deutschland. Repräsentative Befunde zur Attraktivität, zu Karrieremotiven und zu Arbeitsplatzwechselabsichten. Die Deutsche Schule, 113(2), 132–148. Fullan, M. G. (1993). Why teachers must become change agents. Educational leadership, 50, 12–12. Groß Ophoff, J., Pfurtscheller, J., Brauchle, G., Tulowitzki, P., Pietsch, M., & Cramer, C. (eingereicht). Schulleitungen in Österreich. Aktuelle Herausforderungen zwischen Pädagogik und Verwaltung. Schulverwaltung aktuell Österreich. Kemethofer, D. (2022). Der Alltag von Schulleitungen: Empirische Befunde zu Tätigkeitsprofilen und Führungsansätzen. Gruppe. Interaktion. Organization. Zeitschrift für Angewandte Organizationspsychologie (GIO), 53(4), 427–436. Pietsch, M., Tulowitzki, P., & Cramer, C. (2022). Principals between exploitation and exploration: Results of a nationwide study on ambidexterity of school leaders. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 50(4), 574–592. Pont, B., Moorman, H., & Nusche, D. (2008). Improving school leadership (Bd. 1). OECD Paris. Tulowitzki, P., Pietsch, M., Grigoleit, E., & Sposato, G. (2022). Schulleitungsmonitor Schweiz 2021-Befunde zu Werdegängen, Karrieremotiven, beruflicher Zufriedenheit und Führungsweisen.

In England, the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (OfSTED) introduced a new Education Inspection Framework in 2019. Consequently, 3000 previously exempt 'Outstanding' schools are re-inspected from 2021 to 2025. In January 2023, Ruth Perry, a primary school headteacher, committed suicide following her school's downgrade from ‘Outstanding’ to ‘Inadequate’. Headteachers’ and teachers’ unions criticised OfSTED's judgments and their detrimental impact on people’s mental health. Eventually, Perry's school was re-inspected and upgraded to 'Good.' An inquest tied Perry's suicide partly to the initial inspection. A Coroner urged OfSTED to provide a detailed response and timetable, outlining the actions taken or planned to prevent future deaths. In response, OfSTED organised emergency training for inspectors to identify signs of stress and anxiety among school staff and leaders, indicating a belated acknowledgement of inspection-induced fear.

Amid the ongoing debates about OfSTED’s fitness for purpose and effectiveness, this paper employs complexity theory to examine why OfSTED has evolved into a rigid, powerful regime and how to lead meaningful changes if we envision a more humane, just and reliable inspection system.

This paper answers three research questions:

(1) What constitutes a complex inspection system in England?

(2) How do the underlying power dynamics lock the education inspection system in?

(3) How to strategize for a new education inspection system?

Through the lens of complexity theory, educational inspection operates as an open system in which various agents—inspectors, schools, parents, teachers’ unions, education policymakers and implementers—exchange information and engage in self-organised interactions, independent of external control (Turner & Baker, 2019). Some interactions adhere to established rules outlined in the Education Act 2005, inspection frameworks and handbooks, while others evolve organically, adapting to the dynamic environment. Over time, the system displays new properties that cannot be derived from its original components. This phenomenon is referred to as emergence (Morrison, 2008; Turner & Baker, 2019). For instance, despite being instructed not to undertake specific preparations, schools have learned to purchase and exchange information about specific inspectors’ personalities and their preferred data collection methods, aiming to appease inspectors and secure favourable inspection results (Author, 2023). This exchange of information and resources among agents has given rise to a new consultancy market selling inspection solutions.

Meanwhile, agents use imperfect knowledge to make choices and decisions. They co-evolve with the system, potentially adapting their agendas, beliefs and preferences over time. For example, after researchers discovered that Her/His Majesty’s Inspectors (HMIs) (full-time OfSTED employees) appeared harsher than OfSTED Inspectors (OIs) (freelancing inspectors paid a day rate) in assessing schools, both groups consciously adjusted their judgments in the opposite direction, inadvertently creating new forms of bias (Bokhove et al., 2023; Jerrim et al., 2023a). Another study indicates that schools employing OIs are more likely to receive an ‘Outstanding’ or ‘Good’ rating and significantly less likely to receive an ‘Inadequate’ or ‘Requires improvement’ result (Jerrim et al., 2023b). These findings can influence school recruitment strategies and teachers’ professional development plans.

In summary, education inspection in England represents a complex system wherein interdependent agents exchange information and resources in a self-organised manner. These agents learn, adapt and co-evolve with the system, utilising information acquired from and feeding new information into the system (Davis, 2008). Initial conditions, history and the sequence of events have established a path, impacting the future development of the system (Boulton et al., 2015). Given these inherent characteristics, addressing challenges faced by the current inspection system necessitates complexity thinking. Superficial changes—such as removing a few problematic inspectors, altering inspection frameworks or increasing inspector training—will prove inadequate if we leave the underlying power dynamics unexamined (Biesta, 2010).

In Sweden, as in many countries, the work of school principals has become increasingly complex due to both changed political prioritisations and the societal developments in general (e.g., digitalisation, segregation, and changes in the demographical composition of students). Principals often experience conflicts in their role as they are facing strong expectations being accountable for students results, responsible for the staff in combination with extensive administrative tasks.

While the Swedish Education Act highlights the autonomy of school principals in matters of school organization, finances, and improvement initiatives, it simultaneously underscores the Local Education Authorities' (LEAs) responsibility for school outcomes and ensuring equity. This duality introduces ambiguity and illustrates the challenges faced by actors within local school organizations (Adolfsson & Alvunger 2020). Initiatives from the LEA and superintendent are experienced as administrative by the principals and perceived as interfering with daily work and contributing to an overload of duties. More communication involving long-term visions, frames and interpretations of directives and research are needed in relation to the local context (Norqvist & Ärlestig 2020)

We have in previous epidemiological (Persson, et al., 2021a) and interview studies (Leo et al., 2020) observed that the work conditions of school principals often are overlooked, forgotten, or simply not prioritized by politicians and the superintendents, which are the school principals’ superiors. For example, in a survey that had a nationwide reach, and which entailed more than 2000 school principals and assistant principals, we observed that the principals rated a supportive management as the least supportive factor in comparison with four other factors (i.e., cooperating coworkers, supportive management colleagues, supportive private life and supportive organisational structures) (Persson et al., 2021a). In addition, and when data was broken down further, we observed that only 17% of the school principals and assistant principals agreed with the statements that assessed their trust that superiors had a genuine interest in their job and when needed would help them solving work environment problems for the co-workers (Persson et al., 2021b). Furthermore, when interviewed, the principals explained that the superintendent was the link between the school board (i.e., the political level) and the principals. They also reported that they sometimes experienced opposite expectations from the superintendent and the local school management that caused them to feel that the “gas” and the “break” was applied simultaneously (Leo et al., 2020). There seems to be disconnect between school principals and their superiors that hinders effective cooperation and management. Presumably, dealing with this disconnect will create knowledge that may unlock unused capacity and make the governance of schools more effective and in the end improve student outcomes.

Research on the LEA level give insight of the sometimes challenging relationship between superintendents and principals (Honig & Rainey, 2019; Hakansson & Adolfsson, 2022). However, few (if any) studies have adopted a dual perspective by interviewing both school principals and their immediate superiors within the same organisation to capture their unique perspectives on the same issue. Hence, to gain insight and to improve our understanding of this understudied relation, we decided to conduct an interview study that simultaneously addressed both the school principals and the superintendent’s perspective. Thus, the overall objective of the present study was to identify circumstances that were perceived as facilitating the cooperation between school principals and their immediate supervisors. Specifically, we aimed to answer the following research questions:

Research questions

1. How do school principals and the school principals’ closest managers (often superintendent) describe their collaboration and work relationship?

2. What opportunities and/or potential pathways for improving their collaboration and work relationship are proposed by school principals and their closest managers (often superintendent)?

Accountability and its negative effects on teachers’ working lives and retention is internationally recognised as a problem in education (Buchanan, 2015; Holloway, Sørensen, & Verger, 2017; Teltemann & Jude, 2019), with school evaluation and inspection being a particular issue. Teachers’ working lives are being increasingly affected by the rise in the neo-liberal performativity / accountability culture in schools, as internationally, schools are increasingly preoccupied with policies of achievement, particularly test results. This has led many schools to adopt a results-driven approach, with a plethora of strategies aimed at improving results. This is evidenced by what is commonly referred to as ‘box-ticking’, as teachers’ work is increasingly directed towards assessment, exams, progress measures and preparation for review and inspection, and away from the more individualistic and creative aspects of the job (Perryman 2022).

A performative accountability culture can particularly affect the agency of headteachers, as Evans (2001:151) explains: ‘At the same time as heads are being trained for leadership and vision and a mission for the school, they are simultaneously in receipt of education policies that are extremely instrumental and interrupt their own agency as head’. In England, the inspection regime Ofsted is seen as placing a particular pressure on Headteachers. Page (2017:5) writes ‘with Ofsted giving almost no notice of inspection, head teachers commit to continual Ofsted-readiness within their schools, a perpetual state of inspection anxiety that aims for good-or-outstanding practice throughout every day, every week and every year’. Ball et al (2012) found that senior management employed techniques such as ‘learning walks’, training and observation to improve teaching and learning and ensure a state of perpetual inspection-readiness. This shows how inspection creates ‘a marvellous machine’ (Foucault, 1977:202) in the quest for constant improvement. Courtney agrees, particularly with the effects on leadership; ‘Compliance is woven so tightly into the regime’s fabric that head teachers are unaware that performance ‘on the day’ is thereby replaced by a longer-lasting and more deeply affecting fabrication. Thus rather than being controlled and disciplined externally, senior leaders and teachers position themselves in particular ways to change their behaviour and practices in order to ‘fit’ the system, and adapt to changing policy contexts such as changing inspection frameworks’ which is ‘the self working on the self, the self shaping its own conduct’ (Gillies, 2013:79). These studies relate to the effect of Ofsted on Headteacher agency between inspections, but during inspections the pressure intensifies as they are held accountable for the performance of their school and can face dismissal if there is a negative outcome. Leaders of smaller schools, who may be more isolated, are particularly vulnerable and more frequently seek support (Headrest, 2023). In December 2023 a government inquiry concluded that Ofsted had ‘contributed’ to the death of a Headteacher, Ruth Perry, who had committed suicide whilst awaiting publication of an inspection report downgrading her previously ‘outstanding’ school to ‘requires improvement’ (Clarke, 2023).

This paper examines data from a recent research project ‘Beyond Ofsted’ (2023). This was an Inquiry commissioned by the National Education Union. The scope of the Inquiry centred around answering the key question of what a better inspection system in England could look like. Underlying this, we wanted to find out what the principles that make a good inspection system are, and how these translate into inspection processes and practice. One of the main themes of the data was the particular impact of inspection on Headteachers, which this paper will explore, with our reserch question being 'What is the effect of inspection on headteachers in England'.

Networks hold a meeting during ECER. All interested are welcome.

Introduction

Effective leadership is an important factor in teacher development. In recent years, teacher leadership has become the centre of educational research on improving educational practices (Beycioğlu & Aslan, 2010; Kilinç, 2014). Teacher leaders serve a variety of roles such as discovering their potential to influence student learning, improving teaching ability, influencing peer teachers and impacting policy decisions (Berg et al., 2014; Wenner & Campbell, 2017). In today’s information age, the advent of generative artificial intelligence has affected education profoundly (Hui, 2020). The challenges of the times call for teachers to cultivate teacher leadership, facilitating professional development and collaborative efforts to collectively confront digital challenges.

Storytelling is a novel educational method that facilitates knowledge obtaining (Scott et al., 2013). Storytelling has potential for enhancing teacher education, including as a means for exploring moral commitments and beliefs and for generating theories about teaching and learning (Bullough, 2010). Storytelling can encouraged novice teachers to think more like experts, to recognize an instructional event as an instance of a known category of problems. However, there are still relatively few studies that are set out from the pre-service teachers’ perspective and explore how storytelling can cultivate their teacher leadership.

Review of the teacher leadership literature shows that little is known about how teacher leadership manifests itself in action, especially in pre-service teachers (Muijs & Harris, 2006; Lai & Cheung, 2015). This gap leads to the focus of this study, which sets out to examine how to utilize storytelling to cultivate teacher leadership among pre-service teachers. To do this, this study built on the model of “the four Dempsey images” and uses grounded theory as an empowerment approach, to encourage teacher educators to design educational storytelling activities to foster pre-service teachers’ leadership. This study provides an instructional investigation into fostering pre-service teachers’ educational leadership through university-based teacher training. By using storytelling as the pedagogical method, this study demonstrates how to integrate the objective of building pre-service teacher leadership into the teacher education practices through pedagogical innovation. It is hoped that this case study can provoke theoretical discussions on how to harness the instructional pedagogy of educational storytelling as a meaningful practice in fostering pre-service teacher leadership.

Theoretical Framework

Dempsey (1992) offers a conceptual framework concerning teacher leadership, which consists of four images. In this study, Dempsey’s framework is also used to support the pre-service teachers’ leadership course design and as a data analysis tool for interpreting results. Image 1: Teacher as Fully Functioning Person suggests that teacher leaders must possess the ability to adapt, change, and grow. They must be fully committed to education while also continuing to strengthen their beliefs. Image 2: Teacher as Reflective Practitioner suggests that teacher leaders need to be reflective practitioners in order to foster substantial change when needed. Image 3: Teacher as Scholar notes that teacher leaders must be continual and flexible learners who apply knowledge both inside and outside of the classroom. Image 4: Teacher as Partner in Learning implies that teacher leaders take up the challenge of making collaborative communities of learning where not only students learn, but also where teachers, administrators, and parents learn.

Pre-service teachers need the ability to learn and adapt to new ways to teach their content. They need to enhance their skills to support the development of students’ learning needs. Meanwhile, they must collaborate with colleagues and parents to improve teaching practices. The four Dempsey images with adaptations to pre-service teachers served as the model of this research: pre-service teacher as fully functioning person, pre-service teacher as reflective practitioner, pre-service teacher as scholar, and pre-service teacher as learning partner.

Schools are increasingly complex organisations and research on leadership in schools is capturing this complexity (Harris & Jones, 2017, 2022). Whilst leadership from principals remains important and continues to be studied (Grissom, et al. 2021research on teacher and middle leadership has accelerated in recent years (Arar & Oplatka, 2022;De Nobile, 2021 ; Harris & Jones, 2017; Lipscombe et al. 2023; Schott et al., 2020). Whilst there is considerable research about the work of early career teachers (Watt & Richardson, 2023), and teacher preparation programs are beginning to include leadership training (Acquaro, 2019), there is almost no empirical research focussed on the leadership work of early career teachers. Given the current Australian, and now global, growing teacher and principal shortages, is timely to consider the leadership work and expectations, as well as the leadership demands on early career teachers.

This study sought to explore and answer the following research questions:

Main research question:

• How do teachers in their first to four years of teaching perceive and act upon the leadership work, expectations and demands placed on them?

Sub-questions:

• How have early career teachers enacted leadership in response to these demands?
• What other leadership work have early career teachers done?
• How were early career teachers prepared and supported to meet the leadership demands?
• How has their leadership work influenced their career aspirations?

The important role of a high-quality teaching profession in raising standards, reducing achievement inequalities, and transforming educational outcomes cannot be better emphasised in research papers. This four-year longitudinal research – upon which this paper is based – investigates the effects of the Early Career Framework (ECF) programme, within the context of school-related and individual factors, upon teacher retention decisions. The purpose is to fill an important evidence gap on the impact of related programme-level and school-level factors on the professional dispositions, perceived effectiveness, and retention decisions of early career teachers. In this paper we report results of the structural equation modelling (SEM) analysis of the Year 1 teacher survey which explored the impact of school leadership on the learning and retention decisions of early career teachers.

Context

Investing in teachers’ career-long professional learning and development has been regarded by policy makers, researchers and thinktanks as a cost-effective approach to retaining committed and capable teachers for the profession (Department for Education (DfE), 2019; EPI, 2020, 2021a and 2021b; RAND, 2021; PBE, 2022; Perry et al., 2022). It remains the case, however, for diverse and complex socio-economic and political reasons, that retaining committed and effective teachers is a real challenge.

Conceptual framing

The framing of the conceptual framework is informed by the social ecological theory of human development and other research about employee turnover and persistence (e.g., March & Simon, 1958; Peterson & Seligman, 2004; Porter & Steers, 1973) and variation in teacher turnover (e.g., T. D. Nguyen & Springer, 2023). The socio-ecological interpretation of human development provides a useful lens for investigating how multilevel contexts of the environments in which teachers work impact on their learning, growth and development over the course of their professional lives. This theoretical underpinning emerged from Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ground-breaking work on human development which is, in essence, concerned with the interconnectedness and interactions between multilevel systems and the ways they shape the course of human development throughout the life span.

Within this socio-ecological interpretation of human development, we have encompassed ideas from Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT), especially the work of Lent and his colleagues (e.g., Lent et al., 2002). Exemplifying many of the features of positive psychology (Seligman, 2002), SCCT is rooted in constructivist assumptions encompassed in Bandura’s general social cognitive theory (1986) about the agency of individuals in shaping their own behaviour. According to such theory, a considerable proportion of human behaviour can be explained by an array of beliefs about oneself, influenced by the contexts in which one finds oneself.

Taken together, such conceptual framing places the focus of our investigation on the reciprocal interaction between the capability development of the individual teacher and the quality of multiple reciprocating systems in which their careers are located. Personal goals and outcomes are therefore seen as nurtured by the environments in which they work.

Research questions

RQ.1: What have been the impact of early career teachers’ learning on the Early Career Framework (ECF) (induction) programme on their learning and retention decisions?

RQ.2: What are the main factors leading to teachers’ decision to stay?

RQ.3: How does school leadership impact – if at all – on early career teachers’ learning on the ECF programme and retention?

Introduction

This paper presents a systematic review of research reviews on teacher retention. The purpose is to identify knowledge claims about why teachers stay in teaching and through this, establish a nuanced conceptual account of how school systems improve teacher retention. Although the literature associated with teacher retention has been investigated and mapped in various ways in existing research reviews, as our analysis in this paper shows, most previous attempts have focussed on exploring effects of discrete factors despite many factors exercise interconnected effects on teachers’ decision to stay or leave the profession.

Context

Improving teacher retention is a priority in many countries across the globe as it has direct and indirect effects on student learning. Investing in teachers’ development has been seen by researchers, thinktanks and policy makers as a cost-effective approach to improving retention (e.g., Burge et al., 2021; Fletcher-Wood & Zuccollo, 2020; Pro Bono Economics (PBE), 2022; Van den Brande & Zuccollo, 2021). However, despite extensive investment in teachers’ human capital, it remains the case, for diverse and complex personal, socio-economic and political reasons, that retaining and developing committed, resilient and effective teachers is a real challenge. In the world of high-income countries, such as the USA, the UK and many European countries, shortage of teacher supply tends to be a particularly pressing problem for core subject areas such as maths, modern foreign languages and science (European Commission, 2012; Katsarova, 2020) and for schools serving socio-economically deprived and marginalised communities (Allen & McInerney, 2019; Boyd et al., 2008; Guarino et al., 2006; Ingersoll, 2001).

New conceptual framing to understand teacher retention

The framing of the conceptual framework is informed by the social ecological theory of human development and other research about employee turnover and persistence (e.g., March & Simon, 1958; Peterson & Seligman, 2004; Porter & Steers, 1973) and variation in teacher turnover (e.g., T. D. Nguyen & Springer, 2023). The socio-ecological interpretation of human development provides a useful lens for investigating how multilevel contexts of the environments in which teachers work impact on their learning, growth and development over the course of their professional lives. This theoretical underpinning emerged from Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ground-breaking work on human development which is, in essence, concerned with the interconnectedness and interactions between multilevel systems and the ways they shape the course of human development throughout the life span.

Within this socio-ecological interpretation of human development, we have encompassed ideas from Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT), especially the work of Lent and his colleagues (e.g., Lent et al., 2002). Exemplifying many of the features of positive psychology (Seligman, 2002), SCCT is rooted in constructivist assumptions encompassed in Bandura’s general social cognitive theory (1986) about the agency of individuals in shaping their own behaviour. According to such theory, a considerable proportion of human behaviour can be explained by an array of beliefs about oneself, influenced by the contexts in which one finds oneself.

Taken together, such conceptual framing places the focus of our investigation on the reciprocal interaction between the capability development of the individual teacher and the quality of multiple reciprocating systems in which their careers are located. Personal goals and outcomes are therefore seen as nurtured by the environments in which they work.

Research questions

The following research questions were used to guide our review:

RQ.1: What are the most significant school-related factors positively influencing teacher retention?

RQ.2: How do those factors, individually and in combination, influence teacher retention?

RQ.3: How best can we conceptualise existing evidence about factors that influence teacher retention?

Overview

Contemporary principals lead schools amidst rapidly changing and complex contexts, many of which have long histories of persisting systemic and structural racial, economic, and social inequities. Research by members of the International Successful School Principalship Project (ISSPP) from 20+ countries over the last two decades has found that, regardless of differences in contexts and conditions, successful principals’ work is predicated upon educational purposes that entail but transcend the functional, founded on principles of social justice, equity, and inclusion.

In ISSPP research, schools are considered as adaptive social systems that sit at the nexus of policy, communities, and society. Researching school leadership amidst a complex and rapidly changing society requires conceptualisations and methodologies to be sufficiently robust and dynamic to capture the nuances of the ways that multi-layered influences in society, communities, and schools shape, and are shaped by, what successful principals do.

Drawing upon evidence from a sample of selected member countries, this symposium synthesizes ISSPP research findings over time and discusses how the newly developed ISSPP theoretical conceptualization and comparative methodologies enables the research to consider leadership as a multi-level phenomenon and capture the ways in which principals navigate within and between complex systems levels over time to grow and sustain success.

Research Questions

RQ1: How appropriate is complexity theory to furthering understandings of successful school leadership, and how will such understandings advance the application of complexity theory in social and comparative research in education?

RQ2: To what extent, and in what ways, do diverse socioeconomic, cultural, political systems, and professional contexts at different levels of the education system influence how schools operate to bring about valued educational outcomes, especially those serving high need communities?

RQ3: To what extent, and in what ways, is ‘success’ in schools perceived and measured similarly and/or differently within and across different countries?

RQ4: What are the key enablers and constraints for achieving school ‘success’ in different contexts within and across different countries?

RQ5: How do different key stakeholders within and outside the school community and at different levels of the education system define successful school leadership practices? What similarities and differences can be identified within and across different countries?

RQ6: What similarities and differences can be identified in the values, beliefs, and behaviors of successful school principals across different schools in the same country, and across national cultures and policy contexts?

In seeking to answer the urgent issues of defining how success is achieved and sustained in all schools, and especially those serving high need communities, the ISSPP research examines school leadership through the lens of ecological systems theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1979) which theorizes individual practices and development within the context of various dynamically interacting layers of social and ecological systems and uses the complexity theory (e.g., Byrne & Callaghan, 2013) to capture the processes and actions in which school organizations operate, develop, and thrive in an increasingly unpredictable, globalized world.

Methodology

The ISSPP utilizes a comparative, mixed methods design with a variety of data sources to bring multiple perspectives to bear in the inquiry. Sampling features principals who lead successful schools in their communities. Data sources within each case study include semi-structured qualitative interviews with the district/municipality, governors, principal, teachers, parents, and students, and a whole-school teacher survey. The comparative analysis of these data sources within and across different schools and countries enables trustworthiness and enhances rigor.

Session Structure

Part A of the symposium will begin with an overview followed by four paper presentations and audience discussion. It concludes with a discussion and an introduction to Part B of the symposium.

The introductory paper provides an overview that explains the new conceptual and methodological directions of ISSPP research, including how we rethink the knowledge and research contributions from ISSPP to the educational leadership field; why we reconceptualise the field with new theoretical positionings and framing of successful leadership research and how we research with new methodological directions that capture the dynamics of context and leadership (e.g. mixed methods approach, comparative perspectives within and/or across countries). In so doing, the paper provides a rationale for the use of ecological systems theory in research on successful school leadership, as they lead and manage the complex interactions within and between micro, meso, macro, exon and chrono level systems (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). The paper then unpacks the comparative design and multi-perspective, multi-level approach to conducting research that enables multiple causalities, multiple perspectives, and multiple effects to be charted. The new ISSPP comparative methodology is grounded in four conceptual and methodological considerations. First, context in education is multidimensional and fluid – encompassing not only multi-layered social ecological systems of education, but also how such systems influence each other to bring about change in values and behaviour over time. Second, how context matters and finds its scholarly roots in educational researchers’ intellectual, disciplinary, and professional insights, as well as their positionality and reflexivity from sociocultural and sociopolitical insider/outsider perspectives. Third, assessing the comparability of educational systems, practices, processes, and outcomes both within and across countries matters. Fourth, our approach not only recognizes differences in world views, forms of knowledge and practices between different cultures but also recognizes the reality that there are also important similarities in how children are motivated to learn, how committed and enthusiastic teachers teach, and how successful leaders create and sustain the contextually relevant conditions and cultures for the learning and growth of all children and adults in their schools. The comparative analytical process, theoretical positioning, and comparative mixed methods provide a coherent but contextually sensitive data analysis approach. In so doing, the ISSPP project goes beyond the mainstream “models” to theorize educational leadership in contexts with complexities and multiple layers of dynamic influences and to inform comparative research methodology in the educational leadership field of the future.

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Harvard university press.

Purpose This paper is a meta-synthesis of 20 years evidence about successful school leadership practices across nine countries. Specifically, this study answers the following four questions: • How was success defined in different contexts? • What were the successful principalship practices (SPPs) in relation to contexts? • How did national and local external and school contexts influence SPPs? • How did the above-mentioned phenomena vary over the years? Theoretical Perspectives This review began with the framework used by Leithwood and Day in their 2007 review of ISSPP publications, along with a coding scheme developed from that framework. The coding scheme has evolved as new findings emerged. These findings suggest the need for a more complex framework to illustrate the results, hence the adoption of Bronfenbrenner's ecological system theory (1979) and complexity theory (Morrison, 2010) as the theoretical perspectives. Methods Evidence for the review was provided by eighty-five articles and twenty-three chapters emanating from the International Successful School Principal Project (ISSPP) reporting 95 successful school cases from Australia, Cyprus, Israel, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Spain, the UK, and the USA. The study attempts to unpack the complexity in principal’s leadership and adds to our knowledge of how principals achieve and sustain student success in different national, local, and school contexts and over time by examining high-quality case study evidence from the largest, longest-running international research project in this field. We adopted the meta-ethnography technique (Noblit & Hare, 1988; Major & Savin-Baden, 2011) for this review. Findings Successful principals across all jurisdictions share common sets of core educational values, qualities, and practices, but enact these in different ways and over different time periods during their tenure according to context sensitive, context responsive judgements they make. Their efforts build academic culture, disciplinary climate, collective instructional capacity, collective leadership capacity, positive emotions, and ecological resilience of the school. Significance There has been a lack of robust reporting from qualitative studies on the relationship between contexts and school leadership. This paper aims to address this gap by reporting the patterns of how successful principals implement common leadership practices in different contexts, external and international contexts influence on them, and the strategies they use over time and in different phases. These findings provide guidance for practitioners and policy makers about professional development for principals focused on developing successful principalship practices common across many contexts and varied practices in response to different contexts and status of schools.

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Harvard university press. Morrison, K. (2010). Complexity theory, school leadership and management: Questions for theory and practice. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 38(3), 374-393. Noblit, W. G. & Hare, D. R. (1988), Meta-ethnography: Synthesizing qualitative studies. SAGE. Savin-Baden, M., & Major, C. H. (2007). Using interpretative meta-ethnography to explore the relationship between innovative approaches to learning and their influence on faculty understanding of teaching. Higher Education, 54(6), 833–852.

Purpose. The purpose of the paper is to contribute to insights about successful school principalship in a Norwegian context. The paper draws specific attention to the role of values and trust. Norway has a strong ideological tradition based on ideas of inclusivity and democratic values, and trust in professionals. The Norwegian school context is also characterized by local freedom by awarding greater autonomy to lower levels of governing, such as municipalities and local authorities. However, emerging accountability and quality assessment practices have characterized processes of change in the last two decades, and attention is increasingly being directed toward trusting what can be measured by results. The aim of this paper has been to examine how successful school principalship with a specific attention to values and trust is perceived and experienced by multiple actors in four case schools, identifying key socio-cultural, economic, and policy enabling and constraining factors. Theoretical framework. The ecological system theory of Bronfenbrenner (1979), and complexity theory (Morrison, 2010) serve as analytic framework, supplied with theory on leadership as practice (Wilkins & Kemmis, 2015) paying attention to the diverse arrangements which educational leaders are organizing through sayings, relatings, and doings for the benefits of student learning and wellbeing. Methods, Sampling, Data Sources, and Analysis. The study is multiple perspective and builds on the voices of principals, assistant principals, middle leaders, and students from four primary and secondary schools in Norway. The content analysis has been supplemented by a discourse analytical approach. Findings. The findings suggest that combined with trust in the profession, the values of students’ wellbeing connected with student learning and results are central factors in all the four cases. The involvement of multiple actors in school principalship seem to be an enabling factor, as well as designing well-functioning organizational structures. Constraining factors seem to be related to loose coupling in the school organization, especially in large upper secondary schools. Significance. The study is significant because it draws on data from Norwegian context. Norway has introduced of a new common curriculum in Norway which strengthens the consideration to values in education.

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Harvard university press. Morrison, K. (2010). Complexity theory, school leadership and management: Questions for theory and practice. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 38(3), 374-393. Wilkins, J. & Kemmis, S. (2015). Practice theory: viewing leadership as leading. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 47 (4): 342-58.

Purpose. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to theory and research about successful school principalship amidst contemporary complexities and uncertainties in the United States and beyond. The United States has recently experienced internal demographic shifts and global population migrations contributing to increased student diversity at tension with shifts toward increased commonality in curriculum and externalized evaluations. U.S. schools are also situated within a complex interplay among federal and state policies as well as a range of school and district contexts. Theoretical Framework. Ecological system theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1979) with complexity theory (Haggis, 2008, Morrison, 2010) serves as the theoretical underpinning for U.S. cases. Further, in light of the school and community contexts featured in the U.S. cases, data analysis is also informed by concepts from Bourdieu, namely habitus and cultural capital, and educational philosophy (e.g., Navajo indigenous philosophy). Methods The U.S. case studies in this paper utilize the ISSPP research methodology which was recently revised to include a comparative mixed methods approach to construct mixed methods case studies of schools in diverse cultural regions of the U.S, including Alabama, Arizona, Massachusetts, and Texas. Some research teams focus on public schools while others include religious schools; some schools are situated in districts that have tighter coupling with support within accountability mandates and district systems while others have more loose coupling whereby schools seek out programs and innovations on their own initiative. Data sources include semi-structured qualitative interviews with the district leaders, principal, teachers, parents, and students and school surveys in order to provide a more elaborated understanding of the phenomena i.e., school success and the principal’s leadership contribution to that success. Findings. Preliminary findings indicate the importance of values in students’ cultures, quality of life or wellbeing, and student growth and learning are common to the seven cases. Further, both principals developed teacher leadership capacity and collaborative structures to foster pedagogical changes, student learning, and academic outcomes. At the same time, the principals navigated and mediated rapid changes and tensions in demographics and policies at district, state, and federal levels. The principals’ personal and educational backgrounds contributed to the ways in which they balanced and mediated multiple influences and changes. The paper concludes with implications for research and leadership development. Significance. The study is significant because it features the U.S. context with its historical and contemporary complexities related to historical and contemporary inequities and compares to other national contexts.

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Harvard university press. Haggis, T. (2008). ‘Knowledge Must Be Contextual’: Some possible implications of complexity and dynamic systems theories for educational research. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 40 (1), 158-176. Morrison, K. (2010). Complexity theory, school leadership and management: Questions for theory and practice. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 38(3), 374-393.

Objectives and Framework

In recent years, many nation states have enacted accountability policies with student learning measured by externalized evaluations. Some nation states (e.g., United States) have state-based education systems with shifts toward centralization; others have a long history of educational centralization (e.g., France); and still others have shifted from centralized systems to more decentralized systems (e.g., Italy). School leaders must, then, navigate accountability policy changes in relation to different transformations and other changes (e.g., student demographics, digitalization).

This symposium presents research from the International Successful School Principalship Project (ISSPP), the longest standing and largest leadership research network with members from 20+ countries. In ISSPP research, schools are considered adaptive social systems that sit at the nexus of policy, communities, and society. Researching school leadership amidst a complex and rapidly changing society requires conceptualisations and methodologies to be sufficiently robust and dynamic to capture the nuances of the ways that multi-layered influences in society, communities, and schools shape, and are shaped by, what successful principals do. This symposium presents new ISSPP research findings using the new conceptual framework and comparative, mixed methods research methodology. Papers in this symposium discuss how the ISSPP conceptualization and methodologies enable the research to capture the ways in which principals navigate within and between systems and layers of influence over time to grow and sustain success.

Research Questions

RQ1: How appropriate is complexity theory to furthering understandings of successful school leadership, and how will such understandings advance the application of complexity theory in social and comparative research in education?

RQ2: To what extent, and in what ways, do diverse socioeconomic, cultural, political systems, and professional contexts at different levels of the education system influence how schools operate to bring about valued educational outcomes, especially those serving high need communities?

RQ3: To what extent, and in what ways, is ‘success’ in schools perceived and measured similarly and/or differently within and across different countries?

RQ4: What are the key enablers and constraints for achieving school ‘success’ in different contexts within and across different countries?

RQ5: How do different key stakeholders within and outside the school community and at different levels of the education system define successful school leadership practices? What similarities and differences can be identified within and across different countries?

RQ6: What similarities and differences can be identified in the values, beliefs, and behaviors of successful school principals across different schools in the same country, and across national cultures and policy contexts?

In seeking to answer the urgent issues of defining how success is achieved and sustained in all schools, and especially those serving high need communities amidst the contemporary uncertainties, the ISSPP research examines school leadership through the lens of ecological systems theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1979) which theorizes individual practices and development within the context of various dynamically interacting layers of social and ecological systems to capture the processes and actions in which schools operate, develop, and thrive in an increasingly unpredictable, globalized world.

Methodology

The ISSPP utilizes a comparative, mixed methods design with a variety of data sources in order to bring multiple perspectives to bear in the inquiry (Creswell & Creswell, 2017; Patton, 2002). Sampling features principals who lead successful schools in their communities. Data sources within each case study include semi-structured qualitative interviews with the district/municipality, governors, principal, teachers, parents, and students, and a whole-school teacher survey. The comparative analysis of these data sources within and across different schools and countries (Authors, 2021) enables trustworthiness and enhances rigor (Denzin, 2012).

Structure of the session

This session will begin with an overview from the chair followed by three paper presentations and audience discussion.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to contribute to understandings of successful school leadership in Italy in an education system that has undergone significant transformations, transitioning from a highly centralized structure to a more autonomously managed system. Despite some advances, school leaders are faced with ongoing reform and face challenges due to frequent adjustments driven by political decisions, leading to a lack of continuity and resistance to change. This instability creates ongoing disruptions, and school leaders’ capacity to drive innovation and change. Conceptualisation The case study is informed by Ecological system theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1979) with Complexity theory (Haggis, 2008, Morrison, 2010) which serve as the theoretical underpinning. The paper conceptualises successful school leadership, through an analysis of the complex interactions within and between micro, meso, macro, exon and chrono level systems (Bronfenbrenner, 2009). Methods The case study has followed the ISSPP’s recently re-modelled research protocols and adopted a mixed method multi-perspective approach. The Case Study focuses on Comprehensive Institute which includes 1 kindergarten, 3 primary schools, and 1 junior secondary school. The data was collected through a staff questionnaire (n = 51), 6 individual face-to-face interviews with the principal, individual interviews with 5 teaching staff, as well as focus group interviews with 6 parents, and 6 students. The Institute’s evaluation documents from 2016 to 2022, including the RAV- Self-Assessment Report - Rapporto di Auto-Valutazione, and PdM- Improvement Plan – Piano di Miglioramento were also utilised. Findings The findings suggest that despite the complexities of Italy's bureaucratic education system, the principal embarks on a transformative journey aimed at uplifting the outcomes of underprivileged families within the Institute's community. The principal introduces new ways of working with a focus on ethics and service, the cultivation of relationships across the school and wider community, and a belief in distributed leadership. Anchored in Bronfenbrenner's (1979) ecological system theory and complexity theory (Haggis, 2008; Morrison, 2010), the case study provides invaluable insights into the nexus of ongoing educational reforms, institutional autonomy, community needs, and the pivotal role of the principal. This leadership transcends boundaries, not only focusing on educational outcomes but also nurturing a values-driven culture that cultivates a positive and inclusive environment. By championing social justice, equity, and inclusion, the principal's vision extends beyond academics, fostering overall positive developmental outcomes for the children across the Institute.

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Harvard university press. Bronfenbrenner, U. (2009). The ecology of human development: experiments by nature and design. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Haggis, T. (2008). Knowledge Must Be Contextual: Some Possible Implications of Complexity and Dynamic Systems Theories for Educational Research. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 40 (1), 158-176. Morrison, K. (2010). Complexity theory, school leadership and management: Questions for theory and practice. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 38(3), 374-393.

Outlining purpose Following a 2-year continuing professional development programme on the issues and challenges of school leadership, a team of 50 French executives from a rural and disadvantaged French district were involved in a collaborative and reflective enquiry into successful schools and principalship, under my supervision. Conceptual framework The successful principalship was investigated in the international and comparative ISSPP programme (Day, Leithwood, 2007). It revealed invariants in the success factors of schools and principals, irrespective of their social, cultural and institutional context (Day & oth., 2010; Gurr, 2015). These factors relate to three main areas: the definition of a vision, values and purposes; the development of people; and the redefinition of the school organisation. Based on evidence of student achievement, but also other indicators of success, the ISSPP study shows that principals rely on the same repertoires of core practices and that they improve teaching and learning in indirect ways. A small handful of their personal traits account for a large proportion of school success. Methods Adopting and translating the ISSPP survey protocol in the French context, and developing the survey in 3 primary schools, 5 middle schools, 3 high schools, 2 vocational schools, the group of 50 executives (composed of principals, inspectors, and pedagogical advisers), structured in teams of 3 to 4 members, conducted interviews over 6 months with principals, teachers and students to identify success factors of each school. These interviews were cross-referenced with indicators such as national assessments, exam results and other data supplied by the Ministry of Education and the local authority. Findings The survey results corroborate what has already been observed throughout numerous ISSPP publications concerning common factors shared by successful leaders (Leithwood & al., 2020). However, these results have to be contextualized in the French education system. With their specific republican values and vision, French principals have to share their roles and responsibilities with inspectors, which limits their instructional and transformational leadership with teachers. Their face difficulties to understand and consider professional and organisational learning, and they have a limited autonomy in human resources management. It prevents them from taking full advantage of opportunities for school improvement and teacher professional development. Nevertheless, it is possible to identify some attempts to move away from a bureaucratic organisation governed by planning, rules and hierarchy to promote more distributed and flexible activities and sharing new roles and responsibilities with teachers.

Day, C. and Leithwood, K. (eds.) (2007) Successful school principal leadership in times of change: International perspectives. Dordrecht: Springer. Day, C., Sammons, P., Leithwood, K., Hopkins, D., Harris, A., Gu, Q. and Brown, E. (2010) Ten strong claims about successful school leadership. Nottingham: NCSL Gurr, D. (2015) ‘A model of successful school leadership from the International Successful School Principalship Project.’ Societies, 5(1): 136–150. Leithwood, K., Harris, A. and Hopkins, D. (2020) ‘Seven strong claims about successful school leadership revisited,’ School Leadership & Management, 40(1): 5–22, DOI: 10.1080/13632434.2019.1596077

Purpose U.S. public education has played a critical role in the founding, development, and unification of diverse citizens’ identities, thus reflecting society. In recent years, the U.S. has experienced increased diversity from internal demographic shifts as well as global population migrations (U.S. Census Bureau, 2020). Although U.S. public education is a state-based system, federal policies have recently shifted toward curriculum centralization. Efforts toward curriculum centralization or common core were not successful; however, all states developed similar curricula as well as externalized evaluations holding schools accountable (Loveless, 2021). Additionally, the U.S. history of colonization and slavery has affected many citizens, including children, with lingering trauma. At the same time, in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, many school members have also experienced a range of health and social emotional effects as well as trends toward digitalization and virtual education. Such new and perennial tensions and complexities have been complicated by an ongoing teacher shortage. The purpose of this paper is to present new ISSPP cases with a specific focus on how successful principals balance and mediate tensions between accountability and the broad human needs of students in hopeful and positive ways. Cases are located in the Northeast, Southeast, Southwest, and Midwest, including public, religious, and reservation community schools that serve traditionally marginalized populations in public schools. Framework and Methods Drawing on the ISSPP theoretical framework (Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Morrison, 2010) and revised protocols, teams interviewed the principal, teachers, parents/community members, and students. Additionally, teams administered a survey to all teachers. Findings and Implications Preliminary findings indicate that, amidst contemporary complexities and influences, successful principals develop a positive and hopeful school direction for change that meets or exceeds accountability policy requirements for all children. In so doing, principals build teacher leadership capacity, relate increasingly diverse home cultures to curriculum content, promote equity, and support pedagogical quality. Findings indicate that these leadership practices contribute to student academic outcomes and wellness outcomes. In these cases, successful principals also influence and educate district leaders and even state leaders about the effects of accountability policies as well as the cultural wealth of their increasingly diverse communities. While principals must navigate new complexities and influences, they honor historical values and traditions. The paper discuses findings in relation to the ISSPP theoretical frame

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Harvard university press. Loveless, T. (2021). Between the State and the Schoolhouse: Understanding the Failure of Common Core. Harvard Education Press. 8 Story Street First Floor, Cambridge, MA 02138. Morrison, K. (2010). Complexity theory, school leadership and management: Questions for theory and practice. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 38(3), 374-393. U.S. Census Bureau (2020). Retrieved from https://www.census.gov on January 24, 2024.

Contemporary principals lead schools amidst rapidly changing and complex contexts, many of which have long histories of persisting systemic and structural racial, economic, and social inequities. Research by members of the International Successful School Principalship Project (ISSPP) from 20+ countries over the last two decades has found that, regardless of differences in contexts and conditions, successful principals’ work is predicated upon educational purposes that entail but transcend the functional, founded on principles of social justice, equity, and inclusion.

In ISSPP research, schools are considered as adaptive social systems that sit at the nexus of policy, communities, and society. Researching school leadership amidst a complex and rapidly changing society requires conceptualisations and methodologies to be sufficiently robust and dynamic to capture the nuances of the ways that multi-layered influences in society, communities, and schools shape, and are shaped by, what successful principals do.

In seeking to answer the urgent issues of defining how success is achieved and sustained in all schools and especially those serving high need communities, the ISSPP research examines school leadership through the lens of ecological systems theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1979) which theorizes individual practices and development within the context of various dynamically interacting layers of social and ecological systems and uses the complexity theory (e.g., Byrne & Callaghan, 2013) to capture the processes and actions in which school organizations operate, develop, and thrive in an increasingly unpredictable, globalized world.

Drawing upon evidence from a sample of selected member countries, this symposium synthesizes ISSPP research findings over time and discusses how the newly developed ISSPP theoretical conceptualization and comparative methodologies enables the research to consider leadership as a multi-level phenomenon and capture the ways in which principals navigate within and between complex systems levels over time to grow and sustain success.

This symposium continues from the first part, beginning with the overview paper that explains the new conceptual and methodological directions of ISSPP research, including how we rethink the knowledge and research contributions from ISSPP to the educational leadership field; why we reconceptualise the field with new theoretical positionings and framing of successful leadership research and how we research with new methodological directions that capture the dynamics of context and leadership (e.g. mixed methods approach, comparative perspectives within and/or across countries). The next two papers present selected case studies to explain how the theoretical lens and/or methodological approach has been used to inform and make sense of the case study data in culturally and educationally relevant ways. The final paper provides a postscript on how the new conceptualisations and methodologies work to advance knowledge and understanding of the nature, practice, and impact of successful principalship.

The symposium concludes with a discussion and concluding comments/postscript as well as questions from the audience.

The introductory paper provides an overview that explains the new conceptual and methodological directions of ISSPP research, including how we rethink the knowledge and research contributions from ISSPP to the educational leadership field; why we reconceptualise the field with new theoretical positionings and framing of successful leadership research and how we research with new methodological directions that capture the dynamics of context and leadership (e.g. mixed methods approach, comparative perspectives within and/or across countries). In so doing, the paper provides a rationale for the use of ecological systems theory in research on successful school leadership, as they lead and manage the complex interactions within and between micro, meso, macro, exon and chrono level systems (Bronfenbrenner, 2009). The paper then unpacks the comparative design and multi-perspective, multi-level approach to conducting research that enables multiple causalities, multiple perspectives, and multiple effects to be charted (Cohen et. al., 2011). The new ISSPP comparative methodology is grounded in four conceptual and methodological considerations. First, context in education is multidimensional and fluid – encompassing not only multi-layered social ecological systems of education, but also how such systems influence each other to bring about change in values and behaviour over time. Second, how context matters and finds its scholarly roots in educational researchers’ intellectual, disciplinary, and professional insights, as well as their positionality and reflexivity from sociocultural and sociopolitical insider/outsider perspectives. Third, assessing the comparability of educational systems, practices, processes, and outcomes both within and across countries matters. Fourth, our approach not only recognizes differences in world views, forms of knowledge and practices between different cultures but also recognizes the reality that there are also important similarities in how children are motivated to learn, how committed and enthusiastic teachers teach, and how successful leaders create and sustain the contextually relevant conditions and cultures for the learning and growth of all children and adults in their schools. The comparative analytical process, theoretical positioning, and comparative mixed methods provide a coherent but contextually sensitive data analysis approach. In so doing, the ISSPP project goes beyond the mainstream “models” to theorize educational leadership in contexts with complexities and multiple layers of dynamic influences and to inform comparative research methodology in the educational leadership field of the future.

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Harvard university press. Byrne, D. & Callaghan, G. (2013). Complexity Theory and the Social Sciences. London: Routledge.

Purpose. This paper proposes a fresh analytical perspective to investigate how a school principal has initiated and sustained the “positive disruption” of the governance and structures of an inner-city primary school over time. Conceptualisation. The case study is informed by the philosophy of disruption which is deeply concerned with social changes that enhance and transform the practice and experience of everyday life of individuals and their institution (Manu, 2022). The conceptual strengths are twofold. First, the philosophy of disruption invites us to rethink disruptive change as a flowing, dynamic and organic process. As disruption unfolds to reshape the lives of a school organisation, it disturbs its systems, structures, practices and relationships at different levels, and functions as a catalyst for profound transformation in how individuals and teams envision the difference they want to make and how the organisation creates new cultures and structures upon which they operate to realise the new vision. Second, the philosophy redefines school leaders as positive disruptors who influence individuals and teams by challenging their current views and practices about education and by reshaping organisational structures, cultures, and opportunities to enable them to thrive. Methods. The case study has followed the ISSPP’s recently re-modelled research protocols. The team conducted three in-depth interviews with the principal and two in-person interviews with the current principal. We also interviewed three teachers with middle and senior leadership responsibilities, a class teacher, and a lead teaching assistant. Because of the small staff size (n=22), we are unable to present the teacher survey results in this paper. Findings. Success in this school has been an evolving, dynamic and resilient process of change and improvement. Relational capital, leadership capital, and the courage to disturb norms are essential ingredients of the change process. The portrait of a "positive disruptive" leader reveals the prevalence of the personal over the functional as an act of courage to tell vulnerability and create community. Over time the principal successfully transformed external accountability into an internally assumed and then collegially shared value. In this process, disruption of school cultures created, at times, uncertainties, not chaos. As we have showed through Christine’s leadership endeavor to turn around her school, when successful principals disrupt dysfunctional cultures, their vision, values and high expectations for the future of the organization set clear directions for the journey of success, and also, are fundamental to the sustainability of success.

Manu, A. (2022). The Philosophy of Disruption. Bingley, Emerald Publishing.

Purpose. In turbulent times with societal changes all over the globe, schools and their quality are essential to educate the next generation. Preparing students to meet and understand future challenges and possibilities requires the ability of school leaders to navigate across expectations emanating from national and local policy and culture. Our purpose in this symposium is to understand and explain how various school actors understand and contribute to what they see as good schooling for students in relation to academic results, ethics, and wellness. Conceptualisation. Earlier findings show that successful principals have more similarities than differences in their toolbox despite various contexts (Leithwood et.al, 2021). Successful principals are able to navigate across local and national contexts and policies in a way that benefits teaching and learning. In this process, they attend to diverse issues simultaneously as they engage others in collective competencies towards mutual objectives. Shared understandings, interaction, and communication are crucial to create supportive prerequisites for student learning (Johansson & Ärlestig, 2022). In order to support student learning, school leaders also need to build agency on various levels in the local school system (Biesta & Tedder, 2007; Bronfenbrenner, 1977). Method. The findings build upon the new ISSPP protocols. The empirical data derives from two compulsory schools where school leaders have been employed for more than three years and during that time improved the school outcomes. By using the ISSPP protocols it becomes possible to understand what principals, deputy principals, teachers, students, and parents value and find challenging in teaching and learning. It also enables a deeper understanding about actors’ agency, and priorities in combination with collective interactions and understandings as they strive to meet policy objectives and enhance students’ learning and well-being. Preliminary findings. In this paper we let various actors give their view of contributing factors to school success with regards to structure, culture, and leadership. In focus are the expectations on principals’ and deputy principals’ roles in navigating between existing structures and cultures while simultaneously addressing current and upcoming challenges. Schedules and other structural elements aim to promote a good working environment for everyone involved. How principals and teachers communicate aims and intentions and plan teaching become significant for students’ willingness to accept and contribute to schoolwork. It is also crucial to encourage parents to support teacher- and principal leadership for student learning.

Biesta, G., & Tedder, M. (2007). Agency and learning in the lifecourse: Towards an ecological perspective. Studies in the Education of Adults, 39(2), 132–149. https://doi.org/10.1080/02660830.2007.11661545 Bronfenbrenner, U. (1977). Toward an experimental ecology of human development. The American Psychologist, 32(7), 513–531. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.32.7.513 Johansson, O., & Ärlestig, H. (2022). Democratic governing ideals and the power of intervening spaces as prerequisite for student learning. Journal of Educational Administration, 60(3), 340–353. https://doi.org/10.1108/JEA-04-2021-0079 Leithwood, K., Harris, A., & Hopkins, D. (2020). Seven strong claims about successful school leadership revisited. School Leadership & Management, 40(1), 5–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/13632434.2019.1596077

Background The recent systemic reforms in the Scottish education landscape feature a complex agenda, elements of which involve structural and cultural change and addressing the achievement gap. This study builds knowledge of successful school principalship in the context of Scotland and highlights the perceptions and actions of successful principals in their efforts to build a connected school system in which all education agents work together. It considers the opportunities and constant challenges these leaders face, and their response to such challenges by focusing on cultivating personal and professional sense of agency. Theoretical Framework This research was guided by a systems-centred approach which investigated the ways in which successful leadership practices contribute to school improvement processes, conditions, and cultures. It considered the ecological systems approach from Bronfenbrenner (1979) a useful theoretical framework for understanding the processes and interactions at multiple levels within and beyond the school system, and that the dynamic, non-linear changes within an educational ecosystem could be effectively understood by applying complexity theory. An ecological model, therefore, examined interactions between the micro-, meso-, macro-, exo-, and chronosystems, and was used to develop context-sensitive accounts of successful leadership in Scottish schools. Methods of enquiry Using a combination of multi-perspective data, an online staff survey and documentary information, this mixed methods research provides in-depth and insightful examples of principals’ successful leadership practices and further investigates relevant perspectives of various key stakeholders in their schools. The focus was on their leadership practices and how their leadership influences the structures, cultures, and the standards in performance of the school. A purposive sample of three schools (two primary, one secondary) was selected as case study sites and was drawn from different geographical regions across the country ensuring a geographical spread. Both qualitative and quantitative data were analysed following an iterative process of inductive and deductive coding (Yin, 2018). This analysis integrated finding and interpreting similarities and differences and acquiring new insights of successful school leadership practices which create structural alignment and ensure coherence and sustainable transformation within schools. Findings Findings from this study provide insight on how successful school leaders consider their entire school as a complex system with interconnected parts and build social infrastructures in order to be established as learning ecosystems. The significance of building relationships through a common set of values, beliefs, and expectations of members within a school community has been a fundamental driver for leading successfully.

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Harvard University Press. Yin R. K. (2018). Case study research and applications: Design and methods (6th ed.). Sage.