Editorial

Citation

Roberts, B. (2009), "Editorial", International Journal of Educational Management, Vol. 23 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijem.2009.06023eaa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: International Journal of Educational Management, Volume 23, Issue 5

On behalf of the Editorial Board I welcome you to this issue of the International Journal of Educational Management in which you will find a range of articles of interest to the educational academic and practitioner alike. Many positive comments have been received about the place of this journal within the world of education a world which is shrinking with the communications revolution in transport and technology. I am reminded of Sir Ken Robinson’s comment at the recent AASA conference where he related his children’s views of the new world, a world in which everything was multi functional and reminded everyone in his audience that they would not have been brought up in the same world as today’s children-his children were not interested in wearing a watch for example because it only performed one function-his retort to them was that it also told the date! Obviously the serious message behind this dialogue was the gap and today’s planners in education must be mindful of it. I am as guilty as the next person and need constant reminding of what today’s young people are capable of and what their expectations are.

The papers in this issue show world wide diversity in reporting some of today’s issues as viewed by authors from different cultures – i.e. Israel, UK, Turkey and USA. In the first paper Professor Oplatka writes on organisational citizenship behaviour in teaching and the consequences for teachers pupils and the school as a whole. Teachers and other professionals have been documented to perform a wide range of extra role activities and this study aims to obtain a greater understanding of the consequences of teacher involvement in this work. The study shows that the performance of extra role non obligatory and unrewarded tasks and activities in teaching is perceived by teachers to have some beneficial influence on themselves their students and the whole school. Implications for further research are discussed.

In another study from Israel Dr Orly Shapira Lischinsky attempts to identify teachers’ perceptions about the relationships between mentoring styles and team culture and the effect of these relationships on mentoring effectiveness. Four mentoring styles and four dimensions of team culture were examined. Data analysis was carried out on an individual level, whilst taking into account the influence on the whole team. It is hoped that the findings will be able to assist supervisors in recruiting and assigning suitable mentors thus contributing to school effectiveness.

The next paper is from Lira Winston and summarises work done by the Ashdown Fellowship programme which was launched in 2000 with the aim of creating high quality leadership for the educational organisations in the British Jewish community. It sought to recruit and develop talented and committed people working in Jewish education who demonstrated leadership potential. Key charactersistics of the Fellowship were – a commitment to excellence in every aspect of the programme; delivery of a programme which was coherent despite different components; a commitment by professional staff to be part of the programme and therefore responsive to any issues arising; a commitment to making participants feel valued and supported.The purpose of the paper is to record the narrative of the programme, its strengths and challenges and to lay out some issues for thinking about the next phase. Key people involved in the conception of the programme, the establishment and development of it were interviewed. A survey was sent to the graduates of the programme to ascertain their assessment of the impact of the programme.

A study on the cultural communication preferences of teachers is the contribution from Assistant Professor Dr Ibrahim Kocabas¸ of Firat University. The article looks at the communication preferences of teachers on the basis of high context and low context distinction. At the end of the study which involved 275 teachers in Turkish provinces it was found that high context communications tendencies of teachers were found to be more dominant. Communications tendencies have also been compared in terms of demographic variables and it is evident that variables such as marital status, education level, income level, age and employment period have resulted in differences in communication tendencies.

Professor Darwish Yousef of the United Arab Emirates university offers us a piece on a case study at the university on entry to an operations course on business studies. The purpose of the study was to examine the influence of a number of factors on students’ academic performance on an introductory operation research course in the business administration faculty. The results indicate between the OR grade and the GPA grade in mathematics and statistics. There is also a difference between male and females. A difference is seen too between students who studied arts subjects and sciences. The most telling predictor is in GPA.

Erica Nance and Ray Calabrese have researched on special education and assess the impact of increased legal requirements. The purpose of the study was to describe the reasons current or former tenured special education teachers in a local education agency remain or leave their special education teaching positions through the theoretical perspectives of organisational learning and organisational culture. The study describes the influence of increased legal requirements on current or former tenured special education teacher attrition or retention by reporting their reasons for staying or leaving. Four findings were evident:

1. 1.

   current tenured teachers want to be listened to and have their own needs considered;

2. 2.

   they feel overwhelmed by workload;

3. 3.

   legally required changes affected them in practice; and

4. 4.

   time spent on administrative requirements reduced their time on teaching.

In truth these findings would be recognised by all teachers in the UK not just special needs teachers!

I hope you enjoy the issue.

Brian Roberts