Editorial

Citation

Ross Thomas, A. (2010), "Editorial", Journal of Educational Administration, Vol. 48 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/jea.2010.07448aaa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Journal of Educational Administration, Volume 48, Issue 1

EAB member’s recognition

It is particularly gratifying to be able to acknowledge the distinction afforded a member of the journal’s Editorial Advisory Board. Cynthia Uline, Professor and Director of the Centre for the Twenty-First Century Schoolhouse, San Diego State University, recently received her Dean’s Excellence Award for Research and Scholarship. The award, granted annually to a member of the university’s College of Education, was for Uline’s guest editorship of a special issue of the Journal of Educational Administration (Vol. 47 No. 3, 2009) entitled “Building high quality schools for learners and communities” together with her article therein (co-authored with Megan Tschannen-Moran and Thomas De Vere Wolsey) – “The walls still speak: the stories occupants tell” (pp. 400-26).

As editor I note this award with pleasure – a reflection not only on the excellence of an outstanding researcher in educational leadership but also on the quality of special issues and articles published in this journal.

William Lowe Boyd

The article acknowledging the life and contribution of the late William Boyd of the Pennsylvania State University intended for this issue of the journal has been held over until issue no. 2.

This issue

The internationality of the journal is again most noticeable in this issue. Included are contributions from authors in Australia, Canada, Israel, the UK and USA. Perhaps it is also worthy of note that the most recent 20 manuscripts submitted to the journal have come from authors in Australia, Ghana, India, Israel, Japan, Jordan, Nigeria, Sweden, Turkey and the USA. As a long-serving editor I take great comfort at this evidence of the continuing expansion of the study and development of educational leadership.

The first article in this issue is contributed by Kurland, Peretz and Hertz-Lazarowitz. The article reports on an exploration of principal’s leadership style on school organizational learning using vision as a mediator. Data for this quantitative study were provided by 1,474 teachers in 104 Israeli elementary schools. One most important outcome of the study is the recognition that school vision, as shaped by the principal and teaching staff, is a powerful motivator in the process of organizational learning in a school.

In the following article Kubiak and Bertram report on school-to-school network programs, describing in particular the activities and challenges that confront 19 network co-leaders. The network program owes its origin to an initiative of England’s National College of School Leadership and is designed as a means to improved professional development, to school improvement, and to better serve students’ needs. The authors identify five particular leadership activities – activities that present tensions around negotiating purpose, securing ownership of network activity, time, trust, and the balance between “quick wins” and long-term activities.

Crum, Sherman and Myran next contribute to the growing literature in this journal on the characteristics and behaviours of successful principals. A total 12 principals in Virginia provided data for this study designed to identify theories of actions developed and internalised by principals that help them serve as successful leaders. Several common themes of practice emerged from the analysis and these the authors identify as leadership with data, honesty and relationships, Fostering ownership and celebration, recognizing and developing leadership, and instructional awareness and involvement.

Pupil control ideology (PCI) is central to the purpose of the next article by Rideout and Morton. The study, set in Canada, investigated the effects on the PCI of 474 teacher education candidates of a primarily bureaucratic socialization, as well as demographic, experiential, and philosophical orientations. At the conclusion of the preparation program it is discovered that the socialization experiences of the practicum are more closely associated with candidates’ PCI than any of the demographic, experiential or philosophical orientation variables.

The theme of professional preparation continues in the following article by Meyer and Shannon describing their use of case writing to assist the development of novice school leaders. The subject for this article is a new middle school principal (and doctoral candidate) who writes of her efforts to create unity and solidarity among a divided school staff. The authors are able to point to the advantages of case-writing as an addition to the arsenal of pedagogies that move a novice beyond the dualism of scholarship and practice – a facilitator of reflection-in-action and the building of communities of practice.

The final article, contributed by Niesche and Jorgensen, reports on the implementation of a new state-determined curriculum in schools catering for Australian Indigenous students in remote northern Queensland. Teachers and principals were contacted via an online survey, telephone and face-to-face interview particularly to determine their perceptions of the implementation process at the local school level. Vast differences were reported in strategies and leadership approaches to the change although the latter were more positive in schools in which the elements of “productive leadership” were present.

Thanks to the enthusiasm and tenacity of Tony Normore, the journal’s book review editor, eight examples complete this issue.

A. Ross Thomas