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Educational leadership preparation programs are expected to train graduates who change their practice and produce outcomes for teachers and students. However, programs are challenged to produce evidence of their impact while also evaluating for formative purposes. This paper describes collaboration between an educational leadership program director and a program evaluator to construct an evaluation system that incorporated program theory, processes, and outcomes. The leadership preparation program, grounded in ethical leadership practices, had a unique design with core tenets that informed choices about the evaluation design. Decisions about data sources were informed by evaluation foci, the availability of existing data sources, and resource constraints. The complexity of the evaluation design paralleled the complexity of the program itself. Leadership content expertise, evaluation design expertise, and genuine collaboration were all essential to the successful design of this evaluation plan. Several recommendations are offered for others collaborating to design evaluations of their programs.

The ever-increasing pressure for school improvement has led to a related increase in research-practice partnerships (RPPs) that address problems of practice. Yet, little research has centered on how the myriad challenges to such partnerships can be overcome, such as bridging the cultural divide between universities and their school-based partners. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to examine how social capital was developed among the members of a steering committee in a RPP between a university and a 12-district consortium of predominantly rural, high-poverty school districts to develop and implement a professional development initiative for rural school leaders.

Data for this phenomenological single case study were collected over a one-year period through participant observations, document analysis and semi-structured interviews with ten steering committee members. Data were inductively and deductively coded through multiple rounds of analysis, which drew on the structural and cognitive elements of social capital (Uphoff, 2000). Findings were triangulated and member checked for trustworthiness.

The analysis of the data revealed three key ways in which social capital was developed among members of the steering committee to overcome the cultural challenges of RPPs to develop and implement a professional development initiative for rural school leaders: providing an open but focused structure, ensuring inclusive and respectful discussion and negotiating roles and ideas.

The findings provide a fine-grained illustration of how intentional efforts to develop social capital among members in a co-design team can assist in bridging the cultural boundaries often encountered in RPPs.

Various authors have identified specific types of dark leadership. These types focus largely on the behaviors and impact of the dark leaders. In contrast, we introduce the notion of heretical leadership. The construct relies on the interpreted meanings of the wounded as opposed to actual leader actions. Heretical leadership violates the canon of educational organizations, which is to serve and uplift students. We share two stories of our own wounding in a dialogic fashion, drawing lessons from the intersection of the literature and our own stories. We identify and define scarring as stage distinct from wounding. Findings include suggestions for using story as a vehicle for healing and working to raise awareness of and embrace new perspectives, especially in regards to the nature of organizational systems.

This article aims to discuss the conceptualisation process of developing a new one‐year taught‐master's programme in educational leadership at an Aotearoa/New Zealand university.

The perspective taken is a highly personalised one from the two lead “drivers” of the programme and outlines the two‐year process of development of the programme from conception through to the first papers delivered in semester one 2008. The article describes the process, the concerns, the underlying philosophy, content and intended delivery pattern within the Master of Educational Leadership (MEdL) programme. As the programme designers, the authors wanted something discernibly different in orientation from the postgraduate programmes offered by other tertiary providers in Aotearoa/New Zealand. The content had to be both educationally and culturally relevant and reflect the nation's bi‐cultural heritage, yet growing multi‐ethnic population base.

The proposed programme was somewhat controversial and had a rather difficult journey through the New Zealand Vice Chancellors' Committee (NZVCC) that deals with the accreditation process. The philosophy of the programme centred on leadership rather than a management focus. Moreover, the philosophy was premised on both theory and practice as praxis and drew on both developmental and experiential models for leadership development.

This article leads a critical discourse amongst tertiary educators in educational leadership programmes towards a greater exploration and articulation of the critical, humanistic, and phenomenological nature of the programmes it offers.