Ann Elisabeth Gunnulfsen, Ruth Jensen and Jorunn Møller
The purpose of the article is to examine knowledge about successful principalship and discuss the methodology that has emerged throughout the history of the International…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of the article is to examine knowledge about successful principalship and discuss the methodology that has emerged throughout the history of the International Successful School Principals Project (ISSPP) and their implications for future progress.
Design/methodology/approach
Historical analysis is used as a strategy for establishing the background, the expansion and the progress of ISSPP as a long-standing international research network and to discuss the development of three research strands and methodological variations over time. The analysis provides a basis for pointing at some areas that need more attention in the future.
Findings
The findings suggest multiple images of the meaning of key concepts in the project and multiple theoretical and methodological orientations. There is a need to pay more attention to methodologies to make the successful cases more comparable and also to clarify the underlying assumptions of the different approaches.
Originality/value
Successful school principalship is a complex phenomenon. Therefore, future studies of successful schools and leadership would benefit from the use of knowledge that draws on sociology, cultural studies and politics.
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Jorunn Møller, Gunn Vedøy, Anne Marie Presthus and Guri Skedsmo
The purpose of this paper is to explore whether and how success has been sustained over time in schools which were identified as being successful five years ago.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore whether and how success has been sustained over time in schools which were identified as being successful five years ago.
Design/methodology/approach
Three schools were selected for a revisit, and the sample included two combined schools (grade 1‐10) and one upper secondary school (grade 11‐13). In two schools the same principals were still in post, and in the third school there had recently been a change in principalship. Interviews with the principal and a group of teachers at each school were the major source of new data. Questions that guided the study: What structural and cultural changes can be identified within the schools compared with five years ago? What factors might help sustain success over time?
Findings
The learning‐centred approach identified earlier had been sustained in the schools during the five years. All principals focused on multiple ways of influencing staff motivation, commitment and working conditions, teamwork was a vital characteristic, and they also reported on their struggle to sustain and promote equity and social justice. For the two schools with principals still in post one could hardly detect any change in preferred strategies, but for the third school with the new principal there was a significant change. Although his ethos was closely connected to that which existed at the school five years ago, his leadership approach and the agenda for school improvement were different. As such, the study provides an example of how principals have the power to set the tone and the agenda for school development even though leadership practice is an interactive process involving many people.
Originality/value
The paper provides knowledge about sustainable leadership in a context where new expectations are raised towards schools, and principals are in particular challenged to respond to new and sometimes contradicting expectations.
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The purpose of this paper is to examine how successful school leaders in Norway frame their public identity and how their narratives may be understood in relation to different…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine how successful school leaders in Norway frame their public identity and how their narratives may be understood in relation to different discourses on leadership.
Design/methodology/approach
The approach draws upon a theoretical perspective which asserts that there is a profound connection between identity and practice, and between identity and the construction of a number of narratives (Wenger; Bourdieu and Wacquant). The author has combined analyses of public discourses on school leadership with findings based on the International Successful School Principalship Project (ISSPP) to analyze the school principal's construction of a public face.
Findings
The study demonstrates how the public identity and face of a school principal is multiple, subjectively constructed and intersects with public discourses. Moreover, it highlights why principals need greater capability to lead their schools in a dynamic context by being the figure head and representing the organization (Mintzberg). The ISSPP study has constructed many accounts of principals’ thinking about successful leadership and achievement. The principals’ stories partly intersect with public narratives of heroic leadership, but by highlighting their work in teams, they primarily intersect with the notion of distributed leadership. A striking feature was the principals’ commitment to making a difference for the kids and their hard work within the system to balance all of the demands placed on their shoulders in order to ensure more equitable learning environments for all students.
Research limitations/implications
The study indicates the importance of principals being reflexive about their own positions. There is a need to locate personal experience within wider relations of power. The creation of educational biographies may serve as an approach to helping principals understand how and why they learned in the past and what motivates them to pursue new educational opportunities.
Originality/value
A focus on identities and their development can tap the complexity of school leadership in a tumultuous, high‐stakes environment of accountability.
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Jorunn Møller, Astrid Eggen, Otto L. Fuglestad, Gjert Langfeldt, Anne‐Marie Presthus, Siw Skrøvset, Else Stjernstrøm and Gunn Vedøy
This paper aims to identify what counts as successful school leadership within a Norwegian context.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to identify what counts as successful school leadership within a Norwegian context.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper uses multi‐site case study methods as a methodological approach. In selecting cases the first strategy included schools appointed as “good practice schools” by the Ministry of Education and Research. The second strategy was to obtain a desired variation based on different factors like school size and structure, rural/urban representation and principals' gender.
Findings
Leadership in the case schools are almost entirely practiced through collaboration and team efforts, and a learning‐centered approach is the focal point for the schools' philosophy as well as for its practice. Respect of the individual student and colleague in the building of professional communities of practice seems to be a guiding norm of conduct. In addition, school leaders that are successful in fulfilling a moral enterprise based on democratic principles and values, manage to deal with the types of dilemmas that are at the core of working with people in a school.
Originality/value
The study shows how successful leadership is an interactive process involving many people and players.
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Jan Merok Paulsen, Kjell Brynjulf Hjertø and Saku Petteri Tihveräinen
The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between school leadership practices and teacher empowerment in the Finnish policy culture. Specifically, moral leadership…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between school leadership practices and teacher empowerment in the Finnish policy culture. Specifically, moral leadership and distributed leadership enacted by school principals are tested in a simultaneous design as predictor to two distinct yet related aspects of teachers’ sense of empowerment, respectively, in their work domain and their classroom domain.
Design/methodology/approach
The study investigated a field sample of 246 individual teachers from ten Finnish primary schools. Hypotheses were developed and tested by structural equation modeling.
Findings
The results indicate that moral leadership exerted by school principals support teachers’ sense of empowerment both in work domain and classroom domain. Distributed leadership, in the meaning of sharing instructional leadership tasks with teachers, supported work domain empowerment but did not predict classroom domain teacher empowerment. Taken together, the model show the value of school principals facilitating teachers in decision-making processes paired with showing a strong moral basis in their relationship with teachers.
Research limitations/implications
The study reinforces the importance of moral leadership and distributed leadership as conjoint drivers for teachers’ sense of empowerment. It would be highly valuable to replicate this study in various multi-level settings.
Practical implications
The findings recommend school leaders to put emphasis on facilitative, ethical, and authentic practices in immediate relationships with their teachers.
Originality/value
The study provides empirical evidence regarding the partial relationships between principal leadership practices and teacher empowerment.