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The purpose of this paper is to explore the ecology of collaboration between school and university partners using an appreciative inquiry theoretical perspective and to demonstrate how it enhances the social capital in school and university partnerships.

A case study of a partnership of an inner‐city high school and university doctoral action research was explored in the frameworks of mutuality, social capital, and appreciative inquiry. The theoretical perspective of appreciative inquiry served as the basis for the mutuality between administrators and faculty in the inner‐city high school and the doctoral action research team.

Findings suggest that approaching school‐university partnerships through an appreciative inquiry theoretical perspective creates an environment for building trust, sharing knowledge, and increasing bridging capital, thus benefiting both the school and university.

The action research team formed a partnership with teachers and administrators. The action research was transformed by the partnership and reports showed substantial progress in student achievement scores in mathematics and science. Hopefully, some of that achievement can be attributed to the research and the paper on which it is based.

The purpose of this paper is to document how a doctoral research team applied an action research process to improve communication and collaboration strategies among rural Midwestern school district stakeholders.

An appreciative inquiry (AI) action research methodology framed as a qualitative case study using the AI 4‐D cycle over four consecutive weeks was facilitated with nine purposively selected stakeholders.

Findings suggest that the AI 4‐D cycle promoted greater respect and value of participants' strengths/assets through shared personal narratives; participants transformed their rural school district's culture from defensive, isolationist, and reactive to one that embraced internal and external collaboration, greater levels of trust, and hope; and participants increased social capital between the school district and community agencies as well as in the relationship among school district stakeholders.

Participants entered the process with strong expressions of powerlessness focused on school district and stakeholder deficits. They left the process empowered, with a plan to improve stakeholder communication, form district and community partnerships at many levels, and act immediately to initiate transformation projects. Participants became conduits of hope for their rural community and viewed themselves as assuming leadership roles to bring groups together to build generative capacity.

The paper highlights the importance of the highly participatory nature of school organizations as democratic institutions, and it demonstrates that educators are empowered when their focus is on a co‐constructed imagined future.

The purpose of this study is to identify how at‐risk high school students in an alternative school describe how they best learn and to extrapolate their preferred learning practices to improve teacher pedagogical practices.

The authors used a qualitative case study design to facilitate the first two stages of an appreciative inquiry (AI) 4‐D cycle – discovery and dream. Eight alternative high school students, four males and four females, were purposively selected as participants. Data collection methods included: group discussions, semi‐structured paired interviews, and participant generated documents and visual presentation for district administrators and teachers. Data were analyzed using content analysis, open coding, axial coding, text analysis software, and pattern matching.

The study produced four salient findings: relevant experiences were important for learning; a cooperative and respectful learning environment is a core value; learning should be enjoyable; and, the concept of family became an important metaphor for the learning environment.

The findings from this study suggest that further research with AI in educational settings may have important implications to inspire educators to think in new ways about learning.

The process of training and preparing principals is driven by a characteristics model. Underlying each of the components in the characteristics model is decision making. Decision making defines the work of principals. Those who prepare principals can improve the leadership quality of principals and thereby impact school effectiveness by focusing on decision making. Decision‐making assessment is a critical component to principal preparation and ongoing development. It can be used to assess the quality of decisions made by prospective and acting school administrations. Through decision‐making assessment principals can become aware of their cognitive decision‐making patterns thus allowing them opportunity to replace potentially dysfunctional patterns with patterns that are more effective and efficient.

An appreciative inquiry (AI) collaborative study with 11 school administrators in a highly diverse suburban school district sought to understand if observing and sharing successful school practices/events in a whole group setting led to change in their perceptions, attitudes, and administrative practice. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The study took place over a ten-week period with a group of self-selected (voluntary participation) school administrative participants.

There were two findings: the AI focus of inquiry on successful practices/events shapes school administrator perceptions, attitudes, and application of craft knowledge to practice; and the school administrators’ sharing of successful practices/events in a whole group setting generated new forms of practice during the ten-week study.

The findings suggest that reflection and integration of successful practices/events are a source of craft knowledge advancing changes in school administrative practice.

The actions of school leaders have direct and profound ethical implications on their organizations and corresponding stakeholders. Each action impacts the ethical notion of mutuality and either adds to or detracts from the existing social capital in the school leader’s organization and surrounding school community. Whether or not the school leader chooses to act out of self‐interest and contribute to the growth of fragmentation in the organization or chooses to act with integrity based on sound ethical principles is determined in large extent by the school leader’s character.

During the 1980s, much criticism surfaced regarding the need for managers and executives to be more effectively prepared for their roles and responsibilities. Graduate business schools were identified as one source which needed to improve because a business degree often represents a significant part of managers′ and executives′ preparation. In addition to reviewing content, graduate business schools need to improve the methods used to deliver content. Specifically, they need to incorporate successful methods used in private and governmental organisations to train and develop managers. These methods include role play, case method, in‐basket technique, games, computer based training, learning contracts, assessment centres, shadowing, structured self‐assessment and mentoring.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the issue of at‐risk students in a rural district in Midwestern USA.

This field‐based research study used a qualitative embedded case study of a middle and high school informed by an appreciative inquiry theoretical research perspective to identify a positive core of teacher and administrator experiences related to at‐risk students. At‐risk students are those who under‐perform in mandated academic assessments as well as school‐related academic achievement. Social capital and appreciative inquiry served as theoretical perspectives. Focus groups, semi‐structured interviews, and an online survey were the primary data‐gathering methods.

Three findings illustrated the gap between present practice and the ideal state. The research team concluded that there was a foundation of positive core experiences from which to build on the espoused theory of caring professed by teachers and administrators.

The study's results can further teachers' and administrators' understanding of their problem‐based language that emphasizes the deficits of at‐risk students and their parents.

Character is at the core of leadership. Leaders with virtuous character provide benefit to their schools and communities. Whereas, leaders with character flaws create harm for themselves as well as their community. The ethical lapses among teachers, principals, and superintendents create an even larger issue when one considers the fiduciary trust placed in educators by the public. Character development requires behavioral change as well as knowledge acquisition. Incorporating behavioral change into university administrator preparation programs requires faculty to consider recent findings in neuroscience on how the brain learns and the incorporation of these findings into program design and instruction.