Journal of Educational Administration

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• Sowing seeds of flourishing: the mediating role of trust in the impact of resilience on school principals across career stages

  Purpose: This study aims to examine the roles of principal resilience (psychological, social and spiritual) and trust in colleagues in predicting the flourishing of school principals, considering different career stages. Design/methodology/approach: Utilising multigroup structural equation modelling and mediation analysis, data were collected from a sample of 1,274 school principals in China. The study investigates the direct impact of resilience on flourishing and the mediating role of trust in colleagues, with a focus on variations across different career stages. Findings: The findings reveal that all aspects of a principal’s resilience significantly impact their flourishing, with trust serving as a partial mediator. Notably, the influence of spiritual resilience on flourishing is significant only for principals in the later stages of their careers. Originality/value: This research contributes to the expanding body of literature on educational leadership by highlighting the importance of resilience and trust in fostering principal flourishing. The insights gained offer valuable knowledge for developing support strategies to enhance the flourishing experiences of school principals throughout their careers.

• How should leaders “sustain the legacy” of urban catholic schools? An exploration of catholic school and system leader perspectives

  Purpose: Diocesan systems of Catholic schools in the USA have been trying to make urban elementary schools more sustainable in an era of declining enrollment. This paper sought to better understand how system and school leaders conceptualize what it takes to “sustain the legacy” of these schools. Design/methodology/approach: We conducted a qualitative analysis of interview data collected from 44 Catholic system and school leaders, comparing leaders’ perspectives about what they believed urban Catholic school principals should be doing to contribute to sector reform initiatives. Findings: We found system and school leaders agreed principals should take responsibility for “sustaining the legacy” of urban Catholic schools, but they disagreed about the ultimate purpose of sustaining these schools. These disagreements shaped the decisions each group believed principals should prioritize. Originality/value: We demonstrate in this paper that a systemic reform lens is useful when attempting to make sense of whether or how certain conditions within diocesan systems as currently designed may account for ongoing and persistent organizational crises within the Catholic sector.

• What factors mediate the relationship between principal leadership and teacher professional learning? Evidence from meta-analytic structural equation modelling (MASEM)

  Purpose: This study was conducted to investigate the effect of principal leadership (PL) on teacher professional learning (TPL) with the possible mediation of teacher trust (TT) and teacher agency (TA) using a broader set of data collected from published research. Design/methodology/approach: The study uses meta-analytic structural equation modelling to compare weighted effect sizes between variables produced by research across different periods and contexts. The bilateral relations of PL with study variables were first examined, and then the model-data fit was tested for both the proposed and the two alternative models. Findings: The results showed that PL had a significant and “very large” effect on TPL, TT and agency; PL affected TPL mostly indirectly over TT and agency. TT and agency collectively predicted nearly half of the variance in TPL. Originality/value: The study uses a novel and advanced methodology to investigate the relationships among the study variables using data from 59 studies with a sample size of 67,035 participants from around the world. The results contribute to the literature, offering a more global understanding of the interaction of PL, TPL, trust and agency.

• Commentary: Navigating the complexity, bridging the gap: the role of school-university partnership in sustaining school improvement during the post-pandemic era
• Guest editorial: Sustaining school improvement through school-university partnerships during the post-pandemic era
• School leadership during the COVID-19 crisis: a scoping review of empirical research

  Purpose: This scoping review examines the literature on school leadership during the COVID-19 crisis to consolidate knowledge on how school leaders adapted to unprecedented challenges. It aims to highlight the multifaceted aspects of school leadership during the pandemic, emphasizing the need for distinct approaches in crisis situations. Design/methodology/approach: Using scoping review methodology, this study analysed empirical work published between January 2020 and May 2023. Using PRISMA-ScR guidelines, it focused on peer-reviewed articles that examined leadership practices and strategies during the health crisis. Key features were distilled through thematic analysis, incorporating both inductive and deductive reasoning from the selected literature. Findings: The study indicated that school leadership during the COVID-19 crisis involved care, collaboration, communication and quick decision-making. School leaders demonstrated resilience and innovation to ensure continuity of learning and support community well-being. Inclusive leadership, technology integration and personal characteristics like empathy emerged as pivotal aspects. The mapping revealed a prevalence of qualitative methodologies in one context, highlighting the need for diverse methodologies to comprehensively understand school leadership during crisis. Originality/value: This review contributes to educational leadership by offering a thorough overview of the research on school leadership during the COVID-19 crisis. It emphasises context-specific leadership and the need to frame educational leadership in ways that will equip leaders for future crisis, suggesting considerations for leadership models tailored to crisis circumstances.

• Understanding self-fulfillment: principals’ perspectives in special education for complex disabilities

  Purpose: This study examined the diverse expressions of self-fulfillment among principals working in Israel’s special education system for complex disabilities. It addressed two primary questions: (1) What are the perceived manifestations of self-fulfillment among principals in the context of complex disabilities? (2) What examples of self-fulfillment do these school principals provide? Design/methodology/approach: The study employed a qualitative methodology to explore the experiences of self-fulfillment among principals in Israel’s special education system for complex disabilities. Special education principals in this context are school leaders whose responsibilities focus solely on managing schools dedicated to children with severe and complex disabilities, such as autism spectrum disorder, intellectual disabilities and physical disabilities. Semi-structured, face-to-face interviews were conducted with 17 school principals, providing an in-depth understanding of their perspectives and experiences. Findings: The study identified four patterns of self-fulfillment expressed by the participants: fulfillment in students’ advancement, fulfillment in facilitating social change, fulfillment through inclusive relationships and fulfillment as a mission and calling. Originality/value: While self-fulfillment is acknowledged as a common work experience, the expressions and meanings attributed to it by principals working exclusively in special education settings have not been explicitly investigated. By examining the distinct context of special education for complex disabilities, where principals’ roles are driven by a sense of calling and social significance, this study revealed unique manifestations of self-fulfillment. These differ from the career-focused fulfillment seen in for-profit organizations.

• Teacher distrust in the school principal: a mental state distinct from trust

  Purpose: Early conceptual thinking about distrust and more recent neurological evidence reveals that distrust is not the same as low trust. They are distinct mental states, active in different brain regions and shaped by different experiences. We use this evidence to conceptualize teacher distrust in the school principal and to construct a set of hypotheses for empirical testing. Design/methodology/approach: A correlational research design with teacher survey data was used for the empirical study. Teacher survey data came from a sample of high school teachers in a metropolitan area of a southwestern state in the United States. A total of 801 high school teachers received an electronic survey by email. Useable responses were received from 416 teachers, leading to a 52% response rate. Hypotheses were tested with structural equation modeling in AMOS 28 using Robust Maximum Likelihood estimation. Findings: The empirical evidence demonstrates that distrust and trust have different antecedents and that these perceptions have opposite relationships with teacher work stress and loyalty behaviors. Originality/value: This study is a first step toward better understanding the distinction between distrust and trust in school role-relationships.

• Teacher epistemic curiosity: how principal–teacher conversation supports it

  Purpose: The purpose of this study was to introduce teacher epistemic curiosity for student learning into the leadership literature and to determine if school principals can support it. The inquiry was organized by the following research question: In what ways can principal–teacher conversations support teacher epistemic curiosity for student learning? The research question guided the review of literature on epistemic curiosity, eventually leading to the leadership practice of transformative leadership conversation (TLC). A hypothesized model on the relationship between TLC and epistemic curiosity for student learning was advanced from research on student and employee curiosity and self-determination theory. Design/methodology/approach: The hypothesized model was tested with a correlational research design. Teacher survey data were collected in December 2023 from a random sample of certified public school teachers from a metropolitan area in a southwestern state of the USA. Usable survey responses were received from 2,022 teachers, resulting in a 55% response rate. The hypothesized model was tested with structural equation modeling in AMOS 28 using robust maximum likelihood estimation. The latent models include measurement and structural components. Findings: Results confirm the hypothesized relationships among TLC, need-satisfaction and teacher epistemic curiosity. TLC and need-satisfaction both had strong, direct relationships with teacher epistemic curiosity for student learning. TLC explained approximately 20% of the variance in teacher curiosity and need-satisfaction explained approximately 18%. The combined model accounted for approximately 55% of the variance in teacher epistemic curiosity. Originality/value: The study emerged from robust evidence on the essential function of curiosity for knowing, learning, performance and life well-being, as well as limited research on social processes that leaders can leverage to stimulate teachers’ motivation to understand how their students learn. Curiosity is an inner energy behind learning; it fuels an innate drive to explore, know, create, design and adapt to our surroundings. Schools and classrooms come to life when teachers and students engage in learning from a place of curiosity, making this motivational resource worthy of leadership attention.

• Co-designing a Children’s Cabinet: a school district–university partnership for youth well-being post-pandemic

  Purpose: This paper presents a case study of a school district–university partnership to co-design a Children’s Cabinet, a cross-sector initiative bringing together institutional and community leaders to address youth well-being in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. In a vibrant, immigrant-serving community in the Northeast United States, the partnership was initiated by district leaders in Spring 2021 after pandemic disruptions led to a youth mental health crisis. Design/methodology/approach: Our descriptive, qualitative case study focuses on the structure and emerging design principles of the research–practice partnership, which established a Children’s Cabinet comprised of educational, government and community leaders along with researchers. From Spring 2021 through Spring 2024, we collected and analyzed member and youth interviews, ethnographic observations and artifacts from all meetings and process interviews with key partners. Findings: We describe the structure of the partnership, including how researchers and district leaders collaborated on meeting facilitation and how researchers conducted and shared applied research. We then discuss three design principles that guided the work, including centering relationships, sustaining focus on key goals and embedding applied research. Originality/value: As embedded research partners, our team is uniquely situated to narrate the nature and structure of the partnership and reflect on the design of our cross-sector initiative. Increasingly, universities are partnering directly with districts on school improvement initiatives. Our work shows how engaging in RPPs to bring together school, community and research partners can facilitate local leadership and collaboration to address complex, cross-sector goals such as increasing youth well-being.

Featured documents

• A Comparison of Organizational Structures in Universities in Australia and China

  An organization is broadly defined to be a formally co‐ordinated effort by groups of individuals to realize specific goals. A university, as an organization, can be distinguished from a wide range of business organizations and government agencies, both by the manner of co‐ordination and the goals...

• A Note on the Evaluation of Teaching Performance

  The author critically examines “The Evaluation of Teaching Performance” (Journal of Educational Administration. VII 2. October, 1969) by T. J. Moore and W. D. Neale. An examination of the assumptions underlying the selection of certain criteria is made. The author challenges the interpretation of...

• A “Democratic Authority” for Bureaucracy

  After an analysis of Weberian theory the author describes recent “augmentations” to the bureaucratic model. Although accepted as a residual feature of organizations, bureaucracy is shown to be amenable to personalization and democratization. In particular this appears true of the Catholic church as ...

• Administrative support and teacher leadership in schools implementing reform

  Purpose: This paper aims to explore how teacher leaders help teachers improve mathematics and science teaching. Design/methodology/approach: Research focused on a purposive sample of seven teacher leaders selected to vary in their time allocated to teacher leader work and their content knowledge....

• ANXIETY IN ORGANIZATIONS: EXPLORATIONS OF AN IDEA

  The paper sets out to explore the idea that anxiety is an endemic factor in organizational membership. Harry Stack Sullivan's concept of anxiety as “threatened self esteem” is accepted. Mention is also made of the relevance of the work of Eric Berne, of Edward Jones and his colleagues and of the...

• Back to the future. The development of educational policy in England

  This article argues that educational policy in England has passed through four main stages in the last three decades. The first three phases, Social democratic, Resource constrained and Market, all contain elements which now inform the Excellence phase which is being pursued by New Labour. This...

• BUREAUCRATIC ORIENTATIONS, AUTONOMY AND THE PROFESSIONAL ATTITUDES OF TEACHERS

  Studies which hate examined relations between the organizational orientations of professionals, who work in bureaucracies, and measures of professionalism hate produced inconsistent and inconclusive findings. The results remain equivocal partly because restricted statistical techniques have been...

• Clinical and Humanistic Training as a Foundation for Effective Administration

  The change from the “mechanistic” to the “behavioural” view of the administration process is discussed and the point emphasized that the work of the administrator is essentially concerned with the relationship between organizational and personal needs. It is argued that the implications of this for ...

• Concluding reflections on “Leadership for learning in the context of social justice. An international perspective”

  Purpose: The purpose of the paper is to reflect on and respond to the papers contained in this Special Issue of Journal of Educational Administration. Design/methodology/approach: A commentary is provided for each of the nine articles in the Special Issue. Findings: The papers in the Special...

• Creating smarter schools through collaboration

  Principles of cognitive psychology are considered, not primarily as they inform classroom practice, but as they inform school organization and administrative practice in schools. Theories of knowledge as distributed, social, situated, and based on prior beliefs and knowledge are applied to...