Although preparing teachers to be leaders is a common goal of teacher education programs, often "teaching" and "leading" are located in separate departments" (Mangin & Stoelinga, 2009, p. 56). Recently, however, the assessment of teacher leadership has become important in preservice teacher education. This importance…

If educational research stemming from colleges of education is sometimes out of touch, scholarship engaged by school districts and state boards of education is often dangerous in its distant view but arms-length reach. Teaching and learning are enhanced when members of the school community engage in collective grounded efforts to make real change.…

This paper presents findings from a three-year, qualitative study of teachers enrolled in a Masters of Teacher Leadership program. Researchers sought to understand the ways teachers' beliefs about and understandings of teacher leadership were affected by their participation in a formal teacher leadership program, as well as the kinds of actions…

Although there is no common definition for teacher leadership, the concept is continually advanced as a key component for both the success of schools and professionalization of teachers. Studies have shown that teachers who feel empowered as leaders are more effective in the classroom. Professional development schools (PDSs) provide multiple…

To become a school administrator in New York State one had to graduate with a minimum of 33 hours of graduate coursework from a state approved administrative preparation program. The specific requirements within the coursework were left in large part to the discretion of the university. New York State was not alone in its certification process.…

Jacques Derrida wrote about democratic leadership in educational institutions throughout his later work, but in this article the author notes the importance of Derrida's essays published as "Eyes of the University" (2004). Derrida begins by returning to questions raised by Immanuel Kant two centuries earlier with regard to the founding of the…

In this article, the authors' intent is to focus in on one elementary teacher education program and, specifically, on the ways in which that program has grappled with and continues to grapple with the questions of whether and how teacher education works relative to the claim that this is a program committed to social justice and designed to…

In this article, the authors provide a summary of the current techniques being used to recruit, retain, and support a diverse range of scholars, including students with disabilities, in a doctoral program. The manuscript provides a summary of the current need for leadership personnel who are scholars with knowledge in special education, general…

Since Finland emerged in 2000 as the top-scoring Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) nation on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), researchers have been pouring into the country to study the so-called "Finnish miracle." How did a country with an undistinguished education system in the…

Improved student achievement requires the distribution of leadership beyond one individual. Given their daily connection to students, leadership opportunities distributed to classroom teachers are key to school improvement. Complicating the development of classroom teacher leaders are attrition rates and low teacher efficacy among novice…

This paper explores the possibilities of working with White, working-class teacher education students to explore the "complex social trajectory" (Reay in Women's Stud Int Forum 20(2):225-233, 1997a, p. 19) of class border crossing as they progress through college. Through analysis of a course that I have developed, "Education and the American…

This enlightening handbook offers current, international perspectives on the conditions in communities, contemporary practices in schooling, relevant research on teaching and learning, and implications for the future of education. It contains diverse conceptual frameworks for analyzing existing issues in education, including but not limited to…

The study was carried out to establish the competencies of graduate teachers who graduated from teacher education programs between the year 2005 and 2010. Multi-stage sampling was used in selecting 432 respondents comprising educational administrators and graduate teachers working in the three levels of education across two states of Southern…

Previous research conducted by Nelson and Coorough (1994) found support for the statement that PhD programs were more research oriented, whereas doctorate of education (EdD) programs were more oriented to the educational practitioner. This previous study, however, had grouped all dissertations in education and had not looked at dissertations by…

To maintain their commitment to a site, teachers need truly meaningful work. Teacher leadership drives the work of the Writing Project. The narratives in this collection, written by three veteran teacher-consultants, demonstrate many ways in which teacher leadership builds the capacity of any National Writing Project (NWP) site to do its work.…