Purpose: This paper presents a case study of successful rural school leadership in Victoria, Australia. The purpose of the paper is to identify how particular leadership practices were adapted to secure rural school success. Design/methodology/approach: The author used the International Successful School Principalship Project research protocols to…

Purpose: Through discussion of research about the leadership of two schools, this paper explores the complexity of school leadership and how various contextual elements interact with the work of principals in schools that are attempting to create inclusive, rich, worthwhile and unique schools. A systems thinking leadership and context model is…

The purpose of this study was to consider the role of sport specialisms in contributing to local and community culture, and in supporting student-athletes to become 'better people'. Research questions focused on why schools are adopting sport specialism and whether community organisations value the sport specialism. The study was phenomenological…

Educating students with refugee and asylum seeker experiences has become an added responsibility for school leaders worldwide. Disruptions of war, conflict, famine and drought force millions of people to leave their homelands in search of improved opportunities of a better life for themselves and their families. This research investigates and…

Australian higher education participation continues to expand, yet in unequal ways. Regional, rural, and remote (RRR) student participation is stubbornly stalled, despite sustained research and policy initiatives to support these cohorts. To address this complex issue, we interviewed 10 RRR principals in Queensland and Victoria to explore specific…

It is widely accepted that professional learning is a crucial aspect of the ongoing professional practice of educators. But how should this professional learning take place, and what arrangements enable and constrain practices associated with educator learning? In this article, we explore two case studies of action research projects: one…

This research considers strategies used by school leaders to engage, involve, and support families and local communities to assist their children to become more able readers. Data were collected from five case study schools in Tasmania where participants had attended the Principals as Literacy Leaders (PALL) program. The data shows that principals…

The importance of community has been widely recognised in the field of early childhood education. However, the various ways it has been conceived, together with taken-for-granted notions of education, have made it difficult to actualise the processes involved in contextually meaningful ways. This article draws on cultural models theory to explore…

This paper examines the ways that Australian school leaders made sense of and responded to situations of crisis and uncertainty that resulted from the COVID-19 global pandemic. The paper draws on a qualitative study of the subjective experiences of eight school leaders and uses a sensemaking theoretical approach applied to crisis leadership to…

The study aimed to elicit a universally accepted meaning of "ethical practice in school" from teachers' codes of ethics formulated by educational leaders including school principals, the nation's government, and teachers' union representatives. Analysis was based on a random sample of 30 codes of ethics in various countries using a…

This paper explores the complex problem of project sustainability, focusing on the leadership of three primary school mathematics leaders. Using cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT), the leaders' efforts are reported, highlighting their contribution to project sustainability. The CHAT-informed research design supported the generation of…

This research addresses the appeal for more empirical-based research on exclusionary practices in local community sport that often go unchallenged within dominant discourses. By examining how organised community sport clubs can uphold systemic segregation of various ethnic, racial, linguistic, religious and socioeconomic groups, this study also…

This book presents and theorises research findings into why and how school principals play a critical role in engaging parents and their school communities to enhance student learning and wellbeing. It highlights the imperative of parent engagement as evidenced by clear, consistent findings from research over the last fifty years and government…

Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education has been identified as a keystone teaching and learning area for developing students' knowledge and skills on interdisciplinary critical thinking and problem solving (We use the term 'interdisciplinary' because discipline knowledge and methods were integrated from different…

In 2011 to 2012, 48 schools in the Northern Territory, South Australia and Queensland participated in the Principals as Literacy Leaders with Indigenous Communities (PALLIC) project. Central to this project was the establishment of positive working relationships between school principals and Indigenous community leaders in order to improve…