This paper reports on the findings from a multi-site case study conducted in Australia, Finland and Jamaica which explored the conditions that enabled and constrained the autonomy of school principals. Systematic data collection was carried out in the form of interviews of school principals and the data was analysed using a qualitative approach.…

Employing Jurgen Habermas's notions of communicative and strategic action (1984), this paper draws on case studies of principals' decision making practices in three sites of Finland, Australia and Jamaica. The research examined principals' understandings of educational autonomy as a part of their practices of decision making. The paper argues that…

Mentoring is a practice widely utilised to support new teachers. However, in locally formed systems, the practice of mentoring is conditioned by traditions and arrangements specific to the site. To understand "good" mentoring, these local arrangements cannot be ignored. In this article, the theory of practice architectures is employed to…