Labour conflict in school districts is a largely neglected area of educational research. This study examines the perceptions, actions, and decisions of union and district leaders using social movement theory to describe, analyze, and interpret contentious contract negotiations in three school districts in the Pacific Northwest region of the US.…

This article presents researcher reflections of a case study of a Black female deputy superintendent who made the value-driven decision to close the achievement gap in her district. I posit that she is an outlier because she is Black and female in a predominantly white male field of practice, she effectively closed the achievement gap through her…

Since the wave of school reform decentralization, schools now maintain a more dynamic and diverse relationship with their environment than they did in the past. School principals' relationships with the local educational authority (LEA) are a prominent example of this change in Israel. LEAs try to gain more pedagogic influence over schools while…

The importance of theory in qualitative work is discussed through an examination of the search for theory that arose in relation to a case study of educational change in an American school district. Theory is defined as an analytical, interpretive framework to help the researcher make sense of what is going on in the social setting. Certain…