The Australian early childhood system is complex and constantly changing and poses challenges to centre director/managers. A major challenge is the difficulty in meeting the responsibilities of leading and managing both organisational and pedagogical goals within the legal and educational frameworks of the system. Preparing educators for a complex…

Contemporary discourses in educational administration have exponentially grown the number of adjectival leaderships, challenged traditional organisational structures, and offered autonomy as a solution to performance issues. In this theoretical paper, I ask "what does the principalship look like after autonomy?" Despite the range of…

Purpose: Education reform aimed at achieving improved student learning is a demanding challenge for leaders and managers at all levels of education across the globe. In 2010, the position of Assistant Regional Directors, School Performance (ARD-SP), was established to positively impact upon student learning across public schools in Queensland,…

When school boards are confronted with the challenge of unfamiliar, changing contexts, opportunities and governance responsibilities, they have to be able to respond appropriately. The research reported in this paper investigated the response of five Western Australian primary school boards to such situations. It analyses interview data from 49…

This paper outlines the findings of a study that examined the conceptions of academics regarding the nature of "leading" and "managing" learning and teaching in six Australian universities. These data were considered in the light of institutional systems and documentation regarding the leadership and management of learning and…

Using a post-structural approach this article investigates the working lives of frontline managers in VET and how they negotiate change in their day to day practices and decision making. The article is organised around accounts made by managers from different types of Vocational Education and Training (VET) organisations, namely: Technical and…

This article examines the significance of materiality for management and leadership in education using resources provided by actor-network theory (ANT). Espousing the idea that human interactions are mediated by material objects and that these objects participate in the production of practices, ANT affords thinking management and leadership in a…

There has been limited research on how teachers, parents and students perceive effective school leadership in practice. The purpose of this article is to present some of the findings derived from a study of key stakeholders' perceptions of effective school leadership. Key stakeholders were identified as teachers, students and parents. Data were…

This review aims to demonstrate that a great deal of a school's success depends on which areas of school life the educational leader chooses to spend time and attention on. It calls for more research and policy attention to be given to the career paths of school principals in order to meet the challenge of identifying and developing the next…

Programs for the preparation of educational administrators must focus attention on role perception and on training for leadership in a social and professional context. (Author)

This document provides three resources in support of "Approaches for Sustaining and Building Management and Leadership Capability in VET Providers" (ED499670), which examines the existing and potential strategies for sustaining and building greater levels of management and leadership capability in training organisations. The resources…

Compares alterations in the professional role of the chief educational officer in three countries following lay challenges and political turbulence. Reflects on the causes of the politicization of education and its effects on administrators' behavior and values. Contains 48 references. (SV)

The basic purpose of the Educative Leadership Project (ELP), first launched in Australia in 1986, was to define excellence in educational leadership, with a focus on the questions of how to decide what is important and how to know what is morally right. An introductory chapter by the editors describes the ELP project in detail, including its…

Based on the premise that teachers usually blame the education system and the administration for discrepancies between how and what they want to teach, and how and what they actually do teach, a study was conducted to determine if teachers really are constrained by their administrators. Ninety-three teachers of tenth-year English from 22…

Briefly discusses the methodology and theoretical assumptions before drawing on the findings of a three-year study of regional directors of education in Australia concerning the relationship between action and structure. The study found that "structure" was used metaphorically in a number of ways. (MLF)