This paper explores the perspectives of Flemish secondary school principals and coordinating principals on the government-proposed changes and uncovers their experiences with these changes in an in-depth manner. In a school system characterised by school freedom and free school choice, semi-structured interviews with 21 school leaders revealed the…

Since research shows that the quality of a school's teaching force is related to its personnel practices, there is a growing interest in human resource management (HRM) in education. Existing research has generated insights into the differences, constraints and effects of single and isolated HR practices. Yet, little research is available…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to consider trust as an important relational source in schools by exploring whether trust lowers teacher burnout. The authors examine how trust relationships with different school parties such as the principal relate to distinct dimensions of teacher burnout. The authors further analyze whether school-level…

Background: Schools are increasingly confronted with the challenges that information about school performance brings with it. It is common for schools' use of performance feedback to be limited. Equally, however, there are documented cases in which school performance feedback is meaningfully used. Purpose: This study looks at how Flemish primary…

Based on a secondary analysis of studies on Flemish primary schools, the article argues that the metaphor of the gatekeeper, on the threshold between the outside-school and the inside-school world, is a powerful frame to capture some of the particular complexities of principals' emotional experience of themselves and their working conditions. More…

This inquiry, by means of the case study method, explored how principals' conceptions about their role as school leader contribute to a better understanding of their leadership behavior and how this is related to school climate. The results indicated that differences of how principals conceive their leadership role are related, indirectly through…

This paper, based on 14 case studies of schools situated in six local urban spaces (within the urban agglomerations of Budapest, Charleroi, Lille, Lisbon, London and the Creteil/Paris region), will analyse the internal logics of action of these schools and show that they are conditioned by the interaction between internal (school narrative…

Attributes role changes for Belgian principals to turbulence in the policymaking arena and to involvement in large-scale improvement projects during the past 20 years. Principal's tasks are grouped around two sets of activities: assessing the importance of external and internal factors on the local school and making central policies more…

A common theme of both internal and environmental school leadership is the expectation that principals justify permanently the specific decisions they make. This justification is a main requirement for creative leadership. Data from four Belgian primary school studies illustrate that teachers are confronted with different justification styles and…

Based on qualitative research (interviews with 39 elementary teachers and case studies of two schools), demonstrates that two important concepts can clarify school leaders' crucial role in teachers' professional development. If principals create workplace conditions that offer learning space and opportunities, learning experiences will happen.…

This article reports on a study of a large-scale Belgian innovation project. From interview data four types of local innovation policy (LIP) were identified. LIP's reflected the organizational reactions of schools and appeared to be determined primarily by principals interventions. LIP's were characterized by planning, interaction, risk avoidance…

The effects of large-scale improvement projects and the trend toward decentralization on the principal's role in primary and secondary schools in Belgium are explored in this paper. Particular focuses are on the ways in which sociopolitical change influences the nature of school-level leadership and on strategies that principals use in response to…

This article focuses on the good practices in three primary schools in the city of Antwerp, Belgium. First we start with a walk through the Flemish educational system and sum up the legislation concerned. After that we give a detailed overview of the pupil population of the three schools selected. Finally, the data from the interviews are analysed…

Results of a qualitative study of the professional culture of nine primary schools that are implementing innovations are presented. Three aspects of schools' organizational culture are emphasized: (1) the principal as builder and carrier of the culture; (2) consensus on goals; and (3) professional relationships among teachers. Three cultural types…

These papers represent the efforts of individual researchers from five countries: Australia, Belgium, Canada, The Netherlands and the United States. Each paper reports on educational change in a different country, based on the Concerns-Based Adoption Model developed at the Research and Development Center for Teacher Education at the University of…