Gary M. Crow

Complexity and the beginning principal in the United States: perspectives on socialization

Purpose – This paper aims to contribute to the literature and practice on beginning principal socialization by identifying the features of post‐industrial work that create a more complex work environment for the practice and learning of the principalship in the USA.Design/methodology/approach – Based on recent literature on the changing nature of work, the paper applies those features of complexity to components of beginning principal socialization.Findings – The nature of work in post‐industrial society and the changes in education, including a knowledge society, technology, demographic changes, and public accountability increase the complexity for US school principals. These features provide an important conceptual and normative basis for understanding and changing the content, sources, methods, and outcomes of beginning principal socialization.Originality/value – The paper contributes a set of conceptual and normative features that strengthens the understanding of how beginning principals learn the role.

Interdisciplinary Teacher Teams: Context, Design, and Process.

Teacher involvement strategies have become an important part of educational reform. Work group enhancement, although less used than individual approaches, is gaining attention in reform efforts and research investigations. Hackman and Oldham’s model on work group effectiveness provides a useful conceptual framework for understanding the nature of interdisciplinary teacher teams. This article reports on a study of interdisciplinary teacher teams during the 2nd year of implementation of teaming in a middle school. Based on observational and interview data, the study identifies the major context, design (structure), and process features of each of the four teams in the school. The article also provides a discussion of implications for practice and research in the area of collaborative teaching reforms.

Socialization to a new conception of the principalship

Institutions which train potential administrators are confronted with how best to help them conceive their new role in a way that supports school reform. Reports on study of candidates in a non‐traditional principal preparation programme in order to examine the socialization process of developing an innovative role conception. Candidates completed a questionnaire on entry to the programme and were interviewed at the end of the programme. Findings are reported in terms of sources and definitions of role conception, as well as socialization mechanisms. Candidates encountered conflict between the role conception emphasized by the university and that of the school system in terms of whether they stressed present reality or future change. During the course of the programme, the sense of facilitating teachers gave way to a sense of the principal′s autonomy in creating a vision and persuading others to buy into that vision. Provides implications for training principals and for future research.

Portrait of the “Ideal Principal”: Context and Self

An idealized view of the principals role ignores both the importance that context plays and the unique and dynamic quality of individual principals. Yet, there are three things that good principals do: understand the context, understand themselves, and focus on what is best for students. This article identifies the major community, school, and reform contexts in which principals work and discusses components of self-understanding that are important to enacting the role in a reform setting.

Mentoring in the context of educational leadership preparation and development-old wine in new bottles? Introduction to a special issue

This special issue of Educational Administration Quarterly (EAQ) is a collection of current scholarship on mentoring. The call for this issue suggested that mentoring has become a popular response to the critical need to integrate new teachers and administrators into an organization and to develop knowledge, skills, and dispositions for midcareer educators in addressing student learning and school improvement. There were several responses to that concept of mentoring. But mentoring has also been recognized as vital for career advancement, an aspect taken up by other authors. However, some mentoring strategies ignore various weaknesses of this socialization method (e.g., the conservative nature of incumbents training newcomers and the transmitting of traditional, and in some cases disenfranchising, power relationships). Several authors addressed such pitfalls as well. To be sure, the five articles provide a range of perspectives on the subject. Do we learn anything new about mentoring though? Are we talking of old wine being poured into new bottles? On one hand, older notions of internships for prospective administrators are being transformed into more focused mentoring experiences (as in the article from Browne-Ferrigno & Muth). Also, the traditional personal and professional development of leaders is being seen as enhanced by engaging in explicit mentoring relationships with willing district experts (as in the article from Daresh). On the other hand, we have examples of nontraditional ideas of mentoring as a constructed phenomenon by Latina administrators who have not had sustained guidance

The National College for School Leadership: A North American Perspective on Opportunities and Challenges

The growing interest internationally in leadership development and how leaders contribute to student learning makes the development of the National College for School Leadership (NCSL) an intriguing and potentially significant event. This article examines the aims and programs of the NCSL from a North American perspective. Based on a context in which the world of leadership work is changing and the socialization of school leaders is critical, the article identifies opportunities and challenges which the NCSL faces in contributing to the reform of leadership and leadership development.

Perceived Career Incentives of Suburban Elementary School Principals

While school reform literature calls attention to incentives for teachers, little research or policy making has focused on school administrators′ incentives. Career incentives perceived by a sample of elementary school principals and the influence of career background on those incentives are examined. It was found, using both qualitative and quantitative methods of analysis, that principals perceive their career as having economic, ancillary and task‐related rewards. However, principals varied in the kinds of incentives they preferred and the nature of their future goals. Principals who have moved among several school districts in their administrative careers are more likely to be satisfied and to emphasise incentives, such as contact with school constituencies, which come from staying in the principalship. In contrast, principals who have remained in the same district throughout their administrative careers are more likely to prefer those incentives which advancement to central office can offer.

Professional identities of school leaders across international contexts

This introductory article attempts to set a conceptual stage for the special issue on identities of school leaders. We do this by beginning with a discussion of identity – its definition, philosophical roots, nature, and components. We then move to a discussion of identity development and the various dimensions that characterize this development. The article ends with a brief description of a critical constructivist model of identity. Our intention in the article is not to offer a theoretical framework that will be used by the article authors, but to offer a conceptual stage that provides the background for understanding identity.