Jennie Weiner

Understanding Psychological Safety in Health Care and Education Organizations: A Comparative Perspective

Psychological safety plays a vital role in helping people overcome barriers to learning and change in interpersonally challenging work environments. This article focuses on two such contexts—health care and education. The authors theorize differences in psychological safety based on work type, hierarchical status, and leadership effectiveness. Consistent with prior research, the authors employ cross-industry comparison to highlight distinctive features of different professions. The goal is to illuminate similarities and differences with implications for future psychological safety research. To do this, the authors review relevant literature and present analyses of large data samples in each industry to stimulate further research on psychological safety in both sectors, separately and together.

Leading Teams of Leaders: What Helps Team Member Learning?

A study of Connecticut leadership teams finds that they are more effective when team members, not team leaders, coach other members and when coaching focuses on accomplishing their task.

Gifted Secondary School Students: The Perceived Relationship Between Enrichment and Goal Valuation

Grounded in the Enrichment Triad and Achievement Orientation Models, this qualitative case study builds understanding of the relationship between participation in Type III Enrichment and the achievement orientation attitude of goal valuation in gifted secondary school students. Participants included 10 gifted secondary school students, their parents, and their classroom teacher. Data included student, parent, and teacher responses in semistructured interviews, short-answer surveys, and student work. Findings indicate a relationship between participation in enrichment and goal valuation. Students engaged in Type III Enrichment perceived their projects as interesting, beneficial, and/or as related to perceptions of identity. In addition, factors of goal valuation were related to students’ continued interest and perceptions of enjoyment after completion of the enrichment projects. These findings have implications for structuring gifted education programs that meet the special needs of gifted secondary school learners.

“They Were Really Looking for a Male Leader for the Building”: Gender, Identity and Leadership Development in a Principal Preparation Program

This study utilized a comparative case study analysis to investigate how gender influenced the experiences of participants in a leadership development program (principal preparation program) designed to lead public K-12 schools identified as requiring turnaround. We closely focused on two participants, a man and a woman, and compared the ways each participant made meaning of his/her experiences as developing leaders in the program. Although both participants conceptualized effective leadership in similar communally-oriented ways, the way they came to construct their identities as leaders varied greatly. These differences were largely influenced by different and, what appeared to be, gendered feedback occurring during the program and when participants entered the job market.

Controlled Autonomy: Novice Principals' Schema for District Control and School Autonomy.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to gain insights into how a group of novice principals, all in schools that deployed principles of autonomy as mechanisms for improvement, conceptualized what the authors label “controlled autonomy” – a condition in which school leaders are expected to both make site-based decisions and be accountable to district oversight. The study aims to support more effective interactions between school and district leaders around controlled autonomy to increase performance. Design/methodology/approach Using schema as a framework to guide the inquiry, this paper uses qualitative methods and interviewing in particular to explore the questions of interest. Seven novice principals were each interviewed three times over the year each interview lasting approximately one hour (n=21). Data were analyzed thematically using both inductive and deductive coding techniques. Findings Findings show that principals tended to group potential district supports into four categories: operations, instruction, advocacy, and vision and their perceptions regarding the balance between their and the district’s control over activities in each category was dynamic, varied and dependent on views relating to issues as broad as values alignment to perceptions of bureaucratic efficiency. Research limitations/implications Because of the small sample size and methodological approach, it may be inappropriate to generalize the findings across all controlled autonomy contexts. Further research in additional settings is encouraged to support the proposed findings. Practical implications This paper has a number of implications for districts and school leaders. Among these is the need for districts to better articulate the parameters of controlled autonomy and for school leaders to receive more and more effective training and support to effectively utilize autonomy as a mechanism for reform. Originality/value This work fills a gap in the research regarding on how principals conceptualize controlled autonomy or, more specifically, how they view what school autonomy should look like relative to district control and is this paper’s focus. It also provides insights into practice and potential means to enhance a growing, but so far unevenly implemented and under performing reform initiative (i.e. controlled autonomy).

Triggering Change: An Investigation of the Logics of Turnaround Leadership

Principals are positioned at the center of school improvement. In the United States, current turnaround reforms target the principalship as a key lever for change. This article uses institutional theory to explore the logics of turnaround leadership that steer principals and their work. Specifically, we draw on qualitative interview data from a phenomenological study of a cohort of aspiring turnaround principals in a northeastern state to explain how educators invoked and enacted four logics of turnaround leadership. We found that, in addition to engaging with the previously identified logics of instructional, managerial, and social justice leadership, participants invoked a new logic that we name “triggering change.” This logic focused squarely on building capacity via positive relationships and shaping culture as mechanisms for whole school improvement. By depicting aspiring principals’ conceptions and negotiations of these four logics, we contribute to the literature on turnaround policy and leadership with implications for turnaround leader development.

Possibilities or paradoxes? How aspiring turnaround principals conceptualise turnaround and their place within it

ABSTRACT This study focuses on how a cohort of participants in a programme aimed at producing ‘turnaround leaders’ came to understand this policy and their role within it. Using a theory of action framework, I find that, over time, participants’ espoused theories of turnaround shifted in three key areas: (1) the cause of poor school performance, (2) the principal’s approach to leading change, and (3) the district’s role in turnaround. While these shifts created more complex views of organisational change, they also produced disillusionment and highlighted tensions in current conceptualisations of turnaround including their potential role in enacting it.

Sailing Across the Divide: Challenges to the Transfer of Teacher Leadership:

Responding to questions on how to develop and support teacher leaders, this article draws on sensemaking theory to discuss teacher leaders’ transfer of ideas from Developing Exemplary Educators (DEE), an intermediary organization. We share findings grounded in qualitative interview data from teachers and administrators in two urban schools. After describing the elements of teacher leadership that teacher leaders reported transferring into practice, we present the structures, norms, and factors enabling and constraining teacher leadership.

Environmental Perceptions of Gifted Secondary School Students Engaged in an Evidence-Based Enrichment Practice.

Grounded in the Achievement Orientation Model, this qualitative case study examines participation in enrichment and environmental perceptions of gifted secondary school students. Participants included 10 gifted secondary school students, their parents, and their classroom teacher. Data included student, parent, and teacher responses in semistructured interviews, short answer surveys, and student work. Findings indicated a relationship between participation in enrichment and environmental perceptions. Student participants benefited from a teacher trained in gifted education who nurtured both affective and cognitive development, homogeneous grouping with like-minded peers, involved parents, and relationships with project mentors. These findings have implications for designing learning environments that effectively support the special needs of gifted secondary school learners.

Missing the Boat–Impact of Just Missing Identification as a High-Performing School

ABSTRACT This study capitalizes on the performance identification system under the No Child Left Behind waivers to estimate the school-level impact of just missing formal state recognition as a high-performing school. Using a fuzzy regression-discontinuity design and data from the early years of waiver implementation in Rhode Island, we find that, when schools that just missed achieving status as a high-performing school (i.e., leading) were located in districts with a large proportion of schools achieving this status, they performed better in subsequent years. Alternatively, when similar schools were in districts with few leading schools, we find no effects.