Kirk Anderson

Transformational teacher leadership: decentring the search for transformational leadership

Using transformational leadership dimensions (Leithwood et al., 1997; Leithwood et al., 1999) to examine the influence of the teacher leaders in rural schools, the author makes the argument that the focus on the principal as the primary source of transformational leadership may be misplaced. If researchers focus on the teachers as leaders outside the traditional leadership roles, such as the relatively formal role-free rural school setting, there exists a promising area of new understanding for educational leadership. Such research can help decenter the principal as the focus of transformational leadership and identify an understudied area important to school improvement and change, notably, the ability of some teacher leaders to be transformational or, more optimistically, to be transformational teacher leaders.

Reluctant leaders: Why are some capable leaders not interested in the principalship?

This paper is a starting point in work that we hope, indeed are certain, will lead to a better understanding of the respective national context for leadership succession in Ireland and Canada while also contributing to the international perspective. Specifically, we are investigating the reasons why teachers trained in school leadership, possessing the qualifications and attributes needed to assume leadership positions, are not applying for the principalship. We call these teachers ‘reluctant leaders’. We hope that by investigating the factors which are inhibiting them from going forward for promotion we may illuminate solutions to what is becoming a crisis in many educational systems.

Influences Preceding 'Nunatsiavut' Self-determination: Historical, Political and Educational Influences on the People of Northern Labrador (Canada)

What were the influences on the Inuit of Northern Labrador preceding the creation of the self-governing territory of Nunatsiavut? What are the preterritorial influences of the Inuit on the territorys five schools? To answer these questions and to share the success of one Indigenous people, the Nunatsiavut Inuit (the Inuit of Northern Labrador, Canada), this paper traces their survival, recovery, and development as they reclaim their right to self-determination (Smith, 1999). As part of this process, the paper reports such influences as: the bicultural and assimilationist forces (Moravian missionaries and the governments of Newfoundland), the rise and successful influence of the Labrador Inuit Association as a precursor to the Nunatsiavut Assembly, and the Inuit influence on schools in the region. This paper concludes with a discussion of the nature of northern isolation as a source of economic and cultural strength, which may have enabled the Nunatsiavut Inuit to resist complete assimilation, a factor in Nunatsiavut Inuit survival and increased potential for successful self-determination.