This qualitative study examined what female principals in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, two historically male-dominated cultures who are actively implementing reforms to provide women with more leadership opportunities, reported as typical elements of their daily work. The study also examined the challenges that these female principals reported in their efforts to improve the learning environment in their schools and what advice they would give to women entering the field of school leadership. The themes that emerged from the data were used to construct a grounded theory of the daily responsibilities of Saudi and Qatari female principals, the challenges that faced in fulfilling those responsibilities, and how they advised women entering principal positions to prepare to respond to those challenges.

Self Directed learning, oral presentation and peer group assessment are some of the phrases gaining momentum in the domain of teaching and learning. The merits and challenges in using them had attracted the attention of many educational researches. This study hopes to contribute by investigating one element which plays an important role in oral presentation. Language plays an important role in conveying the message. The uniqueness of this study lies in the language used by the presented and the participants. The Sign Language was used, where the raters consist of two groups of people. Only one group knows the sign language. The participants of study are 36 pre-service teachers. A total of 20 pre-service teachers are undergoing training to become hearing impaired special education teachers. As such, sign language is included in the programme. The balance 16 pre-service teachers enrolled in TESL programme. The presenter, himself is a hearing impaired pre-service teacher. Therefore, he had to use the sign language during his oral presentation, know sign language. The pre-service teachers had assessed the presenter using three criteria. These are communication, content and delivery. The findings show that comprehension and interpreting the rubrics used during oral presentation is crucial. As such it is suggested that students are consulted when drawing the rubrics.

A qualitative study examining female and male Saudi principals’ perceptions of instructional leadership was conducted using an electronic survey. While teacher supervision and supporting new instructional strategies were themes that emerged from the data from both genders, the female participants provided more detail on what they personally did in both areas and identified more altruistic personal virtues that they felt instructional leaders should model. Female Saudi principals also identified active problem-solving as part of their instructional leadership as compared to male Saudi principals who reported directing school improvement efforts through their leadership team. Theories of instructional leadership were developed for each gender from participant responses that indicate that female Saudi principals define and enact instructional leadership in more relational and interactive terms than their male counterparts.

This article aims to explore the views of primary school teachers regarding the educational leadership exercised by leader teachers at the human resource management level, and how this can affect their willingness to communicate and collaborate. The theoretical framework analyzes the dimensions of human resource management by a leader teacher, as a communication channel, team empowerer, and creator of a climate of trust. The research was carried out using quantitative method, with a closed digital questionnaire which was completed by 693 primary school teachers from whole Greece. Initially, the analysis was carried out through descriptive statistics and then selected questions were analyzed by statistical inference test. The findings show a shift towards the model of a transformational leader, despite the country’s education system remaining highly centralized. In addition, the findings show a correlation between democratic and cooperative staff management, with the axes of inspiration and responsibility on the teachers’ side. This article highlights whether the communication skills of a leader teacher affect the functioning of the school. The research was carried out during a pandemic and thus it was not possible to collect qualitative data using interviews with leader teachers so that we can have a comparative approach to the issue.

In the research, it was aimed to learn the leadership expectations of secondary school students in the context of school principals. In this context, focus group interviews were conducted with sixteen students studying at different grade levels in the research conducted with a phenomenological design, and the data obtained were subjected to content analysis. When the findings were examined, it was seen that the leadership expectations of the students from the school principals were shaped in four sub-themes (behavior, values, skills and abilities, and characteristics). According to the results obtained, students from school principals about leadership; In the behavior sub-theme, they expect the most discipline and valuing ideas, they expect the most fairness, tolerance and understanding in the values sub-theme, they expect the most professional expertise in the skills and abilities sub-theme, and they expect the most compassion and sincerity in the characteristics sub-theme. The results show that the expectations of the students, which are the basic elements of the education process, should be taken into account by the school leaders.

A National Science Foundation-funded Mathematics and Science Partnership program, Leadership for Educators: Academy for Driving Economic Revitalization in Science (LEADERS), aimed to develop science teacher leaders who would influence the quality of science teaching in their respective schools. To fulfill a need to evaluate leadership abilities of teachers within LEADERS, a Teacher Leadership Instrument was developed based on our previous work. This paper examines the performance of teachers as outlined in the Teacher Leader Model (TLM) Standards following their enrollment in three teacher leadership courses aligned with these Standards. The study employed a qualitative approach to analyze peer professional development sessions provided by teacher leaders, and to rate leadership behaviours and practices. Results indicate that 31 of the 37 functions were exhibited by the teacher leaders, with most observations occurring at a developing level. Behaviours related to effective presentation and facilitation were observed most frequently, but the teacher leaders also incorporated research-based practices, information about assessments, and links to the community in their sessions. Further, these behaviours linked back to the intended outcomes of the three leadership courses. The results demonstrate one manner in which teacher leaders perform the functions of the TLM Standards in the context of professional development sessions.

The study aims to determine the relationship between school administrators’ paternalistic leadership behaviours and teachers’ work alienation levels. The research sample group involves 205 teachers working in the Anatolian high schools in the central district of Siirt. Research data was collected through the “Paternalistic Leadership Behaviours Scale of School Principals” and the “Work Alienation Scale”. According to the descriptive and Pearson correlation analysis results of the research, it was determined that the paternalistic leadership behaviours of the school administrators are at a “strongly agree” level while the work alienation of the teachers is at a “somewhat agree” level, and a negative moderate significant relationship was found between the paternalistic leadership behaviours and the teachers’ work alienation levels. The path analysis revealed that benevolent leadership predicts the powerlessness and meaninglessness dimension negatively significantly; authoritarian leadership predicts the powerlessness dimension positively significantly, and moral leadership predicts meaninglessness and self-estrangement negatively significantly. Moreover, it was also established that, in general, paternalistic leadership behaviours predict the teachers’ work alienation negatively significantly as a whole. As a result of the research, school administrators were suggested to display helpful and ethical behaviours by watching over the teachers in various matters.

Studies conducted on learners rarely focus their investigations on learner perceptions of pre-service teachers’ classroom management practices. In response to the changing school environments, this study investigated learners’ perceptions of pre-service teachers’ classroom management practices. A survey design was adopted in which 550 grade 11 secondary school learners from eleven secondary schools in the Copperbelt Province in Zambia formed the sample. A Likert scale questionnaire was used to collect data which was analysed using SPSS and also through an iterative process. The study revealed that learners positively perceived pre-service teachers’ classroom management practices. This is indicated by pre-service teachers’ interest in learners’ welfare, possessing good personal qualities, ability to handle learners’ disruptive behaviours, ability to teach effectively, and ability to assess learners effectively. Using an independent samples t-test, it was concluded that there were no statistically significant gender differences in learners’ perceptions of pre-service teachers’ classroom management. Regardless of which institution pre-service teachers came from, learners had a positive impression of pre-service teachers in terms of learner discipline (60%), assessment of learners (66.3%), learner and pre-service-teacher relationship (64.7%), pre-service teachers’ ability to teach (54%), interest in learner welfare (58.5%), pre-service teachers’ personal characteristics (82.6%) and acceptance of pre-service teacher (46.9%).

The study aims to analyze the relationship between teacher leadership and the organizational happiness of secondary school teachers. The research was designed in the relational survey model. The research sample group involves 358 teachers working in the state schools in the Bakirkoy district of Istanbul province. The Teacher Leadership Scale and the Organizational Happiness Scale were used to collect the data. The social sciences statistics program was used in the analysis of the data. It was found that teachers' teacher leadership and organizational happiness levels were high. There was a low level of positive significant relationship between teacher leadership and organizational happiness. and between the positive emotions sub-dimension of organizational happiness and the total score of teacher leadership. However, there was no relationship between the negative emotions sub-dimension of organizational happiness and teacher leadership. It was concluded that teacher leadership significantly positively affects teachers' organizational happiness.

Organizationally, what does not get measured is not prioritized or improved. Unlike student outcomes, the leadership environment that produces the results is rarely examined for its merit and impact. In this study, a quantitative survey gathered information to investigate the impacts of leadership capacity constructs on academic achievement. Principals from 161 public high schools and their schools provided the data (leadership capacity, demographics, and reading and math scores). Data were analyzed using descriptive, correlational, and regression statistics. Findings indicated significant high correlations among leadership capacity variables, significant relationships between school demographics (total school enrollment, percentage of low-income students, average class size, and attendance) and reading and math scores, and non-significant correlations between leadership capacity and academic achievement. The study delineated specific leadership capacity behaviors within the constructs that predicted student academic achievement in math and reading. The study suggests increased capacity and practice of these leadership behaviors to improve work setting and student achievement.

Turnover in middle management can be very expensive for a school, not just financially, but also in terms of providing continuity of leadership, sustainability of management practices, and quality student experiences. Therefore, a rigorous understanding of why middle managers in schools are thinking of leaving post can provide senior leaders an opportunity to develop strategies to reduce this turnover cost. Using the case of Lady Agatha’s Boarding School in England, this paper uses a novel approach to investigate the complexities of school middle management from a social perspective, arguing that by using a Bordieuan lens, researchers can investigate the complex matrix nature of working in middle management. By using the Bordieuan tools of field, habitus, doxa, capital, and symbolic violence, researchers can observe the struggles that the middle managers engage in to acquire capital or resources compared to other actors in the field, as tournaments of socio-political dominance. By using this original ontological turn in analysing turnover antecedents, researchers as well as practitioners could make significant impacts in the way turnover can be understood and its costs mitigated.

Teacher leadership has gained increasing recognition worldwide as a crucial component of educational reform and improvement efforts. As a concept, it is not new; its evolution spans several decades, yet there is still dissonance around it. This is especially true in the Greek educational scene, where teacher leadership research is limited and fragmented. This study seeks to address this gap by exploring the factors contributing to and impeding the evolution of teachers' leadership in Greek schools. More specifically, we were interested in knowing what Greek in-service teachers with informal leadership positions think about teacher leadership prospects within the Greek educational context, what conditions they think enhance or impede teacher leadership development in Greek schools, and what opportunities they think there are for developing teacher leaders. A sample of 12 experienced in-service teacher leaders from different educational specializations and geographical regions in Greece participated in the study. A grounded theory methodology was employed to analyze the data collected through focus group interviews with experienced in-service teachers. The findings of this study include references to personal and interpersonal challenges that create barriers to the evolution of teachers as leaders in Greek schools, as well as administrative impediments and a lack of support for prospective teacher leaders. The participants reported opportunities within the Greek educational system for teachers to evolve as leaders through targeted and consistent professional development programs and school improvement initiatives. Implications for research and practice are drawn from these findings.

The pathway for women to reach the superintendency in the United States is shaped by entrenched systems that resist progress. Women are often unfairly blamed for their lack of representation, which then perpetuates the notion that they are less suited for leadership. However, women are proving their capabilities by dismantling societal barriers, drawing on, and sharing their lived experiences, and transforming perceptions of female leadership. This study investigated the lived experiences of five female superintendents to reveal the specific actions and strategies that empowered them to achieve the superintendency. Utilizing Seidman’s three-interview approach, data were gathered through individual interviews, which were then analyzed thematically. The participants successfully navigated societal challenges by harnessing their unique strengths to influence, mobilize, and build strategic alliances. They seized key opportunities in their journeys and cultivated their skills, talents, and potential. The women did not merely adapt to existing structures; they actively created new opportunities for themselves, their communities, and future generations.