Transcript No Slide Title

International Successful
School Principals’
Project
(ISSPP): 2001-2008
http://www.oise.utoronto.ca/~schoolleadership/ssl.html
Christopher Day
University of Nottingham, UK
[email protected]
Paper presented at the CCEAM
Symposium, Cyprus, 2006
ISSLP Participants
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Australia -
David Gurr, Lawrie Drysdale and Helen
Goode (Melbourne) and Bill Mulford (Tasmania)
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Canada (Toronto) - Kenneth Leithwood
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Denmark (Copenhagen) - Lejf Moos, John Krejsler,
Klaus Kasper Kofod and Bent Brandt Jensen
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England (Nottingham) - Christopher Day
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China
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Norway (Oslo) - Jorunn Møller and Guri Skedsmo
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Sweden (UMEA) - Olof Johansson and Jonas Höög
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USA (SUNY, Buffalo) - Stephen Jacobson, Lauri
(Hong Kong) - Kam-Cheung Wong
Johnson, Corrie Giles and Rose Ylimaki
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ISSLP Objectives
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Identify the values, knowledge, skills and
dispositions which successful school leaders
use in implementing leadership practices
across a range of successful schools in
different countries.
Identify those leadership practices that are
uniquely important in large v small schools,
urban v suburban v rural schools, schools with
homogeneous v diverse student populations
and high v low poverty schools.
Explore the relationship between successful
leadership values, practices, broader social
and school specific conditions, and student
outcomes in different countries.
Produce the first international database on
successful school leadership based upon the
largest empirical study, thus providing a unique
contribution to knowledge.
Produce case studies, organise national and
international dissemination conferences and
produce and disseminate a book and several
academic conference papers.
Produce observational studies.
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ISSLP
Project Phases
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Literature review and design of interview
protocol.
(April 2001 - July 2002)
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Multi-site case studies conducted, analysed,
comparative data produced.
(September 2002 - August 2005)
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Questionnaire survey of principals in each
country.
(September 2005 - September 2006)
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In-depth observational case studies.
(January 2007 – January 2008)
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Methods
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Interview, questionnaire and observation
based study.
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Principals complete biographical and career
questionnaires.
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Interviews, over 2-3 days (min), on school
principal’s ‘success’ with:
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Principal (3 occasions)
2-3 teachers
2-3 support staff
2-3 parents
2-3 school governors
2 groups of pupils (3-4 in each group).
Interviews based on semi-structured
schedules covering:
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Pupil population and challenges presented
School ethos
School success and principal’s contribution
Professional relationships with government
inspectors, LEA officers, teachers, governors,
parents and pupils.
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Methods (ctd)
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And for principals only:
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Non-professional sources of support
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Work/Life boundaries
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Narratives of histories and critical
incidents/phases.
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National questionnaires
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Observational data
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Questions
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What does teacher leadership look like?
How is success defined?
What kinds of people become successful
leaders?
How is successful leadership sustained?
Are there generic leadership values,
qualities, skills regardless of country,
culture and school
How critical are care, loyalty and trust?
Why?
How do successful leaders learn about
their work?
Does size matter? Why?
Does the student/family matter? Why?
Do national culture/policy contexts
matter? Why?
Are successful leaders born or can they
be made?
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Case Study
Early Issues
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National socio-cultural contexts
Context sensitive but not dependent
Personal and functional
Clear sense of agency/identity (individual and
collective)
Overt sense of ethics, equity, social justice
(transcend immediacy of political agendas)
Activists
– prepared to challenge imposed reform and
mediate in line with core values [not all
countries]
Sustained investment in active involvement of
parental community [not all countries]
Team (distributed) oriented
Strong interpersonal, inter-professional and intra
personal emotional understandings and
management
Basic repertoire and contextual application of
clusters of strategies
SES/career phase variation
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