AILEEN FLVNN is a social worker in a general medical hospital. KATHRYN CAVE, GREGORY HODGSON, MARK PROUATT, AND WILLIAM SULTMANN are undergraduate psychology students. JAMES M. GARDNER if a Fellow of the American Association on Mental Deficiency and of the Australian Psychological Society. He is a former editorial board member of Professional Psychology and has been a consulting editor of several other journals. He is currently a professor in and Head of the Division of Applied Psychology, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.

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Eight Catholic school communities across Australia nominated teacher identity characteristics aligned with an understanding of Catholic school mission from a local community perspective. A data mining process (Leximancer, 2017) of the collated narratives from focus groups (n = 73) highlighted the mission concept, School, with a frequency of 295 appearances. An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) of the concept revealed characteristics of tradition, integration and participation and characterized their essence as 'a shared sacred mission'. Participant utterances that referenced teacher characteristics and frequencies within the narrative focused on: Community (38), Faith (13), and Life (9). Community utterances identified teacher 'connections with students,' 'staff relationships,' 'associations with the broader community,' and 'involvement in the life of the school.' Faith was expressed in teacher 'leadership,' 'Gospel values,' 'spiritual growth,' 'experience of church and connection with the charism of the Religious Institute.' Life involved teachers advancing student 'welfare,' 'service,' 'tradition,' and 'advocacy.' Overall, teacher identity characteristics integral to mission were discussed as Relationship Agency, Equity and Authenticity. Relational Agency entailed facilitation of student capabilities; Relationship Equity enacted social justice values of inclusion and respect; and Relationship Authenticity advanced and witnessed a foundational meaning system aligned with Catholic school tradition. The implications of the findings identified a case for relationships as being pertinent to mission for all teachers in Catholic schools, but teachers of Religious Education in particular.

This article explores the nature of leadership as expressed in literature and workshop commentary on the identity of the Catholic school within an Australian context. Employing a qualitative methodology, data from workshops designed around school mission were compared and integrated with data from texts of selected Post Conciliar documents on the Catholic school for the purpose of gaining insights on identity. Within the identified theme of 'school' in the two bodies of narrative, the dimension of leadership was explored in its practical nature. The discussion of findings identifies the diversity of leadership practice, its dynamic relationship with the ecclesial community of the school and the desirability of an integrative image to capture this diversity and relationship. The article concludes that leadership within the Catholic school can be imagined as a response to Baptism and as such be sacramental in nature as it manifests itself as sign and instrument of the life of Christ.

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