Power and the ‘autonomous’ principal: autonomy, teacher development, and school leaders’ work

Heffernan, Amanda

doi:10.1080/00220620.2018.1518318

Cited by 17 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…Closely related to this was (and still is) the discussion about the competences and qualifications of school principals, especially as schools are increasingly asked to take on more responsibility for the learning outcomes achieved. The fact that the structure of tasks and responsibilities (sometimes inheritably) deviates from the traditional role of school management, means that (correspondingly) accentuated qualification and support measures for members of school management come more into the focus of empirical school management research (Heffernan 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bringing context and educational leadership together: fostering the professional development of school principals

Brauckmann¹,

Pashiardis²,

Ärlestig³

2020

Professional Development in Education

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Policy makers increasingly acknowledge that problems and challenges arising at the school level should be resolved on site. At the same time, the political expectation to delegate more responsibility to the individual school is rather heavily contrasted with the weak knowledge about how this new public management approach can be translated into successful leadership practices. Thus, considering that there is a close relationship between context and leadership, principal preparation programmes should be guided by a deeper examination of contextual factors. Against this background, we aim to critically examine existing views of practitioners and researchers on the challenge of establishing more context-sensitive school leadership preparation programmes in an era of New Public Management in Education. In doing so, we introduce the Swedish Model of principal preparation as an example for a more context-sensitive leadership preparation program. To that end, we argue that a differentiated perspective about contextual conditions and their role as facilitators or obstacles to effective leadership must be further explored. Moreover, school leaders should be encouraged to consider the relevance of such approaches to their own needs.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bringing context and educational leadership together: fostering the professional development of school principals

Brauckmann¹,

Pashiardis²,

Ärlestig³

2020

Professional Development in Education

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“…On the other hand, in his study school principals stated that upper management should decide dismissal of teachers. In the studies conducted by Gobby (2013) and Heffernan (2018) in Australia, it was stated that school principals were very keen on the autonomy of choosing the staff of the school (hiring teachers). They concluded that they deem it very important in terms of performance management, improvement of the school and learning outcomes.…”

Section: Results Discussion and Suggestionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Okul Müdürlerinin Okul Yönetiminde Özerkliğe İlişkin Görüşleri

Li̇mon¹,

Aydın

2020

Sakarya University Journal of Education

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This study aims to determine school principals' views on autonomy in school administration. Phenomenological design was employed in the study. Data were collected through interviews and analyzed using descriptive analysis. The participants were 14 high school principals. They were employed by maximum diversity sampling method. Data was collected through a semi-structured interview form. Accroding to findings, all of the participants stated that a school principal should be autonomous in performance evaluation, budget management, deciding on expenditures. On the other hand, most of them stated that a school principal should be autonomous in selecting deputy principal and the staff, deciding workday calendar and daily timetable, coursebooks and syllabus, quota of the school and the number of the students for each classroom. Another finding of this study is that local governments and parents are the most important components that support an autonomous school principal. As for the advantages and disadvantages of principal autonomy it is stated that the educational quality and efficacy of school administration will increase and the student performance will improve; however, there may be subjective practices and pressures on school principal. Lastly, political power and centralized educational system are regarded as the barriers to principal autonomy.

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“…While the aim of school-based management and decentralisation of decision-making has been to increase principals' power to make contextually relevant decisions in and for their schools, it has also significantly increased administrative load (Heffernan, 2018), reducing capacity for the increasingly intensive work associated with evidence evaluation, program selection, and evaluation of effectiveness. This is an important consideration, given recommendations emerging from the Australian Government's 2020 Productivity Commission Report on the Inquiry on Mental Health that student social-emotional health and wellbeing should be elevated in the National School Reform Agreement to "an even footing with academic progress and student engagement as an important goal that schools across all sectors of the education system must work towards, and report on their progress" [p. 19;(Productivity Commission, 2020)].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

School-Based Mental Health Promotion and Early Intervention Programs in New South Wales, Australia: Mapping Practice to Policy and Evidence

Laurens

Graham

Dix

et al. 2021

School Mental Health

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Limited empirical evidence is available regarding the uptake and effectiveness of school-based mental health and wellbeing programs implemented in Australian schools. This study aimed to characterise the delivery of programs in primary (elementary) schools across New South Wales, Australia, and to assess this information against published ratings of program effectiveness. Delivery of programs in four health-promoting domains-creating a positive school community; teaching social and emotional skills; engaging the parent community; and supporting students experiencing mental health difficulties-were reported by 597 school principals/leaders via online survey. Although three quarters of principals reported implementing at least one program, many of these programs were supported by little or no evidence of effectiveness. There was also variability in the use of evidence-based programs across the four domains. Findings indicate a need to provide educators with improved support to identify, implement, and evaluate effective evidenced-based programs that promote student mental health.

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Power and the ‘autonomous’ principal: autonomy, teacher development, and school leaders’ work

Cited by 17 publications

References 39 publications

Bringing context and educational leadership together: fostering the professional development of school principals

Bringing context and educational leadership together: fostering the professional development of school principals

Okul Müdürlerinin Okul Yönetiminde Özerkliğe İlişkin Görüşleri

School-Based Mental Health Promotion and Early Intervention Programs in New South Wales, Australia: Mapping Practice to Policy and Evidence

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