Understanding Educational Leadership guides you through critical perspectives and approaches across the world, taking in the global north and south, and explores the ways in which educational leadership is currently understood, theorised, researched, modelled and practised. The book also covers contemporary issues including gender, sexual identity and race, as well as topics such as governance, performativity and corporatisation. It brings together evidence and ideas that illuminate the power structures and relations in educational leaders, leading and leadership and helps you to consider the impact on policy and practice, and to think about changes needed to mitigate the issues identified. The book showcases a wide range of theorists, including Bourdieu, Foucault and Fraser. Its impressive scope includes analyses of collectivist, neoliberal and historical influences on educational leadership. It explores forensically leadership styles, with an explicit focus on distributed, instructional, democratic, autocratic, laissez-faire and organisational forms. Carefully curated by the editors, the world-leading contributors draw on their wealth of knowledge about research and practice to provide you with an overview of educational leadership today, looking at global research, evidence, arguments and conceptualisations. Each chapter is written in an engaging and inspiring way, following a consistent approach to help you to develop your understanding in each of the areas covered. Full pedagogical features throughout include chapter summaries, key questions, case studies, questions for readers and further reading suggestions with questions on key texts. A companion website provides links to open-access outputs, research-project outcomes, and networking seminars, conferences with links to local, national and global events and connections.

This book is aimed at school leaders, middle managers and teachers who want to understand more critically about how the organizational and interpersonal processes of leadership affect the quality of learning and teaching. The book considers how leaders at all levels in schools - from the most senior manager to the classroom teacher - negotiate and work together to construct, sustain and improve successful learning and promote a sense of community among the students and staff who are members of the school. This is a timely book as there is renewed recognition of the importance of distributed leadership in developing creative schools and an emerging recognition of teachers operating as leaders and managers of students' learning. Another key element is the recognition of the importance of middle managers in schools as pastoral leaders and subject leaders who can shape effective learning and teaching. Whilst other books have looked at the processes of school leadership (ie strategies and functions), the focus here is on people and the quality of relationships and how they can impact on the success or failure of school processes. It offers insights into why some strategies employed by educational leaders work and others do not.

`This is a book packed with ideas and insights. It is informed by evidence from school leaders and provides a valuable overview of many important theories and research findings. A strength of the book is the way it pulls together empirical research the authors have conducted over the last 20 years. Such a long term view offers a new and needed long term perspective on school leadership and enables the authors to show how trends in leaders′ careers, thinking and practice have emerged and unfolded. Researchers and practitioners alike will find something of value in this book′ - Professor Geoff Southworth, Director of Research, National College for School Leadership ′[A]n excellent, well-written, extensively referenced, empirically based contribution to school leadership thinking... Earley and Weindling offer valuable insights for all of us: serving headteachers/principles, advisory and distinct-wide policy makers and aspiring headteachers′ - Journal of Educational Administration By giving a detailed picture of the rapidly developing field of educational leadership, this book focuses on how to become a more effective manager and on understanding the vital importance of the manager′s role in school improvement. Written in a clear and readable style, it contains an extensive exploration of leadership models and management strategies and is based on the latest research. The text is supplemented with case studies of leadership in action. Understanding School Leadership is indispensable reading for those who have a managerial role within their school and for students of educational management.

This book shows how school leaders at all levels – from the most senior manager to the classroom teacher – can help to build learning communities through collaborating and negotiating with their colleagues, students and students’ parents and carers, as well as with external agencies and local communities, to sustain and develop the enjoyment of successful learning among the members of a school. It looks at how positive cultures can be constructed that support inclusive and exciting teaching, enthusiastic teachers and engaged students, parents and carers. Drawing on research, the book examines topics such as the nature of leadership, especially distributed and teacher leadership; the politics of education management; the construction of inclusive cultures in schools; school improvement; and the construction of collaborative and inclusive work groups. It uses a range of critical perspectives to examine processes of change and the relationships of people in school communities to each other and to their social, economic and policy contexts. The book argues that it is essential to develop inclusive education in order to promote student engagement, social justice and equity within formal education. Understanding Educational Leadership is key reading for teachers, headteachers, school leaders, policy makers, Education students and practitioners, and others who have an interest in improving schooling.

Unpack the standards and build a plan for leading learning Professional Standards for Educational Leaders introduces the foundations of the recently revised professional educational leadership standards and provides an in-depth explanation and application of each one. Written by the primary architect of PSEL, educational leadership expert Joseph F. Murphy, this authoritative guide to understanding and applying the standards explores the new emphasis on: Leadership of learning, school culture, and diversity Values, ethics, and professional norms of educational leadership Teacher quality, instruction, and caring support Written for higher education faculty, professional development providers, and school and district leaders, the author truly brings the standards to life. This comprehensive manual will power the educational leadership profession through the challenges of the next decade and beyond. "Murphy offers an exploration of the kind of leadership that matters most for each and every student. Let us hope the thinking reflected in this book and the new PSEL standards redirects our attention to what it really means to lead in education." Michelle D. Young, UCEA Executive Director, Professor of Leadership University of Virginia "Joseph Murphy debunks myths about standards for educational leaders and skillfully unpacks the moral, foundational, and experiential basis for the revised professional standards to guide effective leadership of our nation’s schools. This book is a must read for those interested in leadership for learning and the academic success and wellbeing of students, because these standards will shape our field for the next quarter century as the ISLLC standards have done since 1996." Martha McCarthy, Presidential Professor Loyola Marymount University

Why Context Matters in Educational Leadership: A New Theoretical Understanding is unique in the field of educational leadership studies. This book offers a systematic account of educational leadership from the perspective that context matters. It argues that studies of leadership in education can only progress if the importance of context is understood and presents context as a set of constraints under which leadership is exercised. A theoretical book that offers at last three major challenges to dominant positions in the field in a systematic way, it provides a new, coherent, and more realistic way to think about leadership in context.The chapters offer concrete steps for complex problem-solving in schools and will help schools tailor solutions to local constraints and circumstances. Written by leading scholars Colin W. Evers and Gabriele Lakomski, this book will be essential reading for students and researchers working in the fields of education, educational administration and leadership.

Theorising Identity and Subjectivity in Educational Leadership Research brings together a range of international scholars to examine identity and subjectivities in educational leadership in new and original ways. The chapters draw on a variety of approaches in theory and method to demonstrate the important new developments in understanding identity and subjectivity beyond the traditional ways of understanding and thinking about identity in the field of educational leadership. The book highlights empirical, theoretical and conceptual research that offers new ways of thinking about the work of educational leaders. The authors take critical approaches to exploring the influences of gender, race, sexuality, class, power and discourse on the identity and subjectivity formation of educational leaders. It provides global perspectives on educational leadership research and researchers and offer exciting new approaches to theorising and researching these issues. This book will appeal to researchers, students, and professionals working in the fields of educational leadership and sociology, and the chapters within offer readers new perspectives in understanding educational leaders, their work and their identities.