'Finalist' 2019 Association of American Publishers PROSE Award - Education Practice and Theory We live in a complex age, with multiple challenges to the practice of educational leadership, and where there is widespread evidence of individuals wanting to retire early from leadership positions, and of fewer wishing to take up the role. This highly experienced team of cross-cultural researchers combine scholarly research with over a decade of extensive empirical research using an innovative 'portrait' methodology to investigate the challenges that educational leaders on two continents currently face. The kinds of challenges described include: * the personal (e.g. being new to the job, coping with the role, approaching retirement) * the inter-personal (e.g. power relations, personal challenges with staff, parents and children) * the local (e.g. issues faced by the school in the community) * the national (e.g. government initiatives, inspection) * the global (e.g. the impact of economic forces on political and institutional management). Sustainable School Leadership then contributes to the field of educational leadership in several ways. First, the authors bring scholarly enquiry to life by providing detailed descriptions of the challenges which individual educational leaders face in different cultures in a globalised world. Second, they show how the combined insights from individual portraits provide important and meaningful critiques of national policies and organizational functioning. Such critiques can then inform current and future leadership research by a better understanding of how links between the micro-, meso-, and macro-levels of education promote or discourage school leaders' sustainability. Finally, the authors present important cross-cultural comparisons of eastern and western approaches to educational leadership, suggesting that sustainability - or a lack of it - may have different roots in different cultures. Sustainable School Leadership is relevant to students on educational leadership and management courses, academics and researchers and school leaders.

Governments of different countries need to educate their fellow citizens politically in their own way, while individuals have to find their own means of survival that include being politically socialized into society. School is very important in socializing students politically in a systematic way. Hong Kong was a British colony until 1997 where the Chinese population was largely apolitical. However, people started to taste the fruits of democracy when the British were about to go. Hong Kong is now a major international commercial and financial centre. Four elements have been argued as essential. They are: national identity and consciousness, democracy/ participation, globalization, and critical thinking. This research was in the form of qualitative case studies undertaken in two secondary schools in Hong Kong: one "patriotic" school which is generally supposed to be more political, and one "ordinary" school which might be expected to be more apolitical. Findings and lessons were drawn from the fieldwork. Hong Kong along with its schools has to find its own place in the new global era. The four elements identified in this study would appear to be crucial in achieving this aim.

'Finalist' 2019 Association of American Publishers PROSE Award - Education Practice and Theory We live in a complex age, with multiple challenges to the practice of educational leadership, and where there is widespread evidence of individuals wanting to retire early from leadership positions, and of fewer wishing to take up the role. This highly experienced team of cross-cultural researchers combine scholarly research with over a decade of extensive empirical research using an innovative 'portrait' methodology to investigate the challenges that educational leaders on two continents currently face. The kinds of challenges described include: * the personal (e.g. being new to the job, coping with the role, approaching retirement) * the inter-personal (e.g. power relations, personal challenges with staff, parents and children) * the local (e.g. issues faced by the school in the community) * the national (e.g. government initiatives, inspection) * the global (e.g. the impact of economic forces on political and institutional management). Sustainable School Leadership then contributes to the field of educational leadership in several ways. First, the authors bring scholarly enquiry to life by providing detailed descriptions of the challenges which individual educational leaders face in different cultures in a globalised world. Second, they show how the combined insights from individual portraits provide important and meaningful critiques of national policies and organizational functioning. Such critiques can then inform current and future leadership research by a better understanding of how links between the micro-, meso-, and macro-levels of education promote or discourage school leaders' sustainability. Finally, the authors present important cross-cultural comparisons of eastern and western approaches to educational leadership, suggesting that sustainability - or a lack of it - may have different roots in different cultures. Sustainable School Leadership is relevant to students on educational leadership and management courses, academics and researchers and school leaders.