Improving education is a key priority for governments around the world. While many suggestions on how best to achieve this are currently under debate, years of academic research have already revealed more about how to encourage change than is sometimes assumed. This volume brings together for the first time some of the most significant work of Karen Seashore Louis, one of the foremost thinkers and researchers in the field. Organizing for School Change presents a unique variety of research-based results from studies conducted over the past twenty-five years. What emerges is not an idealistic plan, but a realistic picture of what needs to be done if schools are to be made better. Drawing on a wide and comprehensive list of sources, the ideas brought together in this collection will prove invaluable and insightful reading, stimulating both newcomers and veterans of the field to consider educational research in new ways.

Improving education is a key priority for governments around the world. While many suggestions on how best to achieve this are currently under debate, years of academic research have already revealed more about how to encourage change than is sometimes assumed.

This volume brings together for the first time some of the most significant work of Karen Seashore Louis, one of the foremost thinkers and researchers in the field. Organizing for School Change presents a unique variety of research-based results from studies conducted over the past twenty-five years. What emerges is not an idealistic plan, but a realistic picture of what needs to be done if schools are to be made better.

Drawing on a wide and comprehensive list of sources, the ideas brought together in this collection will prove invaluable and insightful reading, stimulating both newcomers and veterans of the field to consider educational research in new ways.

This volume presents the view that what matters most are learning processes in organizations and ways of enhancing the sophistication and power of these processes. Each contributor, therefore, explicitly addresses the meaning(s) of organizational learning which they have adopted themselves.

Principles and possibilities to inform and inspire caring in your leadership practices! Do you feel like something is missing in today's schools? Do you feel student success is too focused on academic accountability, test scores, and college readiness? Recalibrate your leadership with the help of this book to promote the practice of caring which, with academic rigor, is essential to effective schooling. Caring School Leadership is a research-based collection of ideas, principles, and values illustrated with numerous examples and stories that will inform, inspire, and guide you. Evaluate your current leadership practice and evolve to lead in the way to which you aspire. In addition to insights and lessons about caring from educators and human service professions like nursing and ministry, readers will be introduced to themes of * Caring in interpersonal relationships with students * Cultivating schools as caring environments * Fostering caring in families and communities

Nearly a century ago, Emile Durkheim founded the sociology of educa tion on the French cultural and structural premise that the function of educators is to transmit culture from one generation to the next. The clarity of his vision was aided by the era, the place, and the actors in the learning environment. His was an era when the relatively seamless web of western culture, although ripping and straining, was still intact. The place, post-Napoleonic France, was vertically stratified and elaborately structured. And the teachers had reason to think they were agents of authority, whereas most students, during school hours at least, behaved as if they were the objects of that authority. Underlying the very notion of a sociology of education, then, was a visible and pervasive aura of a system and order that was culturally prescribed. Scholars of American education have yearned for such systems before and since Durkheim. Every European and English model has been emulated in a more or less winsome manner, from the Boston Latin School of the 1700s to the Open Education programs of the 1960s. In the last quarter century of research, it has begun to dawn on us, however, that no matter how hard American educators try, they do not build a system."

School reform is a top priority for governments today. This timely and challenging book, edited by leading international researchers, Kathryn Riley and Karen Seashore Louis, offers a rich comparative perspective on leadership for change and school reform. Contributors form North America, Europe and Australia demonstrate how school leadership is influenced by global pressures, differing national and state contexts and local concerns. They illustrate the limitations of reform initiatives which focus on school leaders tot he exclusion of the many other organisations which affect school, such as national and local governments, professional associations and school communities. This book raises some important questions such as:
*How can school leaders create intelligent, thinking schools?
*How can leadership and learning be linked together?
*What are the characteristics of effective local education authorities and school districts?
*What is the role of teacher organisations in educational reform and change?
*What happens if businesses, teachers, parents and local communities have different views of what makes a good school?
The text illustrates the ways in which leadership is rooted in learning, and identifies new directions for school leadership. It challenges conventional notions of leadership, offering an expanded view, which sees leadership just as an individual role-based function, but as a network of relationships among people, structures and cultures. This lively and provocative book should be read by all those interested in education reform.

School reform is a top priority for governments today. This timely and challenging book, edited by leading international researchers, Kathryn Riley and Karen Seashore Louis, offers a rich comparative perspective on leadership for change and school reform. Contributors form North America, Europe and Australia demonstrate how school leadership is influenced by global pressures, differing national and state contexts and local concerns. They illustrate the limitations of reform initiatives which focus on school leaders tot he exclusion of the many other organisations which affect school, such as national and local governments, professional associations and school communities. This book raises some important questions such as: *How can school leaders create intelligent, thinking schools? *How can leadership and learning be linked together? *What are the characteristics of effective local education authorities and school districts? *What is the role of teacher organisations in educational reform and change? *What happens if businesses, teachers, parents and local communities have different views of what makes a good school? The text illustrates the ways in which leadership is rooted in learning, and identifies new directions for school leadership. It challenges conventional notions of leadership, offering an expanded view, which sees leadership just as an individual role-based function, but as a network of relationships among people, structures and cultures. This lively and provocative book should be read by all those interested in education reform.

""All who are interested and concerned about educational reform and the improvement of schools will find this book a must read. It stimulates, it challenges, and it informs, such that the reader is most surely enriched by its plenitude."
Dr Shirley Hord, Scholar Emerita

"At last we have a book of international cases to add to the literature on networks Policymakers and practitioners alike will find the reasons why networks are fast becoming the reform organizations of choice. The book elevates network understanding to a new level."
Ann Lieberman, Senior Scholar at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching"

What is a professional learning community? What are the key challenges facing these communities and how might they be resolved? Is it time to extend our thinking about professional learning communities? There is great interest internationally in the potential of professional learning communities for enhancing educational reform efforts and sustaining improvement. This international collection expands perceptions and understanding of professional learning communities, as well as highlighting frequently neglected complexities and challenges.

Drawing on research, each chapter offers a deeper understanding of topics such as distributed leadership, dialogue, organisational memory, trust, self-assessment and inquiry, and purpose linked to learning. The last section of the book focuses upon three of the most challenging dilemmas that face developing professional learning communities - developing professional learning communities in secondary school, building social capital, and sustaining professional learning communities. The authors provide pointers on why these challenges exist, offering rays of hope for ways forward.

"Professional Learning Communities" is key international reading for education professionals, school practitioners, policymakers, academics and research students. It is a must-read for anyone interested in building capacity for sustainable learning and the ability to harness your community as a resource for change.

Real-life examples to inform and inspire caring in your leadership practices! The practice of caring is essential to effective schooling. Published as a companion to Caring School Leadership, this comprehensive resource of powerful, real-life stories will make clear the connection between caring leadership and student academic success and well-being. Stories of Caring School Leadership includes a guide for using the stories in self-directed reflection and learning, for educators practicing in schools and professional preparation programs. Readers will find stories that * will help aspiring and practicing leaders reflect upon and further develop caring as a quality of their leadership * affirm the importance of caring as a fundamental quality of school leadership * provide examples of caring school leadership in action that can be analyzed, reflected upon, and used to develop practice Stories have the power to inform and inspire. The stories in this book are evidence of what is possible when caring leadership is practiced in our schools.

This landmark book translates positive and asset-based understandings of organizations to develop a powerful model of school leadership that is grounded in both existing research and the complexities of life in schools. The authors-both senior scholars in educational leadership-apply insights from positive psychology to the role and function of educational leaders. The Positive School Leadership (PSL) model draws on the strengths of relationships among staff and the broader school community to communicate and instill shared values and a common mission. This book builds a compelling case for creating a more inclusive, less "mechanistic" approach to leadership. Designed to engage both the hearts and minds of readers, the text is organized around reflective questioning of educational practice and current assumptions about the purposes and goals of leadership in schools.

This volume presents the view that what matters most are learning processes in organizations and ways of enhancing the sophistication and power of these processes. Each contributor, therefore, explicitly addresses the meaning(s) of organizational learning which they have adopted themselves.