The role of leadership and management in determining the nature and quality of education at all levels is widely acknowledged, and the pressure on educational leaders has rarely been greater. Surprisingly little is known about those who manage and lead, and the contexts within which they work. This series draws upon the latest ideas and research in order to develop and promote new ways of understanding and ago-old activity. It sets out to facilitate better and more reflective practice, stimulate theoretical debate and contribute to improvement in policy. The Making of Educational Leaders: Even though leadership is one of the most popular topics in the social sciences, there is, to date, no systematic, comparative study of the ways in which those working in education learn to lead and become educational leaders, The Making of Educational Leaders is a clear, incisive and no-nonsense discussion of the nature of leadership in general and educational leadership in particular. It fills an important gap in research into educational leadership. Peter Gronn offers a unique insight in to educational leadership from a career perspective and provides a model of the process by which leaders' characters are shaped for leadership in different educational contexts. He focuses on the attributes of the individual and the circumstances which have shaped their perceptions. This informed understanding of the ways in which leaders are typically made, particularly through long-term career learning, will facilitate a much more efficient selection of candidates and effective negotiation of succession processes. Peter Gronn is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education, Monash University, Australia.

This book records the establishment of the University of Cambridge Primary School (UCPS), from the perspective of senior colleagues in the University of Cambridge and the Cambridge Faculty of Education who played an important part in the conception and implementation of the UCPS. The UCPS is nationally distinctive, because it is the sole university training school established by the previous UK Coalition government (2010-15) and unique internationally, because of its simultaneous provision of primary schooling, initial teacher education placements and a research facility that is intended to drive forward a national research agenda and a set of evidence-based outcomes.

In The New Work of Educational Leaders, Peter Gronn provides a new framework for understanding leadership practice. The work of leaders will increasingly be shaped by three overriding but contradictory themes: design; distribution; and disengagement. These are the `architecture' of school and educational leadership.

Designer-leadership is the use of mandatory standards of assessment and accreditation for school leaders, such as the National Qualification for Headship (NPQH) in the United Kingdom and the (Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium (ISLLC) standards in the United States. Distributed patterns of leadership have developed in response to the intensification of school leaders' work under policy regimes of site-based and school self-management. Disengagement describes a culture of abstention, in which school systems anticipate leadership succession problems, such as projected shortages and recurring recruitment difficulties.