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International Successful School Principals’ Project. (ISSPP): 2001-2008. http://www.oise.utoronto.ca/~schoolleadership/ssl.html. Christopher Day University of Nottingham, UK christopher.day@nottingham.ac.uk. Paper presented at the CCEAM Symposium, Cyprus, 2006. ISSLP Participants.
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International Successful School Principals’ Project (ISSPP): 2001-2008 http://www.oise.utoronto.ca/~schoolleadership/ssl.html Christopher Day University of Nottingham, UK christopher.day@nottingham.ac.uk Paper presented at the CCEAM Symposium, Cyprus, 2006
ISSLP Participants • Australia- David Gurr, Lawrie Drysdale and Helen Goode (Melbourne) and Bill Mulford (Tasmania) • Canada(Toronto) - Kenneth Leithwood • Denmark (Copenhagen) - Lejf Moos, John Krejsler, Klaus Kasper Kofod and Bent Brandt Jensen • England (Nottingham) - Christopher Day • China (Hong Kong) - Kam-Cheung Wong • Norway (Oslo) - Jorunn Møller and Guri Skedsmo • Sweden (UMEA) - Olof Johansson andJonas Höög • USA(SUNY, Buffalo) - Stephen Jacobson, Lauri Johnson, Corrie Giles and Rose Ylimaki
ISSLP Objectives • Identify the values, knowledge, skills and dispositions which successful school leaders use in implementing leadership practices across a range of successful schools in different countries. • Identify those leadership practices that are uniquely important in large v small schools, urban v suburban v rural schools, schools with homogeneous v diverse student populations and high v low poverty schools. • Explore the relationship between successful leadership values, practices, broader social and school specific conditions, and student outcomes in different countries. • Produce the first international database on successful school leadership based upon the largest empirical study, thus providing a unique contribution to knowledge. • Produce case studies, organise national and international dissemination conferences and produce and disseminate a book and several academic conference papers. • Produce observational studies.
ISSLP Project Phases • Literature review and design of interview protocol. (April 2001 - July 2002) • Multi-site case studies conducted, analysed, comparative data produced.(September 2002 - August 2005) • Questionnaire survey of principals in each country. (September 2005 - September 2006) • In-depth observational case studies. (January 2007 – January 2008)
Methods • Interview, questionnaire and observation based study. • Principals complete biographical and career questionnaires. • Interviews, over 2-3 days (min), on school principal’s ‘success’ with: • Principal (3 occasions) • 2-3 teachers • 2-3 support staff • 2-3 parents • 2-3 school governors • 2 groups of pupils (3-4 in each group). • Interviews based on semi-structured schedules covering: • Pupil population and challenges presented • School ethos • School success and principal’s contribution • Professional relationships with government inspectors, LEA officers, teachers, governors, parents and pupils.
Methods (ctd) • And for principals only: • Non-professional sources of support • Work/Life boundaries • Narratives of histories and critical incidents/phases. • National questionnaires • Observational data
Questions • What does teacher leadership look like? • How is success defined? • What kinds of people become successful leaders? • How is successful leadership sustained? • Are there generic leadership values, qualities, skills regardless of country, culture and school • How critical are care, loyalty and trust? Why? • How do successful leaders learn about their work? • Does size matter? Why? • Does the student/family matter? Why? • Do national culture/policy contexts matter? Why? • Are successful leaders born or can they be made?
Case StudyEarly Issues • National socio-cultural contexts • Context sensitive but not dependent • Personal and functional • Clear sense of agency/identity (individual and collective) • Overt sense of ethics, equity, social justice (transcend immediacy of political agendas) • Activists • prepared to challenge imposed reform and mediate in line with core values [not all countries] • Sustained investment in active involvement of parental community [not all countries] • Team (distributed) oriented • Strong interpersonal, inter-professional and intra personal emotional understandings and management • Basic repertoire and contextual application of clusters of strategies • SES/career phase variation