While there has been considerable research activity in the area of middle management / middle leadership since the late 1990s, the concept remains under-theorised and ambiguities persist in relatio...

Towards a theoretical model of middle leadership in schools

The development of Early Childhood Education in Sweden is a central concern for national and local government, and for school districts and preschools. While principals have the responsibility for, and a particular role in, leading education in the preschools, they are somewhat removed from the core work of teachers. In this article, we argue that it is ‘middle leaders’ who are the critical professionals for developing quality in education. The argument is made through examining the leading practices of middle leaders using a practice theory framework. We specifically draw on the theory of practice architectures to explore and understand the arrangements and conditions that enable and constrain the practices of these leaders in their work. The study draws on survey data and recorded professional Learning Dialogues among participants. Responses revealed a number of enabling and constraining conditions relating to particular cultural–discursive, material–economic and social–political conditions that influenced what was possible in their leading practices. Results further show how the practices of middle leaders were crucial in not only developing but sustaining quality in Early Childhood Education as they coordinate between the educational practices within the preschool and across the city district.

/pdf/the-practice-architectures-of-middle-leading-in-early-2opmr83q2j.pdf

The practice architectures of middle leading in early childhood education

Educational improvement involves interactions among individuals in school contexts, which entails leadership roles and their potential distribution. In this exploratory-descriptive study we use Social Network Analysis (SNA) with a sample of three secondary schools in Chile to examine the relationships between members of the Language and Mathematics departments, identifying those who play leadership roles for educational improvement processes. Findings show that patterns of interactions among teachers varied by type of collaborative action, where in some schools the interactions among teachers are scarce between and within the departments analyzed, and in others they are more intense and frequent. Whereas the role of department heads is important, in some cases teachers who do not have that position may even have a more prominent role in influencing school improvement processes. Findings lead us to conclude that SNA is a useful technique for depicting a school’s social capital, enabling the identification of aspects in need of attention to increase distributed leadership as leverage for school improvement.

/pdf/el-liderazgo-distribuido-para-la-mejora-educativa-analisis-4ouhy34cnl.pdf

El Liderazgo Distribuido para la Mejora Educativa: Análisis de Redes Sociales en Departamentos de Escuelas Secundarias Chilenas

This article describes the need for additional cross-cultural study of teacher leadership. A rationale for researching teacher leadership is presented based on the need to provide clarity to the definition of the concept and to understand better how to facilitate teacher leadership development. A primary research question is shared: “How is teacher leadership conceptualized and enacted and what are the implications for educational stakeholders?” A set of attributes and indicators of teacher leadership is provided based on a review of literature focusing on teacher leadership. Then four additional concepts related to teacher leadership are described—formal and informal influence, school culture, school improvement, and professional development—followed by a summary of cautionary considerations. Finally, a multi-stage research design is presented in support of the International Study of Teacher Leadership, a cross-cultural examination of teacher leadership.

/pdf/the-need-for-cross-cultural-exploration-of-teacher-2agrb0f305.pdf

The Need for Cross-Cultural Exploration of Teacher Leadership

To afford school middle leaders meaningful opportunities to initiate change, we must provide them with the space and flexibility to engage with agentic and creative responses to policy and practice. Whilst we argue that the tensions identified in Bennett’s seminal reviews persist, there may, nonetheless, be opportunities for school middle leaders to creatively influence educational agendas. Through engaging in a critical interpretative synthesis of school middle leadership literature, we consider how the subjectivities of such leaders are discursively constructed. We argue that a culture of performativity has diminished opportunities for middle leaders in English schools to develop a strong sense of agency, educational ideology and authentic professional responsibility. However, a current governmental focus on subject knowledge may have opened spaces for a collegial agency, despite the prevailing neo-conservative policy discourse. We thus identify, the potential for movement beyond a discursive position to one where school middle leaders take greater responsibility for developing practice to align more closely with their educational values. Utilising a dialogic theoretical perspective we examine how middle leadership in English schools is currently practiced and mediated in relation to the changing political landscape, and suggest that seemingly contradictory positions provide a fruitful site for new research.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/17411432221086847

New perspectives on middle leadership in schools in England – Persistent tensions and emerging possibilities

Teacher leadership needs to be fostered, supported and developed and not left to chance. Contemporary scholarly literature suggests that middle leaders play a significant role in working with their teachers to encourage initiatives for school improvement. The stimulus for this article is an independent evaluation of the Middle Leadership Program (2013-2014) run by the Queensland Education Leadership Institute (QELi) in Australia under licence to the National College of School Leadership and Children's Services in England. First, we examine the recommendations from that evaluation. Second, we present a select review of international literature on studies about professional development for middle leaders. Third, we apply ten criteria for determining the quality of leadership learning programs. Finally, we offer a suggested design for leadership programs that cater for those moving towards principalships (headships) and those staying in the middle leadership tier where they have an important role to play in fostering and enhancing teacher leadership.

Middle Leaders: Career pathways and professional learning needs

Handle everyday research tasks with reliable, citation-backed results

Your personal Research Agent to handle research tasks with citation-backed results

Popular Tasks used by Researchers

How can I help with your research?

Meet SciSpace

Get more enhanced response by uploading the PDFs you want me to reference.

No relevant PDFs in your library

SciSpace is the AI research assistant for academics. Run systematic literature reviews on 280M+ papers, and write papers with cited sources. Trusted by 1M+ students, PhDs & researchers.

SciSpace | AI for Research

Analyze PDFs

Code & Manuscripts

Funding & Grants

Literature & Patents

Medical & Clinical Data

Systematic Review

Visualize & Present

Web & Data

Build a Google Scholar-like website for your research.

Build a website

Create charts and images for your research

Create a Chart

Write a paper for submission to a journal

Draft a manuscript

Patent Search

Design eye-catching scientific posters in minutes.

Scientific Poster Generation

Systematic Literature Review

One task is running at the moment. Your messages will be shown right after.

Drag and drop or click here to browse

Loved by <highlight>1 million+</highlight> researchers

Extract a list of specific topics and their sources from unstructured text

Topics

Compare and analyze relevant papers that matches with your search

Papers

Get insights from PDFs and bookmarked papers from your library

My library

Recent searches

Try searching for:

Catch AI-generated content in scholarly and non-scholarly content

{ai} Detector

Ai Writer

Get PDF Summaries, highlighted text explanations 

Chat with PDF

Effortlessly create in-text citations and bibliographies in APA and 2,500 other formats

Citation generator

Get explanations, summaries, and answers on academic papers

Ease up your research workflow with {scispace}'s cohort of exciting AI tools

Elevate your academic writing skills and convey your ideas the way you want

Paraphraser

Explore our range of reading and writing tools

Your file is being prepared and should be ready in a few minutes. If it's a large file, it might take a bit longer. You can close this window, and we'll email you the file when it's done.

You have reached a maximum limit of <strong>{limit}</strong> columns in the table. Remove at least <strong>1</strong> column to add or create another one.

Stephen Brown

Author Tools

Chat about Author

Papers

Middle Leaders: Career pathways and professional learning needs