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School leadership practice and preparation: Comparative perspectives on

organizational learning (OL), instructional leadership (IL) and culturally
responsive practices (CRP)

Article  in  Journal of Educational Administration · January 2013

DOI: 10.1108/09578231311291404

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Journal of Educational Administration
Emerald Article: School leadership practice and preparation: Comparative
perspectives on organizational learning (OL), instructional leadership
(IL) and culturally responsive practices (CRP)
Rose Ylimaki, Stephen Jacobson

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To cite this document: Rose Ylimaki, Stephen Jacobson, (2013),"School leadership practice and preparation: Comparative
perspectives on organizational learning (OL), instructional leadership (IL) and culturally responsive practices (CRP)", Journal
of Educational Administration, Vol. 51 Iss: 1 pp. 6 - 23
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JEA
51,1
School leadership practice
and preparation
Comparative perspectives on organizational
6 learning (OL), instructional leadership (IL)
Received 2 April 2012
and culturally responsive practices (CRP)
Revised 21 June 2012
Accepted 30 July 2012
Rose Ylimaki
Educational Policy Studies and Practice, University of Arizona, Tucson,
Arizona, USA, and
Stephen Jacobson
Educational Leadership and Policy, University at Buffalo, Buffalo,
New York, USA

Abstract
Purpose – The aim of this paper is to utilize successful leadership practices drawn from seven
nations to improve leadership preparation.
Design/methodology/approach – This study used a case study approach to gain a contextualized
understanding of successful leadership across seven nations. Data sources primarily featured
interviews with principals, teachers, staff members, parents, and students. Cases were analyzed within
and then across nations with regards to organizational learning (OL), instructional leadership (IL), and
culturally responsive practices (CRP).
Findings – The cross-national analysis of successful leaders indicated emerging policy trends,
demographic changes, similarities and differences among leaders, and recommendations for
leadership preparation.
Originality/value – This paper draws from successful practices in OL, IL and CRP in seven nations
to make recommendations for improving leadership preparation.
Keywords School leadership, Leadership preparation, Organizational learning,
Instructional leadership, Culturally responsive practice, Leadership, Schools
Paper type Research paper

Introduction
There is growing evidence that principals play a significant role in developing and
sustaining school improvement initiatives and that to be successful school leaders
must work with and through others to create the kinds of positive, engaging school
climates that increase the likelihood of improved student learning (Leithwood and
Louis, 2012). This paper draws on a secondary analysis of findings from the
International Successful School Principalship Project (ISSPP), a decade-long study of
successful principals that now has perhaps the largest database of case studies
worldwide. These international cases reveal that effective leadership practices are
shaped and influenced by broad cultural political shifts, educational trends, policies,
and demographics (Leithwood et al., 2011). With these factors in mind, we draw upon
Journal of Educational findings from seven nations – Australia, Cyprus, Denmark, England, Norway, Sweden
Administration
Vol. 51 No. 1, 2013
and the USA – examining how principals addressed organizational learning (OL),
pp. 6-23 instructional leadership (IL) and culturally responsive practices (CRP) and how the
r Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0957-8234
skills necessary for success in each area can be translated into improved leadership
DOI 10.1108/09578231311291404 preparation. Comparative analyses were conducted across three nations in each area,
specifically, England, Sweden and the USA for OL, Australia, Denmark and the USA School
for IL and Cyprus, Norway and the USA for CRP[1]. leadership
This cross-national examination of OL, IL and CPR began with a set of papers
presented at the American Educational Research Association (AERA) meeting in 2006. practice
After reflecting on their initial cases, members of the US ISSPP team proposed the
AERA session because they felt that insufficient attention had been given to these key
areas and that a secondary analysis of their data was required. Initial insights gained 7
about OL, IL and CPR from the US cases begged the question, how do these practices
vary across contexts? Therefore, in a special 2007 issue of International Studies in
Educational Administration (Vol. 35, No. 3) three sets of national comparisons, each
pairing the US findings with that of another ISSPP country was reported (Ylimaki and
Jacobson, 2007). Specifically, findings from the USA about OL were paired with those
from England, about IL with those of Australia, and CPR with Norway. The results of
those comparisons suggested the need for even broader cross-national analyses
(Ylimaki and Jacobson, 2007), which led to the addition of the third ISSPP nation in
each of the areas, as noted above. To these analyses Ylimaki and Jacobson (2011) added
their implications for improving leadership preparation.
This paper provides a synopsis of those efforts and is organized into four sections:
first, a discussion of emerging policy trends and changing demographic contexts
affecting leadership practice and preparation across the seven nations, specifically
increased public accountability; tensions related to the centralization/decentralization
of school governance; and, increasing student diversity; second, a brief overview of
the theoretical framework and research methods employed by the ISSPP; third, key
cross-national findings regarding OL, IL and CRP; and finally, recommendations for
improved leadership preparation in light of these findings.

Emerging policy trends and changing demographic contexts

Accountability, decentralization and demographic change
Increased public accountability has had a major impact on the work of principals
across nations since the 1988 Education Reform Act (ERA) in England. ERA included
a framework of national curriculum goals and standards, high-stakes accountability
and open enrollments that used neoliberal market approaches to reward schools for
increased student counts. Since the early 2000s, schools in the USA have operated
under similar accountability pressures because of required and publicly reported
annual testing as per No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and Race to the Top (RttT)
mandates. Under this test-driven regime, schools that persistently fail to make
adequate yearly progress face consequences including reconstitution and
administrator/teacher loss of employment. In Norway and Sweden the accountability
movement is more recent, but developments in educational policy and reform are
nevertheless raising expectations about school performance. For example, though
Swedish schools still rank high in international studies such as PISA, there is an
on-going political discussion about that nation’s quality of education based on
indications that students are not doing as well as in the past. The governing alliance of
conservative parties introduced a State Inspection Agency, as well as so-called “free
schools,” that are free from local school board control, but still required to follow
the national curriculum. Embracing both a democratic “citizenship” mandate and the
traditional knowledge mandate has placed new demands and expectations on Swedish
principals. Similar tensions exist in Denmark, where for the past 20 years the
government has decentralized certain administrative responsibilities to local school
JEA authorities, including personnel management and numerous day-to-day financial
51,1 tasks while, simultaneously, re-centralizing certain instructional tasks by prescribing
more detailed adherence to national standards through accountability and evaluation
tools like national tests and quality reports. For many Danish principals, these
neoliberal managerial competencies are in tension with traditional Danish democratic
purposes of schooling known as Bildung (Gurr et al., 2011a).
8 The Australian schools of the future program (Department of Education, 1993) is a
relatively long-standing approach to self-governance focussed on the decentralization
of numerous school functions including selection of staff, control over the budget, the
articulation of goals in a school charter and the design of a framework for
accountability. Victoria was a forerunner in this approach and by 1997 it had been
extended to all schools, making Australia’s decentralization policies among the most
far-reaching worldwide. In the USA, decentralization has always been relatively
commonplace with each state maintaining an autonomous educational system, with
many states then delegating considerable authority to the local school districts in their
jurisdiction ( Jacobson, 2005). In contrast, educational governance in Cyprus has long
been highly centralized and bureaucratic and only recently has the Ministry begun to
promote more local involvement in educational strategic planning.
In the midst of these accountability and decentralization trends, schools in these
countries have experienced increased diversity in the racial, ethnic, linguistic and
cultural composition of their student bodies. In all seven countries, educators are
dealing with waves of immigration, both legal and illegal, fueled by war, social and
economic upheaval and natural disasters occurring in less developed nations. Unlike
Australia, England and the USA, long known as havens for immigrants, this is also the
case for nations that have not historically been seen as magnets for immigration.
For example, public schools in Cyprus traditionally served mostly children of Greek
and Turkish Cypriot heritage. But more recently there has been a marked increase in
immigrants from former Russian and eastern bloc countries. Similarly, Denmark,
Norway and Sweden have been changing over the past few decades from being
relatively homogenous in terms of their populations to becoming more multiethnic,
multicultural and multilingual due to recent waves of immigration.
The policy frameworks implemented in response to these changes have been context
specific, with some focussing primarily on culture and language, such as in Norway and
Cyprus, while others are more concerned with race, as in the USA (see Ylimaki and
Jacobson, 2011 for more detail). As Johnson et al. (2011a) note, litigation often has had
more to do with how national and state policies are shaped than legislation, especially in
the USA. At the same time, accountability policies and immigration-related demographic
shifts have affected leadership practice and preparation in all seven countries. Table I
summarizes policy and demographic trends across the seven countries.

Leadership preparation
Accountability policies, decentralization requirements, and demographic shifts have
affected the content and foci of leadership preparation programs in many countries. For
instance, in response to recent accountability policies and pressures, many US and UK
leadership preparation programs have renewed an emphasis on IL and assessment
literacy. Decentralization trends have also affected leadership preparation and
development programs with a strong emphasis on organizational capacity building
and learning. As student populations become increasingly diverse, researchers in all
seven nations noted a growing interest in developing socially just leaders, with
 USA England Sweden Norway Denmark Australia Cyprus

Accountability National National Emerging Emerging Emerging As part of self- Emerging accountability
policies curriculum accountability accountability accountability regulation, schools movement; comparisons
(No Child Left standards linked movement; movement; movement; tension must design an to PISA as of this year,
Behind Act, to high-stakes comparisons comparisons between adherence accountability when it will be the first
2001) requires tests, market- to PISA; to PISA to national standards framework time for Cyprus to take
schools to make driven competition growing trend and evaluation tools (Australian part in the PISA
adequate yearly (Education Reform toward “free and democratic Schools of the examination
progress (AYP) Act, 1988) schools” (free values Future, 1993)
on state from school
tests with board control;
sanctions for accountable for
failure the national
curriculum)
Decentralization State and National National Long-standing Government has Australian Schools Highly centralized;
district trends performance headteacher history of decentralized of the Future recent movement toward
toward assessments training leadership responsibilities but (1993) established local involvement with
site-based include program teams centralized self-governance of strategic planning
management requirements for includes a instruction through schools
decentralization focus on standards
democratic
practices
Demographics Waves of (legal Waves of (legal Waves of (legal Waves of Waves of (legal and Waves of (legal Waves of (legal and
and illegal) and illegal) and illegal) (legal and illegal) immigration; and illegal) illegal) immigration
immigration; immigration immigration; illegal) increasingly immigration from eastern and
growing increasingly immigration; multilingual Russian bloc countries
Hispanic multilingual increasingly
Latino/a multilingual
populations
practice
leadership
School

by country
Policy Comparison
9

Table I.
JEA backgrounds in CRP. At the same time, there are reports of high caliber school leaders
51,1 being in short supply in Australia, England and the USA ( Jacobson, 2005).
This confluence of findings has led governments across these nations to invest millions
of dollars in upgrading their approach to leadership preparation. Therefore, we next
discuss the various approaches to leadership preparation in these countries and show
that there currently exists a continuum of approaches that range from informal, on-the-
10 job apprenticeship models for teachers aspiring to be principals and even sitting
principals, to highly formalized pre-service preparation that requires university level
course work before an aspiring leader can even get certified to be eligible for a
position. Figure 1 illustrates the continuum of informal to highly formalized
approaches to leadership preparation across the seven countries.
Starting with the apprenticeship model, we find that Australia has historically
relied on this approach in which teachers gain the necessary skills and experience
on-the-job if they aspire to move up the ranks to principal. Although credentialing and
mandatory programs for preparation are still not regulated or legislated, formalized
leadership development has become an emerging trend. There now exist a variety
of approaches including formal and informal coaching, mentoring and shadowing
programs, regional-based programs, internships, and leaves to attend international
conferences. These programs are designed to target various groups – emerging
leaders, aspiring principals, beginning principals, experienced principals and
leadership teams. There are also sponsored formal qualification programs, including
master-level programs for aspiring and current principals. Similar to Australia, there
are no formal preparatory requirements for an administrative position in Cyprus. Most
Cypriot principals learn their role through an informal apprenticeship as teachers by
watching their supervisors on the job. They then decide which practices to adopt or
reject when becoming principals themselves (Thody et al., 2007). Principals in position
get formal professional development through in-service seminars organized by the
Ministry of Education. These sessions are primarily bureaucratic in nature and
criticized by some as being inadequate (Michaelidou and Pashiardis, 2009).
There are, however, some aspiring school leaders who choose to prepare for an
administrator role by completing postgraduate programs in educational
administration at public and private universities in Cyprus.
The three Scandinavian nations in ISSPP represent the middle ground on this
preparation continuum, having instituted more formalized approaches to leadership
development in the recent past. If we take Norway for example, we find that until the
1990s Norwegian universities did not offer formal preparation for school leaders.
Although several now provide master programs in educational leadership, there is still
not a strong national strategy, because it was always the purview of the municipalities
and county authorities to ensure that school leaders had the necessary competencies.
These governmental bodies are also responsible for evaluating, developing and
implementing leadership programs and courses. Accordingly, preparation and
development for school leaders in Norway varies across municipalities and counties.

Informal Semi-formal Highly formalized

Figure 1. (Apprenticeship) (Government
Norway certifications)
Leadership preparation Australia Sweden USA
continuum Cyrpus Denmark England
As a result, there is a growing competition between local and regional authorities on School
the one hand, and higher education institutions and private consultancy companies leadership
on the other, as they compete to provide leadership preparation. To address these
tensions, in Quality in Schools (2003), it was announced that the Norwegian Royal practice
Ministry of Education and Research would establish an educational program for
principals in order to make the political expectations and demands for school
leadership explicit by regulating the contents of the programs. 11
In Sweden, a National Head-Teacher Training Program was organized to ensure
that school leaders have the competence to lead educational activities while ensuring
that pupils’ and parents’ rights are respected. In other words, the goal of the program is
to prepare a democratic leader who understands that it is not sufficient to simply
import knowledge of fundamental democratic values, but that this work must be
carried out using democratic methods that prepare students for active participation in
civic life. In 2006, Sweden’s new government, an alliance of conservative political
parties, attempted to change education back to a more knowledge-centered system.
The new national training program has more of a focus on managerial skills, such as
policy implementation, management by objectives and leadership intended to bring
school development back in line with these knowledge-centered goals.
Similar tensions exist in Denmark, as the government decentralizes administrative
responsibilities while re-centralizing instruction, through national standards,
accountability, national tests and quality reports. Danish school leaders need to be
competent in budgeting, human resource management, labor negotiations and team
management skills at the school level, as well as in understanding and interpreting
national and local regulations, curriculum content, learning theories and teaching
methods. Yet, formal preparation is not a prerequisite for school leaders in Denmark,
instead, most formal education targets existing leaders. It is worth noting that many
of these programs are delivered to all public sector managers, not just principals, and
in 2009, the government established a new diploma in public leadership, targeting
middle leaders in all public institutions. More specific to principals, a number of
school districts/municipalities have collaborated with education institutions to deliver
educational leadership programs. Participants in these diploma programs complete
projects in their own schools and their principals serve as mentors. This
approach combines theoretical insights with practical knowledge so that teachers
will be more skilled and knowledgeable about leadership before taking their first
leadership posts.
At the other end of the continuum are England and the USA, countries that
have more formalized preparation programs. England has a long history recognizing
the value of leadership preparation and is one of four OECD countries to provide
pre-service, induction and in-service leadership training. What is relatively new is
the alignment of preparation with results-driven policies of standardization and
accountability. The National College for School Leadership is now central to policy
initiatives intended to increase the supply, succession and standards of all school
leaders. National College programs focussing upon inquiry into practice tend to be
developed centrally and delivered regionally, and are selectively informed by research.
At the same time, local authorities are delivering a range of formal and informal
sessions focussed on leadership and management training. These two approaches have
led to tensions among preparation providers, because it is felt that by uncritically
delivering central government policies the National College diminishes the
independent decision-making capacities of head teachers.
JEA Finally, at the far end of the leadership development continuum is the USA, where
51,1 formal pre-service preparation has a long history, with the first courses being offered
in the late nineteenth century. Requirements for preparation and certification are
determined at the state level and the USA currently has over 500 leadership
preparation programs nationwide. While leadership programs may vary in content,
focus and duration, ultimately these programs must develop leadership knowledge
12 and skills relevant to the local school districts that their graduates will serve.
Therefore, to try and create a semblance of uniformity across jurisdictions, many
programs have aligned their curriculum with the Interstate School Leaders Licensure
Consortium (ISLLC) Standards (Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), 2008).
The ISLLC Standards were developed with support from the CCSSO in an attempt to
codify what high quality school leadership entails. Each standard addresses the
connection between leadership and student success through actions focussed on vision
for learning, school culture, organizational management, collaboration, ethics, and the
surrounding sociopolitical and cultural context.
Before discussing the findings from the cross-national comparisons, we provide
a brief overview of the theoretical framework and research design of the ISSPP.

Theoretical framework and research methods and design of the ISSPP

The ISSPP began in 2001 with representatives from Australia, Canada, China,
Denmark, England, Norway, Sweden and the USA agreeing to create a database of case
studies of successful principals drawn from each country. The guiding conceptual
framework drew initially from four research projects – leading schools in times
of change (Day et al., 2000), successful school leadership (Gurr et al., 2003), leadership
for school-community partnerships (Kilpatrick et al., 2002), and leadership for OL
and improved student outcomes (Mulford et al., 2004). That framework was further
informed by a comprehensive review of the literature on school leadership by
Leithwood and Riehl (2005) that identified a set of core leadership practices necessary,
but insufficient, for success regardless of school context: setting directions; developing
people; and redesigning the organization. In order to identify personal qualities and
professional competencies that might be common to successful school leaders across
contexts, the methodology the ISSPP employed involved interviews with multiple
respondents including principals, teachers, parents and students, as well as document
analyses of available public accountability reports.
Schools were selected based on documented evidence of student achievement that
exceeded expectations on standardized tests, testimonials of principals’ exemplary
reputations and other indicators of school success. Successful principals were defined
as those whose schools had improved under their leadership. The objective of the
ISSPP was to determine the role principals play in school success.
Following site identification, interviews were conducted with the principal,
20 percent of the school’s teachers, 20 percent of its support staff, and focus groups of
parents and students, using a common semi-structured interview protocol developed
specifically for the ISSPP using the literature cited earlier. Secondary data were also
obtained from official school documents, minutes of meetings, press reports, historical
sources, and ethnographic notes taken during visits by the research teams.
In all countries, the initial single nation analyses of ISSPP cases revealed leadership
practices consistent with those identified by Leithwood and Riehl, with OL, IL and
CRP being emerging themes. As previously noted, cross-national research teams then
conducted secondary analyses of the data related to OL in England, Sweden and the
USA; IL in Australia, Denmark and the USA; and, CPR in Cyprus, Norway and the School
USA. Using deductive coding, the purpose of these analyses was to uncover new leadership
contextual understandings about each construct, therefore research teams re-examined
case study data first within and then across the different countries. The nations and practice
leadership themes were matched in order to contextualize similarities and differences
in policies, demographic shifts and educational trends. For example, we combined
Denmark with the USA and Australia because we wanted to compare/contrast the 13
strong Danish emphasis on democratic leadership with the USA and Australian
emphases on accountability and mandated decentralization. Similarly, we posited that
the contrast among Norwegian and Cypriot diversity policies and US legislation would
illuminate interesting perspectives on CRP. Finally, the UK’s long-standing devolution
policies were likely to provide an interesting backdrop to growing decentralization
trends in the USA and Sweden. The USA was held constant as a basis of comparison
for each of the three constructs.
We must also recognize the limitations of this research. First, case study
research can generalize to a theory, but not populations (Merriam, 1988). Further,
our comparative analysis is limited to western perspectives on leadership and by a
temporal data collection of school success at the point of recognized school success,
often five years after the beginning of a principal’s tenure. Additional longitudinal
research is needed to understand how successful leaders develop over time from
preparation to effective practice. Finally, research is needed to examine the role of
cultural diversity (racial/ethnic, gender, poverty, language and intersections thereof) in
OL, IL and CRP practice and preparation.

Key cross-national findings

OL
OL is a term borrowed from business to explain the capacity of an organization to learn
(Senge, 1990). The term has been modified to fit the aspirations of educational
organizations to develop a collective sense of purpose, authentic relationships and
principles of practice that can lead to self-renewal over time. How well schools function
is therefore related to how well they achieve personal, social and instrumental
objectives. OL in schools can thus be characterized by opportunities for capacity
building and individual development for teachers at different stages in their careers in
relation to changing organizational needs (Day and Leithwood, 2007). To build
organizational capacity for learning, school leaders face several challenges: to create
conditions that enable everyone in the school to have a sense of individual and
collective vision and purpose while feeling a sense of ownership in the change
processes in which they are involved and to engage their faculty in processes of
learning and development at regular intervals (Day et al., 2011).
Drawing on OL literature, Day et al. (2011)found that English, Swedish, and US
principals and heads used a similar approach to the development of OL communities
with a particular set of strategies introduced over time. More specifically, OL occurred
through a layered approach. Success strategies were introduced, developed and
expanded in overlapping phases, all of which were founded on the central conviction
that focussing on staff and student learning would ultimately lead to tangible rewards,
such as improved academic performance. In England, one of the most developed
examples of layered leadership occurred in an inner city elementary school in which
headteacher Jan began her tenure with a focus on providing a secure environment for
pupils and parent involvement. At the same time, she developed teachers’ professional
JEA understandings of curriculum, instruction and assessment. Curriculum initiatives
51,1 were developed and sustained through a gradual redesign of the school organization
around professional learning.
In the USA, under the pressure of accountability mandates, principals focussed
on building capacity to meet short-term, externally imposed goals established by
NCLB legislation. In one of the schools studied, the principal used the core leadership
14 practices of redesigning the organization and developing people to enable OL that, over
a 15-year period, transformed her school from being one of the worst to one of the
best in the entire district. In other words, by enabling her faculty to meet successive
short-term objectives, the school eventually became an organization with the capacity
to sustain success and self-renew.
In Sweden, wage negotiations between local authorities and trade unions for
principals and teachers at the end of the 1990s forced OL and distributed
leadership. The main points of the required change were teachers should work in
teams in relation to a group of students; teachers should be in the school at least 35
hours per week during semester time; principals could plan and direct these hours,
with17-19 hours typically set aside for contact with students and the rest for
planning and in-service training; and teachers should also work ten more hours
every week during the semesters on their own preparations. The Swedish ISSPP
findings illustrated many examples of how teacher teams created a culture in which
the teams and principals worked together to build OL and the capacity to achieve
the best possible student outcomes for the common good (for more details see
Day et al., 2011).

IL
Studies about IL emerged from the effective schools research as it became evident that
the extent of IL is a factor that differentiates high from low achieving schools (Heck
et al., 1991; Murphy and Hallinger, 1992). These scholars argued that principals needed
to be trained in IL, and many states in the US mandated courses for all aspiring
principals specifically devoted to it. More recent conceptions of IL move away from
“strong, directive leadership focused on curriculum and instruction from the principal”
(Hallinger, 2003, p. 329), to views that include teams and distributed leadership
(e.g. Marks and Printy, 2003; Robinson, 2006; Spillane, 2006), views that align with
OL ( Jacobson et al., 2011). Distributed perspectives on IL also contain numerous
references to “democratic” purposes that are most often anchored in leadership
concepts stressing the need for school leaders to cultivate the common good (Gale and
Densmore, 2003; Lambert, 1998; Ylimaki et al., 2011).
Regardless of whether IL is conceptualized as an individual or shared democratic
construct, our findings indicate that recent curriculum and accountability policies have
had a profound effect on classroom and school practices. Drawing on the cross-national
analysis of IL in the USA, Australia and Denmark, Gurr et al. (2011a) suggest that
principals across all three countries find themselves in a relatively new crossfire of
conflicting expectations that cause new dilemmas. For example, in Denmark, one can
illustrate the difference in expectations by pointing to the fact that Danish schools used
to live by a traditional vision of “Democratic Bildung,” the understanding that schools
should take a very comprehensive approach to education. This understanding is
challenged by the expectation that schools should focus on basic skills like literacy and
numeracy. At one Danish school, the principal reports that the hierarchy has become
steeper in recent years. The principal has a new role as the go-between with the local
leadership teams at the school (i.e. the leadership team and the team of department School
leaders and school directorate). Because of her democratic dispositions she has leadership
been working to draw more leaders into the decision-making process, but she finds
democratic leadership increasingly at tension with new policies. practice
Likewise, the US and Australian principals studied must now balance democratic
or shared leadership processes (e.g. collaborative decision-making structures
and processes) with growing pressures for high academic performance. American 15
principals must simultaneously support the work of living up to external
expectations and at the same time respect and care for staff and students. This has
become a more challenging task than ever before because principals and teachers
often find that, as one US principal described, “Accountability demands have
increased dramatically. We have been able to leverage improvements, but I have
to say we have had to narrow the curriculum more to reading and math than the
arts and multicultural education.” Similarly, Australian principals noted the
strain of increased accountability pressures on long-standing traditions for holistic
literacy instruction. In all three countries, school improvement dilemmas were
most intense in culturally diverse schools with large numbers of children living in
poverty.

CRP
Johnson et al. (2011b) combined two complimentary lenses for understanding policies
and leadership practices, using diverse school cases that were developed in previous
studies of the ISSPP in the USA, Norway and Cyprus: culturally responsive leadership
and leadership for democratic education. CRP are those that incorporate the history,
values and cultural knowledge of students’ home communities in the school
curriculum to develop a critical consciousness among students and faculty to challenge
inequalities in the larger society and empower parents from diverse communities.
CRP draws on Ladson-Billings’ (2005) work on culturally responsive pedagogy
with three propositions: students must experience academic success, students must
develop and/or maintain cultural competence and students must develop a critical
consciousness through which they challenge the status quo of the social order.
Leadership for democratic education arises from research at the intersection of
educational leadership, critical theory and critical multiculturalism. Such theories
are rooted in social justice and examine institutions that exist for the common good
(e.g. Dewey, 1916; Freire, 1970). Most definitions of “education for democracy” include
themes such as recognizing the basic value and rights of each individual, taking the
standpoint of others into consideration, deliberation in making decisions, embracing
plurality and difference, and promoting equity and social justice (Moller, 2006).
Kalantzis and Cope (1999) describe how schools can work for diversity through an
understanding of critical multiculturalism, and their arguments align with democratic
leadership. They argue that education is a way to give all students opportunities
for social mobility in society (e.g. basic skills like writing, reading and math). Further,
Kalantzis and Cope (1999) emphasized that if it is a goal to ensure all students social
access and opportunities for mobility the majority’s culture and pedagogy have to be
explicit. This means that the education itself and its objective ought not to be a means
of assimilation. Finally, Kalantzis and Cope argue that students ought to be educated in
cultural and linguistic diversity.
ISSPP leaders in demographically diverse American, Norwegian and Cypriot
schools exemplified how principals demonstrate strong advocacy for parents and
JEA communities who have been marginalized. While the advocate role for principals was
51,1 not as crucial in all of the cases, in high-need US schools and the rural schools of
Cyprus, it was essential. Although the policy and cultural contexts of Cyprus,
Norway and the US differ, all of the cases illustrated a tension in trying to provide
students with a multicultural curriculum while meeting accountability guidelines.
Also finding a balance between honoring student home cultures and emphasizing
16 student learning does not easily lend itself to normative models and quick fixes in
leadership preparation. At one Norwegian school, “respect” was the key term used to
describe meetings between majority and minority, or more specifically between people
in general. It was shown that the principal, through an explicit discourse of critical
multiculturalism based on respect, opened up democratic processes to the
development of diversity in his school. At another school, “care” was the key term
to describe how the school leaders interacted with minority students and their parents.
In three of the US schools, women principals, two African American and one
white, worked to create a trusting environment in which parents and community
members could feel welcome and comfortable. In the two Cypriot cases, both principals
initiated and sustained strong connections between the school and their diverse
communities.

Recommendations for improving leadership preparation

While the formal requirements for leadership preparation vary across the seven
contexts, our cross-national analyses of ISSPP findings relative to OL, IL and CRP lead
us to feel that many of the successful practices we observed could be woven into the
fabric of school leadership preparation, and thus, improve it.

OL
The successful principals we studied were analytical, reflective, intuitive, innovative,
creative and flexible. They understood the dynamics of organizational structures and
cultures, individual and group discussion and the impact of their thoughts, emotions
and behaviors on their abilities to enable OL and capacity building. Further, all of these
principals drew on strong mental models of school success from a combination of
leadership preparation and experience. US principals indicated that common features
found in their pre-service leadership programs included: an emphasis on building
organizational capacity around curriculum and instruction; a philosophy and
curriculum emphasizing school improvement; active, student-centered instruction
that integrates theory and practice, stimulates reflection, includes field-based projects,
and feedback from peers; faculties who are knowledgeable in subject areas and
practitioners experienced in school administration; social and professional support in
cohort structure or other forms of networks; vigorous targeted recruitment and
selection of leaders with exemplary teaching experience; and well-designed and
supervised administrative internships with substantial time and leadership
responsibilities under the tutelage of expert veterans. These leadership preparation
characteristics echoed recommendations from Darling-Hammond et al. (2007) and the
goals of the National College in England. Similarly, successful Sweden principals
experienced four steps in their training: a recruitment process; an introduction
focussed on practical and administrative tasks including how to redesign schools as
learning organizations; seminar days to support understanding of the role of the school
organization in society and the local community; and continued support and networks
following completion of the initial leadership training program.
IL School
Many of the principals from the ISSPP cases relied heavily on professional experience leadership
and professional development to inform their work in IL. One US principal, for
instance, developed her IL expertise as a principal in a prior “turn-around” school, and practice
her professional development in literacy. In particular, she sought professional
development activities that helped her create a strong understanding of how children
acquire literacy and math. As she described, “I knew that if my teachers could get a 17
strong philosophical understanding about how children develop as readers and
writers, they would feel empowered to help all children learn the reading and writing
process.” Likewise, John Fleming (Australian principal) was recognized as an
exemplary instructional leader with a reputation as an excellent former teacher and
assistant principal. Teachers also talked about how John exuded “an inner confidence
about his teaching knowledge and that gives him credibility as a leader.” Danish
principals moved from teachers to leaders, participating in a series of leadership
modules that built upon strong classroom instructional experience. From personal
experience, these exemplary instructional leaders understood the democratic kinds of
processes necessary to gain teacher commitment to the curriculum. They were active
in seeking expert advice and support, and they acknowledged the support and work of
others in the school. Moreover, they recognized good instructional practice in
classrooms. In other words, they had mental models of good democratic IL to enhance
increasingly restrictive curriculum and accountability policies.
There were several other features that seemed important to their success in IL. First,
the principals were able to adapt to the changing educational climates, increased
decentralization, high-stakes accountability and increasing diversity (Gurr et al.,
2005). Further, these successful principals had a love for continuous learning and
participated in whatever formal or informal programs were available. Third, they had
an orientation toward equity and they accepted personal responsibility for cultivating
democratic participation as well as academic achievement in their schools. Fourth, and
closely related, they demonstrated a critical consciousness about needs for student
performance and democratic education, working on affective as well as academic
outcomes for all children. In certain regards, the principals felt tension about how
current policies narrowed the curriculum to a culturally neutral focus on literacy and
math. Yet none of these principals explicitly addressed CRP as part of IL, and we
suspect this oversight may be due to a gap in current leadership preparation.

CRP
As noted earlier, very different approaches to leadership preparation exist across the
countries. In Cyprus, leadership preparation has traditionally been limited to a few
in-service courses after an individual has assumed an administrative position.
However, given the nation’s small number of principals and a centralized educational
system, changes enacted by the Ministry of Education and Culture regarding
leadership preparation for CRP could have an immediate impact.
Norway has not had a tradition of formal preparation for school leaders, but this is
changing as novice principals complete new leadership programs approved by the
directorate. It remains to be seen if these will incorporate a focus on CRP in the
curriculum. The well-established system of preparation programs in the USA is highly
decentralized, so common standards emphasizing CRP for leadership preparation and
certification are not immediately likely, although there is some attention paid to issues
of social justice and advocacy in the ISLLC Standards. An alternative path would be to
JEA develop a model diversity and social justice curriculum and showcase effective
51,1 programs through national conferences and organizations for leadership preparation
such as the University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA), which is
working on such an initiative called Preparing Leaders to Support Diverse Learners:
Curriculum Modules for Leadership Preparation (details can be found at:
www.ucea.org/lsdl-preparation-modules-new/).
18 The ISSPP cases illustrate the significant dilemmas educational leaders have to
confront in order to meet the needs and expectations for schooling in diverse contexts.
In the face of national policy contexts, traditions and accountability pressures, our
findings demonstrate how leadership practices that contribute to the empowerment of
all stakeholders can create tensions for culturally diverse schools honoring student
home cultures and emphasizing student learning. We found that diversity thrived the
most in school environments where language and ethnic minority students were
described as equals and all teachers were expected to take responsibility for their
education, and the whole school was expected to be responsible for the common
good and the development of a diverse society. As one principal from Cyprus argued,
“What we want to do is pay attention to the children at all levels of the actions of the
school unit without making any attempt to assimilate them, that is make them forget
what they used to do. This is important” ( Johnson et al., 2011b).
Based upon Johnson et al.’s (2011b) findings, principals should be introduced to the
concept of “culturally responsive leadership” through programs that emphasize
elements such as the critique of social inequities, the incorporation of “cultural funds of
knowledge” in the curriculum (Moll et al., 1992) as well as the mobilization of the social
capital of a diverse community. With respect to leadership for democratic education,
the curriculum should incorporate components such as distributed leadership,
participatory decision making, and the empowerment of ethnic minority students and
their families. In other words, there is much work to be done to help all candidates “lead
for diversity” in the twenty-first century.
Incorporating our cross-national findings about successful OL, IL and CRP into a
few key recommendations to improve leadership preparation, we offer the following
suggestions recognizing that variations in national policy and tradition that range
from informal, apprentice based to highly formalized programs will lead to these ideas
being implemented accordingly:
Develop student-centered curricula. This integrates theory and practice with an
emphasis on school improvement and a social focus essential to democracy. In other
words, successful school leaders must develop the analytical tools to intellectualize
problems using local (school) and societal (structural) perspectives. In countries with
highly formalized programs (the USA and the UK), coursework should help students
examine OL, IL and CRP problems related to school improvement. For countries
with apprentice-based preparation (Australia and Cyprus), students need to expand
their experiential learning with dialogues drawn from a range of theories. In the
Scandinavian countries, students need explicit opportunities to explore theories that
illuminate tensions between democratic values and increasing neoliberal pressures.
Provide field-based experiences. This includes well-supervised internships, which
allow candidates extended time to engage in leadership experiences under the
guidance of an experienced, successful leader. In highly formalized programs,
aspiring leaders need extended time to assume the full range of leadership
responsibilities, especially those related to OL, IL and CRP. By their very nature,
informal or semi-formal programs are grounded in field experiences. Regardless of
where countries fall on the leadership continuum, we recommend the development School
of case examples distributed through such organizations as UCEA, BELMAS and/or leadership
CCEAM. In so doing, aspiring principals will have an opportunity to develop mental
models for successful leadership. practice
Social supports and interactions . As cohort models and professional networks help
to prevent professional isolation. A leader’s role is often a lonely position to occupy
and the development of support networks from the very beginning of preparation is 19
essential. Countries with informal leadership preparation need to create structures for
professional networking outside of university coursework and provide job-embedded
learning experiences, such as book study groups. In the Scandinavian countries
with semi-formal leadership preparation programs, social support networks may be
job-embedded as leadership is frequently constructed as teams. The more highly
formalized programs of the USA and the UK need to incorporate cohort models in
which students stay together for courses and field experiences for the duration of their
certification or degree program.

Provide learning experiences that balance the three constructs of OL, IL and CRP
Regardless of where a country fall on the continuum of leadership preparation, today’s
aspiring leaders need a balanced approach, focusing attention on shared or layered
models of leadership, redesigning their organizations around curriculum, learning and
participation. At the same time, with increasingly diverse populations, leaders across
all seven countries must simultaneously foster democratic values and culturally
responsive curriculum in ways that meet accountability requirements for academic
achievement. In other words, successful leaders have a critical consciousness about
cultural diversity that informs their instructional practice and OL.
The quality of leadership preparation ultimately depends upon the quality of the
individuals recruited and selected into such programs, particularly at the pre-service
level (Darling-Hammond et al., 2007). An individual who has assumed a leadership
role while on the job or a leadership role in his or her school/community has a sense of
what it takes to guide and energize the efforts of others in ways that build OL capacity.
Dispositions such as creativity, flexibility, persistence and courage can be improved
through training, but if these demonstrated leadership characteristics are used as
criteria for leadership selection the entire preparation process would be enhanced.

Conclusions
This paper drew on findings from across seven varied contexts of the ISSPP to
consider implications for improved leadership preparation, particularly with regards
to OL, IL and CRP. Principals in the seven nations studied experienced increased
student diversity, greater accountability and changes in centralization/decentralization
governance. As successful principals adapted and responded to these contextual
pressures, they distributed leadership in ways that cultivated OL, improved IL, and
supported CRP. Although goals and outcomes varied from context to context, these
successful principals all advocated a “hands-on” approach to acquiring leadership
proficiency. Several noted that their own leadership programs had included problem-
and field-based learning approaches that explicitly engaged them in the type of
real-world problems they eventually faced in their schools. They also talked about the
importance of social and professional support from cohort models and similar
networks that helped them develop group facilitation skills, because if leadership is
best conducted in teams, then leadership preparation should provide aspiring leaders
JEA with experiences that emulate the work of teams in schools. Moreover, many of these
51,1 successful principals indicated that their team-learning experiences became a habit
of practice that continued throughout their careers, and they actively sought out
supportive peer learning networks. These networks and interactions provided social
and emotional support as well as a sense of professional self- and collective efficacy
for OL and IL development. But, as Johnson et al. (2011b) point out, diversity issues
20 and CPR are often not yet adequately addressed or even targeted as distinct areas in
many formal and informal leadership programs. Perhaps in response to changing
demographics, there is an emerging trend in many countries toward critical dialogues
about diversity and meaningful internships that include opportunities for interaction
with culturally diverse parents and families. However, leadership development for CRP
tends to remain distinct from OL, IL and other more traditional leadership functions.
In light of changing demographics, future leadership preparation programs will need
to explicitly address CRP and view successful culturally sensitive leadership as
complementary to, and not at odds with, successful OL and IL.
Our secondary analysis of ISSPP cases is limited by the fact that all seven countries
are grounded in western perspectives. Further, data collection occurred at a particular
point in time, most often about five years after the beginning of the principal’s tenure.
Future research needs to incorporate additional countries with non-western traditions
and perspectives on leadership (e.g. South Africa) and longitudinal approaches
examining leadership development from preparation to successful practice.
Nonetheless, our findings offer contextualized, cross-national understandings about
OL, IL, and CRP and preparation. In closing, we hope these cross-national research
findings and implications for leadership preparation provide researchers and
practitioners with contextualized understandings about the complexities involved in
successful leadership development and practice. As the number of ISSPP countries and
cases grow, we believe our initial insights will become clearer and findings more
robust.
Note
1. We wish to thank Ken Leithwood and our colleagues from the various research teams for
their insights about policy trends, demographic change and leadership preparation in their
home countries. Specifically, we wish to thank David Gurr, Lawrie Drysdale and Helen
Goode (Australia), Petros Pashiardis (Cyprus), Lejf Moos (Denmark), Chris Day (England),
Jorunn Moller (Norway), Olof Johansson (Sweden) and Lauri Johnson (USA).

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About the authors

Rose Ylimaki is an Associate Professor in the Educational Policy Studies and Practice
Department at the University of Arizona. Her research interests include curriculum, policy,
cultural politics, and international perspectives on successful school leadership. Rose Ylimaki is
the corresponding author and can be contacted at: rylimaki@email.arizona.edu
Stephen Jacobson is a Professor in the Educational Leadership and Policy Department at the
University at Buffalo. His research interests include effective principal leadership in challenging,
high needs schools, the reform of school leadership preparation and practice, and teacher
compensation.

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