Summary
(Áine Hyland, Emeritus Professor of Education, UCC)
«The author has used his detailed and intricate knowledge of research on school leadership together with his experiences as a long-serving principal to provide us with a comprehensive, illuminating and very readable account of the role and its many challenges. This book is essential reading for current and aspiring school leaders.»
(Judith Harford, Professor of Education, UCD)
Books on school leadership are usually written from a theoretical viewpoint. The insights that emerge, whilst very valuable, are based on an imaginary school, devoid of distinctive human agency, and located in a context-free setting. However, in the real world leadership is not enacted in a vacuum. This study is set in a school where the author served as principal. He describes the impact of various contextual factors, including policy developments at national level since the 1980s, that had an important effect on a principal’s role and the nature of provision.
In the history of Irish education, a book of this nature has never before been written from the perspective of a principal. The author analyses the various theories on leadership, and describes the practice that he and his colleagues devised and implemented in a real life setting. Finally, he explores the thinking of various scholars in an attempt to identify the core elements that are essential for successful principalship.
Excerpt
Table Of Contents
- Cover
- Title
- Copyright
- About the author
- About the book
- This eBook can be cited
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Foreword
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 The Immediate Context
- Chapter 2 Early Days
- Chapter 3 The Policy Environment
- Chapter 4 Growing a School
- Chapter 5 Accountability or Responsibility?
- Chapter 6 Leadership Theory
- Chapter 7 ‘Making Do’
- Chapter 8 Ambiguity and Paradox
- Chapter 9 The Team
- Chapter 10 Still Learning
- Chapter 11 Aristotle’s Wisdom
- Chapter 12 The Essentials of Principalship
- Bibliography
Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek. The German
National Library lists this publication in the German National Bibliography; detailed bibliographic
data is available on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Fleming, Brian, 1946- author.
Title: A journey in school leadership: theory and practice / Brian
Fleming.
Description: New York: Peter Lang, [2024] | Includes bibliographical
references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2024023682 (print) | LCCN 2024023683 (ebook) | ISBN
9781803745923 (print) | ISBN 9781803745930 (ebook) | ISBN 9781803745947
(epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Educational leadership- - United States. | School
principals- - United States.
Classification: LCC LB2805. F57 2024 (print) | LCC LB2805 (ebook) | DDC
371.2/0110973- - dc23/eng/20240712
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024023682
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024023683
Cover design by Peter Lang Group AG
ISBN 978-1-80374-592-3 (print)
ISBN 978-1-80374-593-0 (ePDF)
ISBN 978-1-80374-594-7 (ePub)
DOI 10.3726/b22045
© 2024 Peter Lang Group AG, Lausanne
Published by Peter Lang Ltd, Oxford, United Kingdom
info@peterlang.com – www.peterlang.com
Brian Fleming has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to
be identified as Author of this Work.
All rights reserved.
All parts of this publication are protected by copyright.
Any utilisation outside the strict limits of the copyright law, without the permission of the
publisher, is forbidden and liable to prosecution.
This applies in particular to reproductions, translations, microfilming, and storage and processing
in electronic retrieval systems.
This publication has been peer reviewed.
About the author
Brian Fleming is a retired school principal. He works now as an independent researcher and writer. Education policy, disadvantage and leadership are his main interests. He has written widely on educational issues in books, journals and contributed opinion pieces to the national newspapers.
Brian was awarded an MSc in Ed. Mgt. (1995) and PhD. (2013).
About the book
‘This book is a fascinating addition to the literature on school leadership. It is based on the real-life experience of a long-serving school principal and is a must-read for prospective and serving school leaders and academics everywhere.’
– Áine Hyland, Emeritus Professor of Education, UCC
‘The author has used his detailed and intricate knowledge of research on school leadership together with his experiences as a long-serving principal to provide us with a comprehensive, illuminating and very readable account of the role and its many challenges. This book is essential reading for current and aspiring school leaders.’
– Judith Harford, Professor of Education, UCD
Books on school leadership are usually written from a theoretical viewpoint. The insights that emerge, whilst very valuable, are based on an imaginary school, devoid of distinctive human agency, and located in a context-free setting. However, in the real world leadership is not enacted in a vacuum. This study is set in a school where the author served as principal. He describes the impact of various contextual factors, including policy developments at national level since the 1980s, that had an important effect on a principal’s role and the nature of provision.
In the history of Irish education, a book of this nature has never before been written from the perspective of a principal. The author analyses the various theories on leadership, and describes the practice that he and his colleagues devised and implemented in a real life setting. Finally, he explores the thinking of various scholars in an attempt to identify the core elements that are essential for successful principalship.
This eBook can be cited
This edition of the eBook can be cited. To enable this we have marked the start and end of a page. In cases where a word straddles a page break, the marker is placed inside the word at exactly the same position as in the physical book. This means that occasionally a word might be bifurcated by this marker.
Contents
Figures
Foreword
School principals need to have a good grasp of the fundamental tenets of the range of leadership types (Ó Murchú and O’Donoghue), including managerial leadership (Henkel et al., 2019), instructional leadership (Hallinger et al., 2020), transactional leadership/transformational leadership (Purwanto, 2020; Da’as, 2023), moral leadership (Wise and Slater, 2020), invitational leadership (Egley, 2003), interpersonal leadership (Lamm et al., 2016) and distributed leadership (Spillane, 2012). However, I have long subscribed to the argument that it is also necessary to understand the contextual realities of all stakeholders before introducing change aimed at improving the quality of education in any context. Thus, I greatly welcome this book by Brian Fleming on how, in reflecting on his life both while and after retiring as a school principal, he came to appreciate the significance of Hallinger’s position on the same matter.
At this point, it is worth recalling that the underlying premise has a rich history, not just in school leadership but also in relation to policymaking, curriculum development and pedagogy. Back in the 1890s, when considering the function of the study of psychology for educationists, William James, one of the most famous psychologists of the modern era, stated that one makes a great mistake to think that the discipline can provide definite programmes, schemes and methods of instruction for specific classroom contexts. Rather, he went on:
Psychology is a science, and teaching is an art. An intermediary inventive mind must make the application, by using its originality. The science of logic never made a man reason rightly, the science of ethics never made a man behave rightly. The most such sciences can do is to help us catch ourselves up, check ourselves, if we start to reason or behave wrongly; and to criticise ourselves more articulately if we make mistakes. A science only lays down lines within which the rules of the art must fall, laws which the follower of the art must not transgress; but what particular thing he shall positively do within those lines is left exclusively to his own genius… and so while everywhere the teaching must agree with the psychology, it may not necessarily be the only kind of teaching that would so agree; for many diverse methods of teaching may equally well agree with the psychological laws. (James, 1958: 15)
Details
- Pages
- XX, 242
- Publication Year
- 2024
- ISBN (PDF)
- 9781803745930
- ISBN (ePUB)
- 9781803745947
- ISBN (Hardcover)
- 9781803745923
- DOI
- 10.3726/b22045
- Language
- English
- Publication date
- 2024 (July)
- Keywords
- Leadership theory leadership practice a learning organisation professional responsibility collaborative professionalism New Public Management the audit society neoliberalism
- Published
- Oxford, Berlin, Bruxelles, Chennai, Lausanne, New York, 2024. XX, 242 pp., 2 fig. b/w.
