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Library | Item Barcode | Call Number | Material Type | Item Category 1 | Status |
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Searching... | 30000010214330 | LB2806 D574 2007 | Open Access Book | Book | Searching... |
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Summary
Summary
Distributed leadership has become an important term for educational policymakers, practitioners, and researchers in the United States and around the world, but there is much diversity in how the term is understood. Some use it as a synonym for democratic or participative leadership. This book examines what it means to take a distributed perspective based on extensive research and a rich theoretical perspective developed by experts in the field. Including numerous case studies of individual schools and providing empirically based accounts of school settings using a distributed perspective, this thorough volume:
Explores how a distributed perspective is different from other frameworks for thinking about leadership. Provides clear examples of how taking a distributed perspective can help researchers understand and connect more directly to leadership practice. Illustrates how the day-to-day practice of leadership is an important line of inquiry for scholars and for those interested in improving school leadership.Author Notes
James P. Spillane is Olin Chair in Learning and Organizational Change at the School of Education and Social Policy and Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL. John B. Diamond is Assistant Professor of Education at Harvard Graduate School of Education, Cambridge, MA.
Reviews 1
Choice Review
This edited volume's theme is to investigate and analyze distributed leadership in today's schools. Also called democratic leadership, shared leadership, and collaborative leadership, distributed school leadership is a management approach to schooling currently under heavy investigation in the world of practice and scholarship. Chapters 4-8 focus on several selected Chicago area schools at different stages of reform efforts. These schools were studied over a four-year period, 1999-2003. Each school's analysis highlights different leadership functions. Knowing what leaders do is one thing, but a thorough understanding of how, why, and when they do what they do is essential if research is to contribute to improve the day-to-day practice of leading and managing schools. The research technique known as "action perspective" helps to reveal how school management can be an "effective activity." In other words, it is not just a school leader's direct actions that are important; how that leader's interactions and collaborations are viewed is just as critical when studying the dynamics of practice. This is a thoughtful, provocative book that takes an honest research-based approach to understanding leadership. Summing Up: Recommended. All levels. R. C. Morris University of West Georgia
Table of Contents
| Acknowledgments | p. ix |
| 1 Taking a Distributed Perspective | p. 1 |
| 2 Spanning the Boundary Between School Leadership and Classroom Instruction at Hillside Elementary School | p. 16 |
| 3 Systems of Practice and Professional Community: The Adams Case | p. 35 |
| 4 Cultivating High Expectations in an Urban Elementary School: The Case of Kelly School | p. 63 |
| 5 The Leadership Struggle: The Case of Costen Elementary School | p. 85 |
| 6 The Practice of Leadership in Mathematics and Language Arts: The Adams Case | p. 106 |
| 7 School Leadership Practice and the School Subject: The Baxter Case | p. 129 |
| 8 A Distributed Perspective On and In Practice | p. 146 |
| Notes | p. 167 |
| References | p. 169 |
| About the Editors and the Contributors | p. 179 |
| Index | p. 183 |
