Clive Dimmock

Leadership, Capacity Building and School Improvement provides a fresh and original perspective on the most important issues confronting today’s practitioners and academics in the field of educational leadership. New and exciting concepts are introduced such as the research-engaged school of the future. While its theoretical and evidence-based approach raises to a robust level the discussion on the most important leadership challenges of the day, the book is at the same time intensely practical in addressing everyday issues faced by contemporary policy makers and school practitioners. Underpinning the eleven chapters is a conceptual framework founded on the notion of leadership as capacity building, giving the book a coherence that many others on school leadership lack.Among the themes actively discussed are: Conceptualising and Contextualising Leadership – what is leadership? What distinguishes good from mediocre and poor leaders? What are the traits, dispositions and attributes that make for good leadership? How does context influence leadership? How appealing is leadership as a career? What are the components of capacity building leadership? Contemporary Leadership Themes – what is learning-centred leadership and how can it best promote good teaching and student learning? How can leaders distribute leadership across the school, and what are the pitfalls? How can leaders capitalise on the notion of the school as a professional learning community? How can leaders best be nurtured and developed? Policy, Leadership Practice and Impact – what new forms of leadership are presaged by the specialist schools policy as a means of school improvement? How can schools combine a focus on academic achievement with the need to prepare students for the changing twenty-first century workplace?Leadership, Capacity Building and School Improvement provides an up-to-date authoritative, critical and insightful account of school leadership. It combines advocacy and argument with evidence-based practice drawn from the most plausible and robust sources. This book will prove a valuable tool for those taking higher degrees in school leadership and management: school leaders on NPQH courses and school practitioners as a whole interested in interfacing with the latest empirical evidence and ideas, as well as academics teaching and researching in the area of educational leadership. Since the book adopts an international perspective, drawing its examples and evidence from both the Anglo-American and the Asian contexts, it will be found relevant to academics, policy makers and practitioners across these regions.Clive Dimmock is Visiting Professor at the National Institute of Education in Singapore and Professor Emeritus at the University of Leicester, UK.

Leadership, Capacity Building and School Improvement provides a fresh and original perspective on the most important issues confronting today’s practitioners and academics in the field of educational leadership. New and exciting concepts are introduced such as the research-engaged school of the future. While its theoretical and evidence-based approach raises to a robust level the discussion on the most important leadership challenges of the day, the book is at the same time intensely practical in addressing everyday issues faced by contemporary policy makers and school practitioners. Underpinning the eleven chapters is a conceptual framework founded on the notion of leadership as capacity building, giving the book a coherence that many others on school leadership lack.Among the themes actively discussed are: Conceptualising and Contextualising Leadership – what is leadership? What distinguishes good from mediocre and poor leaders? What are the traits, dispositions and attributes that make for good leadership? How does context influence leadership? How appealing is leadership as a career? What are the components of capacity building leadership? Contemporary Leadership Themes – what is learning-centred leadership and how can it best promote good teaching and student learning? How can leaders distribute leadership across the school, and what are the pitfalls? How can leaders capitalise on the notion of the school as a professional learning community? How can leaders best be nurtured and developed? Policy, Leadership Practice and Impact – what new forms of leadership are presaged by the specialist schools policy as a means of school improvement? How can schools combine a focus on academic achievement with the need to prepare students for the changing twenty-first century workplace?Leadership, Capacity Building and School Improvement provides an up-to-date authoritative, critical and insightful account of school leadership. It combines advocacy and argument with evidence-based practice drawn from the most plausible and robust sources. This book will prove a valuable tool for those taking higher degrees in school leadership and management: school leaders on NPQH courses and school practitioners as a whole interested in interfacing with the latest empirical evidence and ideas, as well as academics teaching and researching in the area of educational leadership. Since the book adopts an international perspective, drawing its examples and evidence from both the Anglo-American and the Asian contexts, it will be found relevant to academics, policy makers and practitioners across these regions.Clive Dimmock is Visiting Professor at the National Institute of Education in Singapore and Professor Emeritus at the University of Leicester, UK.

`A highly recommendable and powerful work...I have found this book to be both a revelatory mirror on past events and an inviting window to future prospects. I am certain that it will be of equal or greater value to all those involved and interested in the tangled complexities, and inherent rewards, of educational leadership, particularly within international or cross-cultural contexts' - Daniel H. Jarvis, International Review of Education `Clive Dimmock and Allan Walker's books is a valuable addition to the overcrowded literature on leadership. This is a useful and important book because citizenship, globalization and the tensions with nationality should be the concern of all who lead any school; even monofaith, monoethic and monolingual schools' - Tim Brighouse, TES Friday 'The authors offer a rigorous and systematic analysis based on careful definition, illustration and discussion which demonstrates the importance of understanding culture, leadership and their interaction in different contexts: in doing so they provide a powerful antidote to the simplistic export of ideas and lay foundations for a more sophisticated conceptual framework for the study of educational leadership' - John West-Burnham, International Leadership Centre, University of Hull This key text in educational leadership focuses on the significance of the context and culture of schools. The book addresses the growing recognition of cultural differences between societies and the resultant differences in schooling. It also deals with vital issues relating to multicultural education and the leadership of multicultural schools. Drawing on their first-hand experience, the authors explore the differences evident in classroom teaching and learning, as well as organizational, leadership and management aspects of schools. They show how such differences can make over-reliance on Anglo-American approaches misleading, ineffective and restrictive. Key features of the book include: - a methodology to support the emerging field of international and comparative educational leadership and management - in-depth comparative analysis of Anglo-American and Asian schooling and educational management - the leadership of multi-cultural schools This book is essential reading for professionals and students of educational leadership and management, as well as administrators.

`A highly recommendable and powerful work...I have found this book to be both a revelatory mirror on past events and an inviting window to future prospects. I am certain that it will be of equal or greater value to all those involved and interested in the tangled complexities, and inherent rewards, of educational leadership, particularly within international or cross-cultural contexts' - Daniel H. Jarvis, International Review of Education `Clive Dimmock and Allan Walker's books is a valuable addition to the overcrowded literature on leadership. This is a useful and important book because citizenship, globalization and the tensions with nationality should be the concern of all who lead any school; even monofaith, monoethic and monolingual schools' - Tim Brighouse, TES Friday 'The authors offer a rigorous and systematic analysis based on careful definition, illustration and discussion which demonstrates the importance of understanding culture, leadership and their interaction in different contexts: in doing so they provide a powerful antidote to the simplistic export of ideas and lay foundations for a more sophisticated conceptual framework for the study of educational leadership' - John West-Burnham, International Leadership Centre, University of Hull This key text in educational leadership focuses on the significance of the context and culture of schools. The book addresses the growing recognition of cultural differences between societies and the resultant differences in schooling. It also deals with vital issues relating to multicultural education and the leadership of multicultural schools. Drawing on their first-hand experience, the authors explore the differences evident in classroom teaching and learning, as well as organizational, leadership and management aspects of schools. They show how such differences can make over-reliance on Anglo-American approaches misleading, ineffective and restrictive. Key features of the book include: - a methodology to support the emerging field of international and comparative educational leadership and management - in-depth comparative analysis of Anglo-American and Asian schooling and educational management - the leadership of multi-cultural schools This book is essential reading for professionals and students of educational leadership and management, as well as administrators.

This text calls for a broader approach to comparative educational administration: one which uses culture as the principle means of analysis. The articles collected by Allan Walker and Clive Dimmock detail the educational practices and outcomes of other systems while taking into account the mediating influence of culture. In this way, these essays stress the specific aspects of the cultures studied, and map out common ground for the study of administrators' values, beliefs, and actions.

This text calls for a broader approach to comparative educational administration: one which uses culture as the principle means of analysis. The articles collected by Allan Walker and Clive Dimmock detail the educational practices and outcomes of other systems while taking into account the mediating influence of culture. In this way, these essays stress the specific aspects of the cultures studied, and map out common ground for the study of administrators' values, beliefs, and actions.

Schools are expected and challenged to achieve student outcomes commensurate with the abilities of all students, but few are capable of this. This book demonstrates that present school structures and processes need to be redesigned, and suggests ways of reforming schools to enhance student outcomes. The author suggests that a holistic approach that integrates all facets of school life - learning, teaching, curriculum, school structures, resources, leadership and management - is needed. A practical and coherent model is used, underpinned by research evidence of what works and how practitioners can apply best practice to improvements for student outcomes.

Schools are expected and challenged to achieve student outcomes commensurate with the abilities of all students, but few are capable of this. This book demonstrates that present school structures and processes need to be redesigned, and suggests ways of reforming schools to enhance student outcomes. The author suggests that a holistic approach that integrates all facets of school life - learning, teaching, curriculum, school structures, resources, leadership and management - is needed. A practical and coherent model is used, underpinned by research evidence of what works and how practitioners can apply best practice to improvements for student outcomes.

This is an examination of restructuring in the context of the curriculum and teaching and learning. International case studies are provided from the USA, Hong Kong, Australia and the UK.