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Purpose: The purpose of this article is to outline how far the empirical evidence supports the centrality of leadership in the process of improving underperforming schools. Design/methodology/approach: This article draws on evidence from a contemporary, selected, review of the literature. Findings: The findings show that leadership is the critical factor in the improvement of underperforming schools. Seven new themes, derived from the selected evidence, are presented that illuminate how leaders secure improvement in the most challenging of school contexts. Research limitations/implications: This review is not a systematic review of the evidence and does not claim to be. It provides a commentary based on selected contemporary evidence and therefore is not comprehensive account of all the relevant evidence pertaining to leading the improvement of underperforming schools. The evidence is derived from sources written in English; therefore, it is fully acknowledged that other sources, in other languages might exist but are not included or reflected. Practical implications: The practical implications are clearly laid out in the form of seven key themes about leading the improvement of underperforming schools that are of direct practical use. Originality/value: With so many schools in high poverty areas finding themselves in difficulty, this contemporary review provides new insights about the leadership approaches and practices that continue to make a considerable difference to underperforming schools.

Distributed leadership is one of the most influential and well-discussed ideas to emerge in the field of educational leadership. Prompted by the foundational and seminal work of Spillane et al. (2001) the idea of shared or 'stretched' leadership that incorporates both formal and informal leaders, has been of interest to researchers, policy-makers practitioners and educational reformers around the globe. Distributed leadership has captured the attention of many international researchers and as this article will show, has been the focus of a great deal of empirical enquiry. This article looks at the two decades of research that followed the pivotal Spillane et al. (2001) article on distributed leadership. Firstly, it takes a retrospective view by drawing upon selected literature from 2001 to 2011 mapping out the main findings based on this empirical terrain. Secondly, it offers a contemporary view by exploring recently selected literature on distributed leadership from 2011 to 2021. The article does not claim to be a systematic review of the literature but rather, offers some insights into selected evidence over two decades. The article considers how far distributed leadership remains a relevant concept for those working within the field of educational leadership.

Over the last four years, initial teacher education in Wales has been fundamentally reformed. The stimulus for those reforms were concerns about the quality of current provision, but more importantly a recognition by the Welsh Government that if their wider reforms of curriculum and assessment were to succeed, then teachers themselves had a key role to play. Teachers would no longer be simply required to 'deliver' a curriculum defined by others; they themselves would need to become active agents in realising that curriculum in ways that were appropriate for the children and young people they taught. What is being required is a new vision of teacher professionalism in Wales. But what are the implications of these changes for initial teacher education? The Welsh Government has taken the view that they demand a fundamentally different conception of how initial teacher education is organised, with both universities and schools working closely together to support student teacher learning. This paper sets out the background to these recent reforms, and then examines the way in which three key dimensions of the new model are being implemented in practice. They are: co-construction and governance; integrating university and school perspectives; and re-visioning mentoring.

This article outlines the findings from a contemporary review of the evidence base on system leaders and system leadership. This article provides analysis, commentary, and insights about system leaders and system leadership based on a review of the current evidence. The review also includes insights from country experts and offers country-specific examples of system leaders and leadership in action. This is not a systematic review of the literature but rather an overview of findings from a contemporary exploration of the evidence base, over a specified period (2010-2020). The review encompasses peer-reviewed articles, books, chapters, and the grey literature. It focuses on the roles, responsibilities, actions, functions, and outcomes of system leaders and highlights the origin of the system leadership concept.

This article draws upon the educational leadership knowledge base to explore central concepts, questions, and issues of relevance to the contemporary policy context in Wales. The article is not a review of the leadership literature, but rather it explores the empirical evidence to address three key questions that are critical to school and system improvement. The aim of this article is to present evidence, implications and challenges concerning leadership preparation, leadership development and leadership learning.

This article outlines the findings from a contemporary study of teacher-parent collaboration in inclusive education in primary and secondary schools in Malaysia. Recent inclusive education policy developments within Malaysia have increased teachers' accountability to effectively meet the needs of all students. This article draws upon recent empirical evidence on the impact of teacher-parent collaboration on inclusive education practices. It highlights some of the characteristics of an effective collaborative model and explores how far it contributes to a more inclusive classroom environment. The article also provides a contemporary insight into how teachers and parents view their collaborative roles in securing better student outcomes for students with special needs.

In 2008, the authors published an article in this journal entitled "Seven Strong Claims about Successful School Leadership" (Leithwood, Harris, and Hopkins 2008). The article was based on a major literature review that was summarised in a paper published by the National College for School Leadership in England. Both the National College paper and their subsequent article proved to be far more popular than they anticipated and both have been extensively cited over the past 10 years. This article revisits each of the seven claims, summarising what was said about each in the original publications, weighing each of the claims considering recent empirical evidence, and proposing revisions or refinements as warranted.

Leadership is an essential contributor to effective professional networking within education. In the pursuit of school and system improvement, leaders at all levels are being challenged to collaborate and network in order to secure the best positive outcomes for students. Professional learning networks are one of the main developments in many education systems in recent years. The article takes a distributed perspective on leading professional learning networks. Firstly, the article explores the contribution that leadership makes to effective networking and productive collaboration; secondly, it considers the challenges of leading collective action; and thirdly, it proposes that distributed leadership could offer an important theoretical framing to understand, in greater depth, the nature and impact of professional collaboration, particularly but not exclusively, in the form of networks. Consequently, the article argues that distributed leadership offers a useful framework for future empirical enquiry and analysis into the effective leadership of professional learning networks. Finally, it proposes that the knowledge base on networks and networking should move away from largely normative descriptions, self-report and over assertion to far more sophisticated data collection and analytical processes that would generate more rigorous and reliable evidence on the intentions, processes and outcomes of professional learning networks.

This article provides a review of the contemporary instructional leadership research base in Malaysia. The core aim of this review is to assess the recent knowledge base on instructional leadership in Malaysia and to evaluate its current contribution to the existing international literature. The article explores a range of published material that has focused explicitly on instructional leadership and instructional leadership practices in Malaysia, including that written in Bahasa Malaysia. The article outlines the findings from the review and highlights certain strengths and limitations. The article concludes by identifying areas for further enquiry and investigation.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to outline key findings from a contemporary review of the international empirical literature focused upon teacher leadership. It synthesises what is currently known about the nature, practice, conditions and impact of teacher leadership and to outline patterns in the contemporary empirical research base. Design/methodology/approach: This review is based on an analysis of 150 empirical articles published in Scopus/SSCI-indexed journals between January 2003 and December 2017. Findings: The paper draws upon this contemporary knowledge base to explore: contextual and methodological patterns of teacher leadership research; definitions of teacher leadership; and evidence on the enactment of teacher leadership, factors influencing teacher leadership and impacts of teacher leadership. Originality/value: This paper highlights the progress and issues of the empirical research on teacher leadership since 2003 and identifies gaps in the knowledge base as well as areas for future scholarly enquiry.

The purpose of this article is to explore the development of the knowledge base on middle leadership in schools. Since the seminal reviews conducted by Bennett a contemporary scan only of the scholarly literature on middle leaders/leadership in schools has not been undertaken. Consequently, this article looks at outputs relating to this topic by examining research papers indexed in the Web of Science and in SCOPUS between 2003 and 2017. The prime purpose of this review is to offer some reflections on the development of the empirical base on middle leadership in schools since 2003 and to highlight some of the implications for future research. The article concludes that middle leadership in schools remains an ongoing focus of research inquiry in a growing number of countries but suggests that the knowledge base would benefit from more sophisticated empirical studies and greater theoretical analysis.

This article explores the significance of context within the process of contemporary education reform and policy-making. It draws upon evidence from a comparative study of educational change and transformation in seven education systems: Australia, England, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Russia, and Singapore. The article focuses on school leadership preparation, training, and development, which has become a policy priority and central improvement strategy in many education systems. The article explores how seven education systems are using this strategy to promote school and system improvement. The article reflects upon the centrality of context in the process of policy implementation and in the broader pursuit of system transformation. The article concludes that more contextually appropriate approaches to educational policy selection are needed and that borrowing approaches from other countries many bring unintended consequences and unfortunate side effects. Further, the article concludes that the process of policy implementation, in context, requires far more attention, if the intended outcomes are to be achieved.

Principal preparation and training is generally viewed as an important contributor to school and system improvement. While the international evidence based on leadership and leadership development is extensive, contemporary accounts of principal preparation in a number of Asian countries are not widespread. This article outlines the findings from a small-scale, exploratory investigation of principal preparation and training in one province in China. Open-ended questionnaire and interview data were collected from a sample of secondary school principals in Henan Province in China, as part of a larger comparative study. The findings show that while principals in this province appreciate their formal training, they also seek out other sources of informal preparation to assist them in their fulfilling their many obligations and responsibilities. The data also highlight that many principals in China are finding the demands of their formal leadership role very challenging, particularly in delivering, contemporary reforms such as the new curriculum. The article concludes by proposing that for principals in China, there are some contradictions and tensions associated with the current demands of this leadership role.

Purpose: Over the past several decades, instructional leadership has gradually gained increasing currency as a key role of school principals throughout much of the world. This is also the case in Malaysia where educational research, policy and practice have brought the instructional leadership role of the principal front and center. The purpose of this paper is to assess the conceptual models, research methods, and foci of scholars in the study of principal instructional leadership in Malaysia over the past 30 years. Design/methodology/approach: Systematic methods were used to identify all studies conducted in Malaysia that had used the Principal Instructional Management Rating Scale (PIMRS) (Hallinger, 1982/1990/2015) as the data collection instrument. This search yielded a database of 120 studies completed between 1989 and 2016 written in both English and Bahasa Malay. Common data were extracted from the 120 research reports, coded and entered into a MS Excel spreadsheet for analysis. Quantitative methods were employed to analyze modal trends and synthesize patterns in the data across the studies. Findings: The search identified 120 PIMRS studies, 90 percent of which had been conducted since 2005. This represented a surprisingly large corpus of studies. Over 75 percent of the Malaysian studies of principal instructional leadership had been conducted as graduate (master and doctoral) theses, relatively few of which had achieved publication in journals. The authors' analysis found that most studies had used lower order (i.e. bivariate, direct effects) conceptual models and relied heavily on descriptive and simple correlational statistical tests. The lack of consistent results within the database of studies was attributed largely to limitations in research design and quality. Research limitations/implications: The 120 PIMRS studies conducted in Malaysia comprise a surprisingly large corpus of research on principal instructional leadership. Indeed, the Malaysian corpus is second only to the USA in terms of the number of PIMRS studies of principal instructional leadership. Nonetheless, limitations in the research models and methods employed in these studies suggest a need for stronger methodological training before Malaysian scholars can achieve the goal of contributing useful knowledge to the local and global knowledge base. Specific recommendations are offered for strengthening the quality of research. Social implications: The recent expansion of higher education in Malaysia--like other developing societies--has yielded progress in the scope of research production. However, numerous challenges remain in transforming the potential for useful knowledge production from graduate research into reality. Originality/value: This is the first review of research on principal leadership conducted in Malaysia. The review follows efforts by scholars to systematically identify the boundaries of knowledge in educational leadership and management within East Asian societies (e.g. China, Singapore, Vietnam, Taiwan and Hong Kong). Moreover, this is the first review of research that examines the use of the PIMRS in a single society.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to outline the findings from a small-scale, exploratory, study of principals' instructional leadership practice in Malaysian primary schools. The dimensions and functions of instructional leadership, explicitly explored in this study, are those outlined in the Hallinger and Murphy's (1985) model. Design/methodology/approach: This study is part of a larger international, comparative research project that aims to identify the boundaries of the current knowledge base on instructional leadership practice and to develop a preliminary empirically based understanding of how principals conceive and enact their role as instructional leaders in Hong Kong, China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand. Using a qualitative research design, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 30 primary school principals in Malaysia. The sample comprised principals from 14 Government National schools (SK), nine principals from Chinese schools (SJKC) and seven principals from Tamil schools (SJKT). The qualitative data were initially analysed inductively, and subsequently coded using ATLAS.ti to generate the findings and conclusions. Findings: The findings showed that the Malaysian principals, who were interviewed, understood and could describe their responsibilities relating to improving instructional practice. In particular, they talked about the supervision of teachers and outlined various ways in which they actively monitored the quality of teaching and learning in their schools. These data revealed that some of the duties and activities associated with being a principal in Malaysia are particularly congruent with instructional leadership practices. In particular, the supervision of teaching and learning along with leading professional learning were strongly represented in the data. Research limitations/implications: This is a small-scale, exploratory study involving 30 principals. Practical implications: There is a clear policy aspiration, outlined in the Malaysian Education Blueprint, that principals should be instructional leaders. The evidence shows that principals are enacting some of the functions associated with being an instructional leader but not others. Originality/value: The findings from this study provide some new insights into the principals' instructional leadership practices in Malaysia. They also provide a basis for further, in-depth exploration that can enhance the knowledge base about principals' instructional leadership practices in Malaysia.

The challenges of securing educational change and transformation, at scale, remain considerable. While sustained progress has been made in some education systems (Fullan, 2009; Hargreaves & Shirley, 2009) generally, it remains the case that the pathway to large-scale, system improvement is far from easy or straightforward. While large-scale comparative assessments, such as PISA, increasingly define the contours of contemporary policy-making, the international pursuit of better educational outcomes and higher student achievement persist. Despite various critiques of PISA (Alexander, 2012; Lingard, Martino, & Rezai-Rashti, 2013) and questions about the legitimacy of cross-border generalizations from its data (Luke, 2011) for the foreseeable future, at least, this pervasive international assessment and the global education reform movement that has erupted from it, is likely to remain a potent policy force. It has been suggested that the main reason why meaningful, educational change at scale, remains, for many systems, an ongoing aspiration is because the "wrong policy drivers" have been chosen (Fullan, 2011). In other words, the wrong strategies and solutions have been selected and applied. This may indeed be the case, as around the world there continues to be evidence of considerable intervention in education systems but relatively little to show for it (Payne, 2008). An alternative explanation for the failure of much large scale reform points towards a preoccupation with human capital solutions, partly fuelled by evidence from large-scale assessments and the rhetoric of "what works" (Whitty, 2016), that obscure certain inconvenient truths. This article considers four of these inconvenient truths that directly affect, and in many cases prevent, attempts to secure education reform and change at scale.