The Vanderbilt Assessment of Learning-centered Principal Leadership and Its Application in China.

The belief that there are common elements in contemporary international educational policy has brought growing interest in sharing leadership theories and successful models cross-culturally. The challenge is to understand the complexity of cross-cultural translation of theories and applications, and to map out possible solutions to meaningful adaptation. This paper explores a U. S. framework for school leadership and investigates its cross-cultural generalizability both theoretically and empirically. Employing both qualitative and quantitative methods, findings from the studies give support to the claim that there is strong cross-cultural alignment on the overarching goal of improving student learning. However, the U. S. framework and assessment will need to be modified to reflect the Chinese reform priorities that emphasize the balance between academic and social learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]