Leadership development within the culture of a school board

grantor: University of TorontoThe purpose of this study is to contribute to knowledge about leadership development programs by examining how a particular program affected the learning of school administrators as they prepared to implement school councils. Chapter One makes a case for effective leadership development programs that situate learning within the complexity of the system's culture. School councils generate tensions around required new relationships among educational players and position leaders into a more publicly political forum. As budget constraints reduce resources, accountability requires the evaluation of leadership programs to assess and improve their effectiveness in contributing to individual learning, collective benefits to the system and student learning. Chapter Two is a literature review which informs the conceptual framework of the study. The framework acknowledges the holistic interrelationships of leadership development with concepts such as culture, transformational leadership, and the collective effects of shared learning. Chapter Three explains the case study design of the research to capture the diversity of perspectives within the complex dynamics of administrator interactions. The research incorporated two populations. Nineteen volunteers contributed to interviews which were tape recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using a recursive, inductive process. Twenty eight participants contributed questionnaire data to compliment the interview data and provide triangulation. Chapter Four provides the context and background of the leadership program based on data from board documents and artifacts. Chapter Five presents a summary of the Interview data analysis and Chapter Six presents the results of the questionnaire data. Chapter Seven addresses each of the research questions, suggests guidelines for planning leadership development programs and draws conclusion. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)Ed.D