Editorial

Citation

Ross Thomas, A. (2008), "Editorial", Journal of Educational Administration, Vol. 46 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/jea.2008.07446daa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Journal of Educational Administration, Volume 46, Issue 4

JEA’s facts and figures

Readers are reminded of the journal’s policy regarding the refereeing of submitted manuscripts. A manuscript is initially reviewed by the Editor for general suitability for this publication. If judged suitable, the manuscript is sent to three readers, each from a different country, for blind review. Based on the recommendations of the reviewers, the Editor then decides whether the manuscript should be accepted as it is, revised or rejected. (On occasions a rejected manuscript may be returned to its authors with an invitation for revision and resubmission.)

The following percentages reflect the acceptance rates for submissions throughout 2007 (Vol. 45):

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  accepted (6);

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  accepted subject to satisfactory revision (15); and

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  rejected (79)

Volume 45 of the journal included four general and two thematic or special issues in which appeared 40 articles. Contributing authors were located in eight countries.

Outstanding Paper Award

I am pleased to announce the details of this important award named in honour of the journal’s founder. The award was determined via ballot by members of the journal’s Editorial Advisory Board. Congratulations are extended to the authors.

W.G. Walker Outstanding Paper Award

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  Branson, C.M. (2007), “Improving leadership by nurturing moral consciousness through structured self-reflection”, Journal of Educational Administration, Vol. 45 No. 4, pp. 471-495.

Highly commended

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  Klein, J. and Weiss, I. (2007), “Towards an integration of intuitive and systematic decision making in education”, Journal of Educational Administration, Vol. 45 No. 3, pp. 265-267.

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  James, C.R., Dunning, G., Connolly, M. and Elliott, T. (2007), “Collaborative practice: a model of successful working in schools”, Journal of Educational Administration, Vol. 45 No. 5, pp. 541-555.

American Educational Research Association

As I file this issue of the journal I am also preparing to participate in the forthcoming annual meeting of AERA in New York late in March. In addition to allowing several members of the Editorial Advisory Board and me the opportunity to participate in some of the many sessions on educational leadership (eight members are making presentations), the conference also provides the opportunity for a meeting of the Editorial Advisory Board. This will be held on March 25 and relevant outcomes from such will be reported in the following issue of the journal (Vol. 46 No. 5, 2008). I shall also make a presentation on behalf of the journal during one of the “Journal Talks” sessions.

This issue

Contributors to this issue clearly reinforce the internationality of the journal – they come from the USA, Australia, Indonesia, Turkey and the Canary Islands, Spain.

In the first of these, Collinson sets out to provide a theoretically-based set of skills and practices that will develop members and leaders in school systems as well as increasing organizational capacity. The author draws on classical and contemporary scholarship on organizational learning theory in order to elaborate intellectual, ethical, social, and political environments of school systems and thus to deduce the skills required in systems that are engaged in organizational learning. The author provides figures detailing components of organizational capacity as well as the skills involved in achieving such.

In 2005 the journal published a thematic issue on The International Successful School Principalship Project (Vol. 43 No. 6), edited by Stephen L. Jacobson, Christopher W. Day and Kenneth Leithwood. In that issue, reports from authors in seven of the participating countries were published. In the current issue of the journal, two further reports, stemming from the ISSPP, are included.

In the first of these Mulford, Kendall, Ewington, Kendall and Silins report on findings generated by their survey of 195 schools in the Australian State of Tasmania. The study was guided by literature showing that worldwide poverty is a major concern and that there is a nexus between poverty and education. Although there may be questions raised as to the effectiveness of schools as institutions serving high-poverty communities (as well as labelling a school as high-poverty), evidence emerges to show that there are high-performing schools in such communities. Common to these schools is successful, high-performing leadership. (Further contributions by these authors addressing successful principalship in small schools and successful late-career principals have been accepted for publication in future issues of the journal.)

The ISSPP is the background to the following article contributed by Raihani. Three Indonesian schools, each meeting the criteria for “successful” as determined by the International Successful School Principalship Project, were closely investigated. There were differences among the schools’ principals especially regarding Islamic and cultural beliefs and values; but there were also features common to each such as developing a vision for their schools, setting strategies, and establishing a broader network for the purposes of school improvement.

Turkey provides the context for the next contribution wherein Aydin and Karaman-Kepenekci report the opinions of public elementary principals on organisational justice practices among teachers. The principals are seen to distribute justice within their schools on many matters but, of concern, are the differences in teachers’ perceptions of some of these. When a principal is seen to be unfair in justice distribution, teachers resort to one or more of several behavioural practices including slowing their work.

In the final article de Lara uses a Spanish public university as the context for an investigation of the relationship between “interactional” justice (teachers’ perceptions of the fairness of supervisors’ treatment) and non-task and deviant workplace behaviours. Analysis of extensive data (from 270 teachers and 22,599 students) reveals inter alia that justice is an antecedent of group commitment that fully mediates the relationship between justice and non-task behaviour. Collectively, the findings provide a more understandable mechanism of the influence of supervisors’ justice on non-task behaviour and, in turn, on teaching satisfaction.

A. Ross Thomas