The Work and Development of Teacher Leaders, Principals and System-level Leaders for Organizational Diagnosis and Development

The last several decades have seen a dramatic interest in efforts to improve PK-12 schools and student learning both in more general terms and for equity-oriented aims. In addition to instruction, we know that an assortment of organizational conditions and capacities are vital to schools and the improvement of the schooling experience and outcomes for all students. For example, we understand the importance of organizational resources like a school’s culture, the learning environment for teachers, and the nature of trusting relationships between various individuals within a school (e.g., leader trustworthiness, collegial trust).  At the same time, studies have also deepened our understanding of leadership work of consequence to schooling and student learning. Teacher leaders, principals, and system-level leaders, for example, provide a range of vital supports to instruction and teacher learning from establishing psychologically safe environments for innovation to engaging in instructionally-focused interactions with teachers to developing structures and processes that support collaborative approaches to leadership to name a few. However, less attention has been given to understanding how various leaders build critical organizational conditions and capacities, how existing organizational conditions and challenges shape these efforts, or how such leadership practices are cultivated and sustained.

A set of fundamental questions related to this issue warrants deeper investigation. For example, how do school and system-level leaders reengineer organizational systems and cultures to provide stronger support for teacher learning? What organizational conditions and challenges shape this work by leaders, and how do they diagnose or come to understand these conditions and challenges? What does the sharing of leadership between principals and teacher leaders entail in schools with high levels of adult learning? How has such leadership sharing been cultivated over time, and how have various organizational conditions shaped leadership sharing? What is the role of system-level leaders in encouraging and supporting shared leadership among principals and teachers? What approaches are used by principals to develop teacher leaders who make important contributions to the school’s equity-oriented improvement efforts? What do context-responsive system-level leadership approaches entail as districts act to support equity-oriented organizational development within a set of diverse schools?

The aim of this research topic is to explore these sorts of questions to generate new knowledge that will inform the development and practice of school and system-level educational leaders with these sorts of aims in mind. We invite contributions that build on existing knowledge, empirical, and theoretical contributions as well as articles that use a range of conceptual tools and research methods.

Below, we identify several broad themes that relate to these questions and interests as we invite scholars to contribute to this research topic:

· The work of system-leaders, principals, and teacher leaders in organizational diagnosis and development—generally and for equity-oriented aims
· Organizational conditions, capacities, and challenges that shape leaders’ organizational capacity-building work
· Leader learning designs that cultivate organizational diagnosis and development practices of principals, teacher leaders, or system-level leaders

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Conceptual Analysis
• Curriculum, Instruction, and Pedagogy
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Original Research
• Perspective
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Conceptual Analysis
• Curriculum, Instruction, and Pedagogy
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Policy and Practice Reviews
• Policy Brief
• Review
• Systematic Review

Keywords: principals, school leaders, teacher leaders, school leadership teams, superintendents, principal supervisors, system-level leaders, instructional improvement, school improvement, educational leader, leadership development

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.