Working Between The Folds: School Leaders Reimagining School Life

The book explores the complexities of school leadership, focusing on the lived experiences of school leaders in addressing challenges and bringing about substantive change to school life. It highlights the diverse contexts and perspectives of schooling and offers imaginative possibilities for working with school challenges.

Format: Hardback
Length: 235 pages
Publication date: 01 December 2021
Publisher: Nova Science Publishers Inc

The publication emerges from a comprehensive research project focused on school education within South Africa, adopting a school leadership perspective to explore imaginative possibilities leading to transformative school change. It delves into the intricate complexities associated with leading schools as they assume distinct identities shaped by specific categorizations. The book's central focus lies in the lived experiences of school leaders as they navigate and overcome challenges, ultimately resulting in significant improvements to school life.

The book's chapters collectively build upon valuable understandings of teaching, learning, governance, school finance, and school-community partnerships, considering broader social, political, and cultural concerns across diverse contexts. By drawing on everyday real-life experiences, primarily through a range of narrative and arts-based practices and sources, the book communicates fresh voices, insightful perspectives, and imaginative possibilities for addressing school challenges in contextually relevant and responsive ways.

The book prominently features school leaders, ranging from school principals to teacher leaders, showcasing their innovative solutions to reimagine school life within their respective schools. Employing a multi-perspectival theoretical lens, the authors present portrayals of various dimensions of lived experiences of school life, offering critical descriptive accounts of contextual realities of schooling juxtaposed against their categorizations, such as infrastructure (quintile rankings), financial aspects (fee-paying), geography (rural, urban, townships), poverty levels (feeding schemes), and performance metrics.

Through this comprehensive exploration, the publication aims to empower school leaders with the tools and insights necessary to foster meaningful change and enhance the educational outcomes of their schools. It serves as a valuable resource for educators, policymakers, and anyone interested in understanding the complexities of school leadership and the potential for positive transformation within educational contexts.

ISBN-13: 9781685071509