The paper "Thinking of Knowing, and Doing Social Justice Leadership: Principals' perspectives" explores the understanding and practice of principals regarding social justice leadership. The study adopts phenomenography as its methodology and presents findings gleaned from the semi-structured interviews of 11 principals in Trinidad and Tobago. Findings indicate that principals were generally unaware of a social justice leadership orientation, but values of fairness and equity, for instance, were common in their understandings. Social justice leadership roles were conceptualized as multifaceted, difficult and requiring strategy and caution, but emphasized a need for self-investment and collaboration. It was found that principals' unclear conceptualizations translated into guesswork when practicing social justice leadership from which emerged unique ways of 'doing' social justice. Findings point to the need to place social justice atop Trinidad and Tobago's school improvement agenda.

How research is interpreted and imparted remains an ongoing challenge for researchers. We use the theory of practice architecture therefore to treat issues of research design, interpretation and writing of the findings. In so doing, we take the position that to understand how principals learn to lead, researchers must take into consideration the importance of context -– that is, the historical, cultural, material and relational aspects of that space and how these facets frame the processes by which primary school principals in Trinidad and Tobago learn to lead. This theoretically infused approach to understanding leadership practices not only highlights the tensions, traditions and power structures therein but also the ways in which these inherent complexities and contradictions can now be communicated through research. In representing practice landscape as a challenge of context, we therefore privilege and situate the stories of how principals negotiate the relative importance of age, experience, gender, authority and cultural legitimacy as critical aspects of their socialisation and learning experience. Implications for how researchers can re-position and re-interrogate notions of insider and outsider research are also discussed.

This case highlights a school principal’s leading practice as she worked to transform the social and educational status of students, teachers, and community in a small urban primary school. We employ shadowing, a technique popularized in work-based education and photography, as reflective and research tools. Teaching notes provide insight into the implications of shadowing for leadership development and leading learning particularly in the absence of systematic and strategic professional learning for school leaders in Trinidad and Tobago. The literature used here considers understandings of the relationship between the practice architectures of school leading, the reflective practitioner, and school transformation.

This case highlights a school principal’s leading practice as she worked to transform the social and educational status of students, teachers, and community in a small urban primary school. We employ shadowing, a technique popularized in work-based education and photography, as reflective and research tools. Teaching notes provide insight into the implications of shadowing for leadership development and leading learning particularly in the absence of systematic and strategic professional learning for school leaders in Trinidad and Tobago. The literature used here considers understandings of the relationship between the practice architectures of school leading, the reflective practitioner, and school transformation.

This paper utilises an interpretivist framework and recent developments in practice theory to examine the conditions which influence practices of socialising into the role of school principal in Trinidad and Tobago. The results indicate that for the 11 early career primary school principals, role socialisation occurs within complex practice landscapes, where the practices of preparing classroom teachers for the principalship materialise within a context of contest. There is conflict between historical antecedents and the expectations and practices of socialising institutions such as the church, the school, the community and the Ministry of Education. This small-scale study has implications for leadership preparation practices and highlights principal socialisation as a challenge of context and history.

In recent years, researchers have turned their attention to the relationship between teacher social interactions and the successful implementaion of reforms. The limited research to date has tended to support this relationship, with some research finding significant correlations between teacher collaboration and student achievement. In this study, we use quantitative methods to determine the relationship between within-school networks formed around the interpertation and use of the data on the National Tests Report and student achievement, as measured by the proportion of students meeting or exceeding the proficiency standard on the National Tests. The sampple comprised 56 teachers from seven schools within an urban school district. Teachers responded to a social network survey and two dimensions on the OCI. Interviews of 15 principals and five focus groups of 31 teachres provided the qualitative data. Findings suggested that a relationship between shcools with high collegial trust exhibited deeper collaborative structures and a higher proportion of students performing at standard on the National Tests. These findings have implications for principals and techers who will need to find ways to maximize the use of within-school skill sets and expertise, especially in a resource-strapped system.

The authors explored teachers' and principals' perceptions of the feedback report from the National Tests in Trinidad and Tobago and the extent to which they used the report in making curricular decisions to impact student learning. The sample comprised 133 primary school teachers (79 from low-performing and 54 from high-performing schools) and 10 principals. Results of the quantitative and qualitative data indicated that while many teachers were uncomfortable with interpreting the data presented in the report, teachers in higher performing schools were more inclined through department-wide collaboration to use the report to make pedagogical and curricular decisions. The major conclusion drawn was the need for teacher training in the use and interpretation of assessment data. Other issues emerging from the data and a possible subject for further research included the branding of schools as good schools and bad schools based on the school performance on the tests.

This study employed regression analysis to investigate the relationship between primary school teachers' pedagogical practices and their knowledge of mathematics. The sample composed of 606 Grade 6 mathematics teachers in Namibia, i.e. 304 (50.2%) males and 302 (49.8%) females. The study utilized existing questionnaire data collected by the Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality (SACMEQ). The data were collected as part of a policy evaluation project covering 14 Southern African countries. Results from the study showed that teachers with high knowledge in mathematics at primary school level tend to use practical equipment in teaching mathematics, and employ individual problem solving by students in their teaching. On the other hand, teachers with low content knowledge of mathematics tend to use small groups problem-solving, quizzes and tests as part of their teaching strategies.