James P. Spillane

Northwestern University | NU · Ph.D. Programm in Human Development and Social Policy

Reforming instruction is challenging. In this comparative case study of 12 school districts, we investigated the dilemmas that emerged for system leaders as they engaged in system building for elementary science and the approaches leaders took in managing them. We found that system leaders’ efforts to manage their environments contributed to the pr...

Purpose: Most empirical work using a distributed perspective to frame research on leadership practice uses the school as the unit of analysis, focusing on how leadership is stretched over people and aspects of the situation within schools. This study investigates leadership practice for elementary science, using a multilevel distributed framework,...

Calls for evidence-based practice are pervasive. In response, extensive scholarship has employed four categories of research use—instrumental, symbolic, conceptual, and imposed—to examine how research is used in schools and districts. We draw on sociocultural learning theory and empirical data from one school district to newly theorize latent use a...

This comparative case study explores how 18 state education agencies (SEAs) support school districts in advancing standards-based elementary science reform. We identify how SEAs understand their work in advancing elementary science reform and describe how SEAs sought to engage districts in bridging from standards to classroom practice. Based on our...

We offer a conceptual framework for research use in schools that utilizes an organizational perspective. By organizational, we mean that we consider the complex contexts within which teachers and school leaders work, and how these contexts facilitate and hinder opportunities to use research in decision making. We highlight three school-level factor...

Building on and extending work in the distributed leadership tradition, we sketch and argue for a multilevel distributed perspective on educational leadership. A multilevel distributed framework depicts educational leadership systemically by focusing on how actors and artifacts at multiple levels of an education system interact to constitute the pr...

This article examines how leaders in public, private, and hybrid educational systems manage competing pressures in their institutional environments. Across all systems, leaders responded to system-specific puzzles by (re)building systemwide educational infrastructures to support instructional coherence and framed these efforts as rooted in concerns...

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), a reform effort “for states, by states,” advances ambitious ideals for elementary science teaching, but the fate of these ideals will depend in part on the engagement of state science coordinators (SSCs). This article explores the responses of SSCs to NGSS in a purposeful sample of 18 US states. Based o...

This article aims to validate the Leadership Daily Practice (LDP) log, an instrument for conducting research on leadership in schools. Using a combination of data sources—namely, a daily practice log, observations, and open-ended cognitive interviews—the authors evaluate the validity of the LDP log. Formal and informal leaders were asked to complet...

Focusing on primary school principals’ espoused strategies for developing social capital over their early years in the principal’s office, we show that investing in social capital was a core challenge during their formative years. Based on our analysis of data from a longitudinal study of 35 new principals, we argue that school principals made sens...

This article explores principal sensemaking about their work in the U.S. education sector, as technical rationalization ideas about schooling increasingly inform and guide educational policy and school reform initiatives. Using a sensemaking framework, we explore the process of on the job professional socialization for two cohorts of new principals...

Over the last two decades, leadership for learning (LFL) has emerged as a concept that integrates various educational leadership theories and concepts into a more comprehensive theoretical model, i.e. instructional leadership, transformational leadership and shared leadership (Daniëls, Hondeghem, & Dochy, 2019; Hallinger, 2011; Townsend & MacBeath,...

Public school districts have been operating under a decade’s long press to move beyond functioning as engines of access-oriented mass public schooling to functioning as instructionally focused education systems pursuing educational excellence and equity. This press has researchers developing analytic frameworks useful for examining different ways t...

Over the last two decades, leadership for learning (LFL) has emerged as a concept that integrates various educational leadership theories and concepts into a more comprehensive theoretical model, i.e. instructional leadership, transformational leadership and shared leadership (Daniëls, Hondeghem, & Dochy, 2019; Hallinger, 2011; Townsend & MacBeath,...

The institutional environment of U.S. school systems has changed considerably over a quarter century as standards and test-based accountability became central ideas in policy texts and discourses about improving education. We explore how U.S. school systems are managing in this changed environment by focusing on system leaders’ sense-making about t...

Institutional theory, an important research tradition in analysis of schooling, has examined the development of mass schooling in the United States and worldwide. But research in this tradition has given little attention to the internal working of mass school systems, to problems of inequality and the quality of instruction, or to relating those pr...

Recognizing that there are many different sorts of school systems in the United States and noting the absence of comparative research on these systems, we sampled six such systems—two public, one not, and three at various places on the border between public and private—for a comparative study of educational system in the United States. In this intr...

Using a micro-sociological approach, this chapter examines how school leaders and teachers negotiate the meanings of emerging high-stakes accountability policy in formal school meetings. In doing so, the chapter examines how policy advanced at the macro level gets worked out at the micro level in school administrative practice. Exploring policy in...

School leadership is broadly acknowledged to be the lynchpin for school success. Yet, amongst the countless demands that school leaders face, making wise leadership choices is increasingly challenging. On what should leaders focus their attention and how should they prioritize their improvement efforts? How can they identify, understand, and make h...

Background Research over the past two decades documents how social capital, or the resources attained through social relationships, is associated with a range of outcomes at both the individual and organizational levels. Yet few, if any, studies explore the relationship between social capital and teaching self-efficacy. Given that teaching self-eff...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine relationships among governmental organizations, non-governmental organizations and the organization and management of instruction in US public education, with the aim of raising issues for cross-national research among countries in which the involvement of non-governmental organizations is increasing...

In the early 1990s, the logic and policies of systemic reform launched a press to coordinate the pursuit of excellence and equity in U.S. public education, with each other and with classroom instruction. There was little in that policy moment to predict that these reforms would sustain, and much to predict otherwise. Yet, nearly three decades hence...

Purpose: A school principal’s ability to engage with external stakeholders is critical for achieving a range of school objectives such as involving parents, implementing policy mandates, and accessing resources from the school district. This study examines how novice school principals make sense of different external stakeholders’ demands and their...

Emphasizing that leadership practices are actions that are carried out among different people, in situations - which have norms, organizational routines, and tools that define them - the authors insist on not considering leadership as an individual activity. It is emphasized that it is a work carried out by multiple people, with or without formal p...

Social conditions in schools can influence teacher turnover. In this study, we use longitudinal data from 47 general and special education teachers in the same mid-sized district in the Midwestern United States, and employ survival analysis to identify the social conditions that predict turnover in teachers’ first five years on the job. Findings re...

Teachers’ on-the-job interactions with colleagues impact their effectiveness, yet little research has explored whether and how teacher performance predicts these interactions. Drawing on 5 years of social network data from one school district, we explore the relationship between teacher performance and teachers’ instructional advice and information...

School systems around the world are adopting more intellectually ambitious academic content in the hopes of improving their educational productivity. In the United States, these efforts have required significant changes to teachers’ instructional practices, and increased attention to teachers’ formal and on-the-job professional learning opportuniti...

Background/Context While some commentators view education as a social mobility mechanism, many scholars argue that schools reproduce rather than challenge social inequality. A vast literature on the role of family background and educational stratification identifies various factors that help account for how schools contribute to reproducing social...

While current reform efforts press for ambitious changes to teachers’ instructional practice, teachers’ instructional beliefs are also consequential in such efforts as beliefs shape teachers’ instructional practice and their responses to instructional reforms. This article examines the relationship between teachers’ instructional ties and their bel...

The environment of U.S. schools has changed dramatically over a quarter century as standards tied to test-based accountability and market competition became commonplace. We examine the issues that school systems face in this changing environment, to identify considerations for researchers interested in reform as educational system building. We high...

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine how school principals in urban settings distributed their time working on critical school functions. We also examined who principals worked with and how their time allocation patterns varied by school contextual characteristics. Research Method/Approach: The study was conducted in an urban school di...

In this chapter the author argues that one problem we face in understanding relations between school leadership and student learning is that core constructs in our work are often variably and weakly defined. Loose constructs pose problems because they contribute to fuzzy research, especially if constructs such as school leadership, management, or e...

Purpose: School leaders are central to the development of work-related ties among school staff. Although prior work has examined the predictors of the presence of work-related ties, little is known about the breakup or dissolution of ties among school staff. This study examines the extent of tie dissolution among school staff, as well as both the i...

Although the physical arrangement of workspaces can both constrain and enable interactions among organizational members, sociological research in education has not extensively examined the role of physical proximity in determining work-related social ties among school staff. Using social network analysis, this article explores the relationship betw...

Over the past twenty years distributed leadership has framed theoretical, empirical, and development work in education. In this article, we take stock of some work using a distributed perspective. We first discuss our motivations for developing this perspective and highlight some lessons learned from work in this area. Second, we make suggestions r...

Over the last few decades high-stakes accountability has become commonplace in education policy, both in the U.S. and internationally. In this paper, we consider the role of school leaders and ‘accountability talk’ in implementing this shift through a case study of one urban school principal’s talk during a period of reform. Consistent with broader...

Both the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and recent efforts to hold schools and teachers accountable have been hotly debated among practitioners, policymakers, and the public at large. Much of the debate centers on the merits and demerits of these initiatives and the general approach they represent to reforming teaching and learning. In this art...

Several social processes guide and shape how school actors engage with high stakes state and district policies relative to mandated curriculum and instruction. In this paper, we employ rhetorical argumentation analysis to explore how stakeholders mobilize resources through argumentation and rhetorical appeals (logical, emotional and authoritative)....

This article examines how novice principals think about and understand their new leadership role, exploring the ways in which their understanding enables or constrains taking a distributed perspective to school leadership. The article analyses the work of the school principal through the eyes of the novice principal, identifying aspects of their em...

Scholars have become increasingly interested in what is often referred to as the instructional guidance infrastructure (IGI). Research has identified the characteristics of infrastructures that make them more or less influential in guiding teachers’ instruction, such as alignment, authority, and prescriptiveness. Although these are important, a key...

Although social ties are a necessary condition for social capital, there is a dearth of research on the factors associated with the existence of such ties among school staff. Using a mixed-methods approach, we examined the role of both formal organizational infrastructure and individual characteristics in shaping advice and information interactions...

In this paper I argue that one problem we face in understanding relations between school leadership and student learning is that core constructs in our work are often variably and weakly defined. Loose constructs pose problems because they contribute to fuzzy research, especially if constructs such as school leadership, management, or even instruct...

Over the first decade of the 21st century, a modest but expanding body of work has emerged on what is commonly referred to in the literature as distributed leadership. The idea has also garnered considerable attention from policymakers, practitioners, and philanthropists in several countries and international organizations such as OECD, though ther...

To many learning scientists, the world of policy is a distant concern. Their primary goals are to engineer new forms of learning in a small number of classrooms as a means to develop theories of how children learn. For them, the policies that affect what goes on in these classrooms are at best "mild annoyances" (Donovan, Snow, & Daro, 2013) that in...

While few would disagree that a key component of educating teachers to teach happens on the job, research rarely explores the schoolhouse as a site for teacher education. This study thus focuses on inservice as distinct from preservice teacher education and explores how beginning teachers’ learning about mathematics and literacy instruction was sup...

Background While teaching and school-level administrative work remain stepping stones in most pathways to the principal's office, these formal experiences—alongside informal or formal apprenticeships—do not immunize newcomers to the struggles of occupational socialization. To the contrary, crossing over to the principal's office represents a sizabl...

Designing infrastructures to support instruction remains a challenge in educational reform. This article reports on a study of one school system's efforts to redesign its infrastructure for mathematics instruction by promoting teacher leadership. Using social network and interview data from 12 elementary schools, we explore how the district's infra...

Teaching, the core technology of schooling, is an essential consideration in investigations of education systems and school organizations. Taking teaching seriously as an explana- tory variable in research on education systems and organizations necessitates moving beyond treating it as a unitary practice, so as to take account of the school subject...

Designing infrastructures to support instruction remains a challenge in educational reform. This article reports on a study of one school system's efforts to redesign its infrastructure for mathematics instruction by promoting teacher leadership. Using social network and interview data from 12 elementary schools, we explore how the district's infra...

Purpose: To investigate the problems of practice experienced by novice school principals as they transition into their new occupation, focusing in particular on the first 3 months on the job-a critical transition period according to the literature. Research Methods/Approach: This theory-building, mixed-methods, longitudinal study examines a random...

The introduction of sense-making when implementing education policies: contributions and research opportunities The paper provides a framework of theoretical and empirical references based on information from the field of sense-making and divided into two main trends: sociocognitive and sociological approaches. The authors seek to explore a key dim...

School administration, compliance with governmental standards and obligation of results with high stakes: political and educational change in the United States This article examines how the school staff has received the expected performance standards and accountability for results with high stakes. The methodology is based on interviews, reports of...

Few studies identify those factors that might account for the development of social capital. Understanding those factors associated with the existence of a social tie among actors in schools is important because absent social ties, individuals do not have access to social resources. We investigate social tie formation in schools focusing on advice...

This article examines how formal school leaders are positioned in their school's instructional networks based on an analysis of data from all 30 elementary schools in one mid-sized urban school district. Premised on the assumption that advice and information are key building blocks for knowledge development, we analyzed the instructional advice and...

Purpose – Research, spanning half a century, points to the critical role of school administration and to the successful implementation of US government policies and programs. In part these findings reflect the times and a US educational governance system characterized by local control, a constitutionally‐constrained federal government, resource‐poo...

"Data use" and "data-based decision making" are increasingly popular mantras in public policy discourses and texts. Policy makers place tremendous faith in the power of data to transform practice, but the fate of policy makers' efforts will depend in great measure on the very practice they hope to move. In most conversations about data use, however...

The institutional environment of America’s schools has changed substantially as government regulation has focused increasingly on the core technical work of schools—instruction. The authors explore the school administrative response to this changing environment, describing how government regulation becomes embodied in the formal structure of four s...

Background/Context Though change is constant in organizations, determining how to successfully implement planned change has been a perennial challenge for both organizational scholars and practitioners. While the empirical knowledge base on planned change in schools and other organizations offers numerous insights, the inattention to activity, or t...

During the past decade, the concept of distributed leadership has attracted a great deal of attention; however, the usage of the term varies widely. For some, distributed leadership is a conceptual lens for studying or diagnosing the phenomena of leadership and management, whereas others use it as a prescription - an improvement strategy for school...

A distributed perspective on school leadership and management has garnered considerable attention from policy makers, practitioners, and researchers in many countries over the past decade. However, we should be skeptical of its appeal as a measure of worth. While optimism is high with respect to taking a distributed perspective, we urge caution by...

Purpose: This study examines the feasibility and utility of a daily log for measuring principal leadership practice. Setting and Sample: The study was conducted in an urban district with approximately 50 principals. Approach: The log was assessed against two criteria: (a) Is it feasible to induce strong cooperation and high response rates among pri...

Lauren Resnick, James Spillane, Pam Goldman et Elizabeth Rangel observent l’absence d’effet des sciences de l’éducation sur la pratique des enseignants et l’attribuent aux modes de développement professionnels axés sur le « dire » ainsi qu’à une individualisation excessive des points de vue. Les auteurs relèvent aussi le conservatisme et la résista...

Lauren Resnick, James Spillane, Pam Goldman and Elizabeth Rangel observe the lack of impact of the learning sciences on teachers’ practice, identifying the reliance on "telling" as professional development and overly individualised perspectives as at cause. They also note the in-built conservatism and resistance to innovation of schools and school...

This study examines the work of US school principals from the perspective of their workday using a distributed perspective to frame the investigation. Using data on 38 school principals in one mid‐sized urban school district in the US, it describes school principals’ work practices, examining both the focus of that work and how it is accomplished....

Guided by theories of institutions, organizations, and sense-making, this manuscript examines how public, charter, and Catholic school staff in a large urban area organize for instruction and respond to educational change. To build theory about institutional processes of “organizing” from participants’ perspectives, data included a survey regarding...

In this paper we described how we mixed research approaches in a Randomized Control Trial (RCT) of a school principal professional development program. Using examples from our study we illustrate how combining qualitative and quantitative data can address some key challenges from validating instruments and measures of mediator variables to examinin...

Recent education reform has emphasized the importance of teacher learning in improving classroom instruction and raising student achievement. This article focuses on teachers' learning opportunities, including formal professional development and on-the-job learning that occurs through interactions with colleagues. Using data from 30 elementary scho...

Most work on professional learning opportunities in education focuses on classroom teachers and school principals. In this paper the authors take a broader look at school leaders’ opportunities to learn from a distributed perspective. Using one mid‐sized urban school district as their case, they examine the opportunities to learn (OTL) of school pr...

Social network surveys are an important tool for empirical research in a variety of fields, including the study of social capital and the evaluation of educational and social policy. A growing body of methodological research sheds light on the validity and reliability of social network survey data regarding a single relation, but much less attentio...

Purpose: This article aims to validate the Leadership Daily Practice (LDP) log, an instrument for conducting research on leadership in schools. Research Design: Using a combination of data sources--namely, a daily practice log, observations, and open-ended cognitive interviews--the authors evaluate the validity of the LDP log. Participants: Formal...

Social network analysis is increasingly used in the study of policy implementation and school leadership. A key question that remains is that of instrument validity – that is, the question of whether these social network survey instruments measure what they purport to measure. In this paper, we describe our work to examine the validity of the Schoo...

This article reports on differences between expert and aspiring principals. Following the work of Leithwood and colleagues, we asked expert and aspiring principals to respond to ill-structured written problem scenarios. Our sample of 44 included 20 expert principals and 24 aspiring principals. The aspiring principals were from a cohort of participa...

We as a field believe that school principals can acquire new expertise by participating in principal preparation and professional development programs; however, we have few methodologies to measure leadership expertise, especially expertise that links leadership to improved student learning. In this article, we present the results of a study that e...

Recent work suggests that viewing school leadership from a distributed perspective has the potential to provide useful insight into how management and leadership unfold in the daily lives of schools. Writing in the area of distributed leadership has identified numerous entities in the school across which leadership can be distributed, including peo...

Analyzing Foundations for Success: The Final Report of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel (2008), the author situates it in evolving U.S. intergovernmental relations about education, ongoing policy discourses, and texts. State and local policy makers exercise considerable discretion on education, even with the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001....

Principals are increasingly expected to be the instructional as well as administrative leaders of their schools. However, little is known about how principals reason through the instructional issues that they face. An analysis of principal reasoning in instructional contexts is critical. The study presented in this article draws on interviews with...

We report findings from a collaborative research effort designed to examine how teachers act as leaders in their schools. We find that teachers educated by the Math in the Middle Institute act as key sources of advice for colleagues within their schools while drawing support from a network consisting of other teachers in the program and University-...

Purpose This paper is concerned with the epistemological and methodological challenges involved in studying the distribution of leadership across people within the school – the leader‐plus aspect of a distributed perspective, which it aims to investigate. Design/methodology/approach The paper examines the entailments of the distributed perspective...

This article focuses on the theme of distributed leadership in schools. It questions what distributed leadership can offer schools and explores the reasons for its current popularity.The article looks at distributed leadership through three lenses - the theoretical, the practical and the empirical. It highlights some of the tensions inherent in a d...