Life/ography as Storytelling: Using Letters, Diaries, Journals, and Poetry to Understand the Work of Female Leaders

This article reflexively engages and discusses a Life/ography project involving two female superintendents of schools in two U.S. North Central states who are dedicated to making their respective districts a better learning community. Life/ography is used to refer to life history, oral history, and biography as valued qualitative research approaches for understanding the social world of individuals—in this case, of female leaders. Originally, the study began with curiosity about gender issues; however, it became a study of shifting patterns in the workplace and the structure of work. The values of stories about real-life individuals lead us to understanding a person’s life in context in all of its raw truth, beauty, and suffering. By using letters, diaries, reflective journals, and poetry to augment the interviews in the study, Life/ography offers many paths to access imagination, curiosity, and critical reflexive practice and thought.

Perceptions of Effective Leadership in Schools for Students with Visual Impairments: A National Study

This study investigated the effectiveness of the leadership of principals and superintendents of schools for students who are visually impaired from their teachers’ perspectives. The findings indicated that these school leaders fell short of the teachers’ expectations on various aspects of leadership.

The Use of Decision-Science Techniques in School Districts

A survey of the use of eight decision-science techniques was conducted in a stratified random sample of school districts in the United States. The purpose of the study was to determine the relative frequency of use of the techniques in fourteen application areas. Also sought was information on the potential uses of these techniques in the school districts. The amount of formal training that the respondents (usually superintendents of schools) have had in the eight techniques was tallied in addition to the areas where they desired training or additional training. The conclusion of this preliminary study is that there is a need to train more educational administrators in the decision sciences so that greater use of these techniques can be applied to the administration of the schools.