What Is the Nature of Turnaround Leadership in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago?

• In Event: 67.044 - Leaders at Multiple Levels Who Address Issues of Access and Equity

Abstract

Much of the literature on school turnaround comes from US toolkits and guides. However, rapid school improvement may not be possible in all education systems. There is a need, then, to study school turnaround in these different contexts. Current literature focuses much attention on the role of the leader. Turnaround leadership refers to a constellation of leader behaviors, actions and traits leading to rapid turnaround of chronically low performing schools. This study analyzes data from a multiple case study of leaders in seven low performing, high poverty schools in Trinidad and Tobago, which have shown improvement across a nine-year period. Turnaround leadership in this context involved shared and data centric transformational models with strong adaptive and strategic elements.

Author

• Jerome De Lisle, University of the West Indies