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Canada: Principal Leadership in Canada

  • Chapter
A Decade of Research on School Principals

Part of the book series: Studies in Educational Leadership ((SIEL,volume 21))

Abstract

This chapter provides a preliminary summary of principals’ work in Canada. It begins with a detailed description of how public education is organized in Canada. Next, we include a brief summary of overall challenges in Canadian public education followed by a synopsis of the principal’s role throughout Canada’s provinces and territories. Following this, an explanation is provided of the meta-synthesis employed to generate meaningful themes from the 285 empirical studies included in this investigation. Findings point to two overarching meta-themes: organizational support for the principal’s workforce and the nature of principals’ work. Each of these meta-themes is then further divided into multiple subthemes. Organizational support for the principal’s workforce is separated into principal preparation, recruitment, retention, and succession planning. The nature of principals’ work is further split into two subthemes: managerial/functionalist approaches and addressing issues of difference. The chapter concludes with recommendations on where researchers and policy-makers might want to concentrate their attention and resources in further supporting school leadership in the twenty-first century.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    A comprehensive list of Education Acts and School Acts analyzed included Alberta Education Act (Part 7, Section 19); British Columbia School Act (Regulation 265/89, Section 5); Manitoba, The Public Schools Act (Section 55.1, subsection 1); New Brunswick Education Act (Regulation 97–150, Part 6, Section 28); Newfoundland and Labrador Schools Act (Part 3, Section 24); Northwest Territories Education Act (Part 2, Section 63); Nova Scotia Education Act (Chapter 1, Section 38); Nunavut Education Act (duties and role located throughout the act); Ontario Education Act (Part 10, Section 265); Prince Edward Island School Act (Part 7, Section 99); Quebec Education Act (Chapter 3, Division 5, Section 96, Subsection 12); and Saskatchewan Education Act (Chapter 4, Section 175).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Education, Western University, Western, ON, Canada

    Katina Pollock

  2. OISE/UT, Toronto, ON, Canada

    David Cameron Hauseman

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  1. Katina Pollock
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  2. David Cameron Hauseman
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Correspondence to Katina Pollock .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Principal Development, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden

    Helene Ärlestig

  2. Centre for Research on Educational Leadership and Management, School of Education, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom

    Christopher Day

  3. Centre for Principal Development, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden

    Olof Johansson

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Pollock, K., Hauseman, D.C. (2016). Canada: Principal Leadership in Canada. In: Ärlestig, H., Day, C., Johansson, O. (eds) A Decade of Research on School Principals. Studies in Educational Leadership, vol 21. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23027-6_11

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