International network as sites for research on successful school leadership

Abstract

Most education researchers are likely to work alone, with limited resource support. Few will have had opportunities to work as part of a collaborative team of researchers. Even fewer will have worked with colleagues from different countries and cultures. This chapter provides a critical discussion of the cross-cultural, intellectual, and practical challenges of sustaining cross-cultural researcher engagement in multi-national research collaborations, using as an example, the International Successful School Principalship Project (ISSPP), a long-standing network of researchers from more than 20 countries. The chapter will discuss issues of methodology, intellectual rigor, and the principles and practices of building and sustaining international research collaborations. It will focus particularly on the management of individual commitment, resource availability, and occasional discontinuities in active participation.