Alma Harris is best known for her work on school improvement and leadership. Her most recent publications with Routledge focus on, firstly, international perspectives on school improvement (with Janet Chrispeels) and secondly, distributed leadership practice in schools.
Distributed School Leadership: Developing Tomorrow’s Leaders focuses on the theoretical, empirical and practical components of distributed leadership. It looks at the ways in which schools have actively sought to build leadership capacity and have distributed leadership more widely and broadly. The book challenges the individualised or heroic view of leadership and argues that leadership has to be understood as collective capacity rather than individual skills, abilities or charisma. The book covers a broad range of issues including different perspectives on distributed leadership; cases of practice and exploration of the relationship between distributed leadership and student/organizational learning outcomes. The book cites a wide range of evidence - not only in the field of education - that equates distributed leadership with positive organizational outcomes. Drawing on practical insights and evidence from schools, the book takes a normative and grounded position on distributed leadership and argues that this form of leadership is now the norm rather than the exception in high performing organisations.
The book is part of the iNET/SSAT RoutledgeFalmer series Leading School Transformation, which publishes key texts on the theme of school and system transformation. Alma is co-editor of this series with Claire Mathews and Sue Williamson, both from the SSAT (Specialist Schools and Academies Trust).
Alma is the Editor of the international, peer-reviewed journal School Leadership and Management, also published by Routledge. Working with her deputy editor (Dr Tracey Allen, also of the Institute of Education, London and Amanda Williams, Senior Administrator for the journal) plus a distinguished board of internationally recognized scholars, Alma has helped establish the Journal as one of the leading journals in the leadership field. The Journal is currently in its 28th Volume, and is available in over 5,000 institutions worldwide, in print and/or online formats.
Alma is currently an elected board member of the International Congress for School Effectiveness and Improvement (ICSEI) and has held the position of Chair of the Special Interest Group on School Effectiveness and Improvement for the American Education Research Association (AERA). She is an editorial board member of International Journal of Leadership in Education, Educational Administration, Teachers and Teacher Education, School Effectiveness and School Improvement, and Leadership Journal.
Joining the Institute of Education, University of London in May 2008, Alma was previously Director of the Institute of Education at the University of Warwick, for four years. She previously held posts at the University of Nottingham, Open University and University of Bath. She has visiting professor status at the University of Victoria, Canada, University of Melbourne, Australia, University of Manitoba, Canada and University of Toronto, Canada.
