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This volume looks at the specific role and practices of school principals who are positioned as a nexus of educational management in schools. They are supposed to meet the requirements of the local communities and the educational-policy public simultaneously, while adhering to a rational use of school resources and exercising leadership. This requires balancing diverse stakeholder requirements, while still being able to implement contemporary management tools and approaches, in order to function against the backdrop of a specific economic reality.

There is a vast array of contributions in the existing literature concerning individual aspects of school management, leadership, governance, and other relevant educational topics. Nevertheless, we found it quite difficult to provide a concise volume presenting a practical overview of school effectiveness and educational-management topics which would at the same time focus on specific aspects of educational systems in South-East Europe. Consequently, the research team, located at the Croatian Centre of Scientific Excellence in school effectiveness and management research, decided to create such a volume, keeping primarily in mind the needs of a diverse set of potential readers. We have striven to address the needs and interests of actors from the South-East European region, as well as to provide thought-provoking reading for those interested in educational-management and school-effectiveness issues viewed from a slightly different perspective.

The volume starts with a high-level overview of the school effectiveness concept, provided by Josip BURUSIC, Toni BABAROVIC and Marija SAKIC VELIC, in which a basic review of the historical development of school-effectiveness research is provided, the most important methodological approaches and advances in contemporary school-effectiveness research are described and the main findings of empirical studies of school effectiveness in South-Eastern Europe, with special emphasis on studies conducted in the Croatian primary-education system, are presented. Aiming to cover the fundamentals of the principals’ stakeholder orientation, Jurica PAVICIC, Niksa ALFIREVIC, Goran VLASIC, Zoran KRUPKA and Bozena KRCE MIOCIC discuss contemporary public and non-profit marketing theory as implemented in the school environment. A contribution by Sanja STANIC, Darko HREN and Ivanka BUZOV concentrates on communicative and managerial practices with the local community and its actors, as well as with actors in the wider society.

The second part of the volume looks ‘inside’ schools and concentrates on principals’ managerial and leadership practices. These are addressed in a chapter on educational management authored by Dijana VICAN, Niksa ALFIREVIC and Renata RELJA, as well as in a contribution on educational leadership provided by Dijana VICAN, Renata RELJA and Toni POPOVIC. Additional perspectives are provided by two groups of authors. Ina REIC ERCEGOVAC, Morana KOLUDROVIC and Andreja BUBIC discuss the educational and administrative aspects of school governance, focusing primarily on school boards and their relationship with principals. The discourse of democracy in school governance, viewed from stakeholders’ viewpoints, is introduced by Marita BRCIC KULJIS and Anita LUNIC.

The concluding chapter addresses the practical challenges of marketing and educational-management/leadership practices, as well as the research agenda, which is envisioned as a way to design and implement innovative policies and educational-management approaches in South-East Europe and beyond.

We hope that you will enjoy reading this volume as much as we enjoyed editing it. Please feel free to forward us your comments and feedback.

Niksa Alfirevic

Josip Burusic

Jurica Pavicic

Renata Relja