In the canon of educational research literature, and in public policy, much attention has been paid to teacher professional development since the A Nation at Risk report in 1983. More recently, the need for on-going principal professional development and the influence principals have on student achievement has been acknowledged. While the significant role superintendents play as district staff developers and their influence on student achievement has been recognized in some countries while other countries don’t know if they have the superintendent institution.

In this symposium we report findings on superintendent from empirical investigation of superintendents in Australia, England, Georgia,  Hong Kong/China, India and Israel. In this symposium we particularly attempted to identify ways in which the superintendent institutions, their professional work and communities of practice can be understood, analyzed and described.  The cross-national nature of the symposium will provided useful setting for examining the role and the term school superintendents in a Global setting.