Although the ability to provide support to others may diminish with age, the desire to reciprocate persists. Using social exchange theory, this article examines deference as one form of exchange. Based on a sample of 31 residents age 85 and older in assisted living facilities, data were gathered via a semi-structured interview that was audiotaped and transcribed. This study analyzes their responses to open-ended questions using qualitative methods. Findings indicate that these “oldest old” respondents reciprocate for the support they receive from family and staff via deference. Four forms of deference are identified: participation, pleasantness, cooperation, and gratitude. In addition, the psychological costs and rewards of deference are examined from the elders' perspective.

No abstract

No abstract

Over the last two years, the table of contents of many education journals has been dominated by concerns over teachers' and school leaders' responses to and experiences with the disruption and uncertainties of the COVID-19 pandemic. For instance, International Studies in Educational Administration dedicated four issues in 2020 and 2021 to this topic (Gurr, 2020), and it will come as no surprise that despite efforts to find the proverbial silver lining in the pandemic, much of the evidence and commentary has and continues to highlight a concern for educators' and students' wellbeing in K-12 and post-secondary contexts. Thus, Leadership for Flourishing in Educational Contexts is a welcome foil to the sentiments of overwhelm and loss, and a reminder, as the co-editors noted in their closing chapter, that "there is almost always a place for the exercise of positive choices and agency" (Walker et al., 2021, p. 316).Leadership for Flourishing in Educational Contexts was borne of a 2019 gathering in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, called the Positive Leadership for Flourishing Schools Forum. This forum united educational leaders, policymakers, practitioners, graduate students, and researchers around a common interest in empirical explorations of positive leadership in educational contexts, with wellbeing as a broad conceptual backdrop. This book is a companion to another similarly structured co-edited book that emerged from that same forum: Positive Leadership for Flourishing Schools (Walker et al., 2021). Kutsyuruba, Cherkowski, and Walker are recognized as pioneers in this domain, having conducted extensive research in schools methodologically driven by appreciative inquiry and the assumptions of positive psychology. The often-cited conceptual framework for flourishing-purpose, presence, passion, and play-was comprehensively articulated by Cherkowski and Walker (2018) in their book, Teacher Wellbeing: Noticing, Nurturing, Sustaining, and Flourishing in Schools. Given that the epilogue to Teacher Wellbeing gave the nod to flourishing for school leaders, this recent Leadership for Flourishing in Educational Contexts makes sense in their scholarly trajectory.The co-editors' goal in Leadership for Flourishing in Educational Contexts was to create momentum for positive leadership approaches as a way to increase "vitality…sense of enjoyment, meaning, purpose, and connectedness" (p. 5) in schools. They intentionally asked for "stories of wellbeing" (p. 3) for this collection and stated that "the positive approach is a shift away from the more typical leadership approaches that tend to focus on seeking out and repairing deficits, gaps, and shortcomings" (p. 5). This echoes Crawford's observation in her forward that the book challenges readers to see leadership "not as rational and formulaic but as imaginative and resourceful" (p. xiii).Kutsyuruba and co-editors view educational systems through Bronfenbrenner's (1994) ecological lens, arguing interconnectedness is key. Additionally, in keeping with the organizational theories of Mi...