Abstract
Distributed leadership has enjoyed increased popularity, becoming a prevalent model of school leadership. The focus of distributed leadership is to foster shared leadership practices thereby enhancing school culture and practice. Despite multiple literature reviews that sought to yield greater understanding of the theoretical underpinnings of distributed leadership, there is little focus on empirical research on distributed leadership in post-primary schools. Therefore, this article reports on a scoping review of 39 empirical studies on distributed leadership in post-primary schools. The studies were analysed to identify the main trends of this body of research and to offer implications for future research. The main trends of this research corpus include the typical methodologies used, the common theoretical constructs which distributed leadership is studied in respect of, the most common distributed leadership theoretical framework subscribed to by research, and variances in understanding of distributed leadership. The authors offer future research implications for distributed leadership in post-primary schools. The results of this review lead us to conclude that there is a need for greater rigor in distributed leadership research. Future research is suggested regarding perceptions of distributed leadership, its relationship with policy, wellbeing, and female leadership, and the culture required for distributed leadership to flourish.
Highlights
Discussion of distributed leadership in the context of organisation theory can be traced back to the mid 19600 s [1]
While multiple literature reviews have sought to clarify the theoretical underpinnings of the distributed leadership construct, empirical research on the prevalence and influence of distributed leadership in post-primary schools has not been wholly reviewed
This review aims to map the current state of research in empirical studies of distributed leadership in post-primary schools by identifying trends and research implications
Summary
Discussion of distributed leadership in the context of organisation theory can be traced back to the mid 19600 s [1]. The construct shares similar characteristics with that of decentralised administration such as the spreading of responsibility and decision-making, which has been in the literature since the late 18000 s [2]. It was not long before distributed leadership began to take a foothold in the field of education with academics, school policy makers and school leaders soon commencing considerations of the potential implications of adopting distributed leadership models in schools [3]. This article provides a unique focus and valuable structure to the literature by reporting on a scoping review of empirical research on distributed leadership in post-primary schools between the years of 2009 and 2019
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