Examining Distributed Leadership and School Outcomes in Finnish Compulsory School

Abstract

This paper discusses distributed leadership (DL) as educational leadership structure and its relation to school outcomes in compulsory schools. School outcomes are defined as students’ learning to learn abilities. This study tests two hypotheses. H1: DL is perceived as a continuum consisting of two ends (as delegation and as situation-based interaction between leaders and subordinates). H2: conceptualization of DL as situation-based interaction positively affects the outcomes of the school. The data are leadership inquiry and students’ longitudinal learning to learn follow-up data from grades 3 to 6 or grades 6 to 9. The results indicate that DL does not appear as a unidimensional continuum. Educational leadership is formed from multiple dimensions, and DL is one part of the whole; thus, H1 was incorrect. The conceptualization of DL as situation-based interaction is not statistically satisfactorily related to outcomes of the school; therefore, H2 was also incorrect. The paper concludes that results of this study point to the meaning of local education policy as a means of steering the distribution of students between schools in order to maintain the small between-school differences in student outcomes.