Abstract
ABSTRACTThis paper examines middle leadership of the heads of English, maths and science departments in four international secondary schools in Malaysia. It focuses on their roles, responsibilities, role relationships, instructional engagement and leadership involvement within the theoretical framework of instructional, distributed and teacher leadership. The study is a qualitative multi-method case study, involving observation, documentary analysis, and semi-structured interviews with 12 heads of department, 36 teachers, and four principals. With respect to the middle leaders’ roles and responsibilities, the findings illustrate cross-school and in-school differential developments, with contextual factors contributing to uneasy role relationships. The results also show that, while broad-based leadership opportunities are limited for the middle leaders and teachers, the most powerful and common feature of all these international schools is the centrality of teaching and learning.
Highlights
International schools have become key players on the social and economic landscape of education in the 21st century, with a turnover of revenue on a multibillion scale (MacDonald 2006)
We argue that distributed leadership (DL) is equivalent to the autonomy for middle leaders to take important decisions, and to the authority to implement those decisions without resorting to senior leadership for permission; any subsequent sharing of decisions is pursued for the purpose of whole-school coordination
While middle leadership is perceived to be well-established at schools A, D, and C, it is loosely defined and poorly understood at school B, as described by the English HoD: Initially I was supposed to be the A-level coordinator, but the person who was the English HoD left, and it just slid over to me
Summary
International schools have become key players on the social and economic landscape of education in the 21st century, with a turnover of revenue on a multibillion scale (MacDonald 2006). Following Wise (2001), we define middle leaders as practitioners who are heads of department (HoDs), manage the academic curriculum and lead a number of teachers. (4) How, and to what extent, can the practices of middle leaders in the selected international schools be understood through distributed and/or teacher leadership? In this enquiry, the leadership practice of English, maths and science HoDs in four selected international secondary schools were explored. Teaching subject throughout the school Developing the curriculum including teaching and learning strategies Implementing school policy Supervising/monitoring colleagues’ work to ensure that policies are followed through
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
