Retrieving Schwab’s practical in Shulman’s signature pedagogies: unpacking the moral dimension in Singapore’s educational leadership development

This article is based on a comparative study that addresses signature pedagogies in leadership preparation and development policies and programmes in Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain. The three countries initiated an educational reform movement in the early 2000s, which unfolded in several phases, and which included a significant focus on school improvement and leadership development. The development of current and aspiring school leaders, and the recognition of their crucial role in leading change and improving student learning, were some of the main pillars of the reform agendas. Studies conducted over the past 10 years provided multiple evidence that there still exist gaps in leadership preparation programmes, which impact their role in fulfilling the ambitious reforms. Using document analysis this study explores the potentials of significant signature pedagogies to enhance leadership professional learning programmes across the three countries. In 2013, Walker, Bryant and Lee studied the key features of educational leadership programmes in different countries by mainly addressing theoretical (research-based) foundation, coherence of content and programme profiles, including structure, methods and pedagogies. Their findings revealed major commonalities and differences between the three contexts and raised questions in relation to the limited prospects of signature pedagogies for the school leadership profession. Based on a critical examination of the findings and the limited prospects of signature pedagogies, the study offers insights and recommendations for an empirical study that sheds further light on the potential development of signature pedagogies for school leaders in the Gulf countries.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to report the findings of a literature review on the extent and nature of school leadership preparation and development in Africa. Design/methodology/approach This paper draws mainly on an Africa-wide review of literature on school leadership preparation and development. The literature review began with a search of the authors’ university search engine, using the search terms school leadership preparation, school leadership development and principal leadership development, delimited to African countries. The search included articles in Web of Science or Scopus journals and three doctoral theses. Findings Fifty-five sources were initially identified from 20 African countries. The findings show that many articles and theses focused on advocacy, encouraging policymakers to develop plans for leadership preparation. Other sources described current development programmes, in terms of content and delivery and in respect of their links to principal recruitment and selection. In some contexts, there were no formal programmes and leadership learning was unplanned and incidental. A follow-up search located a further 35 outputs, from 17 countries, published from 2022 to 2025. Originality/value This paper is believed to be the first published source to provide a review of school leadership preparation and development across Africa.

The Handbook focuses on global scholarship on educational leadership preparation and development at the primary and secondary education levels. This includes empirical studies, conceptual analyses, and critical interpretations of trends, challenges, and opportunities across the globe in the field of educational leadership development. The purpose is to provide an extensive review of the state of the art of leadership development in the primary and secondary educational contexts drawing on the work of leading scholars. The Handbook provides both a critical description of the current debates and issues in this area and an assessment of where the discipline of leadership development is headed. An international perspective is highly informative to the field given the global awareness of the importance of leadership in education and the increasing globalization of education in which borrowing of leadership development strategies and perspectives across national and regional borders is occurring. The handbook includes authors from a variety of national, cultural, and ideological perspectives to describe these issues and trends in educational leadership development. The collaboration of three major international professional associations facilitated extensive perspectives.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the quality of the current provision for school leadership in Kenya, the extent to which they have an impact on student outcomes and the return on school leadership preparation and development investment. Design/methodology/approach – The paper draws from educational leadership, management and administration courses delivered by universities and other institutions to aspiring and practising educational leaders in Kenya. It employs a method for evaluating return on leadership development investment first articulated by Eacott (2013). Findings – While there is growth in provision, consistent with international trends, this provision is more recognised for its standardisation than points of distinction; there is minimal attention to identified dimensions of leadership leading to higher student outcomes which raises questions regarding the universality of school leadership preparation and development curriculum; and the high course costs of current provision is an inhibiting factor in assessing the return on investment in school leadership preparation and development. Research limitations/implications – The study was limited to publicly available documents from a limited sample of institutions. There is a need for more studies in the area. Practical implications – Institutions seeking to offer school leadership development have grounds on which to make decision about what programs their school leaders should undertake in terms of cost and quality. The study provides institution offering school leadership development courses evidence on which to base future policy direction. Social implications – The findings provide a case for investing in school leadership development given the impact courses may have on student outcomes. Originality/value – The paper provides a comprehensive overview of the current provision on school leadership preparation and development in Kenya. It contributes to its understanding in Africa in terms of quality, performance impact and return on investment.

PurposeThe extant literature on school leadership development is dominated by conceptual analysis, descriptive studies of current practice, critiques of current practice, and prescriptions for better ways to approach practice. Relatively few studies have examined impact of leadership development using experimental methods, among which even fewer studies have employed a cross‐cultural comparative perspective. The aim of this paper is to discuss the feasibility of using a computer simulation as tools for research in leadership development.Design/methodology/approachThis is a methodology development paper. It discusses the feasibility of using a computer simulation as tools for research in leadership development. Exemplary research questions, research designs, and data analyses are used to illustrate the potential of this approach for addressing under‐explored issues in management education.FindingsThree categories of cross‐cultural comparative research questions are proposed: comparative study of leadership expertise, comparative study of instructional approaches, and comparative study of leadership development processes. This study demonstrates the research potential of using the computer simulations to address complex issues in leadership development across cultures.Originality/valueAlthough computer simulations have been used as training tools for several decades, few scholars have explored their potential for use in the collection of complex data in an efficient fashion. The current study not only demonstrates how a specific simulation has been adapted to collect data on leadership development in education, but also models the means by which computer simulations could be employed in a similar fashion in other domains of education and training.

1. Introduction - Leadership development in a global environment 2. From ad-hoc provision to complex framework: the rise of leadership development programmes in England 3. The changing landscape of head teacher preparation in Scotland 4. Educational leadership development in Greece 5. Educational leadership development in the Czech Republic 6. Leadership development in Kosovo 7. The training and development of principals in Israel 8. Preparing leaders, preparing learners, the Hong Kong experience 9. Only Connect: Australia's attempts to forge a national agenda for quality school leadership 10. Capability in the leadership of teaching and learning: The validity and utility of a self-assessment tool 11. The landscape of initial school leadership preparation activity in the US

Banda, Charles. African family values in a globalised world: The speed and intensity of change in post-colonial Africa. Development in Practice24, 5–6 (2014), pp. 648–55. Booker, D. S. Wiki Approaches to wicked problems: Considering African traditions in innovative collaborative approaches. Development in Practice24, 5–6 (2014), pp. 672–85. Bush, Tony. Educational leadership and leadership development in Africa: Building the knowledge base. Educational Management, Administration and Leadership42, 6 (2014), pp. 787–91. Chacko, P. Variegated neoliberalism in India and Africa: Towards a new research agenda. Commonwealth and Comparative Politics52, 4 (2014), pp. 563–69. Cohen, H. J. Africa's illegitimate surrogate wars: Disastrous and stealthy cross-border acts of aggression that have never been acknowledged nor discussed. American Foreign Policy Interests36, 4 (2014), pp. 240–48. Cohen, H. J. The African economic miracle: Myth or reality? American Foreign Policy Interests35, 4 (2013), pp. 212–26. Eacott, S. and Asuga, G. N. School leadership preparation and development: A critical insight. Educational Management, Administration and Leadership42, 6 (2014), pp. 919–34.

PurposeYoung women's leadership is an area frequently overlooked in educational leadership development. This paper aims to bring young women's voices into educational leadership conversations and illustrate an alternative approach to young women's leadership development.Design/methodology/approachThis qualitative action research study was located in an urban girls' high school in New Zealand. The researcher worked in partnership with 12 young women and used a process of co‐construction to design a leadership development programme. The young women then participated in, evaluated and modified the programme before teaching it to another group of students.FindingsCo‐construction was an effective way to develop a relevant and authentic leadership programme that met the needs of the young women, however, the process was extremely complex. The findings indicated that this approach challenged existing views of teaching and learning and was an active process that required significant efforts to balance input and share ownership between the researcher and the young women.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings highlighted the importance of including young women in decision‐making processes related to their leadership learning. Future consideration in this area could relate to creating a sustainable leadership culture in schools by engaging this process across year levels.Originality/valueThis paper outlines an alternative approach to leadership development in high schools that could be used in a number of contexts as these findings related to women's youth leadership development have implications on leadership development for women at all levels.

This paper aims to extend our understanding of the influence of school professional cultures and principal leadership effects on early-career teacher leadership aspiration, learning and development in the evolving hybrid of Western and Confucian cultures of Hong Kong. What are early-career teachers’ aspirations of leadership development in different professional cultures of the school? How do the principal leadership effects facilitate or hinder teacher leadership development in the professional culture? A multiple case study approach was adopted. Findings show that positive professional culture built by professional relationships between the principals and teachers and among teachers can stimulate early-career teacher leadership aspiration. The principal leadership effects can facilitate and hinder professional collaboration and support for the teacher leadership development in the Chinese school hierarchy of Hong Kong. This study contributes to unveiling in-depth understandings of teacher leadership aspiration, learning and development as the socially constructed experiences of the teachers in contrast to the professional culture highlighted in the school document. Insights gained from the study can inform the in-school progression of teacher leadership development in the school hierarchy. Implications for school achievement through continuing professional development are also highlighted.

Problem: Problem-based learning (PBL) was introduced into the parlance of educational leadership and management almost 30 years ago. During the ensuing decades, a global community of professors, doctoral students, and curriculum designers has built upon early models with the goal of increasing the impact of school leadership preparation. This systematic review of the literature addressed three questions: (1) What is the scope and composition of the literature on PBL in educational leadership preparation and development? (2) What have we learned about the implementation and effects of PBL in educational leadership? (3) What directions should future research take in this domain? Method: For the review, we employed quantitative analysis and critical synthesis of 73 sources on the use of PBL in school leadership preparation and development published between 1989 and 2016. Findings: The literature on problem-based leadership preparation in education consisted primarily of descriptive studies of how PBL has been used in individual programs and courses. Progress was identified in terms of developing suitable learning strategies and curriculum designs for educational leadership programs. However, when compared with the literature on PBL in other professional fields, the research literature in this domain remains immature. Significance: This is the first published review of research on the use of PBL in school leader preparation and development. Implications: The authors highlight a need for more rigorous empirical research not only on PBL but also other innovative approaches to leader preparation in education.

The role of school headteachers/principals has evolved significantly, particularly as the demand for high performing schools has become a political imperative globally and so the question of how educational leaders should be educated is a central concern. However, this question of the development of educational leaders is contentious because the nature of professional learning is itself complex, particularly the relationship between leadership development and practice in schools. This chapter examines one specific area of leadership development, that of headship preparation. There is, as Davies, S. et al. (School leadership study: Developing successful principals, Stanford Educational Leadership Institute, Stanford, 2005) argue, only limited evidence about how to prepare and develop school leadership or headship and the role and scope of educational leadership continues to evolve. The chapter considers how this relationship between leadership and learning (Macbeath, J. and Dempster, N., Connecting leadership and learning: Principles for practice, Routledge, London, 2009) might best be forged in headship/principalship preparation programmes. Approaches to leadership development can be characterised as three broad models: apprenticeship models, knowledge-based programmes and experiential learning programmes. This chapter begins by examining critically a number of different approaches to the development of leadership in education. Then the chapter sets one educational system – that of Scotland, UK – as a case study and draws from a number of recent research and development projects on headship preparation. In this final section the discussion focuses on the tension between individual transformation and institutional transformation and the construction and place of knowledge in the preparation of headteachers/principals.

School leadership has been shown to have a profound influence on students’ experiences and outcomes. Following the success of leadership coaching in industry, coaching has started to feature as a mechanism in the professional learning and development of school leaders. However, to date, evidence of how the various elements of coaching are embedded in the professional learning and development of school leaders is limited. To fill the lacuna of research in this area, this study aimed to conduct a systematic literature review of coaching as a form of the professional learning and development of school leaders, based on papers published in peer-reviewed journals between July 2014 and July 2024. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines were used, and the work was framed within Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory. An overview of the concept of coaching and its development in the context of the professional learning and development of school leaders was provided. The methodology used in the study was then described, before the research evidence on coaching in the professional learning and development of school leaders was reported and discussed across five thematic findings, illuminating the factors that may advance the success of coaching as well as those that may impede it. Gaps in the literature were identified that may inform further research on this important topic.

This paper provides an account of an action-based study (Kemmis et al., 2014), which was conduct- ed with the purpose to develop teacher leadership in four schools in Kazakhstan. By drawing on a non- positional approach to teacher leadership (Frost et al., 2000), this study sought bottom-up approaches to educational reform, school leadership and professional development in schools in Kazakhstan. The nine-month intervention programme, which was called the Teacher Leadership for Learning and Col- laboration, introduced strategies and created conditions for teachers to lead educational improvement at classroom, school and system level. Teachers’ leadership projects had an impact on classroom and whole-school practices. The outcomes of this study indicate that there is a need for revisiting teachers’ professional roles in schools and transforming schools into a learning organisation. As such, educational reform and improvement requires building local capacity, which may involve creating conditions for leadership development and teacher empowerment within schools. Key words: teacher leadership development, school leadership, professional learning, school re- form, action-based research.

In this bibliometric study, we used the Scopus database to analyse 2188 articles on leadership development in higher education published between 2013 and 2023. We examined publication output and research interest, preferred journals, leading countries, regions, authors, articles and institutions, subject areas and author keywords. Visualisation tools such as VOSviewer were used to gain a comprehensive understanding of patterns and trends in the literature. Recent studies have underscored the importance of leadership development in higher education, particularly in the context of evolving global educational standards (Day et al., (Day et al. in Leadersh Q 25:63–82, 2014); Žalėnienė & Pereira, (Žalėnienė and Pereira in Geography Sustain 2:99–106, 2021)). The results show a fluctuating increase in literature production since 2013, with a significant increase in production after 2020. This surge is attributed to the recognition that leadership is a key competency in shaping the future, especially in the face of the complexity and uncertainty caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. The study also shows that the United States is the most productive country, accounting for more than 50 percent of the total output of the 15 most productive countries. Notably, nine of the 15 most productive universities in these major countries are located in the United States. This highlights the important role that the United States plays in leading the global focus on leadership development in higher education. This study has important implications not only for academics, but also for policy makers, educators and leaders. Through a comprehensive bibliometric analysis, our aim is to contribute to the scholarly discourse on leadership development and higher education, and to encourage deeper discussion and continued innovation in these areas. Examining the development of leadership in higher education over the past decade provides valuable insights that inform research across various social domains. It contributes to a deeper understanding of the development of the field of leadership research in higher education over the past decade, highlighting key aspects of the field, contributors, research priorities and emerging trends. Our study contributes to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by enhancing understanding of leadership development in higher education (SDG 4: Quality Education) and fostering international collaboration (SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals) (in Transforming our world: the 2030 agenda for sustainable development, United Nations General Assembly, New York, 2015).

Deepening leadership identity development.