Model Of School Leadership Research Articles

Examination of the Effectiveness of School Leadership: A Second-order Meta-analysis Study

This study aimed to examine the effectiveness of school leadership by exploring the relationships between various school leadership models and practices and different school outcomes, including organizational, teacher, and student outcomes. Data for this study were retrieved from multiple databases, including Web of Science, Scopus, ERIC, Academic Search Ultimate, and TR Dizin-Turkish national index. The analysis synthesized findings from 23 meta-analysis studies, utilizing second-order meta-analysis with the random-effects model. The study revealed a significantly positive relationship between school leadership and school outcomes, with a high level of correlation (mean effect size: 0.46). Additionally, this relationship varied significantly based on the type of school leadership, school outcome, and the quality of the studies conducted.

What We Know about Successful School Leadership from Australian Cases and an Open Systems Model of School Leadership

In three devolved Australian school systems, for over 20 years, Australian researchers have been interested in understanding how successful school leaders lead schools that have a broad range of student and school outcomes that are above expectations. This paper draws upon findings from five Tasmanian, 18 Victorian, and one Northern Territory multiple-perspective case studies of successful primary, secondary, and special school principals. All cases are part of the International Successful School Principalship Project (ISSPP) and follow the methodologies of the ISSPP. At each school, data collected included interviews with the principal, senior teachers, teachers, students, parents, and school council members and document analysis. In addition, nine cases included observation of school activities, and two cases included a teacher survey. The cases reveal a complicated pattern of leadership activities by the principal and other school leaders that includes setting school directions, building positive cultures, developing supportive organisational structures, enhancing personal, professional, organisational, and community capacity, and developing networks, collaborations, partnerships, and stakeholder engagement. These areas of leadership action interact with school, staff, family, and broader contextual factors to develop outstanding teaching and learning that results in a wide array of positive student and school outcomes. Student outcomes include academic, extra-curricular, co-curricular, personal, and social areas. School outcomes include reputation, learning environment, resource allocation, community empowerment, and teacher quality areas. Successful school leadership is shown to be a complex endeavour, led by the principal but involving many and able to be sustained successfully over many years, leading to important and diverse student and school outcomes.

Teachers’ and Parents’ Perceptions on Desired and Practised School Mission: Alignments and Misalignments

ABSTRACT School leadership models emphasize the importance of leadership devoting time to the creation of a shared school mission, as a strategy for school effectiveness. This paper focuses on teachers’ and parents’ perceptions of the desired and practised school mission, considering the following dimensions: i) scientific and technological; ii) civic; iii) social and emotional; iv) vocational; v) physical. 3284 teachers and 3258 parents participated. All dimensions were highly valued as part of the desired school mission, mostly civic and social and emotional. However, the averages were lower in all dimensions of the practised school mission. Implications for school leadership are discussed.

A cultural lens to school leadership effects on teacher instructional practices: The mediation of teacher collective efficacy and the moderation of uncertainty avoidance

This study explores how and under what boundary conditions school leadership influences teachers’ instructional practices in Turkey. Using survey data from a sample of 928 teachers in 87 middle and high schools, the present study tested a moderated mediation model of school leadership's effects on teacher instructional practices, with teacher collective efficacy as the mediator and uncertainty avoidance perceptions of teachers as the moderator. We performed a multilevel structural equation modeling with Bayesian estimation to examine the relationships between our constructs. The results showed significant indirect effects of school leadership on teacher instructional practices with the significant mediator role of teacher collective efficacy. However, the distinct contribution of this study lies in exploring the moderator role of uncertainty avoidance on the effect of school leadership on teacher instructional practices through teacher collective efficacy. Our results enhance the field's understanding of how and to what extent cultural aspects of any given society shape the effects of school leadership practices on teaching.

“We’ve Been Forgotten”: First-Hand Perspectives on Teacher Leaders and Teacher Leadership in Urban Schools

The use of teacher leadership in PK-12 education has experienced a resurgence since the late 1990s as school leadership models have evolved to include the engagement of diverse stakeholders in school and district leadership processes aimed at improvement efforts. Despite this resurgence, there remain several barriers to understanding the nature of the work in which teacher leaders engage and the contributions that they make. This grounded theory study examined teacher perceptions of teacher leadership, the types of work in which teacher leaders do and should engage, the boundaries of that work, and barriers to teacher leadership. Leveraging interviews with teachers in a large urban school district, we found that teachers function in many domains of work and are eager for pathways to leverage their expertise, but some faced a lack of access to their school’s leadership and management space. We conclude by discussing the implications from our findings for school- and district-level leaders, local and state policymakers, and educational leadership preparation programs.

The role of current school leadership models in promoting African values: The impact on Botswana, Nigeria and Zimbabwe school leadership systems

The heterogeneous nature of African society has led to increased demand for transformational leaders rooted in African values and ideology necessary for Africans to thrive in the 21st Century. This study explored the role of post-colonial school leadership (SL) models in instilling African values among learners. The original African meaning and purpose of leadership and the extent to which African school leadership systems instil African leadership values in learners were re-considered. The study adopted a qualitative research approach underpinned by interpretivism. It compared the perspectives of fifteen (15) participants purposively selected from three former British colonies namely, Botswana, Nigeria and Zimbabwe. Interviews were used to collect data that were analysed thematically and presented using verbal utterances. Findings showed that leadership in the traditional African context was characterized by humanism, collectivism and moral virtues. Leaders guided their followers to achieve their goals for the effectiveness of the communities’ excellence and integrity. It was established that, in addition to school leadership training which was rampant in pre-colonial Botswana, both Zimbabwe and Botswana gave the male and the female genders a shot at leadership while Nigeria paid lip service to gender balance issues. In the three countries, the current SL systems do not have properly designed and coordinated curricular models that develop African leadership values such as Ubuntu and Botho. This study underlines the need to strike a balance between Eurocentrism and Africanism in the current SL systems in Africa.

Distributed Leadership: A Scoping Review Mapping Current Empirical Research

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.

A systematic review of conceptual models and methodologies in research on school principals in Iran

PurposeThis study aims to present a review of topics, conceptual models and methodologies in research on Iranian school principals over the past four decades.Design/methodology/approachThe study adopted a descriptive quantitative form of a systematic review of research to analyze topics, conceptual models and methodologies employed in 565 studies published by Iranian scholars in the national and international databases.FindingsThe content analysis of the studies revealed the increasing interest of the Iranian scholars in the two topical foci, namely, the school leadership models and principal profile, with a focus on the direct-effects (Model B) and the antecedent-effects (Model A). The evidence also suggests the disinclination of the researchers to study leadership concerning student learning outcomes. The most frequently used school leadership model in the Iranian schools has been transformational leadership, while the distributive/collaborative and instructional leadership studies were few. The scholars have mostly relied on a survey-based quantitative research approach, using correlation analysis techniques.Practical implicationsThe findings suggest that despite the increasing global acceptance of school leadership, its implementation in practice is inevitably shaped by the institutional policies and cultural values of different societies.Social implicationsThe findings of this study strengthen the supposition that the differences in school leadership across societies are influenced by various cultural and contextual factors.Originality/valueThis paper is the first systematic review of the empirical studies that present insight into topics, conceptual models and methodologies in research on school principals in Iran.

School leadership, reflective practice, and education for students with refugee backgrounds: a pathway to radical empathy

ABSTRACT As the world becomes increasingly violent and disrupted by forces which impact on millions of families, destroying the communities and ways of life, the lives and prospects of those who survive are increasingly dependent on the humanity of others for understanding, generosity and acceptance as fellow humans. Many of those who suffer forced migration as refugees and asylum seekers are children and young people who have the right to be educated and whose future well-being is heavily reliant on acceptance and inclusion into societies which are very different from their homelands. While only a relatively small percentage (16%) of these populations are placed in schools in developed countries, the challenges for both the students and school leaders is considerable. This paper discusses the importance of belonging as part of school culture and ethos, indicating that deep, critical reflective practice undertaken by school leaders and principals with the intention of deliberately developing radical empathy, based on phenomenological principles, can play a critical role in transforming schooling for these students and their families. Furthermore, the possible impact of developing radical empathy is explored briefly using the perspective provided by Leithwood and his colleagues’ Four-Path model of school leadership.

Headteachers' Instructional Leadership at Community Schools

This article explores instructional leadership of few head teachers of Dhading district. Due to the primitive model of school leadership, students faced obstacles in achieving educational goals. The objectives of this research are to explore the tradition of the head teachers' leadership of school and the role of the head teachers for the transformation of the educational attempts and achievements. This research followed phenomenological research method. Five head teachers leading the schools for more than a decade were interviewed. The data thus collected were interpreted through coding, categorizing and comparing the key themes. The research finds that the leadership role of the head teachers in the past was responsible for lagging behind the target of the educational achievement as recommended by the curriculum. This study concludes that the school leadership must be cross-threaded in instructional process, pedagogy, information, and communication technology (ICT).

The school-community connection: social justice leaders’ community activism to promote justice for students

ABSTRACT This research examines social justice leaders’ community activism in response to three local and national political contexts. Grounded in literature that advances ecological models of school leadership, we analyzed how seven urban school leaders conceptualized community activism as linked to school outcomes, and how leaders conducted activism work. Findings demonstrate that various political contexts at local and national levels catalyzed and motivated participants’ community activism, but participants’ primary purpose for activism was to promote student equity within their school buildings. This reflects ecological models in which schools and communities are conceptualized as interconnected with a reciprocal relationship of impact. Our examination of motivations related to political contexts provides insights into how these contexts impact schools and school leaders. This piece also contributes to the growing body of literature around socially-just leadership, particularly to the limited subset of literature on leaders’ out-of-school justice work. Finally, among other implications and directions for future research, we conclude that community activism should form a crucial component of socially-just school leadership and taken up in the research as such.

The role of social media as an electronic communication media in supporting leadership supervision in high schools

Background/Objectives: This study is aimed to build a proposed concept for the application of the integrated leadership model by revealing the possibility of applying the supervised model of school leadership, and the requirements for the application of the integrated supervision model in school leadership, and the obstacles that limit the application, in addition to revealing the significance of statistical differences in the degrees of applicability. Methods/Statistical analysis: To achieve the objectives of the study, descriptive methodology was used with the study community consisting of all school leaders and supervisors for school leadership in the academic year 1439/1440 AH. The study sample consisted of (75) leaders and supervisors who were randomly selected. The questionnaire consisted of three axes. The third consisted of (12) clauses and the questionnaire was verified and fixed. Findings: The results reached the possibility of applying the supervised model of school leadership with a high average value of 3.98. A high score (3.89) is requirement for applying the supervised model of school leadership, with a very high score (4.30) and the constraints that limit the application also high (3.84). Keywords: Integrated leadership; integrated supervision; school leaders; leadership supervisors

THE NEO-PERFORMATIVE TEACHER: SCHOOL REFORM, ENTREPRENEURIALISM AND THE PURSUIT OF EDUCATIONAL EQUITY

ABSTRACT The impact of neoliberal reforms of education systems on the work of teachers and school leaders, particularly in relation to high-stakes accountability frameworks, has been extensively studied in recent decades. One significant aspect of neoliberal schooling is the emergence of quasi-autonomous public schools (such as Academies in England, Charter Schools in the USA and Independent Public Schools in Australia), characterised by heterarchical governance models, the promotion of entrepreneurial leadership cultures, and the promotion of a discourse of pursuing educational equity by means of ‘achievement for all’. This paper explores the emergence of a mode of teacher professionalism characteristic of these quasi-autonomous schools, and conceptualises this as being ‘neo-performative’. The neo-performative profession is shaped by the shift in the focus of the regulation and management of schools from ‘governing to governance’, and the consequential rise of the ‘responsibilised profession’, and marked by the emergence of an entrepreneurial model of school leadership. The paper argues that this new conceptualisation of teacher professionalism requires further, more focused, empirical study in order to explore how neoperformative teachers and school leaders articulate their vision of educational equity and social justice, and how they enact this vision in an increasingly intensified high-stakes accountability culture.

'Are principals instructional leaders yet?' A science map of the knowledge base on instructional leadership, 1940–2018

In the 1980s when research on effective schools surfaced the importance of ‘instructional leadership’ in the United States, skeptics wondered if this would be just another educational fad. Yet, 40 years later, the expectation for school principals to be ‘instructional leaders’ has become ubiquitous throughout much of the world. This systematic review of research used science mapping to gain insights into the growth and geographic distribution of this literature, as well as to identify key documents, authors, and topics. The authors used a variety of quantitative bibliometric analyses to examine 1206 Scopus-indexed journal articles on instructional leadership published between 1940 and 2018. The results affirm that the knowledge base on instructional leadership has not only increased in size, but also geographic scope. Contrary to expectations during the 1980s, instructional leadership has demonstrated remarkable staying power, growing into one of the most powerful models guiding research, policy and practice in school leadership. Despite this finding, both author co-citation and co-word analyses revealed the emergence of ‘integrated models of school leadership’ in which instructional leadership is enacted in concert with dimensions drawn from complementary leadership approaches. Key themes in the recent literature include studies of leadership effects on teachers and students, contexts for leadership practice, and means of developing instructional leaders.

School leadership practices for science and mathematics in high-stakes testing environments: An integrated school leadership approach

High school science and mathematics achievements in high-stakes testing environments are often characterised by poor performance and reduced participation by learners. The poor performance and reduced participation by learners in science and mathematics is often on the school improvement agendas. Making sense of how to improve learner achievements in science and mathematics is a school leadership function in addition to being a function of classroom practice. This study used an integrated model of school leadership to explore how a Pretoria high school made sense of how to achieve and maintain high learner performance in science and mathematics under the pressures of high-stakes testing. The single case study was purposely selected for consistently achieving high learner performance in science and mathematics. Narratives were elicited from conveniently selected positional leaders, a science teacher and a mathematics teacher. The study highlights integrated school leadership practices for resource and material mobilisation, fit-for-purpose teacher professional development and cultivation of a school culture defined by attitudes, values and work ethics to achieve and maintain high performance is science and mathematics. A recommendation for a further study is made.

School principals as leaders: Pre-service and in-service teachers’ perspective

Scholars have highlighted that the existing school leadership models are incomplete and the relevant research is dominated by the principals’ perspective. This study explores the pre-service and in-service teachers’ views about what they want and expect of the school principals as leaders to willingly follow them. The sample consisted of 36 teachers purposefully recruited. Written texts, in which the participants were asked to spontaneously write down their thoughts, were used as a research tool; and content analysis was used as a research method. Overall, the findings indicated that the ideal school leader from the teachers’ perspective predominantly has leadership skills, and rarely has both specific personality traits and enduring goals to pursue, whereas specific necessary qualifications are considered as the least desirable. These findings are discussed in the context of the broad literature on leadership and in relation to the proposed leadership models.
 
 Keywords: School leader, principals, teachers’ perspective, qualitative research.

School principals as leaders: Pre-service and in-service teachers’ perspective

Scholars have highlighted that the existing school leadership models are incomplete and the relevant research is dominated by the principals’ perspectives. This study explores the pre-service and in-service teachers’ views about what they want and expect of the school principals as leaders to willingly follow them. The sample consisted of 36 teachers purposefully recruited. Written texts, where the participants were asked to spontaneously write down their thoughts, were used as a research tool; and content analysis was used as a research method. The findings overall indicated that the ideal school leader from the teachers’ perspectives has mostly particular leadership skills, in a much lesser extent has both specific personality traits and enduring goals to pursue, while specific necessary qualifications are considered as the least desirable. These findings are discussed in the context of the broad literature on leadership and in relation to the proposed leadership models.
 
 Keywords: School leaders, principals, teachers’ perspectives, qualitative research;

A Subjectivist Model of School Leadership for International Schools: Greenfield Revisited

Greenfield’s subjectivist approach to the construction and interpretation of social reality is examined and applied to school organizations in an attempt to demonstrate that such organizations may be advantageously viewed as entities constructed and sustained by ideas in people’s minds. The path to understanding schools and their administration lies with the interpretation and analysis of the experience of people in these institutions rather than in the use of overarching theories of educational management. International schools have always provided education for the ever-increasing flux of people across frontiers, either temporarily because of job postings (globally mobile families) or more permanently because of migration. The high degree of cultural diversity in these schools augments the complexity of leadership because staff, students, and parents bring their own cultural heritage, experience, and expectations to bear, together, in a single school setting. This also increasingly applies in government schools in many countries because of migration. Ethnic cultural repertoires play a major role in the creation, deciphering, and juxtaposition of individual social realities and have an important bearing on organization culture. The article concludes with the importance of communicative and cultural competencies as the main tools for effective school leadership in international schools.

A New Perspective for Understanding School Managers’ Roles: The Impact of Principals’ Boundary Activities on the Effectiveness of School Management Teams

Background/ContextIncreasingly, educational leadership research has stressed that leadership is not solely embedded in formal roles but often emerges from relationships between individuals. Senior management teams (SMTs) are an important expression of a formal management structure based on the principle of distributed leadership. Such structures may require a reconceptualization of school leadership and the role of the principal in such a way as to better meet new challenges and enable principals to manage SMTs more effectively. Accordingly, it is proposed that to improve effectiveness, principals engage in boundary activities, the principals’ internal activities directed toward the SMT aimed at dealing with internal team matters and the principals’ external activities directed toward external agents in the team's focal environment to acquire resources and protect the team.Purpose/ObjectiveThe present study attempts to advance a theoretical model of principals’ internal and external activities toward their SMTs. This study's purpose is twofold: First, the study tries to determine which of the internal and external activities principals engage in more frequently and less frequently and to what extent. Second, the study attempts to determine how these activities are related to the SMT effectiveness outcomes: in-role performance and innovation. Taking on a distributive perspective to school leadership, our goal is to extend our knowledge about the activities that might facilitate SMT effectiveness, by highlighting the principal boundary activities as fundamental.Research DesignQuantitative study.Data Collection and AnalysisData were collected from two sources to minimize problems associated with same source bias: 92 SMTs and their principals from 92 public schools in Israel. Principals evaluated the SMTs’ effectiveness through validated surveys of team in-role performance and team innovation, and SMT members evaluated the internal and external activities of the principal.Findings/ResultsANOVA analyses indicate significant mean differences between the principal's internal and external activities. Results from Structural Equation Model indicate that internal activities were related to SMT performance, whereas external activities were related to SMT innovation.Conclusions/RecommendationsPrincipals who manage both the internal SMT dynamic by promoting SMT identity and building team trust, while also promoting a common mission, serve the role of coordinator between SMT members and constituencies external to the SMT, enhancing SMT effectiveness. It may be, then, that studying new models of school leadership and management, including the relationship of the principal and the SMT, may deepen our understanding of the increasingly complex role of principals today.

Exploring the effects of authentic leadership on academic optimism and teacher engagement in Thailand

PurposeIn the context of Thailand’s progress towards education reform, scholars have identified a lack of effective school-level leadership as an impeding factor. The purpose of this paper is to develop and validate a theoretical model of authentic leadership effects on teacher academic optimism and work engagement. Authentic leadership was considered a suitable model of school leadership in light of Thailand’s explicit recognition of the importance of developing the moral capacity of students and emphasis on ethical leadership.Design/methodology/approachThe study employed a quantitative cross-sectional survey design. Survey data were obtained from 605 teachers in a nationally representative sample of 182 primary schools. The data were analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling.FindingsThe results indicated that the model of authentic leadership effects on teachers’ academic optimism and work engagement was validated. A moderate relationship was observed between authentic leadership and the dependent measures of teacher attitudes.Practical implicationsThe study identified a potentially important lack of alignment between the espoused values and actions/decisions of school principals in Thailand. When combined with prior research conducted on leadership for educational reform in Thailand, our findings highlight the systemic nature of the problem faced in changing traditional patterns of behavior in Thai schools. More specifically, despite change in the nation’s educational goals, human resource management of the nation’s school leaders continues to produce administrators and managers rather than leaders, either instructional or moral.Originality/valueThe study extends prior studies of school leadership in the context of Thailand’s education reform that focused more specifically on principal instructional leadership in Thailand. In addition, this study of authentic school leadership is one of only a few conducted outside of Western societies.