The Phenomenon of Leading without Guidebook: Educational Leadership Practices of Philippine School Principals in Virulent COVID-19 Times

The school principals play a pivotal role in leading educational institutions. Their lived experience as educational leaders in the context of a virulent crisis, however, is largely unexplored. This paper sought to discover the essence of educational leadership practices of school principals in the context of the current COVID-19 crisis. Following phenomenology as a research design, the researcher explored the world of six Filipino school principals through interview procedures. The analysis method developed by Colaizzi (1978) was used. The results revealed six emerging themes of educational leadership practices during a crisis as follows: 1.) navigating the crisis with adaptive leadership; 2.) cultivating practices in crisis management; 3.) managing through the machine; 4.) freezing the standards and patterns; 5.) promoting inclusivity in the new normal, and 6.) caring first for what is essential. These themes form the basis of the description and structure of the phenomenon offered at the end of the paper. Considering the present scarcity of knowledge on how school principals respond in times of crisis, this paper provides insights into educational leadership practices within the context of the COVID-19 situation

A female advantage? Gender and educational leadership practices in urban primary schools in Chile

What differences are there, according to teachers’ opinions, in school leadership practices between male principals (MPs) and female principals (FPs) in urban primary schools in Chile? A national survey has been done to address this topic, which was answered by the principal and five teachers in 381 urban primary schools. Following Leithwood’s school leadership four-category model, 14 practices were considered and measured. Data were analysed by statistical procedures, including the decision tree technique, chi-squared automatic interaction detection (CHAID). Findings showed that in 9 out of 14 practices, FPs have a significantly more favourable evaluation from teachers. Data confirmed that, when compared to other personal traits of principals or school features, gender is the strongest independent variable related with leadership practices. Nonetheless, this advantage occurs in an overall scenario in which both FPs and MPs engage unevenly with the leadership practices across the dimensions of the model. This study does not aim to explain the female advantage, but to show the shape of leadership differences by gender regarding theoretically relevant practices. Nevertheless, its data allow ruling out some possible hypotheses for interpreting those differences. The article suggests that further research is needed to theoretically explain the reasons behind differences in leadership practice by FPs and MPs.

Leadership for Learning as Experience: Introducing the Use of Vignettes for Research on Leadership Experiences in Schools

Research on the link between educational leadership and student learning employs a variety of quantitative and qualitative research designs. Surprisingly, there are relatively few studies on methods for researching educational leadership practices. This article addresses this gap in research and discusses how the experiences of different participants can constitute potential starting points for learning processes. This leads to the question, how and to what extent the educational leadership practices manifest in students’ experiences and how “Leadership for Learning as Experience” can be empirically researched. The phenomenologically oriented vignette as research method for studying educational leadership practices will be introduced. Vignettes are narratives that are based on the experiences of participants. In vignettes, the co-experienced observations in the field are captured in form of vivid narratives. Vignettes thus open up a new, supplementary perspective, in which the traces that leadership practices have left on school participants are revealed.

School leadership in disadvantaged contexts in Spain: Obstacles and improvements

The increase in child poverty in Spain highlights the importance of equality and inclusion of students at risk of social exclusion in the Spanish educational system. Recent research emphasises the importance of educational leadership, particularly from school principals, as a tool to improve the learning of these students. The main aim of this study is to establish the characteristics of school management in disadvantaged contexts in western Andalusia (Spain), placing special emphasis on the factors considered to hinder or aid effective leadership from principals. A mixed methodology was used in this process, surveying 282 teachers and interviewing 14 principals, and employing descriptive and contrastive statistics techniques. According to the teachers surveyed, principals tend to follow good educational leadership practices. However, the disadvantaged contexts present obstacles to their effective execution. While improvements are observed in the continuity of teaching staff, there is an urgent need to improve the qualifications of teachers working with students at risk of exclusion. In conclusion, principals need greater autonomy in relation to teachers and teaching practice.

Contextualizing, orchestrating and learning for leading

The importance of leadership for improving educational outcomes in schools has been widely promoted. However, the nature of leadership practices, in context, has received less attention in the educational leadership literature. In this article, we present a case study of the specific leadership practices that developed in one school site serving the learning needs of students in a complex, diverse, low socio-economic community in south-east Queensland, Australia. Rather than focusing on the person/role of ‘the leader’, or various leadership qualities/traits, we examine the nature and particularity of the leadership practices as praxis, across a variety of roles and dispositions, as developed within the school. To help make sense of the praxis and particularity of educational leadership practices, we draw upon recent neo-Aristotelian practice theory to reveal the specific actions (‘doings’), dialogue (‘sayings’) and relationships (‘relatings’), which constituted leadership-in-practice, as praxis. These ‘doing’, ‘sayings’ and ‘relatings’ for praxis were evident in: formal leadership practices responsive to the context and history of the particular school site; formal and informal leadership practices involved in establishing a ‘leadership group’ within the school to address students’ needs, and; and informal leadership practices focused on cultivating teacher learning for student learning. Such an approach does not simply reinforce sedimented notions of what constitutes ‘educational leadership’, but sheds new light upon the nature of ‘leading practices for praxis’.