This systematic review sought to expand our knowledge of the increasing research studies focusing on the empirical link between school leadership and student achievement. Using five different data sources (Scopus, WoS, ERIC, Google Scholar, and Retrospective Reference Harvesting Procedure), we created a data set of 144 journal articles.…

This article is exploratory and experimental. It starts from the premise that leadership scholarship is a site of disagreement, where mainstream claims are challenged by critical scholars. Some criticism focuses on conceptual clarity, and incorporates consideration of who should be categorised as a leader, and on what basis, and whether it is…

Instructional Boundary Management is an area of school leadership comprising activities that simultaneously involve instructional leadership and boundary management. This study explores principals' Instructional Boundary Management during COVID-19. Data collection consisted of semi-structured interviews with a diverse sample of 33 Israeli…

The concept of distributed pedagogical leadership (DPL) practice in education is advanced as an acceptable element in enhancing the quality of pedagogical improvement and the academic achievement of learners across educational contexts. This concept is conceived as a leadership style, where stakeholders are formally and informally involved in the…

The instructional leadership approach requires school principals to give top priority to the continuous improvement of teaching quality and academic outcomes. This study explored how principals of elementary schools in Israel fulfilled their instructional leadership role during COVID-19. Data collection comprised semi-structured interviews with a…

This study aims to explore reimagined accountability through collective efforts initiated by school leaders and to challenge the fixed notion of accountability prescribed by policy scripts. Drawing on studies highlighting humanizing leadership and the metaphors of "agora" and "bazaar," I investigate how school leaders…

School leadership research literature has a large number of widely used constructs. Could fewer constructs bring more clarity? This study evaluates construct content validity, defined as the extent to which a measure's items reflect a theoretical content domain, in school leadership literature. To do so, we reviewed 29 articles that used Teaching…

To afford school middle leaders meaningful opportunities to initiate change, we must provide them with the space and flexibility to engage with agentic and creative responses to policy and practice. Whilst we argue that the tensions identified in Bennett's seminal reviews persist, there may, nonetheless, be opportunities for school middle leaders…

The present research investigated principals' achievement motives and implicit theories of intelligence as predictors of their desired achievement goals for their students. The research was highly powered and conducted in the understudied cultural context of Saudi Arabia. Data were collected from 326 principals (175 female and 151 male) in…

This study applied a bibliometric approach to a dataset of publications on women and educational leadership to critically explore the nature of research in the field and the utility of the bibliometric method in its mapping. The analysis was conducted on bibliographic records of 823 papers on women and educational leadership published from 1975 to…

Instructional leadership is a school leadership approach with a strong focus on the development of teaching and learning. This study explores how instructional leaders act to promote social justice and eliminate school inequities. The participants in this qualitative study were 24 Israeli elementary school principals. Data collection was based on…

Lagging student performance in the Sultanate of Oman has, in recent years, led the Ministry of Education to target teachers' professional learning as a key strategic pillar in its efforts to reform the education system. While international evidence finds principal leadership can make a meaningful difference in teacher engagement in professional…

Purpose: Leadership for the implementation of an educational innovation in Singapore was examined by integrating distributed leadership with an ecological perspective of leadership and analysed using the third generation of cultural-historical activity theory. Research Method: The study adopted the naturalistic inquiry approach of a case study of…

Prior research has established principal leadership as a key factor in enhancing professional learning communities. However, researchers are only beginning to make progress in identifying the means and 'paths' through which school leaders contribute to professional learning communities. This study tested a multilevel, moderated mediation model of…

Email has become a prominent communication tool for principals. Although principals have reported benefits of communicating via email, they have also indicated that it has intensified their workload. Specifically, principals have indicated that they receive a large volume of email, which contributes to extending and fragmenting their workdays.…