How do principals’ practices reflect democratic leadership for inclusion in diverse school settings? A Hong Kong case study

Abstract

Research on principals’ practice of democratic leadership for inclusion in schools has been undertaken in many parts of the world. This paper explores four principals’ leadership journeys in response to social justice issues in increasingly diverse settings within public schools, in relation to demographic and cultural changes in Hong Kong. This research aims at exploring the issues in schools arising from contextual changes in the society, contextualising characteristics of principals’ practices in relation to an emergent conception of democratic leadership practice in addressing the issues and identifying practical roles of democratic principal leadership in school transformation for diverse students’ learning development. I adopted a cross-case study of the principals’ leadership journeys through a theoretical lens of democratic leadership. The changes of demographic structure and cultural context and pressure from the central administration were the conditions of facilitating alternative practices of democratic principal leadership in a multicultural school context which evolved from the hybrid of Western and Confucian cultures in the city. These findings contribute to an international account of contextualising democratic leadership practices in a diverse Chinese school community.

Keywords

Chinese principals democratic leadership practice inclusion for social justice leadership problems multicultural contexts uncontrollable forces

Introduction

Recent studies have proposed new forms of principal leadership practices for social justice and inclusion to address related issues in schools (e.g. Furman and Shields, 2008; Theoharis, 2007), while others have developed emergent practices for broadening the sense of equality and equitability of learning development for all students (e.g. Harris and Chapman, 2002; Muna and Zennie, 2011; Woods, 2004). Despite this, principals still face issues that have more complex effects on student learning development in different locations where student populations have become more diverse. The number of students from migrant families, with different languages, abilities, ethnicities, cultures and religious beliefs, has increased, while the local birth rate has declined. Moreover, students with special educational needs require specific support in public schools (e.g. Szeto, Cheng, and Sin, 2019; Ward et al., 2015). New threats to social justice have emerged as a result of increasing diversity of communities continuing to impede student learning and participation. Among the studies, democratic leadership in education is an emergent concept for the enactment of social justice and equal participation for every student in this diverse environment (e.g. Marri, 2003; Vedøy and Møller, 2007; Woods, 2005). In fact, principals are exploring various leadership practices to address the threats in different school contexts.

In this article, I report a cross-case study of four principals’ alternative practices for addressing the threats to social justice which have emerged in schools as a result of the contextual changes in Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China and a controversial Chinese society in East Asia. These threats and changes, even if not fully unintentional, affect the principals’ reorientation and development of practices driven by their morality and professional ethics, in their leadership journeys. Their responses reflect characteristics of democratic principal leadership as discussed by different researchers (e.g. Abowitz, 2019; Angelle et al., 2017). This aligns the educational ideals of principal leadership with the democratic practices widely pursued by Hong Kong youth in recent years (Cheng and Szeto, 2019).

Different people understand the meanings of democracy differently, including proponents’ and opponents’ interpretations due to pluralistic theorisation and practices (Riley, 2003; Woods and Gronn, 2009). Despite this, democracy is yet to be fully implemented in a broader social context in Hong Kong, as reflected in the youth’s mounting grievances against the extradition bill proposed by the government and against other unfair social issues in the city (Hong Kong Economic Journal, 2019). Eventually, policymakers and the police force were accused of colluding with the triad’s thugs in the recent attack on the black-clad protesters and ordinary passengers in a train stopped at a station in Yuen Long (a town located in the west of Hong Kong’s New Territories region) (e.g. Financial Times, 2019; Guardian, 2019). Efforts to address grievances may have intensified across generations in local communities, while some universities have been invaded by the police force ( Guardian, 2019; Radio and Television of Hong Kong [RTHK], 2019). The phenomenon of the extradition bill reflects the problem of leadership practice and the uncontrollable police force in contrast to the salience of Dewey’s (1997: 99) conception of participatory democracy in education as a social ideal:

A society which makes provision for participation in its good of all its members on equal terms and which secures flexible readjustment of its institutions through interaction of the different forms of associated life is in so far democratic. Such society must have a type of education which gives individuals a personal interest in social relationships and control, and habits of mind [with public ownership] which secure social changes without introducing disorder.

With this conception in mind, whether principals, in light of the increasing diversity of public schools, are more likely to practice democratic leadership for inclusion as a means of addressing social justice issues has yet to be explored (Angelle et al., 2017). Thus, I report a case study of Chinese principals’ alternative leadership practices in Hong Kong schools, with attention paid to changes in the political, social and cultural contexts at multiple levels in the post-1997 decades. The three research questions are:

RQ1: What social justice issues do principals identify as arising from the demographic and cultural change?

RQ2: How do principals practise democratic leadership to address the issues arising due to the increasing diversity of the student population in schools?

RQ3: What insights about the role of principal leadership in the school transformation can be identified?

Literature review

In these times of change, studies of principal leadership have paid more attention to various perspectives of justice and inclusivity in the past two decades (e.g. Gross, 2008; Riehl, 2000; Szeto, 2019). The concept of principal leadership for inclusion in the enactment of social justice in schools has also received attention from different scholars worldwide (e.g. Cribb and Gewirtz, 2003; Theoharis, 2007; Woods and Woods, 2013). From a theoretical underpinning of democracy, democratic leadership in education is expected to cultivate social justice and equal participation for every student within the increasing diversity of communities (e.g. Stokes, 2002; Ward et al., 2015). Ironically, principal leadership practices in various schools are governed by a central administration with a top-down accountability of educational outcomes (Kwan and Li, 2015; Szeto, 2017; Winton, 2010). Despite this, scholars still know little about the democratic leadership, if any, enacted by principals in individual education settings.

Principals need to broaden their leadership practices to effectively respond to the pressure of bureaucratic accountability, while the threats and changes to equal participation and social justice can be addressed in diverse school settings. Some studies have explored leaders’ enactment of social justice for equitable change to produce a new social order in schools and in broader societal contexts (e.g. Jean-Marie et al., 2009; Lugg and Shoho, 2006). Taking a social perspective, Berkovich (2014) challenged the status quo beyond school boundaries by incorporating ‘activism’ and ‘social change’ at the centre of leadership for social justice. Others have conceptualised leadership practices for social justice in difference and diversity as directed towards equality and wider participation in various school settings as schools become increasingly diverse (Marshall, 2004; McMahon, 2007). Ten years after Mahony and Moos’ (1998) comparative study of democratic leadership practices in England and Denmark, Taysum and Gunter (2008) proposed multifaceted and responsive leadership practices capable of addressing social justice issues in a school community in the United Kingdom. Furman and Shields (2008) identified a close connection between democratic leadership for social justice and the promotion of student learning in democratic school communities in the United States. However, these studies did not share a common terminology for the leadership practices of addressing social justice issues in various education contexts.

Democratic leadership practice in Western societies

From the perspective of education reforms, Riley (2003) referred to Louis’s (2003) competing notions of liberal, social or participatory democracy in various Western societies. The goal-setting and participation in education are interpreted through the three notions of opportunity for everyone, collective opportunity for various groups or opportunity for voices from local communities. Woods and Gronn (2009: 432) further summarised four models of the nurturing of democratic leadership in education as ‘liberal minimalism’ for the protection of individual views, ‘civic republicanism’ for public participation as common good, ‘deliberative democracy’ for normative consent on social diversity, and ‘developmental democracy’ for development of human potential with fair participation.

Woods (2005: 8) explained the practice of democratic leadership with Stokes’ (2002) developmental conception of democracy in his research:

The developmental model attaches key importance to the realisation of human potential. It emphasises the positive impact that democratic participation has on personal development, and how that development is influenced or conditioned by social opportunities, constraints and relations.

I further interpret Woods’ (2005) four ideal rationalities of democratic leadership practices in schools or organisations: (a) ethical support for the world view of truths with highest values; (b) discursive practice of the ethics to be inclusive of diversity, difference and difficulty through dialogue (with the issues of diversity and difficulty being an extended interpretation provided by the author); (c) decisional contributions to the various organisational contexts, cultures and social relationships in which people are situated through the practice; and (d) therapeutic empowerment of people by the political, cultural and social structures of the organisation. These rationalities link to a model of democratic leadership practice. Thus, ‘[d]emocratic leadership promotes respect for diversity and acts to reduce cultural and material inequalities (social justice)’ (Woods, 2005: xvi).

The aforementioned studies account for various notions of cultivation of social justice, ranging from activism for large-scale social change to the democratic pedagogy for social justice, responsive leadership practices in democratic school communities and developmental and participatory democracy in education. Regardless of the various notions or models, Winton (2010: 233) emphasised that ‘…school leaders [are] committed to pursuing critical democratic education through its commitments to diversity, equity, active participation, and promoting critical thinking’. In reality, principals may adopt various democratic leadership practices in the cultivation of equal participation and social justice for every student in different educational contexts. Thus, the pluralistic views suggest an agenda for research on democratic practices of leading learning for all in a democratic school climate reflecting not only the increasingly pluralistic context of Western societies, but also broad characteristics of democratic leadership practice across different school settings.

Characteristics of democratic leadership practices in schools

Based on this literature review, I characterise principals’ practices of democratic leadership in a school organisation from the aforementioned theoretical underpinnings, particularly Woods’ (2005) four ideal rationalities. These characteristics underpin the practice in response to the threats of diversity and contextual changes. A series of alternative practices undertaken by principals is synthesised. This emphasises inclusion against social justice issues and reduces inequalities rather than exclusion in specific locations. The practices infuse characteristics of democratic principal leadership in schools, of a specific educational context:

principals’ responses to the effects of diversity, difference and difficulty on equality of developing human potential (including students, teachers, parents and other stakeholders) in the school organisation;

principals’ reliance on morality and ethics to identify threats to equality and equity in their schools;

principals’ reorientation and reshaping of leadership practices to cultivate inclusion, social justice and equal participation in learning and development for diverse student populations; and

principals’ leadership role in effecting school transformation for social justice improvement.

So far, the literature on democratic leadership for inclusion in the enactment of social justice in schools tends to be more conceptual than empirical, paying little attention to principals’ various practices in schools (e.g. Angelle et al., 2017; Berkovich, 2014). A knowledge gap has emerged between the findings of research based in Western societies and those of the few studies conducted in non-Western contexts. Empirical research on the democratic leadership practice in Chinese settings is particularly limited.

Changes to Hong Kong’s educational context in the post-1997 decades

To broaden understanding in this field, Hong Kong is used as a Chinese case study to illustrate the role of principals’ reorientation of leadership strategies with a new focus on different leadership actions in response to the threat to social justice in the changing context. The changing role may unintentionally demonstrate alternative practices of democratic leadership in the changing demographic structure in the post-1997 decades, while the Chinese society in Hong Kong has been shaped by a hybrid of Western and Confucian cultures in the colonial period of British governance (Katyal and King, 2011; Postiglione, 2017). I argue that the demographic and cultural or contextual changes to the educational context affect principals’ practices, reflecting the characteristics of democratic leadership.

Before elaborating the changes, the education system in the post-1997 period is described. A massive education reform was fully implemented from 2001 to 2012 (Education Commission, 2000). The reform brought about a systemic change to the previous education model built during the British colonial period, followed by a major curriculum change at the level of secondary education. The new education system is a ‘6 + 3 + 3 + 4’ structure, comprising 6 years of primary education, 3 years of junior secondary education, 3 years of senior secondary education and 4 years of undergraduate study. The system is argued to be compatible with the one in mainland China after the handover (Szeto, 2019). Despite the new system, schools in Hong Kong with stricter accountability measures are still highly stratified by students’ academic ability, while principals need to adapt to a different measure of accountability for school improvement in the change in curricula, assessment and academic structure (Curriculum Development Council [CDC], 2001; MacBeath, 2014). I argue that individual principals’ practices are affected differently depending on individual school settings.

Demographic restructuring in Hong Kong

The demographic restructuring characterises the diversity of the student population in terms of difference and difficulty that intensifies issues of equality and equity for students’ learning and development (Szeto et al., 2019). In terms of the diverse difference, over 0.7 million people with a variety of ethnicities have immigrated from South Asian societies, and some were born in Hong Kong, leading to a 9% increase in the population over the last two decade, according to the official population figures (Census and Statistics Department, 2017). The immigrants from South East Asia are from India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines and Thailand, and those who were born in Hong Kong have parents of mixed Chinese and/or South-East Asian backgrounds. With the increasing influx into Hong Kong of people from other societies in the region, due to globalisation and the local immigrant policy, migrant children are encountering increasing difficulties in achieving equal learning development in Hong Kong’s host culture (Sinn, 2008). Besides, over 1 million people have immigrated to Hong Kong from different cities of mainland China. The demographic restructuring has affected diverse student populations with different languages or cultures in schools in the post-1997 decades.

Cantonese is still the instructional medium in primary education, and English is used along with Cantonese in secondary schools, which are strictly governed by the ‘biliterate [in traditional Chinese] and trilingual [in Cantonese, Putonghua and English]’ language policy (Education Bureau [EDB], 2015). In contrast, the local birth rate has consistently declined over the same period (Chee, 2018). The children of newly arrived immigrant families from mainland China, and those from various Asian societies are diverse. Many of these children are non-Cantonese speaking and/or non-Chinese speaking (NCS), placing a significant demand on school education. The EDB (2015) faces the challenge of difference in multiple languages, cultures, religions and social backgrounds of the migrant students. The instructional medium and requirements of Chinese language for university study are adjusted for the NCS students.

Increasing number of students with special educational needs (SEN)

The challenge of difficulties in students’ learning development have been increasingly reported. ‘In the academic year 2017/2018, a total of 54,244 students with SEN studies in secondary or primary schools, of which 45,360 study in public schools, 1,966 in ESF [English Schools Foundation] schools, International schools and private independent schools; and 6,918 in Special Schools’ (Cheung and Kwok, 2019: 4). Compared with 33,830 in 2014, the number of students with SEN increased 38.0% in just 4 years (Legislative Council Panel on Education [LCPoE], 2014). Although the EDB introduced the whole-school approach to integrated education in mainstream schools in 2008, followed by the implementation of SEN coordination, inclusive practices for students with various difficulties are still challenging in individual schools (EDB, 2008; 2017). In response to the difference and difficulty, principals’ leadership practices need to reorient and react against the social justice challenges to providing equal learning opportunities for every student.

Evolving hybrid of Western and Confucian cultures

The Chinese culture of Hong Kong was historically shaped at the cross-roads of East and West under the influence of its previous model of British education (Postiglione, 2017). This hybrid culture continued affecting the massive education reform of Hong Kong in the post-1997 period. Concomitantly, the combination of an increasing number of migrant families with school-aged children and a decline in the local birth rate has affected schools’ intake of diverse new students from different socio-cultural backgrounds (Szeto, 2019). It is worth noting that school leaders and teachers, in practice, are struggling with their epistemological beliefs that are shaped by the hybrid culture. They need to adapt to the diverse school setting.

Due to the diversity, the disparity of socio-economic status (SES) and differences in language use, culture and religious beliefs pose a major challenge to migrant children’s learning and development in Hong Kong society. This approximate 20% increase in the city’s population from diverse backgrounds has impacted the effects of the education development and improvement (Szeto et al., 2019). Equally important, the hybrid influence of Western and Confucian cultures has subtly evolved in schools, and in Hong Kong, towards a multicultural society (Liu and Feng, 2015; Tan and Chua, 2015). I argue that this evolution is natural and influences principals’ leadership practices in the multicultural school context. However, new issues of equal learning development for every student have emerged. Some principals might adopt an alternative practice of democratic leadership for inclusion in response to the diversity, social justice and evolving culture of this Chinese society. It is worth noting that this is not a unique change in Hong Kong, and that an extended framework of multicultural democracy and development of related leaders has been proposed by researchers (e.g. Marri, 2003; Muna and Zennie, 2011).

In the literature review, I outline the rich theoretical underpinnings of democratic leadership practices. This needs to be characterised from a conceptual to a practical level through which the practice can be identified in the principals’ alternative responses to the changes in the specific school settings (Kwan and Li, 2015; Szeto, 2019). Hong Kong is well positioned to fill the knowledge gap, and it is expected that the specific empirical findings will enrich the international knowledge base in the field.

Method

I adopted a qualitative approach to conducting a cross-case study of four principals’ school-leadership journeys, which reflected the alternative practices of democratic principal leadership in the post-1997 decades (Creswell, 2012). This research design enabled us to gain detailed insights into critical events, the threats and challenges facing the participants, the actions taken to address the threats from the central administration, and the challenges of increasing diversity of the student population in the school context (Yin, 2014). First, the principals’ efforts to turn their schools around were compared using the characteristics of practicing principal democratic leadership for inclusion in schools derived from the literature review. Next, I comparatively analysed the effects of the changes on the traditional hierarchy of organisation and instruction in the four schools, with particular attention paid to how the four principals addressed the social justice issues of equality and equity arising from the diversity of the student population.

Participants

A purposive sampling from referrals and newspaper reports of principals’ good practices for school improvement was used. The sampling also covered the three main geographical districts of Hong Kong: Hong Kong Island, Kowloon and the New Territories. These were the criteria for selecting the potential participants. Due to the differing school contexts, I decided to focus on primary schools instead of a mix of primary and secondary schools. Cherry, Paul, Edwin and Sharon subsequently accepted our invitation to join the study, and the four schools they worked within were located in the three districts. New Territories is the largest district, with some newly developed areas. Thus, I selected two primary schools located in the new areas of the district, and assumed that principals’ leadership characteristics would be the core of school improvement for student learning development.

Before taking up principalships in their current schools, Paul and Sharon had been the vice-principals of two high-performing schools in different urban areas of the city. Cherry and Edwin had been mid-level leaders for some years in two mainstream schools. The four principals had studied education in Hong Kong, started work as schoolteachers, and had more than 15 years of work experience in education. Then, Cherry, Paul, Edwin and Sharon, albeit at different times, took up principalships at School A in Hong Kong Island, School B in Kowloon, and Schools C and D in the New Territories, respectively.

Data collection and analysis

The interview method was the main source of data collection in this cross-case study. Semi-structured individual interviews (Creswell, 2012) were conducted in the schools to gain insights into the principals’ personal values and leadership practices. I paid attention to the threats and challenges they encountered in their schools in the post-1997 decades. The information sheet about the study with an informant consent form was sent to the interviewee. After receiving the signed consent form, I then conducted the interviews. The interview content was recorded on digital audio devices and anonymously transcribed verbatim. The interview questions are attached in Appendix 1. As each interview lasted for 1 to 2 hours, the transcripts provided rich data for further analysis. Documentary evidence was obtained from the school websites, along with artefacts such as annual school reports and summaries of school performance reviews, school-development plans and news clippings, to gain a deeper understanding of the threats, challenges and opportunities facing the four principals.

The data analysis was conducted in two phases as a means of ensuring the internal validity of a qualitative analysis. In the first phase, two researchers separately coded the data (Corbin and Strauss, 2015) using the proposed characteristics of the democratic leadership practice as the thematic coding, using NVivo 11 software. They individually categorised the practice at different levels, specifically the principals’ leadership commitment, the social justice issues arising from the diversity of students’ learning needs and the community’s awareness of cultural and ethnic differences. I then incorporated the two individual sets of analysis in NVivo 11 where Cohen’s (1960) kappa was calculated to measure the inter-rater reliability, and a figure of 0.77 was obtained, suggesting a high level of agreement between the two researchers’ individual analysis. Any disagreements were resolved through discussion with the research team.

Four themes emerged from the coding, namely the ‘effects of demographic restructuring on the threats of central administration’, ‘diversity, equality and equity’, ‘reorientation and reshaping of principals’ leadership practices’, and the ‘role of principals’ leadership in school transformation’. These themes align the principals’ leadership journeys with the characteristics of democratic leadership practice derived from the literature review. Then, the researchers proceeded to use the four themes to conduct cross-case analysis in the second phase. A series of thematic comparisons was carried out to explore (a) effects of demographic restructuring and threats of the central administration on the schools, (b) social justice issues of diversity, equality and equity in the schools, (c) reorientation and reshaping of the principals’ leadership practices, and (d) school transformation. As a result, the two researchers’ findings were considered consistent, indicating the internal validity of the two-phase analysis (Creswell, 2012).

Findings

In answer to the research questions, I first provide a brief account of each principal’s leadership journey followed by the effects of demographic restructuring on the schools where the student populations are highly diverse. Concomitantly, implementing a tight accountability measure, the central administration threatened permanent closure of schools if school performance was unsatisfactory or if the schools could not intake the required number of new students in Primary 1 due to the decline in the local birth rate (Kwan and Li, 2015; Szeto and Cheng, 2018). The social justice issues in relation to equality and equity emerging from the increasing diversity of students and the cultural change in the community are also identified. This answers the first question. Next, the principals are shown to have alternative practices of addressing these issues, particularly driven by their personal morality and professional ethics. Therefore, the evidence answers the second question.

Accounts of the principals’ leadership journeys in the schools

Cherry’s leadership journey began with her appointment to the role of principal at School A, an aided primary school sponsored by a religious organisation. The school had a clear vision of service to local students, and was situated in one of the wealthiest districts of Hong Kong Island. Upon her appointment as principal, in 2005, Cherry realised that School A mainly admitted ethnically Chinese students who lived in the district. Attracting new students was extremely difficult, as many high-performing schools were located in the same district.

Paul’s leadership journey began as a student at School B, and went on to take the job of principal at his alma mater. The school had been sponsored and operated by a local charitable organisation in a wealthy district of Kowloon Peninsula, surrounded by many high-performing schools. Households of both high and low SES lived in the district. Subsequently, the school became the school of choice for parents with a low SES.

Edwin began his principal leadership journey many years ago. School C, an aided primary school sponsored by a non-profit ethnic organisation, is located in the New Territories. The community the school is situated in comprises households of low SES. He has evidenced the implementation of integrated education and the diversification of the student population in his journey. Thus, his leadership has changed with the new education policies of supporting SEN students implemented by the central administration. ‘As the government pays my salary, I have to change according to whatever new education policy is imposed in the school.’

Sharon’s leadership journey began with her appointment to the role of principal at School D, an aided primary school in a different part of the New Territories, sponsored by a Christian organisation. The community comprises households of both medium and low SES. Before the appointment, she was a vice-principal in a private and public school. She explained, ‘The students of School D are different from those in the previous schools who come from families with higher SES’. Despite this, she shared the school’s mission that ‘every student is educable in the ideology of Christian education’.

Threats from central administration to the schools

Two of the four schools were on the brink of closure due to the declining local birth rate. Cherry realised that a wave of school ‘killing’ (closure) would probably ‘drown’ the school, due to the low birth rate in Hong Kong. This threat had already approached the school. Although it was once the local parents’ choice, local children in the school community had already grown up. Cherry described the situation shortly after becoming the principal of School A as follows: ‘This community has become an aging district and the school faces the problem of a shortage of new students’. She continued, ‘Hence, our school needed to admit a diverse student population including ethnic minority students mainly from India, Nepal, Pakistan, and so on’.

In contrast, School B was no longer preferred by local parents. Paul explained the threat that School B would have been closed if a forthcoming external review report conducted by the then Education and Manpower Bureau (the current Education Bureau of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (the Government)) had been unsatisfactory. ‘This community has changed and there is a large group of ethnic minority and immigrant families from mainland China living in this area’, he observed. However, the change of education policy was unfair to the school as the intake of new students had been suspended for a year by the Government. He continued, ‘Our school should admit children of immigrant and minority families due to the decline in the local birth rate, if the Bureau is satisfied with our review report’.

However, facing the common threat of closure due to the unfair policy, Cherry and Paul felt that the success of a school should be measured differently. Unlike many other principals, who accepted their schools’ fate, the two principals involved in this study looked into possible ways of ‘saving’ their schools. Paul indicated in his remarks: ‘What was unjust was that the government had already stopped the school from recruiting new students in that year before the final inspection report’.

The threat to Schools C and D was similar at the time Edwin and Sharon participated in this study. The then immigration policy allowed citizens of mainland China who were pregnant to come to give birth in Hong Kong. The new-born babies automatically enjoyed the local benefits, such as free education in a public school. The schools were situated in a newly developed community in different parts of the New Territories near two control points allowing access to mainland China and operated by the Customs and Excise Department of the Government. These cross-border students were an important source of new students for the schools, while many new local families and immigrant families from mainland China moved into the two communities.

Edwin was concerned about the way of integrating the students from different sources into the school’s learning environment. New groups of parents sent their local-born children to Hong Kong schools every day, but the families lived in nearby cities in mainland China. Their children learn together with other local students. Edwin said, ‘We try not to distinguish the local and cross-border students as they are mixed in a class…What worries me is the increasing number of SEN students from local families who study in our school’, he continued. However, Sharon treasured the cross-border students who studied with local students with or without SEN together. ‘This was a real scenario of inclusion of difference and difficulty’, she emphasised. They felt that the threat to their principalship in the schools was not the increasing number of SEN students due to the policy of integrated education implemented in ordinary public schools from 1999. Instead, Sharon recalled that they were concerned that ‘the parents dislike the label of SEN’. Sharon worried that this labelling effect would influence new intakes of students in the future. Thus, she adjusted her leadership of the school towards an educational model of multiple intelligences.

Having said that, both Sharon and Edwin shared the same concern about the school autonomy under the pressure of the rapidly changing education policy imposed by the central administration at that time. On the other hand, Cherry and Paul understood the strict accountability of a principal’s practice and the trend of the central administration’s policy changes. They saw the decreasing local birth rate offset by the rise in new ethnic-minority immigrant families from other Asian societies and from various parts of mainland China as a new opportunity to save their schools. Table 1 highlights the quotes extracted from the four principals’ interview content in relation to the threats of demographic change and pressure of the central administration on the four schools.

Table 1.

Highlights of the principals’ responses to the threat.

Threat	Cherry	Paul	Edwin	Sharon
1. School closure by school performance review 2. Shortage of local students 3. Rapid change in education policy	This school community has become an aging district, and faces the problem of a shortage of new students. To avoid the lethal threat of being closed, our school admitted a diverse student population including ethnic minority students mainly from India, Nepal, Pakistan, etc.	There is a large group of ethnic minority and immigrant families from mainland China living in this area. Our school was changed to admit children of the immigrant families, mainly the immigrant Chinese children, before being permanently closed.	We have around a 10% shortage of intake after recruiting the cross-border students, and have to follow the hard guideline of the central administration on SEN support. There is not much leeway.	This is the school of parents’ choice, but the school is labelled for students with SEN. I needed to change the current label, but the central administration pushed so hard to revitalise the integrated education policy.

Threat

Cherry

Paul

Edwin

Sharon

1. School closure by school performance review

2. Shortage of local students

3. Rapid change in education policy

This school community has become an aging district, and faces the problem of a shortage of new students. To avoid the lethal threat of being closed, our school admitted a diverse student population including ethnic minority students mainly from India, Nepal, Pakistan, etc.

There is a large group of ethnic minority and immigrant families from mainland China living in this area. Our school was changed to admit children of the immigrant families, mainly the immigrant Chinese children, before being permanently closed.

We have around a 10% shortage of intake after recruiting the cross-border students, and have to follow the hard guideline of the central administration on SEN support. There is not much leeway.

This is the school of parents’ choice, but the school is labelled for students with SEN. I needed to change the current label, but the central administration pushed so hard to revitalise the integrated education policy.

Diverse student populations in the schools

With the support of their schools’ sponsoring organisations, the four principals started preparing to serve newly arrived migrant students with different backgrounds. After implementing the integrated education policy, all ordinary public schools had to intake students with SEN due to the allocation of extra funding. Thus, student populations showed a range of diversity with difference and difficulty in the schools. Cherry admitted more non-Chinese speaking (NCS) migrant children than local ones to School A, accompanied by a few students with SEN. The students did not live in the same district. With official approval of a new 3-year school plan, Paul admitted the children of migrant families from various parts of mainland China and local students with SEN more than those NCS children: ‘We have been attracting more and more students from surrounding districts, where lots of NCS and newly arrived children live’. To make up the shortage, Edwin and Sharon accepted more cross-border students than in the previous intakes. Edwin admitted students with SEN constituting around 10 to 15% of the student population in School C, while Sharon reached 20 to 25% of the student population in School D.

Table 2 compares the diverse student populations in the four schools. The range of diversity with difference and difficulty accounted for the social justice issues of equality and equity for every student’s learning and development in Hong Kong public schools.

Social justice challenges to equality and equity in the diversity

A series of challenges to the equal and equitable learning and development for all students from various differences and difficulties arose. The nature of these challenges, I argue, is social justice-related (Jean-Marie et al., 2009; Szeto et al., 2019). Table 2 shows the details of the diverse student population. First, the diverse student population is particularly challenging for the schools. The immigrant students who once lived in different Asian societies with different social, cultural and religious backgrounds needed help with their adaptation to the local educational context. On the other hand, the students faced various degrees of challenges in their learning, particularly, those with SEN required specific and intensive support for their learning and development. The principals could not easily find balanced ways of addressing these social justice challenges. Others, such as community stakeholders’ acceptance of the differences in ethnicity, religion and culture of the newly arrived migrant students and the local students, were also imperative, requiring the principals to transform the school to be more inclusive. In reality, many principals utilised the school resources and opportunities to provide more support to those students with high academic performance than to the other students. This decision might have been rooted in parents’ emphasis on students’ academic achievements, the cultural context of Western elitism and Confucianism, and the international benchmarking of student achievement (Kwan and Li 2015; Spangler, 2016; Steiner-Khamsi, 2014).

Table 2.

Comparison of the range of diverse student populations in difference and difficulty across the four schools.

Student profile	School A (Hong Kong Island)	School B (Kowloon Peninsula)	School C (New Territories-1)	School D (New Territories-2)
Background	Diverse cultural, language and religious backgrounds	Diverse cultural, language and religious backgrounds	Local students and cross-border students (CBS)*	Local students and CBS
SES	– Students are mainly from low-income families. – Some receive the government support for low-income families.	– Students are mainly from low-income families. – 60% are sponsored by the government support.	– Students are from different family backgrounds. Generally, both parents need to work. – Some receive the government support.	– Students are mainly from low-income families. – Many students receive the government support.
Demographic restructuring and SEN	Demographic Distribution
	NAS: Nil. NCSS: Over 90% of the students are ethnic minority non-Chinese speaking immigrants from Southeast Asia, e.g., Thailand, the Philippines, India, Pakistan, etc. LS: Around 9% are local children.	NAS: Over 70% of students are newly-arrived children from different parts of mainland China. NCSS: Over 15% are non-Chinese speaking children born in Hong Kong, e.g., Thailand, the Philippines, India, Nepal, Pakistan, etc. LS: Around 10% are local children.	CBS: Around 35% of students are CBS. They were born in Hong Kong and are living in nearby cities in mainland China. LS: Around 50% are local children	CBS: Around 55% of students are CBS. They were born in Hong Kong and are living in nearby cities in mainland China. LS: Around 25% are local children
	Students with SEN
	A small number (1%)	A small number (5%)	15%, mainly from local families.	20%, mainly from local families.
Students’ first language/mother tongue	NAS: Nil. NCSS: Neither Chinese nor English is their first language. English is the second language used for teaching parallel to the Chinese language. LS: English is the second language for the learning of some subjects such as General Studies, Mathematics, etc.	NAS: Either Putonghua or Cantonese in speaking, use simplified Chinese as written language. They usually have low English proficiency. NCSS: Neither Chinese nor English is their first language. English is the second language of these students for learning. They need to gradually adapt to Cantonese, the verbal dialect and traditional Chinese for writing. LS: Cantonese and traditional Chinese	CBS: Either Putonghua or Cantonese in speaking at home, use Traditional Chinese as written language in school. They usually have low English proficiency. LS: Cantonese and traditional Chinese. SEN: Adaptation of curriculum and instruction for the students’ learning needs.	CBS: Either Putonghua or Cantonese in speaking at home, use Traditional Chinese as written language in school. They usually have low English proficiency. LS: Cantonese and traditional Chinese. SEN: Adaptation of curriculum and instruction for the students’ learning needs.

Note. CBS: cross-border students, LS: local students, NAS: newly-arrived students from the Mainland, NCSS: non-Chinese-speaking students, SEN: special educational needs

*The students were born in Hong Kong and live in nearby cities in the Mainland, but their parents are not Hong Kong citizens

Because of the increasing diversity of Hong Kong’s demographic structure, it is worth noting that the hybrid of Western and Chinese cultures is argued to be evolving into a multicultural context in the city as more immigrant students come from other Asian societies and different mainland cities (Szeto, 2019). For example, Cherry focused on serving the diverse learning needs of ethnic-minority students by implementing high-quality multicultural education, while Edwin and Sharon did not group the students based on where they came from. This may echo Marri’s (2003) notion of multicultural democracy. Cherry commented that ‘the Education Bureau should not apply a standardised and centralised K-12 curriculum to the schools which diverse migrant students attend’. Both Edwin and Sharon were reluctant to follow the standardised curriculum for every student’s learning due to the diversity in their primary schools. They found that there were both positive and negative effects on the students’ learning in an integrated classroom. However, social justice challenges of the negative effects in addressing the equality of learning opportunities and the equity of developmental outcomes of individual students in the school surfaced as a result of the integration.

Facing the standardised curriculum and instructional language, the positive effects on teaching in an integrated classroom facilitated teachers who tried to leave their comfort zone for improvement of student learning. They needed to develop coping strategies of teaching a mix of non-Chinese students and those who speak Cantonese and Putonghua/Mandarin, while the principals could ensure the staff members’ awareness of the increasing diversity followed by the change of practice in the schools. However, this was the next level of challenge as neither the principal nor the teachers had practical knowledge or related experience of teaching students with or without special educational needs from different social, cultural and religious backgrounds. It was imperative that the EDB provided related professional training and support for the schools. However, the teachers still faced the challenges.

Alternative leadership practices in the schools

The principals adopted similar leadership practices in response to the social justice challenges. Their leadership actions were reshaped to cultivate an inclusive school environment for the equality of learning and to ensure equitable participation in various school activities. Hopefully, every student’s needs could be met for whole-person development as indicated in the last education reform (CDC, 2001). I argue that the practice driven by their morality and professional ethics touches on the characteristics of democratic leadership practice, if not fully unintentional, in the local public schools. Table 3 summarises the principals’ leadership practices adopted in response to the challenges in the schools.

Table 3.

The principals’ leadership practices against the social justice challenges in the schools.

Social justice challenges	The leadership practices in response to the challenge
Social justice challenges	Cherry	Paul	Edwin	Sharon
Stakeholders’ concerns about diversity	− Establish mutual understanding in the community for the multicultural education. − Conduct parent education for better understandings of the multicultural learning context	− Initiate an open-door policy of the school to the community. − Share understandings between parents and teachers in support of local, cross-border and SEN students’ different needs.	− Organise after-school care for those students in the community who need it. − Communicate with parents of local and cross-border students about the school vision and mission.	− Promote multiple-intelligence education in the community. − Build trust between the school and students’ families to prepare individual students’ potential talents for whole-person development.
Staff members’ willingness to face the diverse student population	− Build an awareness and competence of inclusiveness among the staff members by participating in a variety of cultural activities.	− Educate the teaching team for a trusting, respectful, optimistic and caring school environment for individual differences with the notion of invitational education.	− Remove the staff’s consciousness of labelling local vs. cross-border students and non-SEN vs. SEN students with the concept of joyful learning.	− Change the staff’s mindset about SEN and cross-border students to identify students’ multiple intelligences. Adopt a motivational approach to stimulate students’ participation.
Difference and difficulty in teaching and learning: the curriculum, methods, and instructional medium	− Develop the school-based curriculum to address individual differences. − Use technologies in support of students’ learning of Chinese language. − Set a school-based policy of flexible instructional medium for the non-Chinese students. − Organise professional development in teaching migrant students of different backgrounds.	− Redesign the school-based curriculum to differentiate learning pace and difficulty. − Collaboratively develop instructional methods and assessment for the students. − Support the students in mastering the local language in learning different subjects. − Use technologies in support of student learning across subjects. − Provide teachers with in-school professional development.	− Adapt the standardised curriculum for different learning challenges of the diverse students. − Emphasise school-based curriculum development for joyful learning among students. − Adopt small-class teaching methods with a focus on individual students’ learning difficulties. − Share the teachers’ experiences in teaching different subjects to meet individual students’ learning and developmental needs.	− Group the students randomly in the first year of principalship. − Start grouping the classes by balanced and mixed abilities of the students in the second year. − Identify students’ individual talents and limitations in teaching, be they gifted or SEN. − Encourage students to participate in different school activities for development of their talents. − Prepare teachers’ emotional intelligence to accept the differences and difficulties of the students

The table shows the overall leadership practices of each principal in the schools. The types of social justice challenges listed in the left column align with the characteristics of democratic leadership practices. To address the stakeholders’ concerns, the four principals adopted similar strategies to listen to stakeholders’ views, establish a mutual understanding of the proposed approaches to educating the diverse student population, and secure their support for the schools’ new educational directions. Next, after sharing the new direction with the staff members, they started changing their perceptions of and practices related to the increasing diversity of their schools. Paul suggested adjusting the standardised curriculum for the students’ diverse learning needs, and promoted respect, equality and equity in schools vis-à-vis an alternative practice of democratic leadership (Woods, 2005). To address the different instructional languages, Cherry focused on using English as the flexible instructional language to suit students’ learning needs. On the other hand, Paul, Edwin and Sharon helped the students adapt to the local language with differentiated teaching methods.

In these cases of addressing the differences and difficulties, Cherry intended to implement the ideology of multicultural education for the non-Chinese speaking students, while Sharon focused on the students’ multiple intelligences, regardless of whether or not they had SEN or were living in the local or cross-border communities. At that time, building a multicultural or multiple intelligences school was the foremost practice in the Hong Kong education context. Cherry’s case echoes Muna and Zennie’s (2011) study of multicultural leaders related to school organisations. Paul introduced a positive learning environment. Edwin believed in a small-class approach to cultivating joyful learning for every student. ‘Although some students may not always keep up with the regular pace of learning, they are happy to come back for study’, he asserted. Thus, the cross-case comparison reflects the principals’ individual leadership approaches to address the similar social justice challenges in the schools.

Local Chinese parents were also encouraged to welcome the diversity of individual students’ learning development through the creation of a multicultural, invitational, joyful or multiple-intelligences learning environment. Thus, the teaching team of each school played a crucial role in raising awareness, promoting inclusiveness and resolving the challenges of teaching and learning. Different ways of professional-development training in teaching students from different backgrounds were adopted. Collaborative learning to review and develop the subject curricula and pedagogies to make the school successful for individual differences was a key factor of principal leadership practice for school transformation and revitalisation.

For example, Paul and his teaching team changed the school culture to remove the language barrier impeding students’ learning in a range of subjects. This was similar to Edwin’s practice in a small-class approach to differentiating diverse needs in teaching and learning. Sharon collaborated with the expert team from a local university in redesigning the curriculum, instructional methods, and assessment practices for SEN students’ learning needs. The team worked with the teaching team of School D and shared the practice of adapting the curriculum for the students’ differentiated learning. Sharon recalled, ‘the collaboration with the university is fruitful and inspiring for the teaching team who can use different approaches to address the challenges of subject teaching and learning for students with and without SEN’.

Discussion

The findings of the study have contextualised the four Hong Kong principals’ alternative practices in response to the threats and contextual changes so as to avoid permanent closure of the schools. Concomitantly, the principals, who were driven by their morality and professional ethics, needed to address the emergent social justice issues and those deeply rooted in the tight accountability imposed upon them. I further discuss insights that the practices improve social justice by enacting equal and equitable learning development for all students in answer to the third question. This can transform the schools towards integrating Dewey’s (1997) democratic conception in Stokes’ (2002) development of human potential in education. Thus, the practices aligned the characteristics of democratic leadership.

Democratic leadership practice in the diversity

The leadership practice is framed by the theoretical underpinnings of developing students’ potential with equality and equity in the diversity of the school community. In this study, the mutual influence of central administration and demographic restructuring has created differences between migrant students and also between migrant and local students not only in schools, but also within the larger community. This has also integrated individual difficulties in learning development into a standardised curriculum and instruction. The four principals had similar responses by establishing a mutual understanding with the community stakeholders based on their personal morality and professional ethics, which drove them to face any resistance to transforming the schools (Szeto and Cheng, 2018). Consequently, parents accepted the introduction of multicultural education in School A, the proposed changes to School B, the additional after-school programmes in School C, and the multiple intelligence education for every student in School D.

The personal moral and professional ethical values underpinning the principals’ attitude towards changing the misconceptions of social justice issues in the community reflect practices of democratic leadership (Abowitz, 2019; Winton, 2010; Woods and Gronn, 2009). The values, I argue, can reorient principals’ strategies vis-à-vis a democratic conception of overcoming threats to social justice for equality of full participation. This echoes the leadership practices highlighted in the literature (e.g. Angelle et al., 2017; Theoharis, 2007, Ward et al., 2015). However, coping with social justice issues by practising democratic leadership in schools requires a degree of risk-taking by principals – perhaps even to the greatest degree (Lugg and Shoho, 2006). Ironically, the built-in inequalities resulting from school funding schemes, an overemphasis on school performance through tight accountability, and a stratification of students’ academic results have not yet been resolved, at least in this educational context (Kwan and Li, 2015; Szeto et al., 2019).

Democratic leadership practices for school transformation

I have evidenced how the principals play an extraordinary role in democratic leadership driven by their morality and professional ethics for school transformation in response to social justice issues arising from the threats and challenges they faced. Indeed, the principals lost neither their sense of hope nor their commitment to education. They led their teaching teams to seize new opportunities arising from a low birth rate and an increase in the number of migrant and cross-border children. As a result, they not only saved but also transformed their schools. Their leadership journeys realised the changing role of the principals towards practising democratic leadership in a multicultural, diverse and different school context. One may argue that whether or not principals can practise democratic leadership in schools depends on individual principals’ leadership quality. In fact, the principals’ roles observed in this study reflect the importance of leadership quality.

The principals need to have the sense of interacting with a range of contextual layers to transform the school. They can sharpen their focus on the challenge to equality of student learning development in the diversity, and motivate the teaching teams’ potential at different levels of the hierarchy of a school organisation. In contrast, many other principals have passively accepted the school performance conditions set out by the central administration, and have ignored the new opportunities arising from the demographic change. The four principals in this study proactively admitted migrant students from various countries, and cross-border students from the nearby cities in mainland China. They developed their teaching teams to respond to the needs of a diverse student population, ultimately turning their schools around.

In fact, threats and challenges to equal educational opportunities for all students still exist in many places across different societies. I still argue that principals’ practices of democratic leadership can, at least, cultivate a mutually inclusive, multicultural educational and multiple-intelligence awareness for social justice at all levels of an education system (Dewey, 1997). In so doing, school organisations as a whole will find common ground in the democratic conception of education for the development of everyone’s potential with the stakeholders’ participation in a mutually respected context. Thus, this study offers useful recommendations for principals and policymakers to turn any threat and challenge into opportunities for school transformation.

Conclusion

I first point out the limitation of this study which was conducted in a specific educational context. There is no intention to generalise the findings. Instead, the exploration has identified the principals’ alternative practice of democratic leadership in Hong Kong where the hybrid of Western and Confucian cultures has evolved into a multicultural social context, mainly due to the demographic restructuring and other political and social changes in the post-1997 decades (Szeto, 2019). Thus, the practices for inclusion in the notion of democratic leadership can be contextualised (Winton, 2010; Woods, 2004). In fact, the social justice issues highlighted in relation to diversity, difference, and difficulty are becoming more complicated over time due to the interplay between the demographic changes and deep-seated hierarchical practices in individual education settings.

Last but not least, principals can be inspired to explore innovative strategies for school transformation vis-à-vis democratic leadership strategies capable of turning around disadvantaged schools and improving equality and equity for diverse students beyond policy boundaries. This echoes the characteristics of democratic leadership practice derived from the literature review from which new opportunities for every student’s learning and development can be identified in schools (e.g. Muna and Zennie, 2011). However, a widely accepted consent of democracy based on the moral and ethical values of equality, trust and respect in a society is required (Dewey, 1997; Riley, 2003). Principals are then willing or able to enact democratic leadership for school transformation that secures the equality and equity of learning and support for all students in the increasing diversity of difference and difficulty.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Elson Szeto

Appendix 1. Interview protocol

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