Abstract
Happy New Year and welcome to volume 49 of EMAL. The dawn of a new year provides an opportunity for people to reflect on their lives, personal and professional, and to plan changes, sometimes encapsulated in new year resolutions. This year is the 50th anniversary of the British Educational Leadership, Management and Administration Society (BELMAS) and I am proud to be President of BELMAS in this golden anniversary year. EMAL was established by BELMAS in 1972, and the journal will celebrate its own 50th anniversary next year. When the society, and the journal, were established half a century ago, nobody could have foreseen the remarkable challenges facing schools, colleges, and universities, arising from the COVID-19 pandemic. My own personal wish for 2021 is that a vaccine will be widely available before the end of the year so that we can continue with our important work as teachers, leaders, and scholars, for the benefit of children and adult learners.
In the first article in this issue, Philip Hallinger and Jasna Kovačević note that educational leadership and management has been of interest for more than half a century. They report on their science mapping of the knowledge base for this field from 1960 until 2018. They identify four generations of scholarship, noting the internationalisation of the field since 2010. They selected 21 eligible journals, although their choice may be subject to debate, with a massive database of 22,492 articles. They conclude that the field comprises several distinctive, coherent, and stable ‘schools of thought’, notably how leaders foster student learning, productive change, and school improvement.
Cristina Cruz-González, Carmen Lucena Rodríguez, and Jesús Domingo Segovia also offer a systematic review, focusing on principals’ leadership identity since 1993, including 38 articles. This is an important topic because new principals have to adopt a new identity, consciously or unconsciously, when they make the transition from teacher to senior leader. The authors note increasing interest in this topic over the past decade and stress the ‘fundamental’ role of training for identity development. They conclude that the development of professional identity is complex and multifaceted, so that the position of principal may not be attractive to teachers, a problem in some jurisdictions.
The third systematic review in this issue, by Ali Çağatay Kılınc and Sedat Gümüş, relates to novice school principals. They comment that the transition from teaching to principalship is a daunting process, leading to stress, anxiety, and professional isolation. They examined more than 400 sources and included 115 of these in the review. They identify three main areas of focus: preparation and development, socialisation and challenges, and new principals’ roles in school improvement. They conclude that the current body of literature largely fails to address cultural and systemic differences.
Experienced leaders also require professional learning, as noted by Brenda Service and Kate Thornton in their study of 13 secondary school principals in New Zealand. These principals operate in an autonomous school environment where their responsibilities are ‘extensive’. The authors asked the participants to identify their major challenges and to explain what professional learning or support would be needed to help them face such challenges. They conclude that the principals’ role is complex, and that their professional learning and development opportunities are limited.
There is growing interest in school leadership in Gulf states, as I was able to witness during a visit to Kuwait in 2019. Lucy Bailey, Ted Purinton, Osama Al-Mahdi, and Hala Al Khalifa confirm this increasing interest, illustrated, in a position paper about research in Gulf countries, by the establishment of a leadership centre in Bahrain in 2018. Their analysis focuses on four strands: how leadership is conceptualised, the leadership pipeline, professional development, and leadership efficacy. They note the significance of cultural differences in the conceptualisation of leadership and conclude that caution should be exercised when applying global ‘best practices’ in Gulf contexts.
Catherine A Simon, Chris James, and Alan Simon examine the growth of multi-academy trusts (MATs) in England. They note that these academies were first established in 2010, independent of their local authority. These academies may cluster into formal groups, known as multi-academy trusts. The authors assessed the diverse patterns of MATs, using the Department for Education’s database, and also interviewed 11 MAT CEOs. They note that MATs are a core part of the self-improving school system but add that school autonomy is constrained by the role of MAT CEOs, and by the Regional School Commissioners (RSCs), who are directly accountable to government, leading to a ‘tightly controlled hierarchical system’.
One motivation for English schools to seek academy status is increased financial autonomy, although this may be constrained, as noted above. Peter Davies, Colin Diamond, and Thomas Perry provide evidence of how schools choose to spend their money, distinguishing between different school types: local authority schools, single academy trusts, and MATs. They note that both local authorities and MATs ‘top-slice’ school budgets and conclude that ‘it is very difficult to find any support for the assertion that academies are more efficient than local authority schools’.
The challenges facing school leaders are noted in several of the papers in this issue, but few problems can compare with schools serving conflict-affected communities. Jenestar Wanjiru examines one such challenge, in a post-conflict primary school in Kenya, where 71% of the children were living in local camps and orphanages. Drawing on interviews, focus groups, and field notes, the author concludes that school leadership was instrumental in reversing community disintegration and repairing moral distortion.
Verónica López and her colleagues explore school climate and violence in Chile, using an actor-network analysis. The authors examined legal and policy documents and conducted interviews with national and regional officials. They conclude that three main actors – the Agency of Education, the Ministry of Education, and the Superintendence – shape the translation of school violence and climate policies into a mainly ‘punitive’ reality, with the Superintendence involved in ‘hyper-surveillance’ and the Ministry blocking moves towards school climate improvement.
Xiaorong Ma and Russ Marion examine the impact of principal instructional leadership on teacher efficacy in a minority region of western China. They surveyed 50 principals and 714 teachers from this region, where students are disadvantaged and at risk of academic failure. They note that principals can exert influence on teacher efficacy, using both direct and indirect paths, and highlight the importance of trust as a mediating variable to explain the impact of instructional leadership on teacher efficacy.