Conceptualizing school leadership in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) cultures: Demarcating challenges for research

Abstract

Although school turnaround has been studied extensively in Western contexts such as the United States, the applicability of remedies to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries has not been extensively studied. The literature that exists predominantly uses a Western cultural lens. This article identifies four key dimensions of leadership for transformation of schools—what is leadership, who becomes a school leader, how are leaders supported, and do school leaders believe they can succeed—, contrasting between the Gulf region and the West; in doing so, the article seeks to explain why the solutions to school failure that originate from the West, widely understood around the globe, are either irrelevant or of limited use in this region. Drawing in part on the authors’ experience in establishing a leadership centre, through collaboration between the Ministry of Education in Bahrain and the Bahrain Teachers College, the article calls for systematic empirical studies to establish how each of the four dimensions inform region-specific approaches to leadership for school transformation and quality improvement. It concludes by arguing that researchers should explicitly consider the extent to which their findings can be translated into practical leadership action in a range of cultural settings.

Mapping the field of educational leadership and management in the Arabian Gulf region: A systematic review of Arabic research literature

“…The developments taking place in GCC countries have encouraged researchers to consider the role of educational leadership and the importance of modifying borrowed leadership theories to local cultures in the region (Bailey et al, 2019;Sellami et al, 2019). For example, based on their insiders' experience in Bahrain, Bailey et al (2019), similar to many scholars in postcolonial and policy transfer literatures in primary disciplines like political science, sociology, psychology, and cultural studies (e.g.…”

“…The developments taking place in GCC countries have encouraged researchers to consider the role of educational leadership and the importance of modifying borrowed leadership theories to local cultures in the region (Bailey et al, 2019;Sellami et al, 2019). For example, based on their insiders' experience in Bahrain, Bailey et al (2019), similar to many scholars in postcolonial and policy transfer literatures in primary disciplines like political science, sociology, psychology, and cultural studies (e.g. Kitayama and Cohen, 2007;Rodriguez et al, 2010), have emphasised the need to conceptualise EDLM in the GCC countries in order to provide culturally appropriate frameworks needed for the ongoing educational reforms in the region, arguing that imported, mainly Western, approaches to educational leadership are limited 'in speaking to practitioners from GCC cultures' (p. 2).…”

“…The term 'Gulf states' refers to the six monarchies comprising the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), namely Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). They were chosen as a unit for this study because although they share many cultural, social, political and organisational features with the rest of the Arab world, the Gulf states have a number of specific characteristics that make them a unique context for the study of EDLM (Bailey, Purinton, Al-Mahdi and Al Khalifa, 2019). Clearly, there are differences among these monarchies in terms of constitutions, types of shari'ah used, culture, and socio-economic and political institutions (see Miller, 2016;Wiseman, Alromi and Alshumrani, 2014;Zahlan, 2017) that influence the educational systems they have and the types of educational administration and leadership exercised (e.g., Sunal and Mutua, 2013).…”

Pathways to the school principalship: An international scoping review

“…In this body of work, questions of recruitment, selection, and preparation are considered paramount to ensure a highly qualified principal in each school (Murphy and Hallinger, 1989, Pont et al, 2008). Growing global interest in leadership development is associated with successive large-scale educational reforms that view principals as a critical improvement lever (Bailey et al, 2021; Begley, 2008; Gumus et al, 2018; Gunter et al, 2016; Milton et al, 2020).…”

Critical and Postcolonial Approaches to Educational Administration Curriculum and Pedagogy

“…Her focus is on those colonialising hierarchies and structures that still perpetuate in so-called postcolonial states and subjectivities methods and approaches taken to be general or universal when they are the consequence of colonising forces. One form of this is the assumption that what works or fails in a Western country would necessarily apply elsewhere (Bailey et al, 2019). The result is that not only are non-Westerners still encased in colonialism, but the 'Western' is created as a consequence of colonisation and dominating conceptions of modernity.…”