Connecting research and knowledge on educational leadership in the West and Asia: adopting a cross-cultural comparative perspective

Abstract

Researchers have suggested that the field of educational leadership has yet to develop a coherent knowledge base that reflects the gobal diversity of policies and practices. This disconnect -for example between Asian and Western research, presents a major challenge, curtailing authentic knowledge production and transfer. Accordingly, the creation of a cross-culturally valid knowledge base with global relevance must become a major future objective for the field. This conceptual paper addresses the phenomenon of global knowledge construction in educational leadership and the problems and challenges of achieving coherence and connectivity between bodies of research emanating from diverse politico-socio-cultural settings. In achieving greater connectivity between Asian and Western educational leadership research, the paper promotes a cross-cultural comparative approach. It does so primarily for two contrasting reasons: first, to create a universal/global knowledge base, and second, to reveal the ethno-centric nature of the dominant anglo-western centric paradigm. It is argued that, paradoxically, the likelihood of achieving a global knowledge base is enhanced the more research overcomes its tendency to display narrow ethnocentrism. That is, a major feature of a comparatively informed universal knowledge base is the awareness of the socio-cultural embeddedness of educational leadership. While acknowledging the benefits and challenges of such an approach, the paper advocates four types of cultural and cross-cultural comparative studies, namely, meta studies based on large data sets, socio-educational studies placing leadership in a social milieu context; system reform and renovation studies based on government initiatives to improve

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