Instructional leadership in Greek and English outstanding schools

Abstract

This research paper examines instructional leadership in outstanding secondary schools within a centralised (Greece) and a partially decentralised (England) education context. Since the purpose of the study is exploratory, the researchers adopt a qualitative approach, employing a series of four qualitative case studies with the purpose of examining the impact of instructional leadership on student learning, teachers' professional growth and school improvement, using the interpretivist paradigm. Semi-structured interviews with various data sets (stakeholders) within and outside the school, observation of leadership practices and meetings, and scrutiny of relevant macro and micro policy documents are employed to enhance methodological and respondent triangulation.Recognising that instructional leadership is not confined to the principals' leadership domain, a sense of shared and distributed leadership prevails in schools, while its implementation is inevitably linked to system constraints. The findings from the Greek schools link to the official expectations that principals operate as administrative rather than instructional leaders, while an unofficial instructional 'teacher leadership' culture suggests potential for reconsidering leadership in Greek state schools. In contrast, the decentralization of school activities creates the platform for the emergence of shared and distributed leadership within the English context, where school actors enact direct and indirect instructional leadership roles. This cross-country comparative study demonstrates theoretical significance in its focus on the collaborative and reciprocal nature of instructional leadership, while its empirical contribution lies in generating new knowledge on how instructional leadership is contextually bounded.

Instructional boundary management: The complementarity of instructional leadership and boundary management

“…In recent decades, researchers and professionals throughout the world have argued that principals should engage in instructional leadership (Shaked, 2018; Hallinger and Wang, 2015; Kaparou and Bush, 2016; Park and Ham, 2016). The instructional leadership framework, which requires the principal to be intensely engaged in the improvement of curriculum and instruction, arose from the close correlation between quality of instruction and academic results (Bush and Glover, 2014; Murphy et al, 2016).…”

“…Today’s principals, who are constantly asked to demonstrate instructional leadership (Kaparou and Bush, 2016; Murphy et al, 2016), run systems that are characterized by growing openness (Yemini et al, 2016) and therefore are often engaged in boundary activities (Louis and Robinson, 2012; Valli et al, 2018). Thus, principals have to juggle the two demanding roles of instructional leaders and boundary managers.…”

Comparative leadership: pathways, scope and values in DRC-English 'urban' schools

“…The evidence here is consistent with research from Greece (Kaparou, 2013;Kaparou & Bush, 2016), West Africa (Bush & Glover, 2016) and Rwanda (Kambanda, 2013), which prompted Bush and Glover (2014, p.565) to suggest that African countries and Eastern and Southern European contexts were more centralised, in the sense that the 'principal's role often remains that of implementing external imperatives with little scope for local initiatives'.…”

“…It is argued here that, in comparison to the experiences of Bafote and Lokuli, Fiona and Donald voiced a greater degree of scope that points to the educational environment in England being less objective and more subjective (Bush & Glover, 2014;Hooge et al, 2012;Kaparou & Bush, 2016). Using Simkins' (2003) terminology, it could be contended that, while heads in the DRC were only supposed to have operational power, the scope in England provides more criteria power.…”

Managing cultural diversity for collective identity: A case study of an ELT department in Omani higher education

“…Hierarchy-oriented practices are confined with stakeholders who hold managerial positions at the upper echelons of governance. Kaparou and Bush (2016) highlight comparable results within a highly centralized context where centralised decisionmaking is viewed as restrictive at system level in Greece. This view on the hierarchy of authority seems to be consistent in highly-centralised systems which exert top-down and bureaucratic management approaches which do not favour egalitarianism, but hierarchy.…”