Educational Administration: Theory, Research, and Practice

Leadership Capacity for Lasting School Improvement

Commitment in the workplace

Leadership? who needs it?

Learning, becoming, leading: the experiences of international school Principals Sarah Elizabeth Howling In recent years there has been huge growth in the number of international schools, both worldwide and in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur. International education may be an increasingly rich area for research, but leadership in international schools remains a relatively unexplored phenomenon. Our understanding of what constitutes successful educational leadership is derived mainly from national settings or comparative international research. This thesis shows that although there are similarities in experience the world over, leadership is deeply contextual. A core strand of this research is to identify and analyse the core leadership practices and styles of international school Principals in Kuala Lumpur and what knowledge and competencies they need to successfully lead. It explores how Principals develop their leadership, their self-concept and identity, including the interrelationships between the three key distinct but deeply interwoven concepts of learning, becoming and leading. The research adopts a qualitative, interpretivist epistemology and in order to generate answers to the research questions, I conducted twelve semistructured interviews with international school Principals. The findings highlight two important and far-reaching themes that influence Principals’ experience in this context: impermanence and isolation. In addition to generic leadership strategies, Principals in this study navigate complex intercultural situations and acknowledge and embrace their role in creating a supportive community. They use a range of styles including learning-centred, transformational and distributed leadership, placing a very high value on relationships and demonstrating a significant ethic of care. They value reading, coaching, experience and reflection as means of learning, and also make use of social media, creating virtual communities of practice. Finally, a new model is presented to understand and analyse the dynamic and iterative interrelationships between learning, becoming and leading.

Learning, becoming, leading : the experiences of international school Principals

This study determines the effects of distributed leadership on teachers’ affective commitment using a partial least square structural equation modelling approach. Using a population of 652 teachers from 10 international schools in Kuala Lumpur, a sample size of 242 was selected using stratified random sampling. However, only 200 questionnaires were used in the analysis. Findings of the study showed that quality and distribution of leadership function, cooperation within the leadership team and teacher participation in decision-making were significantly related to teacher affective commitment but not quality and distribution of supervision. These four dimensions were able to explain 77.3% of the variance in teacher affective commitment. These findings confirmed the importance of distributing leadership to ensure teachers continue to be committed to attain the school goals. Future studies involving a wider range of teacher population and comparison between local and expatriate teachers should be carried out to gain more insights into school leadership in the international schools in Malaysia.

Distributed Leadership and Teachers’ Affective Commitment in International Schools

Global trends are redefining the current and future needs of individuals at local, national, regional and global levels. Education has been regarded as an indispensable and vital tool for social and economic growth of a country (Harris et al. in Educ Res 58(2):166–178, 2016). Efforts around the world have depended on education as a means of eradicating poverty and hunger, increasing the income of the people, assuring employment and opening opportunities for individuals to live a lifestyle of comfort and ease.

Teacher Education in Malaysia: Practices, Challenges and Future Trends for the Twenty-First Century

Background and Purpose: This systematic review article focuses on leadership challenges encountered by school principals in the 21st century. International evidence indicates principal leadership affects school and student performance. However, little systematic review has been carried out on the issue. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to analyse the existing literature on leadership challenges faced by school principals in the 21st century.
 
Methodology: Following the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) guidelines, a systematic review was done on two main databases, Web of Science and Scopus. There were three main stages in the process: identification of keywords, screening of articles, and determination of the articles. This resulted in a ﬁnal database of 16 eligible documents.  
 
Findings: The review of these documents resulted in three main themes – personal challenges, school context, and stakeholders, and 11 sub-themes. There were three subthemes for personal challenges such as lack of knowledge and skills, while school context challenges can be divided into six sub-themes such as lack of trained staff and inadequate facilities and resources. The two subthemes for stakeholders challenges are negative attitudes of parents and interventions from the Ministry.
 
Contributions: This systematic review expands the literature of principalship in the 21st Century by highlighting the challenges faced in the context of North American, African, European, and Australian schools. Further work on the challenges faced by school principals in other continents should be carried out to achieve a better understanding on the issue.
 
Keywords: 21st century, challenges, principal leadership, school leadership, systematic review.
 
Cite as: Adams, D., & Muthiah, V. (2020). School principals and 21st century leadership challenges: A systematic review.  Journal of Nusantara Studies, 5(1), 189-210. http://dx.doi.org/10.24200/jonus.vol5iss1pp189-210

Vicneswary Muthiah

Papers

Distributed Leadership and Teachers’ Affective Commitment in International Schools

Teacher Education in Malaysia: Practices, Challenges and Future Trends for the Twenty-First Century

School principals and 21st century leadership challenges: a systematic review