Understanding the Challenge of Middle Level Leadership in Schools: Analysis of the Effect of Principals' Educational Leadership on the Role of Assistants
Subject Areas : Education
1 - Islamic Azad University, Chalous Branch
Keywords: middle leadership, assistants, school management, educational leadership,
Abstract :
Educational leadership, in fact, is an approach about the leadership style of school principals. This approach seeks to improve the quality of teaching and learning. The present study aims to investigate and analyze the effect of educational leadership of principals on the role and position of school assistants. To conduct this study, 16 principals of primary schools in Karaj were selected as a sample, and then, using semi-structured interviews, the required data were collected. To analyze the data, a three-step method of qualitative content analysis including sorting, coding and classification was used. This process finally led to the emergence of three main themes and areas. The accuracy of the obtained findings shows that the educational leadership of principals in three main areas affects the middle leadership and the performance of school assistants. These three areas are: expectations from assistants, selection and appointment of assistants, and the existence of a hierarchical structure of assistants in schools. The results of this research show the importance and multidimensional impact of educational leadership on various organizational aspects of middle leadership in schools. In the end, the relationship of these results with the strategic decisions of school management is discussed
Azizkhani, P. (1400). Investigating factors affecting cultural intelligence: A solution to increase human skills in the direction of transformation management. 4th International Conference of Psychology, Educational Sciences and Social Studies, Hamedan. (in Persian)
Bazeley, P. (2020). Qualitative data analysis: Practical strategies (2nd ed.). Sage.
Bergin, T. (2018). An introduction to data analysis: Quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods. Sage.
Blasé, J., & Blasé, J. (2000). Effective instructional leadership: Teachers’ perspectives on how principals promote teaching and learning in schools. Journal of Educational Administration, 38(2), 130-141.
Boyce, J. & Bowers, A. J. (2018). Toward an evolving conceptualization of instructional leadership as leadership for learning: Meta-narrative review of 109 quantitative studies across 25 years. Journal of Educational Administration, 56(2), 161-182.
Bryant, D. A., & Rao, C. (2019). Teachers as reform leaders in Chinese schools. International Journal of Educational Management, 33(4), 663-677.
Bush, T. (2023). The importance of middle leadership for school improvement. Educational Management, Administration & Leadership, 51(2), 267-269.
Day, C., Gu, Q., & Sammons, P. (2016). The impact of leadership on student outcomes: How successful school leaders use transformational and instructional strategies to make a difference. Educational Administration Quarterly, 52(2), 221-258.
De Nobile, J. (2018). Towards a theoretical model of middle leadership in schools. School Leadership & Management, 38(4), 395-416.
Edwards-Groves, C., Grootenboer, P., Hardy, I., et al. (2019). Driving change from ‘the middle’: Middle leading for site based educational development. School Leadership & Management, 39(3-4), 315-333.
Gedik, S., & Bellibas, M. S. (2015). Examining schools’ distributed instructional leadership capacity: Comparison of elementary and secondary schools. Journal of Education and Training Studies, 3(6), 101-110.
Ghasemzadeh, K., Jafari, P., & Ghourchian, N. (2018). Investigating the status of promotion of the role of the assistants of elementary schools in Mazandaran province to educational leadership. Journal of Research in Educational Systems, 12(special issue), 95-110.
Glanz, J. (2021). Personal reflections on supervision as instructional leadership: From whence it came and to where shall it go? Journal of Educational Supervision, 4(3), 66-81.
Glickman, C. D., Gordon, S. P., & Ross-Gordon, J. M. (2017). Supervision and Instructional Leadership: A Developmental Approach (10th ed.). Pearson.
Grootenboer, P., & Larkin, K. (2019). Middle leading small-scale school projects. International Journal of Educational Management, 33(7), 1733-1745.
Gurr, D. (2019). School middle leaders in Australia, Chile and Singapore. School Leadership & Management, 39(3-4), 278-296.
Hallinger, P. (2012). A data-driven approach to assess and develop instructional leadership with the PIMRS. In J. Shen (Ed.), Tools for improving principals’ work (pp. 47-49). Peter Lang.
Hallinger, P. (2018). Bringing context out of the shadows of leadership. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 46(1), 5-24.
Hallinger, P., & Murphy, J. (1985). Assessing the instructional management behavior of principals. The Elementary School Journal, 86(2), 217-247.
Hallinger, P., & Wang, W. C. (2015). Assessing instructional leadership with the principal instructional management rating scale. Springer.
Hallinger, P., Gümüş, S.,& Bellibaş, M. Ş. (2020). Are principals instructional leaders yet?: A science map of the knowledge base on instructional leadership, 1940-2018. Scientometrics, 122(3), 1629-1650.
Harris, A., Jones, M., Ismail, N., et al. (2019). Middle leaders and middle leadership in schools: Exploring the knowledge base (2003–2017). School Leadership & Management, 39(3-4), 255-277.
Hou, Y., Cui, Y. & Zhang, D. (2019). Impact of instructional leadership on high school student academic achievement in China. Asia Pacific Education Review, 20(4), 543-558.
Leithwood, K., Harris, A., & Hopkins, D. (2020). Seven strong claims about successful school leadership revisited. School Leadership and Management, 40(1), 5-22.
Lipscombe, K., Tindall-Ford, S., & Lamanna, J. (2023). School middle leadership: A systematic review. Educational Management, Administration & Leadership, 51(2), 270-288.
Merriam, S. B., & Tisdell, E. J. (2016). Qualitative research: A guide to design and implementation (4th ed.). Jossey-Bass.
Miri Salehabad, Z., Mollagohlamali, Z., Rafiei, A., & Yahyapour Kusha Shah, M. (1402). The effect of principals' educational leadership on the academic achievement of primary school students. Strategic Research Quarterly in Education, 1(7), 15-31. (in Persian)
Murphy J., Neumerski C. M., Goldring E., et al. (2016). Bottling fog? The quest for instructional management. Cambridge Journal of Education, 46(4), 455-471.
Neumerski, C. M., Grissom, J. A., Goldring, E., et al. (2018). Restructuring instructional leadership: How multiplemeasure teacher evaluation systems are redefining the role of the school principal. The Elementary School Journal, 119(2), 270-297.
Sadeghi Goghari, P., & Ghafari Majlach, M. (1402). A study on transformational leadership in the education organization. 18th International Conference on Management, Economy and Development. (in Persian)
Shaked, H. (2023). New explorations for instructional leaders: How principals can promote teaching and learning effectively. Rowman and Littlefield.
Soltani, M., & Zeinuddin Meimand, Z. (1400). The role of management and leadership in the school of the future. The Second National Conference of Future School, Ardabil. (in Persian)
Stronge, J. H., Richard, H. B.m, & Catano, N. (2008). Qualities of Effective Principals. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Tang, J., Bryant, D. A., & Walker, A. D. (2022). School middle leaders as instructional leaders: Building the knowledge base of instruction-oriented middle leadership. Journal of Educational Administration, 60(5), 511-526.
Timmermans, S., & Tavory, I. (2022). Data analysis in qualitative research: Theorizing with abductive analysis. University of Chicago Press.
van Rijnsoever, F. J. (2017). (I can’t get no) saturation: A simulation and guidelines for sample sizes in qualitative research. PloS one, 12(7), e0181689.
Walker, A. & Qian, H. (2022). Developing a model of instructional leadership in China. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 52(1), 147-167.