School leadership and student outcomes: What do we know?

The impact of school leadership on student outcomes is an important aspect of educational research, policy and practice. The assumption that high-quality leadership contributes significantly to enhanced school and student outcomes is well supported by research. Leithwood et al.'s (2006) widely cited study shows that total leadership explains up to 27% of variance in student outcomes, a significant finding. ‘Total leadership’ goes beyond headship to include senior, middle and teacher leaders. This conclusion has encouraged governments in some countries to foreground leadership in its policy reforms. The Malaysia Education Blueprint (Ministry of Education, 2013), for example, gives a high priority to school leadership, stating that it contributes up to 20% of variance in student outcomes.

This vital theme underpins the first five articles in this issue of EMAL. Cheng Yong Tan, Clive Dimmock and Allan Walker examined a large corpus of literature to explore the associations between school leadership practices and student outcomes in different school contexts. They examine the impact of four leadership practices, instructional management, enhancing teacher capacity, organisational responsibilities and engaging external stakeholders, on three indicators of student success (academic achievement, attainment and learning attitudes). Using a range of filters, they identified 108 studies for analysis. The authors conclude that leadership practices matter for different aspects of student learning, including attitudes and processes.

Sedat Gumus and his colleagues extend the discussion of leadership and student outcomes to consider whether and how principal qualifications impact on student achievement. This is even more challenging, conceptually and methodologically, than linking leadership and student outcomes, as I found when seeking such a relationship following research in South Africa (Bush and Glover, 2012). The authors draw on global data to examine the link in seven countries (Australia, Colombia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Georgia, Malta and Turkey). They found that experience as a principal makes a small but meaningful contribution to student learning. They also established that prior experience in other school management positions is associated with student achievement.

Yanzheng Li and Zorka Karanxha examine the relationship between one specific model (transformational leadership) and student achievement. Focusing only on peer-reviewed journals published in English between 2006 and 2019, they found 14 articles. They report that more than half (eight) of these papers found a positive and significant impact between transformational leadership and student outcomes. They conclude that, despite these positive findings, future studies need to consider incorporating elements from other leadership models to make the research more integrated.

While most studies use the school as the unit of analysis, Huang Wu and colleagues examine the links between school-to-school collaboration and student achievement, drawing on data from 76 schools within 52 US districts. They used social network theory to explore reciprocal relationships between schools, linked to school outcomes in maths and reading. They found multiple characteristics of reciprocal collaboration were positively associated with school outcomes in these two subjects. The authors conclude that interdependence between schools is just as important as autonomy, even in competitive education systems.

Hilde Forgang and Jan Paulsen address the links between leaders’ core practices and student achievement in high- and low-performing rural schools in Norway. The sample comprised 20 such schools, equally divided between high and low performing, involving a total of 275 teachers. The authors identify two ‘core’ leadership practices, clustered around setting direction and instructional leadership, respectively. Significantly, teachers in high-performing schools rated both leaders’ core practices higher than those in low-performing schools.

The importance of context is increasingly stressed when considering how to enact leadership, but context is a multi-faceted notion (see Hallinger, 2018). Alireza Tamadoni and colleagues examine the contextual challenges facing school principals through a systematic review of 169 studies found in the Scopus, Web of Science and ERIC databases. They note several contextual dimensions, including institutional, community and political factors, linked to levels of economic development. They conclude that leaders should adapt their leadership styles to conform to the prevailing values and norms in their different socio-cultural contexts.

An important practical aspect of leadership is attending meetings. Gopal Midha argues that they comprise the largest percentage of principal time. The author provides a systematic review of literature on principal meetings, drawn from 62 academic journal articles and book chapters. Three dimensions of principal practice in meetings were identified through the review; bridging, bending and balancing. Bridging involves adopting and adapting ideas, bending includes persuading others to accept a preferred approach, while the author also stresses that principal leadership is a balancing act.

Migration has become a major social and economic issue, with millions of people seeking escape from conflict or a better life for their families. Displaced children also create challenges for education systems. Brian Vassallo examines this phenomenon in respect of Malta, an island state located between Europe and Africa. He does so through a single case study of a school experiencing demographic change. The author interviewed nine school leaders and educators and also conducted a focus group with eight parents from a migrant background. His findings include the need to promote an inclusive school culture, to strengthen language support and to extend relationships beyond school boundaries.

Conflict also has implications for school leadership within the affected country, as noted by Thida Kheang with respect to Cambodia. The author interviewed 20 primary school leaders to explore the issues they faced in the process of educational reconstruction and development following armed conflict and genocide. The author found that leaders may lack the capacity to implement reconstruction, and they also received limited professional support to do so. She concludes that leaders work in ‘extraordinarily challenging conditions’ in trying to lead educational development in their communities.

There is ample evidence that senior school leadership can be very stressful. Reported long hours, coupled with the growing complexity of the role, were further exacerbated by the impact of Covid-19 pandemic, to create a ‘perfect storm’ of personal and professional pressures. Stuart Scott, Caroline Limbert and Peter Sykes investigate this issue through a survey of all headteachers in Wales, with a respectable response rate of 22.6%. The authors found high levels of self-reported stress, caused by work levels and intensity, a perceived lack of control, with limited funding and management support. They note that these issues are similar to those reported in other countries and conclude that interventions are required that target key stressors and their underlying causes.

Workload stress is a significant example of the emotional aspects of school leadership. Matias Sanfuentes and his colleagues examine the emotional implications of implementing public education reform in Chile. The conducted interviews with 41 professionals in different positions in the education system, in four phases. They report a ‘significant imbalance’ between excessive work demands, scant human resources and mismatched technical competencies, partly echoing the data from the Welsh study, with similar consequences. The authors conclude that this is a form of ‘emotional labour’, as leaders tolerate work ‘suffering’ because of their commitment to children.

Jacqueline Baxter and Katharine Jewitt report on the governance structures arising from the emergence and rapid growth of multi-academy trusts (MATs) in England. These trusts comprise groups of schools, with multi-level governance arrangements, set out in schemes of delegation. They examined 20 such schemes and interviewed 50 board members from what the authors describe as an opportunity sample of 12 MATs. They found that schemes of delegation are not homogeneous, with different levels across the MATs. They conclude that sense-making is required to understand the complexities of inter-organisational governance.