While research in educational leadership often relies on surveys and interviews that capture participants’ reflections after the fact, fewer studies examine how innovative thinking is co-constructed or unfolds during interaction. This paper introduces linkography, a protocol analysis method from design research, as a method to study the moment-to-moment interactions and conversations during collaborative problem solving. (pdf)

Based on the premise that the successful implementation of inclusion is largely dependent on the educators’ commitment to inclusive ideals, this study sought to examine the ways principals promote an inclusive vision and foster the development of associated practices in their school community. (pdf)

This essay examines six persistent myths: that the principal is ‘the instructional leader’; that instructional leadership is the principal’s only responsibility; that it is enacted through top-down authority; that it directly influences student learning; that it focuses on teaching rather than learning; and that it is at odds with social justice leadership. (pdf)

Some emotional labour performed by school principals can be described as care work. This article explores how care is performed by 40 principals who shared their feelings about managing a critical incident via a national qualitative survey.

The ongoing digital transformation is forcing changes both in society and education. This qualitative study identifies the challenges faced by school leaders in Poland in the context of the development of students’ digital competences.

The role of governance in school leadership is well established, yet high‑profile failures continue to expose systemic weaknesses. This article reports a comparative study of school governance in Manitoba, Canada and England.

This systematic review examines the instruction-oriented middle leadership role of Teaching Research Group (TRG) leaders within Chinese secondary schools. Drawing from both Chinese and international contexts, the study investigates the impact of TRG leadership practices on teachers’ professional development, instructional practices, and professional resilience.

Generative AI tools are having a notable influence on the nature of engagement with information and decision making across society. Our scoping literature review, covering the 2010–2024 timespan, explores the intersection of educational leadership, policy and AI and examines how these have been investigated in relation to compulsory school settings.

This study examined the degree of autonomy experienced by public school principals in the United Arab Emirates under the Emirates School Establishment (ESE), and explored the challenges they face within a centralized governance system.

Collaboration is widely promoted as a driver of educational change, yet policy discourse often obscures the sociocultural, organizational, and political dynamics shaping its enactment. This study examines how collaboration is constructed in Hong Kong’s K–12 system through critical policy analysis and narrative interviews with principals.

This article proposes screen recording as a promising method for studying digital environments in education, presenting three cases of integrating screen recordings into a qualitative design: social media use in the classroom, school leadership practice, and writing practices in multilingual classrooms.