Purpose – The guiding question of this study is: how is the Ontario Leadership Framework (OLF) translated into practices in elementary and secondary schools in the province of Ontario? The purpose of this paper is to provide a contextual account of the processes by which school leadership standards are incorporated into the practices of school administrators in the province of Ontario, Canada. Design/methodology/approach – This qualitative exploratory case study focusses on the incorporation of the OLF into the practices of school administrators in four secondary and five elementary schools in two large school boards. The data were collected through document analysis, observations registered in a field notes journal, and semi-structured interviews with principals and vice-principals. The data were coded into analytical categories and analyzed to identify emerging themes and patterns. Findings – The analysis identified two emerging themes that illustrated how school leaders translate leadership standards into practices: the first theme, the school leader as an emergent identity, demonstrated the intersections between standards and professional identities. The analysis showed that standards contribute to the configuration of the leader as a political actor in the school. The second theme, standards, and the configuration of leadership practices, offered insights about the intersections and disconnections between standards and leadership practices in the participant schools. Originality/value – This study aims to inform conversations between policy makers, practitioners, and scholars about leadership standards in schools. Given the saliency of the topic, this research aims to illuminate the often-unexplored nexus, policy-leadership, as well as to expand and enrich theoretical understandings of educational leadership by recasting leadership as a policy-bounded phenomenon.

In this introduction to the special issue, we highlight the increased transnational interest in standardizing the knowledge, competencies, and practices that relate to educational leadership. While acknowledging the thematic convergences in leadership standards and competency frameworks from heterogenous localities, we propose that it is critical to interrogate the policy mobilities and the recontextualization of the discourses that have contributed to the formulation and implementation of standards. To achieve this aim, this special issue stages a global dialogue about this global leadership turn by including a selection of articles that discuss the emergence and adoption of education leadership standards in diverse linguistic, social and cultural contexts.

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