Definitions of educational leadership – Arab educators’ perspectives

Abstract

This study aims to provide a general overview of how educational leadership is defined by Arab educators and education specialists in the Arab region, concentrating on the State of Qatar. The study builds on insights from socio-cultural theory and critical discourse analysis, viewing language as a social practice and thus treats leadership as a form of discursive practice. The study draws on grounded theory and adopts a socio-cultural perspective employing semi-structured interviews conducted with school principals, teachers, educators, educational leaders, educational researchers, and members of the community in Qatar. The results concluded from this study disclose discording views of educational leadership and how it is defined, owing to borrowing the concept from Western educational system models, either by using these terms verbatim or as they are lost in translation. This discord reflects a lack of clarity in using the relevant educational leadership concepts and has arguably led to differences in educational practices and educators' dispositions and perspectives. Finally, the study concludes with valuable recommendations for educational policy and decision-making and some suggestions for future research.

Mapping the field of educational leadership and management in the Arabian Gulf region: A systematic review of Arabic research literature

“…The developments taking place in GCC countries have encouraged researchers to consider the role of educational leadership and the importance of modifying borrowed leadership theories to local cultures in the region (Bailey et al, 2019;Sellami et al, 2019). For example, based on their insider's experience in Bahrain, Bailey and colleagues (2019), similar to many scholars in postcolonial and policy transfer literatures in primary disciplines like political science, sociology, psychology and cultural studies (e.g., Kitayama & Cohen, 2007;Rodriguez, Boatcǎ and Costa, 2010), have emphasised the need to conceptualise EDLM in the GCC countries in order to provide culturally-appropriate frameworks needed for the ongoing educational reforms in the region, arguing that imported, mainly Western, approaches to educational leadership are limited "in speaking to practitioners from GCC cultures" (p. 2).…”

“…Understanding how Arab educators and practitioners conceptualise leadership is of paramount importance given the significant educational developments taking place in the region and the lack of EDLM research that can inform these developments (Hallinger and Hammad, 2019;Hammad and Hallinger, 2017;Sellami et al, 2019). Moreover, sketching a broader picture of EDLM knowledge production in the Arab region warrants reviews of the literature published in the Arabic language, since most experience and work is still conducted in Arabic.…”

Developing a guiding model of educational leadership in higher education during the COVID-19 pandemic: A grounded theory study

“…James et al (2019) distinguish three elements of educational leadership which involve images (facts, ends, goals,), instruments (face-to-face or online communication tools) and interactions (one way or two-way). In study of Sellami, Sawalhi, Romanowski and Amatullah (2019) on educational leadership, they argue that educational leadership is unfortunately considered to be confined exclusively to educational settings. However, it would be a better understanding of educational leadership when it is posited 'anywhere' and 'everywhere', rather than limiting it to educational setting.…”

Factors Affecting Smart School Leadership Competencies of High School Principals in Vietnam

“…Many viewpoints on leadership in connection with school organization and learning improvement have been introduced. Educational leadership (Sellami et al, 2019) is represented in school leadership (Bush & Glover, 2002;Bush & Heystek, 2006) through various forms. These include transformational leadership (Allix, 2000;Leithwood & Jantzi, 2006;Leithwood & Sleegers, 2006), instructional leadership (Feye, 2019;Hallinger, 2003;Southworth, 2002), constructive leadership (Kuhnert & Lewis, 1997), cultural leadership (Hallinger, 2004;Muralidharan & Pathak, 2019), teacher leadership (Berry, 2014;Harrison & Birky, 2011;Howe & Stubbs, 2001;Smylie & Denny, 1990), and change leadership (Wagner, 2018).…”