How National Context Indirectly Influences Instructional Leadership Implementation: The Case of Israel

Abstract

Purpose: Instructional leadership has been identified as a key responsibility of principals who achieve promising results for school improvement. This study investigated how the national context has influenced the adoption of instructional leadership as a defining role responsibility for Israeli principals. Research Methods: Participants in this qualitative study consisted of a diverse sample of 46 Israeli principals, broadly representative of the larger body of school principals in Israel. Data were collected through both interviews and focus groups. Data analysis proceeded in a four-stage process that involved condensing, coding, categorizing, and theorizing from the interview data. Findings: Findings identified three sociocultural norms that shaped principal adoption of instructional leadership in their role set: low power distance, clan culture, and incomplete identification of principals (and teachers) with their schools’ academic missions. These contextual cohering forces led principals to resist new, formally defined policy expectations of their role as instructional leaders. Implications: This study’s findings reinforce arguments that propose national context as an underserved theoretical lens for understanding differences in principals’ practices across different societies. The findings suggest that despite increasing global acceptance of instructional leadership, its implementation in practice is inevitably shaped by the institutional policies and cultural values of different societies. Even when a “generic” model of instructional or transformational leadership is adopted by policy makers, there will be a process of mutual adaptation during implementation.

School leadership and achievement gaps based on socioeconomic status: a search for socially just instructional leadership

“…Instructional leadership, therefore, could be regarded as a supporting school mechanism capable of at least narrowing the achievement gap between low- and high-SES schools by decreasing the detrimental effect of school SES on the student test scores. This confirms the important role of instructional leadership in seeking equality through school improvement efforts in low-SES schools (Shaked et al. , 2020; Wilson and Urick, 2017) by providing quantitative evidence based on a cross-national data set.…”

Exploring how authoritarian leadership affects commitment: the mediating roles of trust in the school principal and silence

“…However, the literature emphasises that cultural values influence leadership practices (e.g. Bajunid, 1996;Bush, 2020Bush, , 2021Hallinger, 2018;Hallinger and Walker, 2015;Hofstede and Bond, 1988;House et al, 2004;Shaked et al, 2020;Walker and Dimmock, 2012). Paternalist leadership represents a culturally bound leadership type grounded in benevolence, morality and authoritarianism (Cheng et al, 2004).…”

Between center and periphery: instructional leadership in Israeli rural schools

“…Thus, the research on instructional leadership in general, and especially its inhibiting factors, lies in exposing how instructional leadership's application varies across the world and is shaped by various contexts (Clarke and O'Donoghue, 2017; Hallinger, 2018b). In many cases, instructional leadership inhibiting factors cannot be understood without an in-depth inquiry into the influence of contextual factors (Shaked et al , 2021). This study is designed to document how the rural context molds the inhibiting factors of instructional leadership.…”

“…Although instructional leadership as a framework for the role of the principal is being researched and implemented today in a wide range of contexts (Hallinger, 2018b; Kaparou and Bush, 2016), we still do not have sufficient knowledge about how its application is affected by different contextual characteristics (Shaked et al , 2021; Goldring et al , 2008). Specifically, the current study explores the contextual influences on the inhibiting factors for instructional leadership implementation.…”