The Panorama of the Last Decade’s Theoretical Groundings of Educational Leadership Research: A Concept Co-Occurrence Network Analysis

Abstract

Purpose: Given the essential role of theories in research, this study aims to identify the theories and concepts undergirding the educational leadership research, illuminate the interconnections among them, and examine the evolution of the theoretical groundings of the field from 2005 to 2014. Methods: This study constructed a concept co-occurrence network, in which the nodes represent all framing concepts that theoretically framed the 1,328 articles published in four leading educational leadership research journals (EAQ, JEA, EMAL, and JSL) over the last decade, and the ties link the concepts that co-occur in an article. The reference frequency and centrality measures were used to identify the influential concepts. Next, the k-core analysis was performed to visualize the interconnections among the concepts. Moreover, a series of network cohesion measures were used to detect the changes in conceptual cohesion over the last decade. Findings: While 295 framing concepts guided educational leadership empirical studies, a small number of concepts exerted disproportionately large influence on the research. Further, these influential concepts closely interplay with one another, and the strongest interconnection was seen between the concepts of leadership approaches and organizational perspectives. Lastly, the increasingly pluralistic theoretical foundation did not yield the growing conceptual cohesion in educational leadership. Implications: This study for the first time elucidates the structure and evolution of the theoretical groundings of educational leadership research, laying the foundation for further theory development and inviting researchers to bring conceptual cohesion to our field through integrating concepts, allowing random ideas to mutate, and developing new theories.

Pulling at Your Heartstrings: Examining Four Leadership Approaches From the Neuroscience Perspective

“…Furthermore, with the rise of social justice leadership and culturally responsive leadership as the core theories in educational leadership (Khalifa et al, 2016; Wang, 2018), the findings from neuroscience might be able to propel the theory development in educational leadership. First, there has been a stream of neuroscience studies examining the neural mechanisms associated with social justice, fairness, and poverty (see Nam, Jost, & Feldman, 2017, for the special issue of the Neurobiology of Fairness and Social Justice in the journal Social Justice Research ).…”

“…They also make poor decisions, including making myopic decisions that seek immediate gratification rather than waiting for a larger reward delivered later, have impaired abilities to consider the future consequences of decisions, lack self-control (e.g., alcohol and drug abuse), and have diminished empathy, guilt, and regret (Bechara et al, 1999). Moreover, given the function of the vmPFC in calculating the risk and uncertainty in decision making, it is no surprise that low activation in the vmPFC is associated with trust—a core educational leadership construct that has a dimension of willingness to risk vulnerability (Dimoka, 2010; Tschannen-Moran & Hoy, 2000; Wang, 2018). Intriguingly, the feeling of power (i.e., having control over the behavior and circumstances of others through reward- and punishment-related resources; Fiske, 1993) changes how human brains respond to others emotionally in a way that is similar to the patients having the brain damage in the vmPFC (Keltner, 2017).…”

“…Our altruistic behaviors and innate desire for fairness have their neural roots in the dopaminergic system, suggesting that we derive pleasure from being altruistic and being treated fairly. Given its role in motivation (a core construct in educational leadership; Wang, 2018) and the resultant reward-motivated behaviors, the dopaminergic system renders itself essential in leadership regarding how leaders motivate themselves and others (Bass & Bass, 2008).…”

“…This study aims to bridge neuroscience and educational leadership by exploring the neural mechanisms of the constructs relevant to educational leadership. The theoretical groundings of educational leadership are largely undergirded by the constructs from psychology, sociology, sociopsychology, administrative science, and economics (Bates, 1980; Wang, 2018). Recently, these neighboring fields have been advanced by neuroscience that probes into the neural mechanisms of psychological processes, social interactions, organizational behaviors, and decision making; thus, many neuroscience subfields have emerged, including cognitive neuroscience, social neuroscience, organizational neuroscience, and neuroeconomics.…”

“…In the framework, Hallinger specified five questions that need to be addressed in a systematic review, including the central topic of interest, conceptual perspectives, data sources, data analysis, and major results. Guided by Hallinger's framework, this review-with the central interest in exploring the neural mechanisms of the core constructs pertinent to educational leadership-begins with building the connections between the core constructs undergirding the theoretical groundings of educational leadership (Wang, 2018) and the findings of those constructs in neuroscience. Since neuroscience is fairly new to the field of educational leadership, I provide a brief tour of the human brain, before describing how the literature data were collected and coded in this study.…”