Examining the Role of Instructional Leadership in Addressing Educational Inequalities

• In Event: School Leadership and Equity in Student Learning: Conceptualization, Contexts, and Effectiveness

Abstract

The issue of disparities, segregation, and gaps in students‘ academic performance has been a key concern within both academic and public discussions while the anxiety surrounding achievement gaps has reached an unprecedented level in the present century (Spitzer & Aronson, 2015). Despite a growing call for intervention and increased research, evidence shows that disadvantaged students still do not benefit equally from education as compared to their counterparts from privileged families (Langenkamp & Carbonaro, 2018). Disparities in the school SES (SSES) composition (peer effect) exacerbated by the absence of resources and qualified teachers inhibit more equal contributions of education systems to students with various backgrounds (Perry et al., 2022), leading to increased inequalities in student achievement outcomes.

Educational disparities underlie the social engineering of schooling (Wilkinson, 2002). State-level educational policies across the globe could be effective in the extent to which they could reduce the negative consequences of the SES differences between students and schools (OECD, 2004). The research found variations in countries‘ ability to address this issue. Some countries were more effective than others in lessening the impact of individual and peer SES on achievement through compensatory systems (Gustafsson et al., 2018), which point to school leadership with a focus on teaching and learning to enhance student learning, particularly in underprivileged contexts (Goddard et al., 2017). This is aligned with the famous school effectiveness research of the 1980s emphasizing the instructional leadership role of principals who managed to increase student learning in socioeconomically disadvantaged schools (Banburg & Andrews, 1990). However, there is not much quantitative evidence regarding whether and to what extent instructional leadership could play a role in addressing educational inequalities and if the impact is consistent across jurisdictions.

The present study utilizes the social engineering framework to explain how SSES composition affects the achievement of students with different individual SES backgrounds and examines the potential role of instructional leadership in intervening in this mechanism. Using PISA-TALIS linked data from 2018, the present study uses multilevel polynomial regression and response surface analysis (Nestler et al. 2019) to estimate the (in)congruence effect of SSES and SES on individual math, reading, and science achievement. In so doing, we examine and visualize educational inequalities in seven jurisdictions (Australia, the Czech Republic, Colombia, Denmark, Georgia, Malta, and Turkiye) and investigate the extent to which instructional leadership might moderate such inequalities in each jurisdiction.

The results show a significant (in)congruence effect of SSES and SES on student achievement in all achievement domains, consistent across all jurisdictions. All students suffer from low performance when they attend a low-SES school but low-SES students still suffer when they attend high SES schools. The impact of leadership varies across countries. For instance, there is a dramatic increase in the achievement of low-SES students in high-SES schools in Denmark when there is evidence of strong instructional leadership (see figures). Yet, the increase is not the case in other jurisdictions. More findings and implications will be discussed.

Author

• Mehmet Sukru Bellibas, Adiyaman University