Principal Success and Political Contexts: A Meta-Synthesis of Two Decades of International Cases

• In Event: Constructing New Visions of Educational Leadership through Political Literacy

Abstract

This paper meta-synthesizes two decades of international case studies from the International Successful School Principalship Project (ISSPP) to explore the interplay between successful principals’ practices (SPPs) and the political contexts in which they operate. The aim is to bring political contexts out of the shadows and to enhance the political literacy of school leadership (Hallinger, 2016). Specifically, this study answers the following three questions: How did political contexts influence SPPs? How did successful principals react to political contexts? How did successful principals achieve change in political contexts over the last 20 years?

U.S. public schooling has been deeply tied to political agendas, which have inherently influenced the work of school leaders (Leithwood, 2001; Spring, 2017). The study integrates Easton’s (1965) Political System Theory with Bronfenbrenner’s (1971) Ecological Systems Theory to explore the interplay between political factors, structured within the nested layers of subsystems and successful principals’ practices (SPPs). This meta-synthesis reviews 115 ISSPP case studies across 18 countries, utilizing meta-ethnography techniques. The ISSPP case studies, conducted since 2001, have examined the same problem (successful principalship) and have used same research instruments, thus providing the best evidence for this large-scale meta-synthesis. We followed three broad steps (Barnett-Page & Thomas, 2009; Levitt, 2018; Maeda, 2022): (1) search process, study screening and selection, and quality assessment, (2) data extraction and coding, and (3) data analysis and synthesis. Finally, 84 publications (54 journal articles and 29 chapters) were used in this review. The findings reveal significant political factors and how principals react to them. These are reported on five systemic levels: Microsystem (School Level Politics); Mesosystem (School-Community Relations); Exosystem (District and State-Level Politics); Macrosystem (National Education Policies); and Chronosystem (Evolution of Political Context Over Time).

This study contributes to our understanding of successful principalship by employing an integrated framework to examine the interplay between SPPs and the multi-layered political contexts. Political influence in the microsystem (123 references) and macrosystem (97 references) exert the most significant influence on principal leadership practices. While politics can be viewed negatively, it also serves as a tool for principals to achieve productive outcomes.

Authors

• Junqi Lin, University of Alabama

• Jingping Sun, University of Alabama

• Bob L. Johnson, University of Alabama