Middle leadership in international schools: evidence from Malaysia

Javadi, Vahid; Bush, Tony; Ng, Ashley

Abstract

This paper examines middle leadership of the heads of English, maths and science departments in four international secondary schools in Malaysia. It focuses on their roles, responsibilities, role relationships, instructional engagement and leadership involvement within the theoretical framework of instructional, distributed and teacher leadership. The study is a qualitative multi-method case study, involving observation, documentary analysis, and semi-structured interviews with 12 heads of department, 36 teachers, and four principals. With respect to the middle leaders’ roles and responsibilities, the findings illustrate cross-school and in-school differential developments, with contextual factors contributing to uneasy role relationships. The results also show that, while broad-based leadership opportunities are limited for the middle leaders and teachers, the most powerful and common feature of all these international schools is the centrality of teaching and learning.

Citation

Javadi, V., Bush, T., & Ng, A. (in press). Middle leadership in international schools: evidence from Malaysia. School Leadership and Management, 37(5), https://doi.org/10.1080/13632434.2017.1366439

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jul 25, 2017
• Online Publication Date: Aug 17, 2017
• Deposit Date: Sep 12, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 18, 2019
• Journal: School Leadership & Management
• Print ISSN: 1363-2434
• Electronic ISSN: 1364-2626
• Publisher: Routledge
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 37
• Issue: 5
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13632434.2017.1366439
• Keywords: Middle leadership, instructional leadership, distributed leadership, teacher leadership, international schools, Malaysia
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/878225
• Publisher URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13632434.2017.1366439
• Additional Information: This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in School Leadership & Management on 17 August 2017, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/13632434.2017.1366439.