Leading learning in Asia – emerging empirical insights from five societies
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JEA-02-2017-0015 |
| Pages | 130-146 |
| Published date | 10 April 2017 |
| Date | 10 April 2017 |
| Author | Philip Hallinger,Allan Walker |
| Subject Matter | Education,Administration & policy in education,School administration/policy,Educational administration,Leadership in education |
Leading learning in
Asia –emerging empirical
insights from five societies
Philip Hallinger
College of Public Health Sciences, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand and
Faculty of Education, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa, and
Allan Walker
Faculty of Education and Human Development,
The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to synthesize findings from studies of principal instructional
leadership conducted in five East Asian societies. The authors first identify similarities and then differences
in approaches to instructional leadership across the societies. Then the findings of the synthesis are compared
with broad findings from the global literature on principal instructional leadership.
Design/methodology/approach –The paper employs a thematic approach to synthesizing findings from
the five qualitative studies.
Findings –The authors identified numerous similarities in practices of instructional leadership across the
five societies. These included first, a top-down approach to defining the mission and goals of schools whereby
principals worked within a fairly narrow zone of discretion. Second, principals devoted relatively little
attention to coordinating the curriculum due to working within strict national curriculum frameworks. Third,
principals executed their instructional leadership practices with an ever-present sense of the need to honor
hierarchical relations and maintain harmony among staff and other stakeholders. Differences across the five
societies centered on the extent to which the instructional leadership role of principals was explicitly defined
and the extent to which they received training for the role.
Originality/value –This synthesis sought to build upon reviews of research published in a special issue of this
journal two years ago. The synthesis and this body of research papers have contributed toward moving empirical
research on educational leadership broadly, and instructional leadership in particular, forwardin East Asia.
Keywords Principals, Leadership, Asia, Instructional leadership
Paper type General review
The field of educational leadership and management (EDLM) is in the midst of a paradigm
shift that hasonly recently begun to be acknowledged widely.This paradigm shift centerson
the transformation of the field from a largelyWestern, Anglo-American literature to a global
field of study (Clarke and O’Donoghue, 2016; Hallinger, 2011, in press; Hallinger and Bryant,
2013a, b; Mertkan et al., 2016; Oplatka, 2006; Yalçınet al., 2016). Prior to 2000, virtually all
reviewsof EDLM research publishedin our journals were basedon studies located ina narrow
set of Western Anglo-American societies (e.g. Bossertet al., 1982; Bridges, 1982; Campbell and
Faber, 1961; Erickson, 1967; Hallinger, 2014; Hallinger and Heck, 1996; Lipham, 1964).
This characteristic of the EDLM literature from the 1960s to the 1990s reflected both the
limited output of empirical research conducted beyond these societies and language barriers
to publication in English language journals (Bajunid, 1996; Hallinger, 1995; Hallinger and
Leithwood, 1996). Just as troubling as the paucity of literature from other societies was the
“implicit and untested assumption”of Western scholars that their findings were broadly
generalizable(Cheng, 1995; Clarke and O’Donoghue, 2016; Hallinger,1995, 2011, in press). This
sense of ethnocentricity was pervasive within the literature in EDLM duringthe era preceding
Journal of Educational
Administration
Vol. 55 No. 2, 2017
pp. 130-146
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0957-8234
DOI 10.1108/JEA-02-2017-0015
Received 9 February 2017
Accepted 9 February 2017
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0957-8234.htm
The authors wish to acknowledge the funding support of the Research Grant Council (RGC) of
Hong Kong for its support through the General Research Fund (GRF841512).
130
JEA
55,2
globalization(Hallinger et al., 2005; Oplatka, 2006). In an essay for theUCEA Review in 1995,
Hallinger (1995) made an early assertion of this critique:
Theoretical discussions of the knowledge base in educational administration that explicitly address
the cultural foundations of leadership and administration
1
are surprisingly scarce […] most theory
and empirical research in educational administration assume that leadership is being exercised in a
Western cultural context. While exceptions to this characterization exist, they generally appear
outside of the educational literature […] The tendency for Western knowledge to overshadow the
intellectual traditions of other cultures has become even more acute in recent decades […]
Consequently, we find few modern discussions of [educational] leadership or administration
grounded in non-Western cultural contexts, such as those of the Asia-Pacific (p. 4).
Calls to diversify the knowledge base in EDLM first began to emerge during the mid-1990s
(Bajunid, 1996; Blunt and Jones, 1997; Cheng, 1995; Dimmock and Walker, 1998; Hallinger,
1995; Hallinger and Leithwood, 1996; Ribbons, 1994; Walker and Dimmock, 2002).
Subsequently, it took more than a decade for the global response of EDLM scholars to
become evident in the literature. Nonetheless, today these shifts in the tectonic plates
underlying the global field of EDLM are being felt in the rapidly increasing rate and scope of
journal publications emerging from Asia, Africa and Latin America (Hallinger, 2011,
in press; Hallinger and Bryant, 2013b; Mertkan et al., 2016).
Evidence of this growth can now be found in recently published systematic reviews of
EDLM research. For example, Hallinger and Bryant (2013b) reported that the annual rate of
publication of Asia-related articles in core EDLM journals doubled between 2005 and 2010.
Similarly, Hallinger (in press) found that fully 60 percent of the identified corpus of African
journal articles (i.e. 506 journal articles) had been published since 2010, and 90 percent since
2005. These data offer fascinating insights into the transformative state of the global
knowledge base in EDLM.
This trend is also evident in scholarly efforts to design cross-cultural comparative
studies in EDLM (Walker and Dimmock, 2002). For example, the International Successful
Schools Project, launched in the early 2000s, has generated a wealth of new information on
how school leadership is practiced across the world (e.g. Day and Leithwood, 2007;
Gurr et al., 2005). On a smaller scale, the Instructional Leadership in East Asia (ILEA) project
has focused on understanding school leadership practices across seven societies (Walker
and Hallinger, 2015).
These projects reflect a commitment toward building a knowledge base that
incorporates, illuminates and reflects the diverse contexts and practices that characterize
EDLM throughout the world (Bajunid, 1996; Hallinger et al., 2005; Oplatka, 2006; Mertkan
et al., 2016; Yalçınet al., 2016). Moreover, the cross-cultural comparative perspective
highlights the belief that a central challenge in building a global knowledge base lies in
ascertaining common as well as distinctive EDLM practices across societies (Bajunid, 1996;
Hallinger and Leithwood, 1996). If successful, scholars will be able to build stronger theory
by linking observed patterns of practice to features of societal contexts (Bajunid, 1996; Blunt
and Jones, 1997; Clarke and O’Donoghue, 2016; Hallinger, in press). Efforts in this regard will
find useful models in the international and cross-cultural comparative research conducted in
the broader field of organizational leadership (e.g. Den Hartog et al., 1999; Gerstner and Day,
1994; Kirkman et al., 2006).
These trends also raise a number of issues with respect to the practical task of building a
global knowledge base (Hallinger and Bryant, 2013a; Oplatka, 2006; Mertkan et al., 2016;
Yalçınet al., 2016). The effort to construct a solid knowledge base in EDLM has drawn the
periodic attention of scholars for the past 50 years (Bates, 1980; Donmoyer et al., 1995; Eidel
and Kitchel, 1968; Hallinger, 2011; Kiley, 1973; Moore, 1974; Ogawa et al., 2000). However,
we argue that the current transformation into a global EDLM knowledge base challenges
scholars to consider strategies both for producing new knowledge and consolidating
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Leading
learning
in Asia
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