Educational leadership practices of elementary school principals in Kuwait

The school principals play a pivotal role in leading educational institutions. Their lived experience as educational leaders in the context of a virulent crisis, however, is largely unexplored. This paper sought to discover the essence of educational leadership practices of school principals in the context of the current COVID-19 crisis. Following phenomenology as a research design, the researcher explored the world of six Filipino school principals through interview procedures. The analysis method developed by Colaizzi (1978) was used. The results revealed six emerging themes of educational leadership practices during a crisis as follows: 1.) navigating the crisis with adaptive leadership; 2.) cultivating practices in crisis management; 3.) managing through the machine; 4.) freezing the standards and patterns; 5.) promoting inclusivity in the new normal, and 6.) caring first for what is essential. These themes form the basis of the description and structure of the phenomenon offered at the end of the paper. Considering the present scarcity of knowledge on how school principals respond in times of crisis, this paper provides insights into educational leadership practices within the context of the COVID-19 situation

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Elementary school principals and informal learning: leveraging networks

Journal of Workplace Learning ◽

10.1108/jwl-03-2020-0042 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽

Author(s):

Josh J. Ringling ◽

Karen L. Sanzo ◽

Jay Paredes Scribner

Keyword(s):

Elementary School ◽

Educational Leadership ◽

Informal Learning ◽

Elementary School Principals ◽

School Principals ◽

Individual Case ◽

Case Study Methodology ◽

Content Type ◽

Leadership Research ◽

Cross Case Analysis

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to understand how and in what ways networking served as a vehicle to informal learning among elementary school principals. Design/methodology/approach The authors used a multiple case study methodology across a ten-week period, studying six principals and conducting over 50 interviews. Six individual case studies were conducted, followed by a cross-case analysis. Findings This study found that a principal’s informal learning opportunities are just as important as formal ones, and often occur more frequently. Principals rely daily on a small network of other principals to informally learn about pressing challenges and situations in their schools. Informal learning allows principals to continually develop and refine their practices without the confines of formally set dates and times. Informal learning happens organically and is needs driven based on what knowledge a principal requires at a given point in time. Originality/value Although formal learning has been a focus in educational leadership research for the past 15 years, almost nothing is known about how principals informally learning. This study adds to the very limited body of research in the educational leadership field.

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