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This paper reports the findings of a qualitative study on teachers' perspective about school principals' role during the pandemic in the context of Greece. In particular, information is provided on school principals' communication and leadership aspects in tackling the pandemic crisis as well as the obstacles observed in this particular setting.

Data were collected through the focus group interview tool and included 19 teachers from primary and secondary education in Greece. Due to the circumstances of the pandemic crisis, the interview process was held using the Zoom software environment. The data collection tools included a common semi-structured interview protocol developed specifically for this study based on the current theoretical sources of school principals' role in tackling the pandemic crisis.

The findings of this study indicated the important aspects of trust, collaboration, and positive climate, together with school principals' external dimension that included the outreach of the local community, parents, private organizations, etc. during the pandemic crisis. Finally, obstacles connected to the students' lack of technological equipment were also observed and addressed by school principals.

The findings of this study could not be generalized since the study proceeded with convenience sampling. Furthermore, the data were collected while the world was in lockdown during the second pandemic wave.

This piece of research adds to the empirical aspect of school principals' role during the pandemic crisis from a different perspective and reports that researching school principals' role in tackling crises has grown considerably.

The purpose of this study was to explore school principals’ job crafting profiles during the prolonged COVID-19 crisis in 2021, and investigate profile differences regarding principals’ own perceived servant leadership, stress and work meaningfulness.

Using latent profile analysis (LPA), two job crafting profiles were identified: (1) active crafters (55%) and (2) average crafters (45%). By auxiliary measurement-error-weighted-method (BCH), we examined whether and how job crafting profiles differed in terms of servant leadership, stress and work meaningfulness.

Active crafters reported higher than the overall mean level of approach-oriented job crafting (increasing job resources and demands), whereas average crafters reported an overall mean level of approach-oriented job crafting. Avoidance-oriented job crafting by decreasing hindering job demands did not differentiate the two profiles. Active crafters reported significantly higher servant leadership behavior, stress and work meaningfulness than average crafters.

Study findings provide new knowledge and reflect the implications that the unprecedented pandemic had for education. This study contributes to the existing literature within the scholarship of job crafting through empirical research during the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic. For practitioners, these study findings reflect contextual constraints, organizational processes and culture, and leadership in workplaces.

The purpose of the paper is to report the findings of a synthesis of literature reviews and stakeholder interviews conducted in Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The synthesis provides an overview of instructional leadership policy and practice in these six countries.

This paper reports the findings of a systematic literature review, and participant interviews, in six sub-Sahara African countries. The research links to the British Council's initiative to develop instructional leadership in developing contexts, including the six countries featured in this submission.

The findings show diverse policy and practice of instructional leadership in these African contexts. Three have no explicit policies on this important leadership construct, while the others have relevant policy statements but limited evidence of instructional leadership practice.

The research provides an overview of instructional leadership policy and practice in these six countries, but more school-based research is required to develop grounded evidence on whether and how this is practiced. The pandemic inhibited such school-based research in 2020. The study provides emerging evidence of the impact of instructional leadership on school and student outcomes, confirming what is known from international research.

Developing awareness of how instructional leadership can improve student learning, linked to appropriate training, could lead to more effective schools.

The Sustainable Development Goals stress the importance of high quality education for economic and social development. Leadership is an important aspect of quality, and the research reported in this paper shows the potential for instructional leadership to enhance student learning.

This is the first cross-national study of instructional leadership in sub-Saharan Africa.

The purpose of this paper is to increase the knowledge of principals' professional development (PD) by focusing on the arrangements that shape a PD practice initiated to enhance principals' instructional leadership.

The paper draws on findings from a three-year PD initiative in a Swedish school district. The data consist of field notes and semi-structured interviews with principals and managers. Theoretically, the paper takes its starting point in the theory of practice architectures and the cultural-discursive, material-economic and social-political arrangements that shape practices.

Practices for principals' PD require a fine balance to prevent the perception of hierarchical control. Designated time, common artifacts and external expertise are arrangements of practice that enable principals' PD. High expectations and relations between principals and managers both enable and constrain principals' PD. As trustful relations are of particular importance, the implication for managers and others organizing for principals' PD is to make sure that collaborative work settings also become a natural way of working for principals. As building relations takes time, a longer time perspective is also recommended.

The findings have practical implications for educational leaders responsible for organizing PD practices for principals in any context.

This paper adopts a practice theory approach to its study of principals' PD and provide an elaborated illustration of arrangements that enable and constrain principals' PD in collegial settings.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how Ontario principals make sense of difference within student populations and how this sensemaking influences how they do their work.

The paper reports on a qualitative study in Ontario, Canada that included 59 semistructured interviews with school principals from English public, secular school districts in Southern Ontario.

Four themes emerged in principals’ descriptions of student populations: perceiving everyone as the same, or homogeneous; perceiving visible differences associated with particular religions, race and cultures; perceiving invisible or less visible differences, such as academic differences, socioeconomic status, mental health issues, gender identity and sexual orientation; and perceiving both visible and less visible differences through an inclusive lens. When asked about how their understanding of difference influenced how they did their work, principals’ responses varied from not influencing their work at all to influencing practices and activities. Participants’ context – both personal and local – influenced some of the work they did in their role as school principal. Lastly, multiple sources of disconnect emerged between how principals understood difference and the practices that they engage in at their school site; between their sensemaking about difference and diversity and preparing students for the twenty-first century competencies as global citizens; and between principals’ understanding of difference and diversity and existing provincial policy.

Study insights not only contribute to an existing body of literature that examines principals’ sensemaking around difference, but also extend this line of inquiry to consider how this sensemaking influences their professional practice. These findings pose additional research questions about how to approach principal professional learning for inclusive and equitable education. For example, even though principals are contractually responsible for students in their care, why is it that their efforts toward equitable and inclusive schooling appear to be limited to the school site and not the wider community?

Study findings can be used to inform principal preparation programs and professional learning opportunities. Namely, these programs should provide the skill development required as well as the time needed for principals to reflect on their local context and beliefs, and to consider how their local context and beliefs are connected to larger societal efforts to create a more inclusive and equitable society.

School leadership is integral to creating and building more inclusive and equitable public education that improves all students’ success at school. As Ontario’s general population becomes increasingly diverse, it is imperative that principals support success for all students; this can only happen if they understand the complexity of difference within their student populations and beyond, how to address these complexities and how their own understandings and beliefs influence their leadership practices.

Although other papers have examined how principals make sense of difference and diversity in student bodies, this paper also explores how this sensemaking influences how school leaders do their work.