The conceptualisation of inclusion as a political and social value commitment to advance educational provision for all (Norwich, 2008) calls attention to the importance of the role of school leaders who perform their role with a recognisable value-driven activity which inform practice. The inclusive values through education policy are enacted in abstract and contradictory articulations (Allan, 2007; Slee, 2010) leaving space for interpretation by the school agents in the light of their own values and beliefs. Such a view recognises the influence that school leaders exercise upon their organizations suggesting that the headteacher is or could be a carrier of a vision for the school. The role of the leader in this context is generally attributed to the school’s headteacher who as instructional leader is responsible for both attitudinal shifts and implementation of practices (Leithwood & Jantzi, 2005; Leo & Barton, 2006; Lindqvist & Nilholm, 2011).

Literature identifies the leaders’ vision as a powerful predictor for positive attitudes towards inclusion in education and its salience is declared either explicitly by suggesting that the inclusive leader holds a vision of inclusion (Lipsky & Gartner, 1998; Senge, 1997; Villa & Thousand, 2009) or implicitly, by stressing the need for a value driven leadership where leaders appear to be responsible to embody inclusive values in the school organisation (Barton, 1997; Booth, et al., 2002; Kugelmass, 2001, 2006; Zollers, et al., 1999). Notwithstanding that the existence of vision is recognised as vital to inclusive education, little is known about how educational leaders create such a vision. Especially, in the context of an inclusive school culture the process under which a leader’s vision grows to formulate its content remains unclear.

The paper develops its theoretical concepts in an interdisciplinary context using literature from the fields of inclusive education studies, educational leadership, and business and management. The concept of vision as a leadership’s quality (Bennis & Nanus, 1985; Conger, 1989; Strange & Mumford, 2005; Kantabutra, 2009) is deployed to explore the ways through which headteachers develop and communicate values which promote inclusive practices in schools. The study aims to map the function of vision in the context of educational leadership for promoting inclusion and to reveal probable patterns of experience in the process of forming such a vision. The explorative character of the research focuses is on the experiences and life histories of headteachers identified by their colleagues as holding an inclusive vision for their school in Greece, aiming to answer:

• What is the content of an inclusive vision in education?
• What is the process of its emergence in the school organisation?
• How do educational leaders conceptualise the content and the context of an inclusive vision?
• What is the relationship between leadership’s practices to promote inclusion and the leadership’s vision in the context?

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