The present research purported to illuminate school leadership meanings and practices as they relate to education for active citizenship in the context of the European and Portuguese citizenship policies. Specifically, this study also takes in consideration the challenges stemming from both the mandate of educating all students without exclusion, and the normativity associated to the increasing recentralization policies (Ball, 2001; Ball, Goodson & Maguire, 2007; Lima, 2007). Theoretically, this study looks at citizenship and leadership from the paradigm of complexity and contingency as developed by Edgar Morin, Marion (1999), and Weick (1995). In this light, the principle of interdependency suggests that local school decisions do not arise in isolation from factors that are global and systemic (Dale, 2005; Delvaux & van Zanten, 2006; Torres, 2001). Moreover, as a complex construct, citizenship meanings are socially constructed in local environments that characterize and diversify each school. Such diversity determine indeed the differential nature of the students’ citizenship learning in school. It matters, then, to conceptualize school leadership and citizenship education as complex social systems in terms of interconnectivity and non-linearity. This paper also addresses a set of assumptions regarding recent educational policies: the growing impact of the neo-liberal policies (Apple, 200; Torres, 2001; Bech, 2003; Santos, 2001) on school governance; national policies in consonance with those issued from the European Union regarding equity, inclusion, and active citizenship. In such context some contradictions and tensions are emerging from the unsustainable alliance between the official rhetoric on school quality, on the one hand, and policies that emphasize social cohesion and citizenship education for all. In this complex framework, how to conceptualize school leadership so that schools may successfully educate all students for active citizenship? How do schools interpret and put in practice the official mandate to educate for citizenship? Which leadership conceptions and practices are directed towards pedagogy of and for citizenship? What citizenship values are expressed in the schools educational projects?

A multiple case study in five schools was developed. The development of the case studies was guided by a methodology that congregated complementary sources of data and allowed for triangulation among them, such as school documents referent to pedagogical discourse and school decisions. In-depth interviews to the president of the Executive Council of School and to coordinators of specific programs and citizenship projects were conducted in the five schools. Discourse analysis was conducted in order to identify main themes that captured the meanings and subjective interpretations of the participants. By using systematic processes of comparison and revision of the analysis, it was possible to characterize both the main principles and values of citizenship, and the logics underlying the leadership practices with an effective impact on school governance. However, the data described in this paper pertain to the school director from one of those five schools.

The analysis identified four main axes that structured leadership action in that school: (1) knowledge, (2) dialogical communication, (3) social cohesion, and (4) pragmatic action. In the end of the paper, results are discussed in terms of the theoretical assumptions as well as the literature on recent school governance policies both national and European.