The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between instructional school leadership and teachers’ job satisfaction using TALIS 2013 data. The model of instructional leadership proposed by Hallinger and colleagues (1985, 2005) implies three dimensions of actions: defining the school’s mission, managing the instructional program, and promoting a positive school learning climate. Clearly defined school goals would help create a joint vision and focus teachers’ priorities. Monitoring students’ progress, supervising instruction, and coordinating curriculum principals may influence what and how teachers teach. Moreover, principals can have an impact on school climate by protecting instructional time, promoting professional development and providing incentives for teachers and learning. Altogether, instructional leadership as defined in the literature is a very broad concept of actions hypothesized to affect teachers’ attitudes and behaviors. Teachers’ job satisfaction is one of the main preconditions for effective schools, affecting teachers’ performance, which consequently may impact students’ cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes. Several previous studies have found a relationship between school leadership and teachers job satisfaction (Bogler, 2001; Cogaltay et. al. 2016). The study was conducted as a secondary analysis of TALIS 2013 data for 6 Nordic countries - Denmark, Estonia, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Latvia composing the sample of 938 participating schools with 15943 responding teachers (OECD, 2013, 2014). Preliminary regression analyses are done with the software IDB Analyzer, while results from structural equation modelling will be reported in the final paper. A multilevel null model of the teacher satisfaction variable demonstrates that a moderate but substantial amount of variance in teacher job satisfaction is found between the schools (ICC = .09 - .20). However, no significant relationships between instructional leadership and teachers’ job satisfaction is found. The lack of relationship may be caused by severe construct underrepresentation in the measure of instructional leadership (only three items). This study will be extended by including teacher level variables (effective professional development, classroom disciplinary climate and participation among stakeholders) as mediators between instructional school leadership and teacher job satisfaction. Moreover, these three variables capture important sub-dimensions of instructional leadership and can thus also be regarded as measures of leadership as reported by teachers. Regressing teachers’ job satisfaction on the three teacher reported sub-dimensions of instructional leadership reveals modest and significant relationships (R square = .16 - .21)
