This paper presents a comparative analysis of two high schools, one in the Arab Education system in Israel and the other in the English Education system in Europe. The comparative analysis focuses on two principals’ perspectives of how they led their schools, in partnership with the authors from Higher Education Institutions, by implementing a distinctive mark of distributed leadership by an whole school inquiry led inter-cultural change. The change facilitated knowledge exchange, mobilisation, and dissemination activities that empowered staff and young people to become societal innovators for equity and renewal which raised student outcomes between - 17% and 27% The research reveals that shared aims, themes and methods through a distinctive mark of distributed leadership by whole school inquiry develops new inter-cultural understandings and builds respect, trust, and local research priorities and practices in communities of diverse race, ethnicity, cultural, religious, and citizen or refugee status. Members of diverse communities were able to hold each other to account, and became more autonomous in their plans for the future in a context of gaps in status in both contexts. Three practical social contributions of knowledge to action that make a new contribution to knowledge emerge from this case study. 1) the positive impact of partnerships and collaboration in change processes between academia and schools, where the University became a hub of national networks that created an international network. The international network built capacity through knowledge generation and knowledge exchange between all partners using the same whole school inquiry action research design. 2) distributed leadership has been understood in different ways in the literature, but a mark of distributed leadership by whole school inquiry that evolved in this study through action research facilitates knowledge exchange, mobilisation, and dissemination activities that empower staff and young people to become societal innovators for equity and renewal which improved student outcomes. 3) shared aims, themes and methods through a mark of distributed leadership by whole school inquiry develops new understandings builds respect, trust, and local research priorities and practices where members of the community of praxis can hold each other to account. 4) developing inter-cultural awareness in diverse communities through a distinctive mark of distributed leadership by whole school inquiry raised student outcomes, student achievement and addressed status gaps through education by collectively empowering school communities for equity, and renewal. Further research is recommended to test for proof of concept of these knowledge to action strategies.

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