Digitalization was discussed even before the corona pandemic and has come to the fore again, especially in the education sector and in schools on site, not least because numerous challenges around digitalization and schools were highlighted during COVID-19. Particularly in this context demands for change and the promotion of digitalization in schools are becoming increasingly loud and these are also being spurred on by political initiatives to promote the use of digital media. Although the discussion around digital media in schools is not new and highly controversial (Schiefner-Rohs, 2019), many of the discussions revolve around teachers and teaching development. Although school principals are considered central actors or key persons for innovations and the digitalization of schools, as the success of school development measures or change processes within the school usually depends on the extent to which they are initiated and supported by principals (e.g., Prasse, 2012; Wenzel, 1998), they are far less studied. But digitalization does not only play an important role for school principals in the context of school development: the actions of school leaders themselves and their everyday work are also increasingly influenced by digital media and digitalization. This becomes clear not only through changes in communication with internal and external actors (cf. Welling, 2016) or the use of learning management systems (e.g. Friedrich, Hron & Töpper, 2011), but more evident the support of organizational processes and the question about digital leadership: work processes can both be made easier and more complex (see the role of data) through the use of digital media (Schiefner-Rohs, 2019; Krein & Schiefner-Rohs, 2020). However, the extent to which the activities and thus also the everyday working life of school principals are influenced by digital media and advancing digitalization does not appear to have been sufficiently investigated to date. One indication of this is the small number of publications that have been published to date that deal with the effects of digitalization on the everyday working lives of school principals, both from the perspective of school development and from the perspective of school leadership itself. There is also a gap in training and further education offers in this area.

From the perspective of educational research, there are hardly any reviews available that take a closer look at the scope and tenor of the reception of digitalization and educational leadership. Since educational policy and practice can benefit immensely from systematic reviews and research syntheses (Davies, 2000), this seems particularly precarious from the perspective of the topicality and the heat of the digitalization discourse in schools. The present contribution aims to counteract this desideratum by providing a systematic overview of publications from 2000 to 2020. Three central questions are addressed:

(RQ1) How have publications on school leadership developed over time, in which journals are they published?

(RQ2) To what extent do key data (geographical distribution, content focus, perspective and research methods) of the publications differ?

(RQ3) Which central results can be synthesized? 

This paper is based on a systematic review (Gough, Oliver, & Thomas, 2017; Petticrew & Roberts, 2006) of educational leadership from the perspective of digitalization. In addition to that, a systematic content analysis of publications will be carried out, which will shed light on the relationship and impact of digitalization on educational leadership. The focus will be on the educational leadership in schools and thus especially on those works which deal with the actions and the daily work of school principals. Since the aim of this paper is to outline the current state of research and the scientific debate on this topic, various pedagogical databases (e.g. ERIC, FIS Bildung, SAGE) will be used to search for publications in international and national peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed journals. This should make it possible to obtain a comprehensive insight and overview of various aspects (e.g. new areas of responsibility, transformation of communication and administrative structures, external requirements) of the effects of digitalization on the educational leadership of schools and to draw a picture of the extent and tenor of reception in the scientific community. The analysis will include all publications in German and English, as well as qualitative and quantitative studies, which were conducted and published between 2000-2020. In a first step, the available publications are classified into the following categories: 1) type of publication, 2) year of publication, 3) geographical location, 4) the author’s disciplinary affiliations 5) thematic focus and 6) theory vs. practice orientation. The next step will be a structuring content analysis (based on Kuckartz, 2018) with special attention to the above-mentioned connections between digitalization and educational leadership of schools and the development of a synthesis of the central results.

The search for publications has led to the following initial results: By searching in pedagogical databases and peer-reviewed journals, only occasional publications dealing explicitly with digitalization and educational leadership in the school context could be found so far. Although a large number of publications could be found that deal with either educational leadership or digitalization in the school context, the content of these publications is usually limited to general changes in educational leadership or, in the context of digitalization in schools, to the use of digital media in teaching and the technical framework conditions in schools. This apparently so far diminished examination of the effects of digitalization on the actions of school principals themselves appears particularly interesting against the background of the key role of school principals in school development aspects. This raises questions about the lack of research and the challenges of research on school leadership, for example difficulties in accessing the field. In a next step, we will now continue research on publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals and pedagogical databases and additionally expand our research to include non-peer-reviewed scientific journals. This will be followed by analyses regarding the content of the publications and key results. This should make it possible to provide an overview of the effects of digitalization on educational leadership. Regarding the wider research and analysis, we anticipate having comprehensive and firm findings by ECER 2021.

Davies, P. (2000). The relevance of systematic reviews to educational policy and practice. Oxford Review of Education, 26(3-4), 365-378. Friedrich, H. F., Hron, A. & Töpper, J. (2011): Lernplattformen in der Schule. In: C. Albers (Hg.), Schule in der digitalen Welt: medienpädagogische Ansätze und Schulforschungsperspektiven (1. Aufl., Bd. 8). Wiesbaden: VS, Verl. für Sozialwiss. Gough, D., Oliver, S., & Thomas, J. (2017). An introduction to systematic reviews, (2nd ed.,). Los Angeles: SAGE. Krein, U. & Schiefner-Rohs, M. (2020). Schulleitungen im digitalen Wandel. Pädagogische Führung (PädF). Zeitschrift für Schulleitung und Schulberatung, (5/20), 179-182. Kuckartz, U. (2018). Qualitative Inhaltsanalyse: Methoden, Praxis, Computerunterstützung (4. Aufl.). Weinheim; Basel: Beltz Juventa. Petticrew, M., & Roberts, H. (2006). Systematic reviews in the social sciences: A practical guide. Malden; Oxford: Blackwell Pub. Schiefner-Rohs, M. (2019). Distributed Digital Leadership: Schulleitungshandeln im Wandel. In G. Birkigt (Hg.), Raabe, nachschlagen - finden. Schulleitung und Schulentwicklung: Führen, Managen, Steuern (04/19, F 8.16/1-22). Raabe, Fachverl. für Bildungsmanagement. Trebing, T. (2011). Schule interaktiv: Evaluation von Schulentwicklung im Widerspruch der Bildung. LIT. Welling, Stefan; (2016): Die schulische Kommunikation des Organisierens im Spiegel von Medienwandel und Mediatisierung. in: Brüggemann, Marion; Knaus, Thomas; Meister, Dorothee M., Kommunikationskulturen in digitalen Welten. Konzepte und Strategien der Medienpädagogik und Medienbildung, München: kopaed, S. 155-170. Wenzel, H. (1998): Neue Konzepte zur pädagogischen Schulentwicklung und die Qualifizierung der Akteure. In: Keuffer, J.; Krüger, H.-H.; Reinhardt, S.; Weise, E.; Wenzel, H. (Hrsg.): Schulkultur als Gestaltungsaufgabe. Partizipation - Management - Lebensweltgestaltung, Weinheim: Deutscher Studien Verlag, S. 241-260.