School communities in Europe have become increasingly diverse with respect to languages, cultures, religions, and ethnicities. Ensuring inclusive schooling environments for students from ethnically and culturally diverse backgrounds has been on the agenda of the European Commission (The Action plan on the integration of third-country nationals, 2016) and the government of Russia (The Federal Law “On Education in the Russian Federation”, 2021) for the recent years.

Increasing diversity in schools requires school leaders to act as bridge builders for students from various cultures and to embrace the concept of culturally responsive leadership. The theory of Culturally Responsive Leadership suggests that school leaders need to be aware of the increasing cultural and lingual diversity in schools and to put in place mechanisms that ensure equitable educational provision for every student (Brown, Altrichter, Shiyan et al., 2021).

Ensuring equity of participation for all students involves significant challenges for school leaders and other members of the school community (English et al., 2012; Pinskaya et al., 2018; Khalifa, 2020; Brown, Altrichter, Shiyan et al., 2021). One of the most significant challenges according to Bustamante et al. (2009) relates to school leaders and teachers’ lack of capacity to organise learning for the diverse student body. According to Khalifa (2020), and Bustamante et al. (2009), school leaders’ personal bias and the community they work with can promote a deficit view of marginalised, minority students which can result in the low self-esteem of students and ultimately contribute to poor achievement standards.

According to Ivanova et al. (2019), the practices of culturally responsive leadership can be built upon an array of leadership and teaching solutions, including cohesive school community, setting high expectations and articulating transparent requirements to the learning outcomes, providing individual support and maintaining the motivation of students, developing skills that ensure successful socialisation of students after leaving school.

To understand how school leaders currently deal with the issue of leading teaching and learning in diverse classrooms, the consortium of four countries, Ireland, Austria, Spain, and Russia have collaborated under the Erasmus+ funded project Supporting Culturally Responsive Leadership and Evaluation in Schools (CReLES). This report presents the key findings of one of the project stages: the survey of school leaders’ opinions carried out in the schools of four partner countries. The specific focus of the survey was on the attitudes and beliefs of school leaders towards cultural responsivity, as well as the challenges and supports faced by their schools in the context of diverse classrooms. 

Key findings

The comparative study of the four data sets allowed obtaining a statistically validated model of correlations between certain characteristics of schools and school leaders and the elements of culturally responsive practices exercised by schools. The model defines three major trends: (1) Participation of students’ parents with a migrant background in the Parent Council, Parent Association or school management committee promotes culturally responsive practices exercised by schools; (2) Support by the majority of parents and community members of school leaders’ efforts to ensure inclusive schooling influences the extent to which culturally responsive practices are exercised by schools; (3) Support from within the school and professional community is more important for culturally responsive practices than support from external stakeholders.

Phase 1: Survey Design & Distribution The CRELES survey addressed school principals, deputy principals and headteachers of secondary schools in Ireland, Austria, Spain and Russia with the aim to define the extent to which schools currently engage in culturally responsive leadership. The survey consisted of 26 questions divided into 4 sections based on the key indicators developed within the CRELES Conceptual Framework: (1) School characteristics; (2) School leaders’ characteristics; (3) School leaders’ preparedness for cultural responsivity; (4) Challenges and supports of culturally responsive practices. The survey has been translated into partners’ local languages and distributed online in the schools of partner countries during the period from December 2020 to June 2021. The number of responses from each country was: Ireland – 75, Austria – 150, Spain – 39, Russia – 73, with the total cross-country data sample comprising 337 schools. Phase 2: Data Analysis To analyze the cross-country data sample we used Pearson’s chi-square test, Factor Analysis, Principal Component Analysis. Phase 2 of the study consisted of 5 stages: data processing; data sample consistency test; Factor Analysis; Principal Component Analysis; interpretation of the results. At the data processing step, we divided survey questions into 3 groups of variables: independent variables; dependent variables; moderating variables. Pearson’s chi-square test confirmed data consistency for most of the survey questions. To find correlations within the consistent data sets, we used Factor Analysis, which allowed us to define new 4–5 factors for dependent, independent and moderating variables. Since Factor Analysis is statistically significant only when there are at least 7–8 new factors, in addition to Factor Analysis we conducted Principal Component Analysis (Fomina, 2017). As a result, we obtained the first principal component (PC1) that included all variables in Q18 and Q19 with approximately equal weights. The proportion of the variance in PC1 was over 50%. The correlation ratio between the sum of all values of the united variables of Q18 and Q19 and PC1 was 0.999 which allowed using the sum of all variables in Q18 and Q19 as an adequate parameter that reflected the cumulative weight of each variable. Using the PCA method, we visualized the correlations between the variables with the highest ratios and developed a model of the actual relationships between school community stakeholders and culturally responsive practices.

The key findings of the research allow us to conclude that the school leaders’ efforts to develop and apply culturally responsive practices in their schools are defined by several significant factors: support from the members of the school community at all levels; support from the wider professional community; involvement of parents in the administrative, educational, and cultural life of school; the attitudes of school leaders towards the inclusion of students from various cultural and linguistic backgrounds in their schools. It stands to mention that support of culturally responsive practices from within the school community defines the level of culturally responsive practices in schools to a larger extent than the support from external stakeholders. To involve all educational stakeholders in creating inclusive and culturally responsive learning environments, it is recommended to promote an open dialogue on the importance of culturally responsive practices for student achievement, and their social and psychological wellbeing. This may be achieved by holding informational seminars and joint activities, introducing participatory design practices for all members of the school community, delivery of training programmes on culturally responsive leadership and teaching to raise the competencies of the professional community.

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