The relevance of school leaders for schools, the actors acting in them, and school development is undisputed in international school leadership and school development research (e.g., Håkansson & Pettersson, 2019; Leithwood et al., 2020). However, despite the highlighted importance of school leaders, their day-to-day work and actions have been considered in rather fragmented way, both theoretically and empirically. In this context, research is always faced with the challenge of comprehensively examining the diverse everyday work of school leaders and capturing the diversity of their actions. Previous research mostly follows traditional research approaches such as questionnaire surveys and interviews and thus predominantly bases its findings on self-report data (e.g., Lee et al., 2021; Fichtner et al., 2022). What is striking here is the relative lack of methodological diversity in the context of educational leadership research, which can be criticized (Showunmi & Fox, 2018). In this regard, ethnographic research approaches, for example, offer alternative ways to examine the diversity of school leadership actions. One method that has already found partial application in school leadership research is shadowing. Shadowing as an established research method in market and management research became known in the 1970s by Henry Mintzberg (Mintzberg, 1973) and has since been used in other disciplines, including school leadership research (Tulowitzki, 2019). Previous studies point out various benefits of this method, which allows to capture different facets of a research subject. Considering the wide range of tasks and actions of school leaders, the use of shadowing and thus the possibility of gaining a holistic insight into the daily life of a school leader that goes beyond self-report data (Tulowitzki & Huber, 2014) seems particularly interesting. However, in the discussion of this method, it becomes apparent that there are different interpretations of what is meant by shadowing, what methods are included here, and what methodological considerations are used as a basis for applying the method. A diverse adaptation of shadowing can also be noted for school leadership research. For example, international studies show a wide range of variation in terms of the definition of shadowing, the goals pursued by the method, and the different methods used and triangulated (Tulowitzki, 2019). Thus, it can be stated that there is no common understanding or systematic methodological approach of shadowing in international discourse (McDonald & Simpson, 2014; Tulowitzki, 2019). A use of shadowing (not only) in school leadership research therefore first requires a closer look at this method, which has been little discussed in research so far. This contribution addresses this issue and aims to provide impulses for the discussion of the conceptualization, use, and development of shadowing as a research method in school leader research. The guiding research questions are: 

1. How can shadowing be conceptualized as a research method?

2. What are the advantages and challenges of shadowing?

3. Which implications does the use of shadowing offer for school leadership research?

To examine these research questions, a two-step approach was taken: [1] In order to be able to review the previous discussion of shadowing as a research method, the first step was to examine already published international theoretical literature and empirical studies. After extensive research, a data corpus of 32 publications in which shadowing was explicitly discussed or used served as a basis. These papers were reviewed with regard to the methodological frameworks reported there, indications for the design and implementation of the method, as well as the opportunities and challenges of shadowing as a research method reported in this context. [2] The results obtained here were used in a second step for the planning and implementation of shadowing in a project on school leadership. In this project, two school leaders of secondary schools in Germany were each accompanied for three weeks in their daily work. The experiences gained here in the planning, implementation and methodological reflection of shadowing were subsequently used to enrich the previous discussion. This two-step approach should make it possible to outline the theoretical and methodological examination of shadowing as a research method. Furthermore, central characteristics, chances and challenges of this method will be elaborated. Complementing the findings of the first phase with practical experiences will further contribute to the discussion on shadowing, especially for school leadership research.

After reviewing previous publications as well as planning and conducting shadowing, the following findings were obtained: Shadowing can be understood as a multi-method complex with participant observation as a central element (see also Tulowitzki, 2019). By triangulating with other methods, diverse data can be generated and the procedure can be flexibly adapted to the respective research question and diverse research approaches and fields. In the context of the author's own research practice, the use of reflective interviews with the shadowed school leaders, the collection of anecdotes and episodes, and triangulation with methods of virtual ethnography (Koszinets et al., 2018) have proven valuable in this regard. Furthermore, the possibility of extensive and multi-perspective data collection has proven to be a benefit. Likewise, theory and practice showed that shadowing is especially suitable for the (dynamic) recording of actions in time and place and makes it possible to capture (relational) structures, dynamics, emotions, and implicit frameworks in situ and in actu. A disadvantage is the enormous physical strain and the required competencies on the part of the researchers. Overall, there are comprehensive results that offer a variety of implications both for qualitative social research and explicitly for school leadership research and will be presented and discussed at ECER 2023.

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