In terms of inclusion schools nowadays experience growing diversity, not only with students with disabilities but also with students from diverse cultural, linguistic, socio-economic and other different backgrounds (Gollnick & Chinn, 2002). This growing diversity and a multicultural environment spell new challenges and opportunities for schools that strongly impact the work of teachers and principals (Billot et al., 2007). Creating an inclusive school culture is therefore one of the most important elements of leadership in multicultural educational environments, as it promotes social justice within the school (Foster, 1995) by creating a school culture, where consensus for school values on respecting the diversity is reached and the leaders are selected based on their attitudes and support towards inclusive values and their encouragement of collaboration (Dyson et al., 2004). Moreover, principals’ pedagogical vision, goals and leadership style influence the way multiculturalism is reflected at the school level (Keung & Rockinson-Szapkiw, 2013). The “HEAD: Empowering School Principals for Inclusive School Culture” project developed a curricular framework for the professional development of primary and secondary school principals in Croatia (CRO) and the Republic of North Macedonia (RNM) with a view to developing their capacities in establishing an inclusive school culture by creating inclusive school policies and practices through participatory decision-making (NEPC, 2020). In this presentation, comparison of data from the pre-test and post-test evaluation will be used to describe the effectiveness of the developed curricular framework and professional development programmes (four different PD programmes for CRO and RNM and two school settings). Our sample comprised of 90 principals: 39 from primary schools (CRO: experimental group: N = 14; control group: N = 5; RNM: experimental group: N = 15; control group: N = 5) and 51 from secondary schools (CRO: experimental group: N = 22; control group: N = 10; RNM: experimental group: N = 14; control group: N = 5). The programmes’ impact was evaluated using a two-way mixed-measures ANOVA (between-subjects variable - group: experimental, control; within-subjects variable - time of measurement: pre-test, post-test). The results of the impact study showed that the HEAD intervention proved to be very successful for Macedonian primary school principals, where an increase in majority of areas of inclusive school environment was detected. Besides the impact study results the presentation also provides lessons learnt and recommendations for improvement of professional development programmes for principals and for systemic support for principals in creating inclusive school cultures.

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