Across global, national and local contexts, education policymakers increasingly architect and implement policies aimed at the development of “whole system” approaches to inclusive education (Ainscow, 2020; Banks, 2022). A key dimension of this policy approach according to Ainscow (2020) is administration, involving policy and school leadership (and policy and practice pertaining to school leadership), including both principals and middle leaders.   

While research has been conducted focused on conceptualising inclusive school leadership/ inclusive school leaders (Óskarsdóttir et al., 2020) and the inextricable links between school leadership and the realisation of inclusive education, there are few studies that specifically highlight this as a priority in achieving inclusive education systems. The aim of this paper is to make this direct link and, by reviewing the literature, highlighting common factors in school leadership that influence inclusive schools. Óskarsdóttir et al. (2020) draw on instructional, transformational and, most relevant to this paper, distributed leadership theory. Distributed school leadership, the most commonly adopted leadership theory in educational policy making and research today (Wang, 2018), involves sharing leadership responsibilities among members of a school community, to create a more collaborative and inclusive school culture (Diamond & Spillane, 2016). This approach can help make schools more responsive to diversity and inclusion by empowering a wider range of voices and perspectives to contribute to decision-making (Harris et al., 2022). With distributed leadership, the focus shifts from a solo to a collective and shared leadership team that can more effectively address and respond to the increasingly diverse needs and experiences of school leaders, teachers and students. Theoretically, this approach can also lead to a more equitable distribution of resources and support, which can contribute to a more inclusive and diversity-responsive school environment. However, this is not without its problems given, for example, challenges to diversifying the school leadership and teacher workforce, and a lack of attention to provide effective and differentiated developmental opportunities for all on implementing distributed leadership in practice (Murphy & Brennan, 2022).  

Research literature to date has focused far more on school principals and inclusive leadership practice (e.g. DeMatthews & Mueller, 2021) and it remains that far less is known about how this achieved particularly for middle leaders in schools, particularly in education systems who have adopted the aforementioned whole system approaches to inclusive education as well as distributed leadership models (e.g. the Republic of Ireland). This is despite calls from critics of the distributed leadership who cite challenges including how adoption of this theory or policy in practice (a) lack of clarity about distributed leadership (b) do not experience school leadership preparation for inclusion, (in)equity, diversity (Young et al., 2021) (c) results in unequitable (re)distribution of power (Lumby, 2013, 2019) and/ or (d) can create potential for conflict should there be failure to redress power asymmetries that emerge (Diamond & Spillane, 2016). We elaborate on these issues further in this paper.

This paper employs the methodology of a scoping literature review on the intersections between distributed leadership, middle leadership and inclusion. In so doing, we will focus on research publications in peer-reviewed and, as relevant, grey literatures (given the nascent research in this area) to establish (1) distributed leadership's connection to inclusive school leadership practice (2) examine middle leadership practices that are equitable and inclusive, as well as realise equity and inclusion for diverse school communities and (3) exploring gaps, challenges and opportunities for future research. Analysis will be conducted by both authors equally (initially individually and then collaboratively) and we will engage a reflexive thematic analysis in our synthesis of relevant sources. Concurrent to this scoping review of the literature, we draw heavily on the 'case' of the Republic of Ireland to contextualise our findings given its distributed leadership model of leadership adopted nationally, as well as a concurrent focus on system-wide inclusive education. We will also refer to other comparable international contexts such as Scotland where there are similar priorities to have policy and practical findings, as well as more substantive intellectual and research findings to contribute to the dual inclusion and educational leadership literatures.

We expect our findings will add to the scant literature on distributed leadership for inclusive middle leadership practice in a number of ways. * We will identify the gaps in the research literature in this area, adding to the conceptualisation of inclusive school leadership in new ways and the discourse articulated above pertaining to "whole system" approaches to inclusion. * We will identify and discuss challenges in the realisation of distributed leadership that raise particular issues of inclusion/ equity/ diversity, despite the aims of this theoretical framing of leadership, based on analyses of practice (e.g. asymmetries of power in leadership teams). We situate this in the context of the Republic of Ireland but, as mentioned, will point to how these findings might be theoretically generalised to other international contexts. * We will identify promising, core and intentional practices to foster inclusive middle leadership practice for system leaders, principals and middle leaders themselves. * We will comment on the critical importance of sustained research and both system and school improvement goals in this area to ensure (i) more equitable/ inclusive pathways to the principalship and (ii) equity-centred goals to promote inclusion and respond to student diversity in school communities. Thus, we hope to chart new research directions in this space.

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