We believe that public schools in our respective countries (Kenya, Sweden, United States) are essential to maintaining the democratic societies in which they are located.  In addition to an unprecedented global pandemic, the last three years have witnessed increasing threats to democracy.  The racially, ethnically, and religiously-motivated hatred, rise in extreme right-wing political violence, and anti-immigrant sentiment provide a challenging context for school leaders responsible for ensuring an equitable education for all children and the continuation of a democratic society.  Historically depicted as “apolitical”, principals and superintendents must now contend with enacting their role and responsibilities within highly charged political and social contexts with various constituencies attempting to control public education through such efforts as: banning books, restricting curriculum topics, decreasing funding, and electing anti-public education candidates to school boards. 

These threats to superintendents’ and principals’ leadership occur alongside the challenges that accompany teacher and administrative shortages and turnover, as well as the ongoing consequences of COVID.  Despite the fact that school leaders are making educational decisions within these challenging contexts, we know very little about how and why they are making these decisions.

In reviewing the research from 1993-2011 on principals’ leadership identity, Cruz-Gonzalez, Rodrigues and Segovia (2019) report that the evidence indicates that “political and contextual factors influence leadership practices and are a source of concern among principals” (p. ). Additionally, they acknowledge that this body of research was dominated by researchers in Anglo-Saxon countries. A notable contribution in this regard is Lopez & Rugano’s  (2018) study of the leadership practices of three female principals in post-colonial Kenya.

The study conducted by Antonios & Peshardis (2019) is an also important counterpoint to the lack of cultural diversity in this research, with findings confirming that the contexts in which school principals in Cypriot work are relevant to their personal, personal, and professional identities.  A recent study of Swedish principals (Nordholm et al., 2020), however, indicates that principals’ identity is more closely connected to the professional dimension than either the situated, socially located or personal dimensions.  It’s interesting that the situated or socially located dimension had the least impact on principals with respect to their identify.  In contrast, a study of principal identity by Crow, Day, & Møller (2017) concludes that identity has a strong connection to the context of work.     

Our research focuses on how school leaders construct their identities within the current divisive social and political climate, and what factors influence their decisionmaking when responding to the challenges that emerge from the increasingly polarized social and political contexts within which they work.  In doing so, we acknowledge the research conducted by Dempster, Carter, Freakley and Parry (2004) which points to the situational and sometimes contradictory nature of principal’s ethical decisionmaking.

In responding to call for a broader range of cultural perspectives in educational research, as well as the theme of ECER 2024, Education in an Age of Uncertainty:  Memory and hope for the future, our research includes data from Kenya, Sweden and the United States (Texas).  We selected three different groups of school leaders:  a) those who retired prior to 2020; b) those who retired within the past 3 years (2020-2023); c) those currently in their position.  (a & b = memory, and c = hope for the future).   In synthesizing previous studies on principal identity and how it’s constructed, Sylvia Robertson (2017) explores the idea that principals’ professional identity consists of five related and overlapping aspects: 1) values; 2) beliefs; 3) knowledge; 4) understanding; and 5) experience. Our analysis of the ethical dimension of principal identity is informed by the work of Begley & Johansson (2003).  

This qualitative, exploratory, comparative study of school leaders (superintendents and principals) in Kenya, Sweden and the United States (specifically Texas) focuses on how educational leaders in each of these countries define their roles, responsibilities, and their decisionmaking processes when responding to the challenges associated with the divisive and highly charged political and social contexts in which they work. The data collection process is well underway, and we anticipate completing our study by June at the latest. We’ve used purposeful sampling to select our school leaders who we’ve sub-divided into three different groups: a) those who retired prior to 2020; b) those who retired within the past 3 years (2020-2023); c) those who are current school leaders. Our rationale for including both superintendents and principals in our study and for differentiating them into these three groups was prompted by our desire to explore whether and how their responses to our questions depended, in part upon the time period and related context in which they served, as well as their position in the school organization. (We acknowledge that there are other factors that can be considered, such as gender, but in this initial study, we decided to focus on the context). In the interviews, we ask questions of the school leaders regarding the role of schools in a democratic society, the social and political challenges that currently confront them, their role in responding to these challenges, and the guidelines or beliefs that informed your decision making in responding to these challenges. We also ask them to give us an example of a controversial issue that they’ve had to respond to, describe their decisionmaking process when responding to the issue, and the result of their decision. We’ve modified these questions when interviewing the retired school leaders, to include not only their retrospective analysis about their time as leader but also their observations regarding the current context within which superintendents and principals are working. We’re interviewing a minimum of four school leaders in each of the three categories, in person (when possible), or via Zoom. These interviews are between 45 and 60 minutes in length, digitally recorded and transcribed. The transcripts are shared with the participants to verify the trustworthiness of the findings (Creswell & Creswell, 2017). The data are being coded separately by the authors and two research assistants for the purpose of identifying emergent themes within and across our countries. (Saldana, 2016).

The following themes are beginning to emerge for Sweden and Texas (we’ve yet not collected enough data from Kenya to report those findings): 1) Current school leaders generally view their role as apolitical, and limit their efforts to their perceived span of control 2) Retired school leaders are more likely than current leaders, to believe that the democratic mission of schools is under threat 3) School leaders who retired prior to 2020 generally rely upon their professional code of ethics to inform their decisionmaking, but acknowledged that this approach alone was insufficient for addressing current threats to education. 4) Those who retired within the past three years are more likely to have based their decisionmaking on a personal code of ethics, prompting them to challenge efforts to control education, and eventually leading to their leaving the profession. 5) Current leaders who are members of the communities they serve, are more proactive than their colleagues in drawing upon their personal code of ethics to combat threats to education. Schools, as democratic institutions, are under threat today. Our research draws upon the past to inform the present with respect to leading schools in today’s challenging times. Current school leaders invested in maintaining their positions, understandably focus more on accommodating to, rather than challenging, the threats being directed toward today’s schools. Nonetheless the data we are gathering from retired school leaders indicates that they can be an import resource for much-needed insights into how current school leaders can maintain their focus on educating children, while strategically leveraging support to challenge the undemocratic policies and practices intended to limit their decisionmaking. As such, retired school leaders (“memory”) can play an important role in mentoring current leaders (“hope for the future”) in their efforts to ensure the democratic nature of education.

Begley, Paul & Johansson, Olof, (2003) Eds. The Ethical Dimensions of School Leadership. Kluwer Academic Publishers. Campos-García, I. & Zúñiga-Vicente, J. (2022). Strategic decision-making in secondary schools: the impact of a principal’s demographic profile, Leadership and Policy in Schools, 21:3, 543-564, DOI: 10.1080/15700763.2020.1802653 Creswell, J. W., & Creswell, J. D. (2017). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. Sage Publications. Crow, Gary, Day, Christopher & Møller, Jorunn (2017). Framing research on school principals’ identity. International Journal of Leadership in Education, 20(3), 265–277. Cruz-González, C.; Rodriguez, C. & Segovia, J. (2019). A systematic review of principals’ leadership identity from 1993 to 2019, Educational Management Administration & Leadership. 49(1). https://doi-org.libweb.lib.utsa.edu/10.1177/1741143219896 Dempster, N., Carter, L., Freakley, M., & Parry, L. (2004). Conflicts, confusions and contradictions in principals' ethical decision making. Journal of Educational Administration, 42(4), 450-461. doi:https://doi.org/10.1108/09578230410544062 Kafa, A., & Pashiardis, P. (2019). Exploring school principals’ personal identities in Cyprus from a values perspective. The International Journal of Educational Management, 33(5), 886-902. doi:https://doi.org/10.1108/IJEM-03-2018-0102 Lopez, A.E. & Rugano, P. (2018). Educational Leadership in Post-Colonial Contexts: What Can We Learn from the Experiences of Three Female Principals in Kenyan Secondary Schools? Education Sciences 8, no.3: 99. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci8030099 Nordholm, D.; Arnqvist, A. & Nihlfors, E. (2020). Principals’ emotional identity—the Swedish Case. School Leadership & Management. 40(4), 335-351. Robertson, Sylvia (2017). Transformation of professional identity in an experienced primary school principal: A New Zealand case study. Educational Management Administration and Leadership 45(5), 774–789. Saldaña, J. (2016). The coding manual for qualitative researchers (Third edition.). SAGE Publishers.