Purpose

This paper provides a cross‐national perspective on school principalship in two countries derived from an analysis of case studies in Scotland and the Republic of Cyprus. Examples from the two education systems are selected to demonstrate cross-national similarities and differences related to the purpose of education, the structure, and the role of leadership in school improvement. We pay particular attention to the research context in order to understand and explain different findings across countries. We present a secondary analysis of case studies from the participating countries which embraced a cultural and context-relevant framework to consider how the values and norms of a society might influence the expectations, beliefs, and context-relevant practices of individuals within schools. This synthesis reveals the complexity of policy and structural pressures on the practices of school leaders and the ways in which they respond to their environments.

The comparative context

In our cross-national comparison, we provide two instructive cases from which scholars and practitioners can develop nuanced understandings about the social, cultural, and economic conditions that shape and are shaped by the school systems.

Case study schools differed both within and across the countries in terms of size, location, school development phase, leadership structure, staff capacity and professional disposition (commitment and resilience), student diversity and resource needs and culture. We began by determining whether the principals demonstrated a core set of leadership practices as conditions for school success (Leithwood et al., 2020; Pashiardis and Kafa, 2023), as well as having greater focus on moral purpose and values-based leadership views (Dimmock and Walker, 2000).

In Cyprus, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Youth, and Sports wields significant power in the education system. The Ministry oversees all schools and is in charge of enforcing existing rules and developing new ones (Pashiardis and Tsiakiros, 2015). It also oversees each school's education policy, including administering, monitoring, and assessing education quality and creating the curriculum. The state funds local school boards, who subsequently distribute monies to schools under their control. Cyprus has a restricted centralised education system that requires all school to meet specific rules. A large body of evidence shows that school leaders in Cyprus, both in primary and secondary education, appear to develop external relations as well as networking with all relevant actors; foster a collaborative and shared ownership feeling among their members and within their school organisation; and finally promote a clear vision based on a specific set of values (Kafa and Pashiardis, 2019; Pashiardis et al., 2018).

The Scottish education system has a unique and distinctive history and tradition within the member countries of the United Kingdom. The administration and strategic direction are the responsibility of the Scottish Government in Edinburgh, not the UK Government located in London. A series of reform programmes over the last decade or so, aim to promote overall improvement in schools and close the educational attainment gap (Campbell and Harris, 2023). This involved reforms to the curriculum and assessment, quality assurance and inspection, and teacher education with an emphasis on promoting professional development, leadership, and innovation towards a self-improving school system. This shift from a hierarchical to a much flatter-collaborative culture stresses the increasing complexity of schooling and requires attention to the local and cultural context when choosing leadership strategies.

Framework

We anchored our study in Hallinger’s (2018) context and culture framework for studying how leaders were able to engage with and utilise the multiple contexts (institutional, community, socio-cultural, political, economic, school improvement) to improve their schools. Specifically, this framework reflects leadership approaches that are influenced by multiple contexts and cannot be understood without aspects of school culture and the wider environment.

Methods Scotland and Cyprus are interesting cases to compare as they are similar in indicators of social progress via their respective education reform programmes (Social Progress Imperative, 2024). Both countries have, over the last few years, shown a growing commitment to improving equity in student outcomes and in strengthening collaborative approaches to promote schools with high social cohesion. In both countries, an emphasis exists on leaders improving conditions for teaching and learning. These overarching similarities enable a focus on the intricacies of how structures, social and policy contexts, might influence school leaders’ behaviours and practices. Multisite case study methods were chosen as the methodological approach for the study for both countries using semi-structured interviews with a variety of school stakeholders, such as the school principal, teachers, students, and parents (Yin, 2018). Each case study was summarised and coded under broad thematic headings, and then summarised within themes across studies with a brief citation of primary evidence. Analysis of data was both (a) deductive, with a focus on refining provisional conceptualisations of “values-driven leadership” and (b) inductive, with a focus on devising a framework for examining variation and adaptation in leadership practices between cases.

Conclusions While there are several differences in leadership context and strategies, there are also significant similarities across the two countries in both the values that principals hold and the practices and behaviours they use in order to build and sustain a strong values platform. This stability platform was intensified when they worked in uncertain crises situations, such as the global pandemic. It was their values and beliefs that guided what they did by using this platform to apply it into a set of rules and priorities.

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