This paper arises from a narrative synthesis of articles submitted to the London Review of Education special issue on signature pedagogies for school leadership. The special issue addresses how educational leaders internationally develop their practices and how this is shaped by different models of system governance, high and low autonomy school systems and high compared to lower income economies. This call is timely as 2025 will be crucial in understanding how schools are steered and supported globally, with key global studies gathering data on the status quo of the profession, trends and significant challenges (e.g, Global Education Monitoring Team at UNESCO).

This special issue is framed by Lee Shulman’s (2005) seminal work on signature pedagogies. Signature pedagogies are “types of teaching that organize the fundamental ways in which future practitioners are educated for their new professions. In these signature pedagogies, the novices are instructed in critical aspects of the three fundamental dimensions of professional work - to think, to perform, and to act with integrity” (p.52).

Unlike other disciplines such as Law and Medicine, where case studies and the rounds are used respectively to generate new knowledge and share understandings of practice, it is argued that educational professionals do not have an equivalent as it might be lacking a ‘signature pedagogy’. Shulman (2005) suggested that just as studying a nation’s nurseries tells us much about their culture, studying the ‘nurseries’ of professions would be revealing of the ways in which practitioners develop.

Signature pedagogies have: a) a surface structure of processes for teaching and learning about the profession; b) a deep structure that involves assumptions about the best ways to impart knowledge and the most appropriate forms of knowledge; and c) an implicit structure, particularly the beliefs, values and moral underpinnings of practice.

While there has been some research on signature pedagogies for teachers (e.g., Yendol-Hoppey & Franco, 2014, Mansilla & Chua, 2015), very little attention has been paid to school leadership development using this framework, with a few exceptions (e.g., Black & Murtadha, 2007, Sappington, 2010, Meyer & Shannon). This paper brings together learning from several empirical studies from multiple international sources to shed further light on the global landscape of leadership preparation, its knowledge base, values and practices. 

The narrative synthesis looks critically at around eight recent papers, conceptual and empirical to find new insights into how school leaders are developed in a range of jurisdictions. Contributions to the synthesis include: Empirical research of leadership development programmes, their processes, and underlying principles Analysis of national policies on school leadership support, competencies, assessment or accountability, and how these influence school leaders’ development Analysis of leadership development programme theories of action – bringing out the practices, the underlying knowledge base that is being developed and the educational and leadership values being promoted Critical approaches to how leadership is developed alongside ‘exemplars’ of where signature pedagogies are being enacted within a national context.

The paper will draw on Shulman’s signature pedagogies seminal work to explore differences in leadership development in schools. This theoretical framework looks at the surface level practices used, the deep level which brings out which types of knowledge are privileged in this process, and which are neglected. Finally the underlying educational values, often implicit, will be discussed. The paper will also go further by taking a critical stance on Shulman’s framework, discussing its currency, strengths, weaknesses and areas for future research.

Black, W. R., & Murtadha, K. (2007). Toward a signature pedagogy in educational leadership preparation and program assessment. Journal of Research on Leadership Education, 2(1), 1-29. Mansilla, V. B., & Chua, F. S. (2017). Signature pedagogies in global competence education: Understanding quality teaching practice. Educating for the 21st century: Perspectives, policies and practices from around the world, 93-115. Meyer, H. D., & Shannon, B. (2010). Case writing as a signature pedagogy in education leadership. Journal of Educational Administration, 48(1), 89-101. Parker, M., Patton, K., & O'Sullivan, M. (2016). Signature pedagogies in support of teachers’ professional learning. Irish educational studies, 35(2), 137-153. Sappington, N., Baker, P. J., Gardner, D., & Pacha, J. (2010). A signature pedagogy for leadership education: Preparing principals through participatory action research. Planning and Changing, 41, 249-273. Shulman, L. S. (2005). Signature pedagogies in the professions. Daedalus, 134(3), 52-59. Yendol-Hoppey, D., & Franco, Y. (2014). In Search of Signature Pedagogy for PDS Teacher Education: A Review of Articles Published in" School-University Partnerships". School-University Partnerships, 7(1), 17-34.