Description

This study will be built on a recent review of existing instructional leadership literature in Turkey (Gümüş et al., 2021). Relying on relevant qualitative studies, this review identified the common instructional leadership practices of Turkish school principals and showed that some core instructional leadership practices identified in international literature, e.g., framing school goals and instructional supervision, are not very popular among Turkish school principals. Interestingly, existing studies have not paid much attention to the contextual factors shaping the understanding and the practices of instructional leadership in Turkish context. It means that the literature has focused mostly on picturing the current situation, by mostly using the western frameworks, and is lacking in terms of exploring which practices are more relevant and what would be some authentic practices. Our purpose in this study is, therefore, to develop a culturally relevant instructional leadership model for Turkish school principals based on contextual factors related to societal culture, educational system, and the personal competencies. More specifically, both the challenges and drivers of instructional leadership practices will be explored within the national context. This study will contribute to the growing knowledge base on the nature of instructional leadership in different cultural contexts.  

Objectives