Measuring school leadership and management and linkages with literacy

Evidence from rural and township primary schools in South Africa

Bibliographic Data

ID21784341
AuthorsGabrielle Wills (0000-0001-8040-474X, corresponding author), Servaas Van Der Berg (0000-0002-3487-4983)
Year2021
Volume49
Issue5
Pages708-731
Publication date2021-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEducational Management Administration & Leadership (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1741-1432 • E-ISSN: 1741-1440
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/1741143220915923
OpenAlexW3020549366
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited30

This paper describes a process to develop and trial new metrics in South Africa to quantify school leadership and management practices or processes that are considered theoretically related to literacy outcomes. The predictive validity of these measures is assessed in challenging contexts, including 60 township and rural primary schools in South Africa. We observe a randomness to how better leadership and management practices are distributed across better and worse performing schools. Regression analyses confirm weak and inconsistent linkages between measured leadership and management dimensions and literacy outcomes across the sample. However, we find evidence of stronger linkages with intermediate outcomes, including monitoring curriculum coverage. This research contributes to a burgeoning, yet underdeveloped literature on educational management and leadership in Africa and the challenges of measurement in this context

Curriculum · Educational leadership · Geography · Instructional leadership · Literacy · Pedagogy · Political science · Sociology · Education Systems and Policy · School Choice and Performance · Teacher Education and Leadership Studies

Tools

Open DOIOpen Access