Dissecting the School Management Rubric in a Japanese Reform-Oriented Municipality

Bibliographic Data

ID22043463
AuthorsHirokazu Yokota (0000-0002-0876-5564, Children and Families Agency, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume14
Issue7
Pages724
Publication date2024-07-03
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEducation Sciences (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2227-7102 • E-ISSN: 2227-7102
PublisherMDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT)
DOI10.3390/educsci14070724
OpenAlexW4400284584
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited21

In Japan, there is almost no national policy that details the attributes and abilities desirable for school management staff. However, in March 2023, Toda City in Saitama prefecture, a city famous for its aggressive education reforms, published the Toda City School Management Rubric (SMR) as perspectives to be referred to in the daily practice of school management through a time-consuming hearing from principals and vice principals. By categorizing each dimension of the rubric itself as well as the documents relating to the creation process with the four school leadership styles, while making a comparison to school leadership standards in the U.S. and U.K., this paper aims to illuminate how the magic words of “school leadership” were turned into concrete perspectives for school leaders to reflect on. As a result, there are similarities and differences among leadership standards in three countries. Moreover, a transformational leadership style seems to be the most frequently mentioned among the four school leadership styles, and many of the principals and vice principals referred to instructional leadership in a sense that they need to take a lead in transforming traditional teacher-led instruction into student-centered learning. Furthermore, a distributed leadership style is considered to be important by many school leaders, especially because they continue to seek an appropriate balance between top-down and bottom-up approaches, and some principals and vice principals take the issue of work style reform seriously, which assumes an aspect of transactional leadership. As an arguably unprecedented attempt to comprehensively analyze the detailed policy documents on school leadership in Japan, this article will provide cross-cultural implications for school leadership policy and practice

Educational leadership · Instructional leadership · Leadership style · Mathematics education · Pedagogy · Political science · Public relations · Rubric · Shared leadership · Sociology · Transactional leadership · Transformational leadership · Collaborative Teaching and Inclusion · Global Educational Reforms and Inequalities · Psychology · Teacher Education and Leadership Studies

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