Conference Agenda

Principals play a decisive role in shaping their schools’ organizations, outcomes, and development processes, regardless of students’ backgrounds or capabilities. Their work is complex, situated within multiple layers of governance, and influenced by competing aims (Gurr & Day, 2024). External policies and expectations often emphasize performance outcomes and accountability, while broader educational responsibilities—such as equity, social justice, and wellbeing—remain equally central (Connolly, James & Fertig, 2019). This tension raises fundamental questions about responsibility, accountability, and how school leaders navigate both immediate demands and long‑term sustainability.

National contexts and historical conditions further shape what is considered possible and desirable within schooling (Day et al., 2026). In an increasingly diverse and rapidly changing global landscape, with significant variation both across and within countries, many principals report high workloads and complex role demands (Leithwood, 2026). Understanding how they interpret and enact responsibility and accountability—in relation to students, themselves, their staff, and their systems—therefore offers important insights into contemporary educational leadership (Johansson & Rönnström, 2024)

Within the field, responsibility and accountability are conceptually distinct yet closely intertwined. Responsibility represents an internally driven, ethical commitment grounded in professional values, care for others, and a focus on learning and equity (Starratt, 2004). It reflects what leaders believe they ought to do, guided by moral reasoning and a sense of duty. In contrast, accountability is primarily externally imposed, linked to policy regimes, performance measures, and formal expectations. This distinction highlights the reflective and values‑based nature of responsibility, set against the structural and often instrumental logics of accountability. Application of ecological systems theory to findings from the International Successful School Principalship Project (ISSPP), highlights the dilemmas that principals can encounter by working in nested systems (Sun, et al., 2026).

Through a panel format, this session brings together researchers from Australia, Sweden and the United States to explore how principals understand and act as responsible and accountable leaders in their own national and local context. Drawing on their extensive research from the ISSPP the panel members will be asked to address the following questions:

• What do principals identify as essential for being successful in their role?
• How do they distinguish between being responsible and being accountable?
• How do principals explain their responsibility and/or accountability for their school’s work and quality?
• To whom and to what do they feel responsible and accountable?
• What dilemmas arise when navigating responsibility and accountability in their everyday leadership practice?

Through comparative analysis across three national contexts, the panel aims to deepen conceptual understanding of responsibility and accountability in educational leadership and illuminate how principals negotiate these demands in practice.