Conference Agenda

Consistent with this year’s conference theme, “Knowing and Acting: The changing conditions and potentials of education research” our proposed symposium focuses on the challenges that principals face in their efforts to know about, and to make sense of, the multiple and intersecting systems with which they interact, as well as the actions they take in response. The papers presented in this symposium explore these challenges from the perspectives of principals in four countries: Italy, Scotland, Spain, and the United States.

The public schools in these countries are entrusted with preparing students for active participation in their democratic societies and for ensuring the continuity of values that characterize these societies. The conference theme notes that national governments are increasingly delegating “knowledge production and even parts of decision-making to non-governmental actors…”. Public schools in our four countries are experiencing decreasing enrollments, declining public support, and a concomitant growth of alternative models (e.g. charter schools, private schools). One of the most serious challenges facing schools today, is the global-level assault on democratic values and the growing hostility towards efforts to promote wellbeing and a quality education for all students in the classroom and in society in general.

Principals have a critical role in providing teaching and learning environments in which students can develop the skills they need to be productive, informed citizens who support the democratic values of the societies in which they live. There is a considerable body of research regarding the skills that are associated with successful principal leadership, and a significant aspect of this research has focused on the contextual nature of principals’ work ((e.g. Leithwood et al., 2017), Norqvist & Arlestig, 2021). Although schools are expected to serve their local communities, they are not isolated institutions, but rather, they function within multiple, interrelated systems. Local communities influence, and are affected by, forces external to the local context, at the regional, state, and national levels. The conference theme utilizes the concept of “poly-crisis” to describe the “complex inter-solidarity of problems [which] will manifest in both globally shared and locally specific forms.”

The multiple and interrelated systems within which schools operate have been acknowledged by numerous researchers at the organizational level (e.g. Hoy & Miskel, 2007; Bolman & Deal, 2003; Day & Gurr, 2014, drawing on Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Model, Morison, 2012). We believe it is essential that principals understand and navigate the multiple and interrelated systems of which they are a part, for the purpose of ensuring democratic, inclusive, and equitable schools.

The papers in this symposium feature mixed methods case studies conducted within the International Successful School Principalship Project, and grounded in a new conceptual framing that explicitly considers principal leadership in school contexts with multiple influences and complexities. Authors explore how principals understand (i.e. “sense-making”, Weick, 1976, 1995) the multiple and intersecting systems that impact their work and then act to ensure equitable and just learning environments for their teachers and students. Principals’ backgrounds and dispositions, previous experiences, and biases, affect not only how they understand the systems that influence and/or constrain their decision making authority but also the ways in which they utilize this knowledge to inform their actions. The schools in the four countries vary considerably from one another, regarding the influence of external systems on local schools. The actions taken by the principals of these schools reflect a range of responses to these challenges—from resistance, creative re-interpretation, to full compliance. Taken together, the four papers reveal interesting cross-national comparisons regarding whether and how principals’ decision making at the local level is facilitated or constrained by the multiple and interconnected systems with which they interact.

The impact of educational leadership on school success is widely documented in international research (Sun et al., 2024). While leadership is consistently identified as the second most influential school-related factor affecting students’ learning outcomes (Leithwood et al., 2017), it is equally acknowledged that principals’ work is deeply shaped by national policy frameworks and governance structures (Day & Gurr, 2014). This paper examines the complexity of educational leadership in Italy, focusing on how principals navigate systemic constraints within a highly centralized education system characterized by limited school autonomy. Despite legal developments granting schools some discretion in curriculum design and organizational arrangements, the key levers of human resource management, such as recruitment, professional development, and salary incentives, remain under the control of central and regional authorities. This produces a fragmented governance system that constrains local decision-making (Paletta & Bezzina, 2016). In addition, continuous reform cycles and the absence of a long-term strategic vision require principals to sustain efforts in maintaining pedagogical coherence over time (Bevilacqua, Acquaro, Girelli, 2024). Such challenges are further intensified by limited pre-service and in-service professional development pathways for school leaders (Gurr, 2023). Together, these conditions generate a paradox: principals are expected to promote innovation, wellbeing, and equity, while institutional systems limit their capacity to act decisively and consistently. Building on Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory (1979), the study explores how principals respond to multi-level systemic influences across micro, meso, exo, macro, and chrono dimensions. The analysis is further informed by complexity theory (Morrison, 2002), conceptualizing schools as complex adaptive systems shaped by dynamic interactions and stakeholder relationships. Empirically, the paper draws on two Italian case studies conducted within the International Successful School Principalship Project (ISSPP), adopting a mixed-methods design with a strong qualitative orientation and a multi-perspective framework. The study focuses on two comprehensive school institutes located in different areas of Italy, encompassing a total of five kindergartens, seven primary schools, and two lower secondary schools. Although operating within an increasingly demanding bureaucratic context and having limited influence on ministerial-level decision-making, findings show that successful Italian principals engage in an ongoing process in which they interpret ambiguous policy signals, construct shared meanings, and guide action under conditions of uncertainty. Their leadership emphasises trust, collaboration, and micro-level innovation, alongside sustained partnerships with local institutions and participation in school networks. In doing so, they promote innovative educational models, strengthen their schools’ social relevance, and actively contribute to their local communities.

Bevilacqua, A., Acquaro, D., & Girelli, C. (2024). Leadership amidst a context of disadvantage, autonomy, and national reform in Italy. In How successful schools are more than effective: Principals who build and sustain teacher and student wellbeing and achievement (pp. 73–96). Springer International Publishing. Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Harvard University Press. Day, C., & Gurr, D.(Eds.)2014). Leading schools successfully: Stories from the field. London: Routledge Gurr, D. (2023). A think-piece on leadership and education. UNESCO. Paper commissioned for the Global Education Monitoring Report 2024/5: Leadership and education. A think-piece on leadership and education - UNESCO Digital Library Leithwood, K.; Sun, J. & Pollock, K. (2017). How school leaders contribute to student success: The Four Paths Framework. Springer. Morrison, K. (2012). School leadership and complexity theory. Routledge. Paletta, A., & Bezzina, C. (2016). Governance and leadership in public schools: Opportunities and challenges facing school leaders in Italy. Leadership and Policy in Schools, 15(4), 524–542. https://doi.org/10.1080/15700763.2016.1181186 Sun, J., Day, C., Zhang, R., Zhang, H., Huang, T., & Lin, J.(2024). Successful school principalship: A meta-synthesis of 20 years of international case studies. Education Sciences, 14(9), 929. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14090929

Leadership in Scotland is increasingly defined by the interplay between local context and a shifting political landscape, placing school leaders at the centre of complex work. Scottish principals operate within a system marked by strong national oversight, persistent tensions between central and local priorities, and widening social and economic disparities that shape the daily realities of schools. Recent work on school leadership in Scotland shows that leaders are increasingly required to navigate competing policy demands, respond to heightened political scrutiny of curriculum, assessment and equity, and work across organisational and community boundaries to address challenges that are increasingly social as much as educational (Chapman and Donaldson, 2023; Constantinides, 2025). These pressures highlight the importance of understanding leadership as deeply contextual, relational and politically situated work. In this environment, successful school leadership depends on the capacity to interpret policy, mediate conflicting expectations, and sustain collaborative cultures that support staff and learners despite the volatility of the wider system. This paper was informed by a systems centred perspective that examines how leadership practices interact with wider organisational and policy environments to shape school improvement processes, conditions, and cultures. Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory (1979) provided a useful lens for understanding the multiple layers of influence operating within and beyond Scottish schools, highlighting how leaders navigate relationships and pressures across micro , meso , exo , macro and chronosystem levels. Complementing this, principles from complexity theory helped illuminate the dynamic, non linear nature of educational ecosystems, where change emerges through interactions rather than isolated actions. Together, these frameworks supported the development of context sensitive accounts of leadership in Scotland, emphasising how leaders respond to shifting political expectations, community needs, and organisational demands within an increasingly interconnected system. This study draws on a mixed methods design combining multi perspective qualitative data, an online staff survey, and documentary evidence to capture how principals are currently leading within increasingly complex and politically charged school environments. A purposive sample of three schools across different regions provided rich case study insights into how leadership practices shape structures, cultures, and professional experiences. Qualitative and quantitative data were analysed through an iterative process of inductive and deductive coding, enabling the identification of patterns, tensions, and emerging leadership responses (Yin, 2018). Findings show that successful leadership in Scotland depends on the principals' capacity to build trust, navigate political and hierarchical pressures with professional agency, and connect people, knowledge and resources across organisational divides.

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Harvard University Press. Chapman C, Donaldson G (2023) Where next for Scottish education: Learning is Scotland’s future? Unpublished working paper, University of Glasgow. Constantinides, M. (2025). Leadership at the boundaries of schools: Navigating the complexities of collaboration. Educational Management Administration & Leadership. Yin R. K. (2018). Case study research and applications: Design and methods (6th ed.). Sage.

As educational landscapes become increasingly complex, school leadership for social justice requires a deep, systemic understanding of the school’s context. This paper presents a qualitative case study of IES José Churriguera (JCH), a urban public secondary school in Spain. The study explores how a distributed leadership model (Harris et al., 2022)—comprising the management team and the guidance department, collectively functioning as a "leading strategic team"—navigates intersecting systems to ensure that all students, regardless of socioeconomic background or special educational needs, have the opportunity to develop their talent. The researchers analyze this case through the lens of Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory (Sadownik, 2023) and Brooks et al.’s (2017) temporal framework of context. This analytical approach identifies three dimensions: Pre-Text, Context, and Post-Text (Brooks et al., 2017). The Pre-Text is explored through the principal’s professional trajectory; her extensive background in guidance services and socio-community interventions provides a specific interpretation of past experiences that fundamentally shapes her leadership approach. The current Context involves a rigorous analysis of stakeholders and policies across micro, meso, and macro layers, where the leadership team recognizes and responds to urgent societal demands and the specific needs of a diverse student body (Mitchell, 2016). The school’s strategy is rooted in giving meaning to its institutional identity: a commitment to guaranteed quality education without discrimination or marginalization. This identity is operationalized through values of equity, respect, and care. The Post-Text reflects a visionary construction of inclusion that extends beyond the school walls, aiming for a future where students graduate as critical citizens and agents of change (Holquist et al., 2023). By mapping the school’s journey through the chronosystem, this study reveals how the integration of instructional and social justice leadership (Shaked, 2020) allows the institution to build and maintain democratic resilience (Kiess, 2024). This resilience is defined as the institutional capacity to protect and strengthen core democratic values—such as equity and social participation—against external systemic pressures and the uncertainties of a global "poly-crisis." The findings suggest that by actively shielding vulnerable groups from marginalization and fostering student "subjectification" (Coelho et al., 2025), the school acts as a democratic safeguard. Ultimately, the case illustrates how leadership can transform a challenging urban context into a space of resistance and hope, preparing students to operate in the world guided by a shared vision of social justice.

Brooks, J.S., Normore, A.H. and Wilkinson, J. (2017), “School leadership, social justice and immigration: Examining, exploring and extending two frameworks”, International Journal of Educational Management, Emerald Group Publishing Ltd., Vol.31 No.5, pp.679–690, doi: 10.1108/IJEM-12-2016-0263. Coelho, D.P., Ham, M. and Jones, S.L. (2025), “Understanding Biesta’s three purposes of education: A framework proposal”, British Educational Research Journal, John Wiley and Sons Inc, doi: 10.1002/berj.4155. Harris, A., Jones, M. and Ismail, N. (2022), “Distributed leadership: taking a retrospective and contemporary view of the evidence base”, School Leadership & Management, Vol.42 No.5, pp.438–456, doi: 10.1080/13632434.2022.2109620. Holquist, S.E., Mitra, D.L., Conner, J. and Wright, N.L. (2023), “What Is Student Voice Anyway? The Intersection of Student Voice Practices and Shared Leadership”, Educational Administration Quarterly, SAGE Publications Inc., Vol.59 No.4, pp.703–743, doi: 10.1177/0013161X231178023. Kiess, J. (2024), “Building democratic resilience: the impact of political engagement during education on xenophobia and political trust”, Acta Politica, Palgrave Macmillan, pp.156–176, doi: 10.1057/s41269-024-00370-6. Mitchell, D. (2016). Diversities in education: Effective ways to reach all learners. Routledge. Sadownik, A.R. (2023), “Bronfenbrenner: Ecology of Human Development in Ecology of Collaboration”, pp.83–95, doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-38762-3_4. Shaked, H. (2020), “Social justice leadership, instructional leadership, and the goals of schooling.”, International Journal of Educational Management, Vol. 34(1), pp.81–95, doi: 10.1108/IJEM-01-2019-0018.

Public schools in the United States were established to bring children from diverse backgrounds together in microcosms of society (Dewey, 1916). Recent years, however, have witnessed growing challenges to the democratic aims and values in the nation’s public schools. In our increasingly diverse and polarized society, principals must now navigate and mediate these complex challenges as they lead schools that successfully facilitate students’ academic growth and wellbeing. Authors of this paper use the new International Successful School Principalship Project (ISSPP) conceptual framing of Bronfenbrenner’s (19979) ecological systems theory and complexity theory (Morrison, 2010), historical views of U.S. public schools as microcosms of democracy, and how principals connect their backgrounds (Bourdieu, 2018) to the increasingly complex and layered field of schools. This framing focusses on how principals’ practice unfolds across interacting system levels and under conditions of uncertainty. It highlights how macro-level forces, such as state policy, intersect with meso-level influences, including district expectations, and with micro-level interactions within schools The methodology features a comparative mixed methods design (Creswell, J. W., & Creswell, J.D., 2017) using ISSPP cases from different historical and cultural regions of the United States. We consider the narrated experiences of principals as they interact within and between these systems. The states in our paper vary in the nature and extent of the influence that different systems exert on principals. Public schools in Texas, for example, have had to eliminate library books and curriculum materials related to diversity, equity and inclusion, and must now teach a specific list of books, grades K-12. In Idaho, principals face a different but equally complex set of constraints shaped by shifting student demographics and intensifying accountability pressures. In Arizona, principals must navigate and mediate similar debates as well as tensions about immigration in communities that are culturally and historically situated on colonized lands. The paper concludes with implications for principal preparation and development as well as future research. We think that the various ways in which principals in different U.S. states navigate and negotiate their work within the multiple and interacting systems that facilitate or constrain their efforts, can offer useful insights to principals in other countries who may face similar challenges. For researchers, the study demonstrates the value of ecological and complexity-informed approaches for examining leadership practice.

Bourdieu, P. (2018). The forms of capital. In The sociology of economic life (pp. 78-92). Routledge. Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Harvard University Press. Creswell, J. W., & Creswell, J. D. (2017). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. Sage publications. Dewy, J. (1916). Democracy and education. An introduction to the philosophy of education (1966 ed.). Morrison, K. (2010). Complexity theory, school leadership and management: Questions for theory and practice. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 38(3), 374-393.