Abstract/Summary

As Turkey strives to better respond to higher social and economic expectations of the globalising world, educational reforms have become an essential factor for improving education and schools and making them more effective. While demands for reform in Western countries have fostered the significance of leadership, especially leadership at the school level, to attain the desired effects of reform policies (Leithwood and jantzi, 2006), there is a dearth of empirical research into school leaders and teachers experiences of leadership practice in Turkey. This study aims to contribute to fill this gap by exploring how leadership is practiced in Turkish secondary schools and thus claims to be an original and important contribution to the understanding of this phenomenon. The study adopted the interpretivist paradigm with an embedded mixed methods design, drawing on data from two secondary schools in Turkey. This consisted of administering a questionnaire to 128 teachers and 24 school leaders. These data were then enriched by conducting face-to-face interviews with school principals (n=2), assistant principals (n=4) and group leaders (n=6), while group interviews were conducted with teachers (n=12). In addition, the daily work of school principal in one school was observed (for 3 days). The quantitative data obtained from the questionnaires were analysed by using SPSS. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data collected using observation, face-to-face and group interviews. The conceptual framework for this study centres upon three main concepts, which are discussed in depth: accountability, school culture and continuing professional development. The results of this study point to the influence of contextual factors in the practice of leadership. The study reveals that the centralised nature of the Turkish education system was reflected in participants' perceptions about school leadership and the manner of everyday leadership and management practices. It is hoped that the findings, although not generalisable, will be important to inform practitioners, policy makers and researchers about the nature of school leadership in Turkey.