Moral Professionalism in the Context of Educational Leadership

Abstract

This chapter aims to investigate moral professionalism in the context of educational leadership. Many researchers have investigated school administration ethics and ethical educational leadership based on case studies. However, the moral, ethical and nonrational aspects have been omitted from the discussion, even if they are present in school policies and practices. This chapter includes an analysis of data gathered as narratives in a study of educational leaders and teachers (N = 82) who participated in two educational leadership training programmes from 2019 to 2021 at one Finnish university. Based on the results, the kinds of ethical dilemmas the educational leaders encountered and how they worked as moral professionals were identified. The results showed that the main parties, in both ethically easy and ethically difficult dilemmas, were staff members. In the ethically easy dilemmas, the main theme concerning staff was interactions and conflicts; in the ethically difficult dilemmas, it was work arrangements. The most frequently mentioned principles and values in the ethical dilemmas were fairness, justice, equality, the child’s interest and well-being.