Mature school cultures and new leadership practices—An analysis of leadership for learning in German comprehensive schools

Abstract

In international school improvement research, a long-standing theme is that school improvement is shaped to a great extent by principals and their leadership for learning. In contrast to that, this role is comparatively new in German-speaking countries. Since the leadership practices associated with this new role differ from old role expectations, it is reasonable to assume that “mature” school cultures might prevent principals from adopting these practices. In this paper, we examine the difference in leadership practice between principals of “mature” and “young” culture schools in socially disadvantaged areas using a standardized teacher survey. The results suggest that while schools with a mature school culture founded during the old principal role were less likely to have such leadership practices that are more proximal to teachers’ instruction and pedagogical practice, this result could largely be explained by other characteristics of the school culture and professional community.