Middle leadership in international schools: evidence from Malaysia

This paper examines middle leadership of the heads of English, maths and science departments in four international secondary schools in Malaysia. It focuses on their roles, responsibilities, role relationships, instructional engagement and leadership involvement within the theoretical framework of i...

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Main Authors: Javadi, Vahid, Bush, Tony, Ng, Ashley
Format: Article
Published: Taylor & Francis 2017
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/45754/
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author Javadi, Vahid
Bush, Tony
Ng, Ashley
author_facet Javadi, Vahid
Bush, Tony
Ng, Ashley
author_sort Javadi, Vahid
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description This paper examines middle leadership of the heads of English, maths and science departments in four international secondary schools in Malaysia. It focuses on their roles, responsibilities, role relationships, instructional engagement and leadership involvement within the theoretical framework of instructional, distributed and teacher leadership. The study is a qualitative multi-method case study, involving observation, documentary analysis, and semi-structured interviews with 12 heads of department, 36 teachers, and four principals. With respect to the middle leaders’ roles and responsibilities, the findings illustrate cross-school and in-school differential developments, with contextual factors contributing to uneasy role relationships. The results also show that, while broad-based leadership opportunities are limited for the middle leaders and teachers, the most powerful and common feature of all these international schools is the centrality of teaching and learning.
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institution University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus
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last_indexed 2025-11-14T19:59:54Z
publishDate 2017
publisher Taylor & Francis
recordtype eprints
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spelling nottingham-457542020-05-04T19:01:13Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/45754/ Middle leadership in international schools: evidence from Malaysia Javadi, Vahid Bush, Tony Ng, Ashley This paper examines middle leadership of the heads of English, maths and science departments in four international secondary schools in Malaysia. It focuses on their roles, responsibilities, role relationships, instructional engagement and leadership involvement within the theoretical framework of instructional, distributed and teacher leadership. The study is a qualitative multi-method case study, involving observation, documentary analysis, and semi-structured interviews with 12 heads of department, 36 teachers, and four principals. With respect to the middle leaders’ roles and responsibilities, the findings illustrate cross-school and in-school differential developments, with contextual factors contributing to uneasy role relationships. The results also show that, while broad-based leadership opportunities are limited for the middle leaders and teachers, the most powerful and common feature of all these international schools is the centrality of teaching and learning. Taylor & Francis 2017-08-17 Article PeerReviewed Javadi, Vahid, Bush, Tony and Ng, Ashley (2017) Middle leadership in international schools: evidence from Malaysia. School Leadership & Management, 37 (5). pp. 476-499. ISSN 1364-2626 Middle leadership instructional leadership distributed leadership teacher leadership international schools Malaysia http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13632434.2017.1366439 doi:10.1080/13632434.2017.1366439 doi:10.1080/13632434.2017.1366439
spellingShingle Middle leadership
instructional leadership
distributed leadership
teacher leadership
international schools
Malaysia
Javadi, Vahid
Bush, Tony
Ng, Ashley
Middle leadership in international schools: evidence from Malaysia
title Middle leadership in international schools: evidence from Malaysia
title_full Middle leadership in international schools: evidence from Malaysia
title_fullStr Middle leadership in international schools: evidence from Malaysia
title_full_unstemmed Middle leadership in international schools: evidence from Malaysia
title_short Middle leadership in international schools: evidence from Malaysia
title_sort middle leadership in international schools: evidence from malaysia
topic Middle leadership
instructional leadership
distributed leadership
teacher leadership
international schools
Malaysia
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/45754/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/45754/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/45754/