Head-teacher Leadership in International Schools in China

: Exploring their views of "being international" and leadership priorities and practices

Abstract

International schools are undergoing unprecedented significant growth worldwide in the last three decades, specifically in the Middle East and China. Central to the success of international schools is the effective school leadership. However, research on international school leadership in China lags far behind the swift expansion of its international schools, which has concurrently encountered significant challenges from the current changes in national policies on private and international education.

This study aimed to explore the head-teacher leadership of Chinese Internationalised Schools (CISs) (Poole, 2020), a special type of international schools at the critical moment of national education policy changes. To achieve this research aim, three specific research questions were formulated. To address research questions, a mixed methods approach was employed throughout. To address RQ1, an online survey was conducted, gathering data from 72 head-teachers regarding their views of “being international” and perceptions on leadership priorities. To address RQ2, both the data from the same 72 head-teachers and 46 pieces of vision and mission (V&M) documentary evidence were collected and analysed. Finally, for RQ3, guided by the four core sets of successful leadership practices (Leithwood, Harris, & Hopkins, 2008b), namely, setting directions (SD), understanding and developing people (UDP), redesigning the organisation (RO) and managing the teaching and learning programmes (MTLP), semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine head-teachers from CISs.

The research findings of this study have highlighted CIS head-teachers’ views of “being international” and the school V&M indicating the priorities of head-teacher leadership. Moreover, head-teachers’ leadership priorities and practices at the pivotal moment of national education policy changes are also identified with ten themes arising from the interviews. The study challenged the conventional Western paradigms used to define international schools in the existing literature, recognizing the diverse and unprecedented significant development of international schools in China. It advocated a situation-specific strategy approach to promote sustainable leadership in CISs, which is compatible with both domestic and international environments. It is proposed that particular attention should be given to the wider contextual, cultural, system-wide policy changes that CIS head-teachers encounter in their leadership, along with the securing the legitimacy of “being international”, so as to ensure consequences on the survival and success of international schools in China.

Date of Award	13 May 2025
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Bristol
Supervisor	Sally M Thomas (Supervisor) & Guoxing Yu (Supervisor)