School Leadership Practices for Creating Learning Spaces for the 21 st Century Learning

The paper reports on the school leadership practices for creating the learning space for the 21 st century learning in rural secondary schools. Data was generated from semi-structure interviews and documents reviews with nine participants. The theoretical framework underpinning the study is transformational leadership theory. The findings indicated that school leadership inspired and supported innovativeness, inspired and motivated team to enhance a collaborative culture, sourced and ensured efficient and effective use of resources, scaffolded conversations about 21 st century learning and supporting self-initiated professional development. Leadership is context driven and is not only the purview of incumbents in formal leadership positions. The study has generated new insights about how school leadership can address the interplay of complex rural contextual factors and leadership practices toward contemporary endeavours of the 21 st century learning. It has also explored the strategies used in adverse and turbulent conditions to create the learning spaces that support 21 st century learning. The study recommends that these unique leadership practices be explored further on a large-scale study for generalisability.