Functions of Teacher-Based Factors on Principals’ Professional Networks: Evidence from Türkiye

Principals play a crucial role in fostering teacher careers and performance through their linking role, which enables them to build professional networks. While organizational factors influencing principals’ linking role have been studied, the impact of teachers’ gender, branch, education, experience, and age remains unclear. This study employs linear regression on data from 402 teachers in Türkiye to fill this gap. According to the results, being a primary school teacher was significantly related to principals’ linking role, while gender, education, experience, and age were not. These offer insights for practices and policies that strengthen principals’ linking role, contributing to leadership research.