Three Logics of Instructional Leadership

Purpose: This study examines conceptions of instructional leadership in the institutional environment. We know that principals’ practices affect student learning and that principals are influenced by ideas in the broader environment. This article examines and defines the multiple conceptions of what it means for principals to be instructional leaders. Research Methods/Approach: This empirical article relies on the methodology of content analysis. Refinements of the conceptions of instructional leadership were done through iterative data collection and analyses cycles. Findings: I define three conceptions of instructional leadership in the institutional environment that I term prevailing, entrepreneurial, and social justice logics. The ubiquitous prevailing logic was broad and flexible without explicit goals or directions for principals as instructional leaders. From this ambiguous conception, the two alternatives highlighted particular practices and backgrounded others. The entrepreneurial conception relied on innovations and mechanisms borrowed from the private sector, including a reliance on data and specific leadership actions. The social justice logic focused on the experiences and inequitable outcomes of marginalized groups, challenging the current “neutral” systems that engender the reproduction of inequity in our schools. Implications for Research and Practice: This study contributes to the field by providing a language that can help specify what “instructional leadership” looks like in practice and conceptions, thus explicating the tacit and ambiguous term. This is important for researchers to understand and explore the impact of the principalship on student achievement, and for principal preparation programs and school districts to assume a common language in expectations, professional development, and evaluation.