Review of research on educational leadership and management in Asia

TLDR

Scholars have urged the development of an empirically grounded literature on educational leadership outside mainstream Western contexts over the past two decades. This paper reviews research topics and methods in Asian educational leadership and management literature from 1995 to 2012. The review used a quantitative descriptive systematic approach, examining 478 articles from eight core international journals to assess publication volume, impact, topics, and methods. The review finds Asian scholarship in educational leadership and management remains nascent, uneven across the continent, with growth in K‑12, school change, improvement, and organizational behavior studies, and a shift from qualitative to quantitative methods since 2006.

Abstract

Over the past two decades scholars have called for a more concerted effort to develop an empirically grounded literature on educational leadership outside of mainstream “Western” contexts. This paper reports the results of a review of research topics and methods that comprise the literature on educational leadership and management in Asia between 1995 and 2012. The review of research employed a quantitative descriptive form of systematic review of 478 articles published in eight “core” international journals in educational leadership and management over this period. The review examined trends in publication volume and impact, as well as research topics and methods used by scholars studying educational leadership and management in Asia. The study concluded that Asian scholarship in educational leadership and management remains in the early stages of development. Knowledge production is highly uneven across the continent, with only a few pockets of research excellence. Significant growth trends were observed in terms of scholarly interest in studying leadership in K-12 schools, school change, effects and improvement, and organizational behavior in education. Although qualitative research methods were more popular in this literature prior to 2006, the use of quantitative research methods has increased sharply during the past six years.