ISJ May 2020: Rethinking International Education: Leadership and Management

In many cases, international schools exist in their own special world that frames, flavors, inflects or transposes the ordinary concerns of national (both state-funded and fee-paying) schools. Some dimensions of administrative and pedagogical practice are, in fact, quite different, given the constituencies and operational realities of international schools (however that notoriously difficult-to-define label is understood). School management and leadership are no different. Schools and school systems all over the world grapple with challenging questions about how to manage and lead the ideological, practical, and commercial aspects of running complex organizations while negotiating highly diverse (and often conflicting) demands from a range of legitimately interested parties. In addition, international school leaders must often chart and then navigate social contexts in the midst of rapid social change and multiple, sometimes contradictory political reforms.