Leadership in international schools: A scoping review

Abstract

This article presents a scoping review of literature on leadership in international schools from 2012 to 2022 identifying key themes and areas for further research. The review reveals a focus on the challenges of leadership practice within international schooling and outlines how these themes are understood within the reviewed literature body. The article responds to recurring calls for more theorisation around educational leadership within the context of international schooling and research focused on practices of leading embedded within intersectionalities, contextual factors, and place-based ontologies. Drawing on the themes identified within the scoping review, we recommend the examination of leadership development pathways, including current approaches that have not been captured by peer-reviewed literature. Importantly, we argue for complexity-cognisant research that is framed to encompass multiplicity and multi-perspectival investigation across the various iterations of international schools and educational leadership.