Educational Leadership on the Chinese Mainland: A Case Study of Two Secondary Schools in Beijing.

In recent years, the main concern of the Chinese Ministry of Education has been the quality of education. Principals are expected to play a key role in guiding the developmental direction of their schools, in guaranteeing the implementation of curriculum reform and in facilitating school-based teacher development. The aim of the study referred to in this article was to investigate the characteristics of principals’ educational leadership through a case study of two secondary schools in Beijing. The study employed a qualitative research method to investigate educational leadership in two secondary schools in Beijing. The observations of our study indicate a strong tendency for principals to implement the traditional top-down instructional type of leadership promoted by the District Education Bureau. At one of our sample schools, the principal employed a paternalistic leadership style, and teachers at both schools emphasized the paternalistic role of the principal, including in engaging in various aspects of their personal lives. At our second sample school, the principal was attempting to delegate certain levels of authority and responsibility to ordinary teachers. However, we found that her efforts were being hindered by middle managers.

Aprincipal'seffortstoleadhisorherschoolinthedirectionofdevelopmentareaffectedby severalfactors:theamountofautonomyheorshehasinsettingthepredominantdevelopmental direction for the school; how teachers perceive the principal-teacher relationship; and how middle managers help to implement the principal's initiatives. The three research questions helptoreflecttheeducationalleadershipoftherespectiveprincipalsbyinvestigatingdifferent aspectsofworkinaschool.Byadoptingaqualitativeresearchapproach,wewereabletoobtain anin-depthunderstandingofhowprincipals,middlemanagersandteachersperceivetherole of educational leadership in guiding and implementing new school initiatives with the aim of improvingthequalityofeducation.

Research method
In the study described here, we employed a qualitative research approach. We conducted fieldworkattwosecondaryschools,SchoolRandSchoolW,inBeijing,China.Theseschools areexamplesof'ordinary'schools,bothfacingadeclineinschoolimageandstudentadmissions. In China, ordinary schools receive fewer resources than exemplary schools. Through a rigid assessment by the District Education Bureau regularly, a handful of schools can attain classification instead as exemplary schools: once thus categorized, a school has the priority toselectthebeststudentsandreceivesmuchmorefundingfromthelocalgovernment.Thus, studyingtheexperiencesofordinaryschoolshelpstopaintapictureofeducationalleadership atschoolswithfewerresourcesandastrongneedtoimprovetheschoolimage.Theselection ofthesampleschoolswasbasedonpurposivesampling,whichenabledustocollectdatarelated directlytoourresearchquestions.

Direction setting: Traditional instructional leadership taken as a given
First, both principals expressed pride at having observed many lessons and given teaching instructiondirectlyafterlessonobservation.TheprincipalofSchoolRwasatypicalprincipal whoplacedstrongemphasisonteachingquality.Herleadershipstylewassimilartothatofmost school principals in China. She was extremely proud of the fact that she had observed over onehundredlessonsduringthesemesterinwhichweconductedthefieldwork.Asshepointed out,thereisaquotaforthisrequiredbytheDistrictEducationBureau.ThePartysecretaryat SchoolRalsostatedthat: to quote the official language, 'teaching quality is the lifeline of a school' … if you can't even graspthis,there'snoneedtomentionotheraspects…Theattentionpaidtoteachingquality onthemainland…hasneversubsided,evenforamoment…This[focus]isamajortendency,a dominantatmosphere.Therefore,youmustpayattentiontoit.
( Asanotherimprovementmeasure,SchoolRrana'basicteachingskills'competitionandhad succeededinpersuadingmostofitsteacherstoparticipate.ThePartysecretaryexpressedpride thatovereightyteachershadparticipatedinthecompetition,whichemphasizedadherencetothe nationalcurriculumreform'sdirectivesonencouragingstudentparticipation.Thecompetition's evaluationformwasbasedonthe'openlesson'evaluationform,anoriginaldocumentdesigned bytheDistrictEducationBureau.Afterparticipatinginthecompetition,theteachersreflected that they clearly understood the types of behaviour and content they should focus on in their lessons, including the required style of linguistic expression, best practices for teacher performance, speed of delivery when speaking to the class, and writing on the blackboard. The'openlesson'providedaclearmodelofthestandardsrequiredbythecurriculumreform programme.

Educational leadership and the relationships between teachers and principals
TheprincipalofSchoolRemployedapaternalisticleadershipstyle.Forher,theaimofschool development was to produce 'famous', award-winning teachers at the district level. The principalusedeverystaffmeetingtodeliverherideasonschoolimprovement. Theteachersherereferredrepeatedlytotheirpersonalchatswiththeprincipalandspokeof howtouchedtheyfeltbyherconcernfortheirpersonallives.

Participation of middle leaders and teachers in school decision-making
AtSchoolR,therewasacleardecision-makinghierarchyconnectingtheprincipal,vice-principal, subject panel heads and ordinary teachers. According to the vice-principal at School R, the principaldecidedthedirectionofschoolimprovement,withthevice-principalbeingresponsible forthedetailsandimplementationoftheinitiatives.Theprincipalstatedthat: Thesubjectpanelheads'majorresponsibilitywastoinformteachersoftheschool'srequirements andsupervisetheteachers'implementationofthedirectivesfromthetop. The principal of School W was comparatively liberal and hoped to delegate a certain amountofauthorityandparticularresponsibilitiestotheordinaryteachers.First,schoolW's students were mainly from a less advantaged socio-economic background and had belowaverageeducationalattainment.Inordertohandlethestudents'educationalandbehavioural problemsmoreeffectively,theprincipalhadinitiatedatutorsystem,inwhichoneformteacher and three to four subject teachers served as one-to-one tutors for a group of four or five problemstudents.Theprincipalthoughtthatthedetailsofthetutorsystemshouldberefined bythefrontlineteachers.Shepointedoutthat: [Frontline] (HallingerandMurphy,1985).TeachingresearchofficersfromtheDistrictEducationBureau gaveintensiveinstructiononclassroomteachingandfrequentteachingsupervision,whichgave strong signals that schools should set the maintenance of teaching quality as the priority in school development. Given the close monitoring by the District Education Bureau, it is no wonderthat,asonePartysecretarysaid,'inthisatmosphere,howcouldyounotchoosetopay themostattentiontoimprovingclassroomteaching?' Second, the teachers constantly emphasized the paternal role played by the principal in engaging with various aspects of their personal lives. The teachers at both schools generally accepted the hierarchical structure of authority, according to which the principal set the direction of development, middle managers refined the details, and subject panel heads and formleaderswereresponsiblefortransmittingtheplansfromthetopandensuringthatthey wouldbesuccessfullyimplementedbytheteachers.Thesubjectpanels(jiaoyanzu)couldnot, therefore,developasacounterbalancetothepoweroftheprincipal,aspredictedbyMoyles andLiu(1998)andBushandQiang (2000).TheleadershipstyleofSchoolR'sprincipalistypical oftraditionalprincipalsontheChinesemainland.Underherpaternalisticleadership,whichis similartothatdescribedinmanyChinesestudies (Walkeret al.,2012;Chenget al.,2002;Wang, 2007), the principal continually insisted upon her own judgement and believed that teachers shouldfollowherdirectives.Toobtaintheiragreementandsupport,shehadeagerlyinvolved herselfintheteachers'personallives,inparticularhelpingtheirchildrengetintogoodschools. At School W, although the principal employed a comparatively liberal leadership style, the teachersalsoemphasizedtheimportanceofherconcernfortheirpersonallives.Atboththe sampleschools,theteachershighlyappreciatedtheirprincipal'sinterestintheirownhealthand thatoftheirfamilymembers,theirfamily'sfinancialsituationandtheirchildren'sschoolingand careers.Withintheabovestructure,teachershadfirmexpectationsthattheprincipalwould expressconcernaboutvariousaspectsoftheirpersonallives.
Third, when launching a new school initiative, the principal of School R would set the directiveandthemiddlemanagerswouldthenfollowtheprincipal'sdirectivetotheletter,and leadtheordinaryteachersinimplementingthedirective.Yet,eveninschoolswithmoreliberal principals who want to put into practice a distributed type of leadership, middle managers andapaternalisticschoolculturecanhindertheprocess.TheprincipalofSchoolWshowed competency and a strong will to transform the school. However, because she was still the one who determined the major directions for school development, her style of leadership cannot be interpreted as transformational leadership (Hallinger, 2003). The school's middle managers highly appreciated her emphasis on visibility and the distribution of authority and responsibilities among the middle managers. The principal of School W hoped that ordinary teacherswouldparticipateinrefiningtheimplementationprocessofnewschoolinitiatives.Her expectationthatteacherswouldcontributeminorrefinementsintheprojectimplementation process is somewhat similar to Harris's (2004) definition of distributed leadership, in which thosenotinformalleadershippositionsaregivenresponsibilityforcertaindevelopmentaltasks. However, in the view of the ordinary teachers, in reality the detailed plans for new school initiatives came entirely from the top. Middle managers, not ordinary teachers, played the prominentroleindesigningthedetailsofnewschoolplansaswellasinrefiningthemduringthe implementationprocess.ThecaseofSchoolWshowsthatevenwhenaprincipalhasexpressed a desire to delegate a certain amount of authority and particular responsibilities to ordinary teachers,middlemanagerscanstillemployapaternalisticstyletocontrolordinaryteachers' work.Ordinaryteacherswereseldomgiventheopportunitytoparticipateindecision-making. Thus,asaresultofthelongstandingpaternalisticculturethatstillexistsinChineseschools,the principal'swillingnessandeffortstoputintopracticesomeformofdistributedleadershipat SchoolWwerebeingblockedbytheconservativeworkhabitsofthemiddlemanagers.