Relationships in distributed leadership, inquiry-based working, and realizing educational change in Dutch primary education: teachers’ and their school leader’s perceptions

ABSTRACT

Although distributed leadership and inquiry-based working are relevant topics to primary education, there has been little discussion about how team members perceive these practices as meaningful in their day-to-day work. Following on from prior quantitative studies, the present study conducted a case study in which semi-structured interviews were employed to collect data. The findings suggested that teachers and their principal perceive distributed leadership and inquiry-based working as crucial to realizing educational change. More specifically, the case study showed how inquiry-based working could support distributed leadership and teachers’ ability to take the initiative to create educational change. Specifying the relationships could help teachers and school leaders to consciously leverage distributed leadership and inquiry-based working techniques to fully meet students’ needs.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Number between brackets are teachers’ years of experience

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Judith Amels

Judith Amels is currently a PhD student at the University of Groningen. Her research interests focus on distributed leadership and inquiry-based working in primary education. In addition, she is a senior consultant at Marnix Academy, University for Teacher Education, and a senior lecturer at Penta Nova, Academy for Leadership in Education.

Meta Krüger

Meta L. Krüger is an emeritus professor at Penta Nova, Academy for Leadership in Education. She was also an assistant professor at the University of Amsterdam. She supervised a research group with the theme inquiry-based leadership and inquiry-based working in primary and secondary education and she was the academic director of the master Educational Leadership at Penta Nova, Academy for Leadership in Education.

Klaas van Veen

Klaas van Veen is a professor in educational studies at the University of Groningen. His research program concerns the pedagogy and effectiveness of teacher learning, based on the assumption that you get the learning you organize for.