Leadership in High Achieving Schools in Singapore: The Influence of Societal Culture

Abstract

‘Societal culture’ in Singapore can be understood as an evolving mix of ‘traditional’ and ‘modernizing’ cultural strands, complexly related to dominant political and economic processes and aligned in the pursuit of a wider national vision. Following the mid-80s economic slowdown, there was a major realignment in these cultural strands that resulted in a process of decentralization of the education system, and a rethinking of the principal's role. Though the immediate effect of this was the creation of independent and autonomous schools, a space for autonomous action was opened up generally for school principals who were willing and able to seize the opportunity. We draw on two case studies of improving Singapore secondary schools to explore the links between societal culture, school leadership and school improvement. We argue that although both of the case study principals appropriated aspects of societal culture as part of their improvement strategies, it was the nature of the appropriation that made the schools and leadership styles distinctive.