Principal leadership in China: an initial review

Abstract

This article reviews the literature on Chinese principalship written in English and Chinese between 1998 and 2008. The first sections discuss the rationale for the research, the review process, and the state of education research in mainland China. The review findings are presented as a set of core patterns and contributory subpatterns, which flow from either the empirical or non-empirical literature. Two core patterns are identified from the non-empirical pieces – prescriptions and commentaries. Prescriptions focus on telling principals what they need to do to be successful, especially in the present reform environment. Commentaries focus on the key concerns and problems confronting principals. Three core patterns can be discerned from the empirical pieces – imported frameworks, indigenous investigations, and contextual influences. The final section offers a number of conclusions that look within and across the core patterns and pose questions to guide further research.

Keywords:

• principal leadership
• China
• literature review
• leadership studies in China
• international comparative leadership studies

Notes

1. The term education leadership is relatively new in mainland China; traditionally, the term educational management (jiaoyu guanli) has been used. The Chinese term for principalship is xiaozhangxue, which literally means the discipline of principal studies. An appropriate term equivalent to principalship can be principal leadership.

2. Having said this, access to international journals in China has recently become a problem. A number of major international publishing groups have begun substantially increasing the subscription fees for access to their journals. They recently increased subscription fees by a minimum of 14% per year over a 3-year period. As a result, 33 national and university libraries in China have united to boycott these publishing groups and written an open letter to the companies and to other Chinese subscribers.

3. Over the past 3 decades (from China's “opening” in 1978 until about 2008), 68,355 academic papers and 516 books on educational management/leadership have been produced (M.T. Sun, 2009). Within China itself, a number of senior academics (e.g., L.F. He, 2005; M.T. Sun, 2009) have argued strongly that the local knowledge is inadequate in a number of ways and needs to be further developed. L. Tang (1999) reviewed 2,389 papers on education management published from 1982–1999. Of this number, only 5% (203) were based on empirical studies. Despite the improvement over the past decade, “China's educational research relies overwhelmingly on the traditional Chinese way of argumentation.” (R. Yang, 2005, p. 76)

4. A review of educational management studies (from 1982 to 1999) indicated that during this 17-year period, out of 2,389 papers on education management, only 203 were based on empirical studies, accounting for only 5% of the total number of papers (L. Tang, 1999).

5. Indigenous knowledge refers to “the knowledge unique to a given culture or society characterised by the common-sense ideas, thoughts, and values of people formed as a result of the sustained interactions of society, nature and culture” (R. Yang, 2005, p. 68).

6. Widely acknowledged outstanding educators were Cai Yuanpei and Tao Xingzhi, who lived in the pre-Liberation period.

7. For example, Wei Shusheng's practices have been summarised as encompassing eight domains of management such as target management, time management, space management, and efficiency management (B. Zhou, 2006).

8. Confucian values are represented by four closely connected virtues: the class system, obedience, doctrine of the mean and “renqing”, and the idea of “Wulun” or “five cardinal relationships” (see K.S. Yang, 1993). The class system and obedience refer to maintaining ancient rituals and proper ordering in society and the observance of orders; doctrine of the mean and renqing are embedded in the pursuit of harmony and the order of hierarchical relationships (Fu & Tsui, 2003); the five cardinal relationships imply that an individual's role is defined by the bond between father and son, the duty between ruler and subject, the distinction between husband and wife, the precedence of the old over the young, and the trust between friends.