Positions of Leaders — Principals of Inclusive Schools: Foreign Discourse

Abstract

Objective. A review and theoretical analysis of scientific publications on the topic of leadership in an inclusive school and posted on the SpringerLink and Taylor & Francis Group platforms. Background. After the adoption of the Salamanca Declaration (1994), inclusion occupies an important place on the agenda of educational transformations. Its vector is to find ways to increase the participation and learning of students from socially vulnerable groups and those at risk of exclusion in school and beyond. The scientific relevance of the problem lies in the fact that, despite the importance of leadership in inclusive education, there are critically few works devoted to this topic, especially in Russia. Methodology. Theoretical analysis of literary sources, analytical and synthetic method of bibliographic search, generalization, method of comparative analysis. Conclusions. Leadership is seen as a discourse and practice. The article presents the main styles of educational leadership, special attention is paid to the theories of transformational and distributed leadership. The tools of leadership research in inclusive education are described. The position of school principals regarding diversity is one of the determining factors of the success/failure of school inclusion. Leadership style significantly affects the views, behavior, communication of teachers, their self-efficacy, and learning strategies. The attitude of school principals to inclusive education is determined by three groups of factors: 1) related to children (type of disability, for example); 2) related to the environment – cultural, historical and organizational (resources); 3) related to the personality of the director (gender, age, qualifications, inclusive training, self-efficacy, experience, values). The prospects of the research are the development of a theory of inclusive education management based on the integration of transformational and distributed leadership/ The study of the influence of the leadership style of Russian school principals on the attitude of teachers to inclusive education, their teaching strategies.