Instructional school leadership scenarios from the perspective of croatian high schools principals

This paper presents the results of an empirical study conducted on a sample of high school principals in Croatia. The study has focused on the description and understanding of instructional school leadership (ISL) characteristics as well as certain specific circumstances that could, according to principals’ opinion, affect ISL practice. In order to set research questions, a basic qualitative interpretative approach has been chosen. Data was gathered using a written interview that encompassed a purposive sample of 16 high school principals in Croatia. Thematic content analysis was conducted while an inductive approach was used in order to identify two key thematic categories and associated themes, subthemes, and their variations in practice. The first category reveals characteristics of ISL priority activities focused on strengthening students, teachers, and schools’ capacities, which can also reflect characteristics of either principals’ development-competitive or prevention-corrective instructional activities. The second category reveals circumstances that can affect ISL characteristics which are referred to as those that can leave an impact on either school or education policy level. The results of this study describe and explain in more detail several instructional school leadership scenarios present in Croatian high schools that can be used in order to understand and interpret circumstances that can affect the development of various ISL characteristics.