Can Leadership Transform Educational Policy? Leadership Style, New Localism and Local Involvement in Education

Nivi Gal-Arieli, Itai Beeri, Eran Vigoda-Gadot and Amnon Reichman
Additional contact information
Nivi Gal-Arieli: School of Political Sciences, University of Haifa, Haifa 3498838, Israel
Itai Beeri: School of Political Sciences, University of Haifa, Haifa 3498838, Israel
Eran Vigoda-Gadot: School of Political Sciences, University of Haifa, Haifa 3498838, Israel
Amnon Reichman: Faculty of Law, University of Haifa, Haifa 3498838, Israel

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 22, 1-19

Abstract: In the realm of new localism and collaboration, local educational policymakers are called upon for responsible community leadership. Given the conceptual continuum between new localism and transformational leadership, this study examines the relationship between the leadership style of local educational policymakers and the involvement of local authorities in education. Data were obtained from 107 questionnaires submitted by mayors and directors of education affiliated with 100 local authorities in Israel. As predicted, there was a positive relationship between transformational leadership and the local authorities’ involvement in education, measured using four factors, but only for sound local authorities. We used five criteria to determine the soundness of the local authorities. In contrast, among less sound local authorities, there was an inverse relationship between transformational leadership and involvement in education. In general, in such communities, leaders seemed to prefer to leave educational issues to the central government. Thus, we present evidence for the boundaries of educational transformational leadership in the educational governance arena. Education-related policies are on the agenda of leaders even in weaker local authorities, but only to the extent that these policies can serve as an instrument to meet specific needs of the local community. All in all, there is no “one size fits all” for all aspects of new localism—i.e., central regulation towards local government, local policy, local leadership, and civic participation. Accordingly, policymakers, local leaders and residents must fit themselves to the blurred boundaries of new localism and collaborate towards better education. Implications of the findings are discussed.

Keywords: new localism; educational policy making; educational community leadership; involvement in education; local governance; transformational leadership; local government; educational governance; Israel (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/22/9564/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/22/9564/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:22:p:9564-:d:446465

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().