Leadership, Learning, Well-being, and Justice in Educational Organizations

Leadership is the second most crucial factor that influences student learning. The leader's role is to shape a collective vision for inclusion and to create a school culture of social justice and well-being that promises success for each student. Mobilizing and inspiring purposeful and interdependent action through a shared vision is the core for leveraging teachers' professional capital, climate for innovation and inclusion, teachers' agency, and learning cultures in learning organizations. Considering the diversity of leadership styles – toxic, transactional, transformational, laissez-faire, instructional, charismatic, situational, servant, distributed, authentic, empowering, etc. – comprehending its effects is mandatory given the urgency of constructing this new school.

In this Research Topic, we want to highlight the educational leadership practices that serve personal, professional, organizational, and social well-being. These leadership foci can generate quality teaching processes and promote learning for all and each one in a logic of inclusion and justice.

Considering the crucial role that principals and middle leaders play in guiding these educational processes, the aim is to bring together top-quality research, meaning theoretical and practical issues concerning leadership styles, demands, drivers, and challenges. The goal is to gather relevant contributions regarding leadership capital for action that may sustain expertise, motivation, commitment, collaboration, agency, innovation, resilience, well-being, and justice in education.

Leadership can influence and mobilize those led to create a sense of community, adopt a shared mission and vision, share structural values that serve the common good, promote innovation, generate dynamics of commitment and collaboration, and construct organizational climates and cultures that are at the service of personal and professional well-being, justice, and human dignity.

This Research Topic addresses empirical and theoretical studies regarding the role of principals and middle leaders as determinants in deep, significant, sustainable school transformation processes and responsiveness to social challenges. We are searching for authors worldwide focused on understanding how leadership can inspire and provide more inclusive educational environments. This call is research-oriented and methodology-based but also seeks theory inputs regarding leadership contributions to curricular justice, quality education, and inclusion. We welcome original research articles, systematic reviews, case studies, educational policy and practice reviews, grounded theory approaches, conceptual analyses, brief research reports, and opinion essays.