Submit a Manuscript to the Journal
Leadership and Policy in Schools
For a Special Issue on
Leadership, Governance, and Accountability in Private Schools: Markets, Regulation, and Equity in Global Perspective
Manuscript deadline
Special Issue Editor(s)
Rania Sawalhi,
University of Jordan -Jordan
r.sawalhi@ju.edu.jo
Razane Chroqui,
Hassan First University - Morocco
chroqui.razane@uhp.ac.ma
Alexander Gardner-McTaggart,
University of Nottingham, Ningbo, China
alexander.gardner-mctaggart@nottingham.edu.cn
Leadership, Governance, and Accountability in Private Schools: Markets, Regulation, and Equity in Global Perspective
Private schools are expanding across diverse political, cultural, and market contexts, yet leadership and governance in this sector remain comparatively under-researched. This Special Issue examines how authority, accountability, organizational values, and educational purpose are negotiated in private schools, including how leaders balance market and commercial pressures with educational, civic, and social responsibilities. It recognizes the diversity of international, faith-based, elite, community, and low-cost private schools and welcomes work across Global North and Global South contexts.
Contributions may address:
Contributions are invited on the following themes, understood through the lens of educational leadership, governance, organizational change, and accountability:
- Leadership models and governance structures in private schools
- Policy frameworks regulating private education at local, national, transnational, and international levels, and their implications for school leadership and organizational change.
- The political economy of private schooling: neoliberalism, marketization, privatization, and their effects on leadership agency, professional identity, and accountability.
- AI, datafication, and digital platform governance in private schools.
- Regenerative educational leadership, ecological stewardship, and sustainable organizational cultures in private schools.
- Gender, race, and equity in private school leadership: access to leadership.
- Teacher workforce issues in private schools.
- Cross-national and comparative analyses of leadership and governance across international schools, transnational educational organizations, and Global North and Global South contexts (Arar & Oplatka, 2022; Rizvi & Lingard, 2010).
- Faith-based, community, and culturally embedded leadership practices in private schools and their implications for educational governance.
- The civic, ethical, and social responsibilities of private school leaders in relation to educational inequality, inclusion, social justice, and the public purposes of education.
- Boundary-spanning leadership in hybrid public–private systems: how leaders navigate competing institutional logics and stakeholder expectations.
Submission Instructions
- Types of papers: We welcome empirical, theoretical, and comparative papers addressing leadership and governance in private education. Submissions may employ qualitative, quantitative, mixed-methods, comparative, theoretical, or Q methodological approaches.
- Scope: All submissions should focus explicitly on leadership and governance in private education and should engage with educational leadership theory. Contributions should demonstrate how their analysis advances understanding of leadership, governance, organizational change, accountability, or leader agency within private education.
- Contexts: Papers may examine a wide range of private education settings, including international, faith-based, elite, community, and low-cost private schools, across both Global North and Global South contexts. Contributions from underrepresented regions and scholars researching the Global South are particularly encouraged.
- Word limits and formatting: No additional Special Issue-specific word limit or formatting requirements are specified. Authors should follow the journal's standard requirements for the relevant manuscript type.
- Submission process: When submitting your manuscript through the journal's submission system, please select “Leadership, Governance, and Accountability in Private Schools: Markets, Regulation, and Equity in Global Perspective” as the Special Issue to which your manuscript is being submitted.
- Submission and publication process: Submissions will be considered on a rolling basis. Accepted articles will be published online-first following acceptance.
- Expected publication: The complete Special Issue is expected to be published in June 2027.
- Abstract submissions: The Special Issue proposal does not specify a separate advance abstract submission stage. Authors may therefore submit their full manuscripts through the journal's standard submission process.