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Introduction
Educational leadership scholars have been exploring dynamics, phenomena, contexts and perceptions using qualitative research since the mid-twentieth century (Barnhardt et al., 1979; Wolcott, 1970, 1973, 1974, 1977). During the first few decades of this era, educational leadership studies were generally grounded in a specific social science, such as anthropology, sociology or political science (Bogotch et al., 2008; Brooks and Miles, 2010). As time has gone on, scholars started to draw liberally from these disciplines, incorporating an interdisciplinary approach (Normore and Brooks, 2014). More recently, this has given way to education-specific adaptations of classical social science methods.
Qualitative research in educational leadership has yielded many insightful studies that have enriched and deepened our understanding of how dynamics such as influence, power, communication, collaboration, administration, abuse, equity, management and organizations work in educational organizations and contexts (Capper, 1993; Grogan, 1999; Theoharis, 2009). Certain norms have emerged with respect to the way that qualitative studies are designed, executed and reported (Bogdan and Biklen, 1998). However, while there is some broad consensus on what constitutes “good” qualitative research and a proliferation of qualitative studies of educational leadership, there is relatively little methodological literature devoted to describing and considering issues specific to the qualitative study of educational leadership.
Still, a paradigm shift appears to be taking place in leadership among numerous public sectors including business, marketing, social and political decision making and the social sciences generally. This shift is placing new expectations and new demands on research which is becoming increasingly influential in social sciences and policy making. Although an increasingly growing number of printed works on qualitative research methods are currently available, it is rare to locate a text that examines the use of qualitative research methods in the context of the study of leadership; yet, leadership has produced a voluminous body of research. A variety of qualitative research methods can be placed on a continuum ranging from purely qualitative (e.g. phenomenology, ethnography, grounded theory) to the use non-textual, image-based sources of data for qualitative leadership research (Kleinke, 2008).
The purpose of this paper is to draw attention to certain dynamics that scholars should consider when designing and conducting qualitative research on educational leadership. In doing so, we draw on the literature, but also on our...