The perceptions and practices of school leaders in Christian Education National

Abstract

In Christian schools, leaders’ roles include the integration of the particular beliefs of the community through all aspects of school life. This article describes an interpretive study into school leaders’ perceptions of the essential features of Christian Education National (CEN) schools, how they integrated these features into school culture, and their understandings of the leadership by which they achieved this. This research identified that school leaders were aware of the beliefs of CEN. Despite leaders noting that these beliefs ought to be embedded holistically into school culture, the CEN services and resources available to support such inculcation were underutilized. Although servant leadership, shared leadership and vision-based leadership were all described in relation to CEN schools, the leadership within these schools is better understood as informed by the Christian faith rather than widely supported leadership theories mentioned in this study.