Systematic review of research on educational leadership and management in Latin America, 1991–2017

Abstract

The purpose of this systematic review was to further our understanding of educational leadership and management (EDLM) knowledge production in Latin America. We conducted a “topographical review” of 48 articles from Latin America published in eight “core” EDLM journals published between 1991 and 2017. Data analysis focused on analyzing identified modal trends as well as highlighting variability in patterns of knowledge production. Notably, 75% of the studies had been published in the past 10 years, and 56% in the past five years. Geographic coverage was highly uneven across Latin America. While there were 19 articles from Chile, numerous Latin American societies were unrepresented in the database. Almost 80% of the corpus consisted of empirical studies and topical foci were highly diverse. Comparison of these results with findings reported in recent reviews of EDLM research from other developing societies yielded recommendations for enhancing research capacity and output in Latin America. A key limitation of the review was its exclusion of local language sources. This led to the further recommendation for Latin American scholars to undertake broader multi-language reviews of the EDLM knowledge base in Latin America.