ABSTRACT

This chapter reviews English-language publications in the same field published in the international literature between 1998 and 2016. The review has two main aims: to explore the main topics, methodologies and key findings of international publications on school principalship in China, and to discern patterns of change and continuity around the review categories. The chapter focuses exclusively on English-language pieces published in international journals, mainly because work written and disseminated in English allows for the accumulation of data in a common format and a comparison of how school principals from different societies work. It analyses the distribution of sub-topics covered in studies about school principalship in China. The chapter identifies the topics that have attracted the most attention and to discern how this pattern has either remained constant or evolved over the 18-year period. The choice of topics generally reflected the major societal, political and educational changes that Chinese schools have undergone during our survey period.