The pedagogical and inclusive leadership of school management teams. The views of generalist and special education specialist teachers in Spain

Abstract

Several organisations, institutions and experts emphasise the need to improve inclusion in schools and give school management teams a key and critical role in this process. The aim of this research is to describe the perceptions of generalist and special education specialist teachers about the pedagogical and inclusive leadership practices implemented by school management staff in compulsory education. In addition, it also seeks to determine whether there are differences in the evaluations made by both groups of teachers based on the training they have received. The study involved 398 Andalusian (Spain) teachers, 333 generalist teachers and 65 special education specialist teachers. It is a quantitative study which used the LEI-Q-Teaching Team questionnaire as an instrument for the gathering of information. Descriptive and inferential analyses were also carried out on the data collected. The results show that generalist teachers assess the inclusive actions undertaken by school management teams more positively than special education specialist teachers, and that there are significant differences in the evaluations made by these two groups. Thus, it is concluded that teacher specialisation affects teachers’ views on the pedagogical and inclusive leadership of school management teams.