School Leadership and Diversity: Perceptions of Educational Administrators in Greece

The study described here constitutes the second part of a larger project, which concerns the way school administrators dealt with issues associated with ethnocultural diversity and social justice in Greek schools. The paper begins with an extended bibliographic review on school leadership and multiculturalism issues. The second part presents the methodology, a case study strategy based on 50 semi-structured interviews, through which the authors attempted to investigate the administrators’ perceptions, attitudes, and management strategies concerning the issues of pupils’ ethnic variation in a Regional Unity of Northern Greece. The research focused on how administrators prepare themselves, teachers and schools to address the diverse needs of pupils; how they negotiate with pupils’ parents and guardians; how school administrators contribute to the integration of “different” pupils and their families in the local communities.

The study described here constitutes the second part of a larger project, which concerns the way school administrators dealt with issues associated with ethnocultural diversity and social justice in Greek schools. The paper begins with an extended bibliographic review on school leadership and multiculturalism issues. The second part presents the methodology, a case study strategy based on 50 semi-structured interviews, through which the authors attempted to investigate the administrators’ perceptions, attitudes, and management strategies concerning the issues of pupils’ ethnic variation in a Regional Unity of Northern Greece. The research focused on how administrators prepare themselves, teachers and schools to address the diverse needs of pupils; how they negotiate with pupils’ parents and guardians; how school administrators contribute to the integration of “different” pupils and their families in the local communities.