A Comparison of Educational Leadership in Islamic and Western Countries and a Suggestion of a Model for a Global Society

For a global society to function well its members need certain attitudes, such as a desire for cooperation, mutual understanding and respect, as well as continuous and self-motivated learning. A model of education is needed that engenders these attitudes such that students critically understand these attitudes instead of passively accept them. This kind of education requires leadership that agrees with, and engages in, the same attitudes.;This dissertation proposes a model of educational leadership for a global society, and presents an exploration and comparison of public high schools across three countries: Canada, Turkey, and Iran. The proposed model consists of three interrelated dimensions: leadership style (transformational leadership and high leadership delegation), organizational structure (highly ranked Learning Organization structure that is more horizontal than vertical), and approach to learning (an active learning approach that utilizes critical pedagogy). The schools were explored in terms of: their current practices and policies in the three dimensions, how well they ranked in those dimensions relative to the proposed model, and what obstacles exist for implementing the proposed model. A case study methodology was used in which 15 participants (5 per country) at different organizational levels (students, teachers, and principals) were interviewed to gather their opinions. The interview questions were organized by the three dimensions and followed the INVEST framework for Learning Organizations.;The results of this research indicated that, although the Canadian school ranked the closest to the proposed model and the Iranian school ranked the furthest, all three schools had problems. None of the schools used transformational leadership, though the Canadian teachers were the most interested in doing so. The Canadian leaders (teachers and principal) seemed to have a high level of leadership delegation (5 or 6 out of 7), but the students' comments suggested otherwise. The Iranian and Turkish leaders' commented suggested a low level of delegation (3 out of 7) in which they made decisions with little input from others, except to indicate what their decisions were. All of the schools had a vertical organizational structure with almost the same hierarchical levels, but the Iranian school was the most hierarchical and inflexible. The Canadian school ranked the highest as a Learning Organization and the Iranian school ranked the lowest, but the most common score was 3.5 out of 9. The Canadian and Turkish students were both highly ranked as motivated to learn, but it seemed largely due to family support. All of the principals were convinced that their school had a clear vision of its goals, but none of the teachers and students knew this vision or agreed that a vision existed. Lastly, active learning was performed at a minimal amount and none of the schools engaged in critical pedagogy; all of the teachers liked brainstorming and teamwork as active learning techniques, but only the Canadian teachers engaged in them regularly and the Iranian teachers explicitly complained that they were unable to use teamwork in their classes.;From these results none of the studied schools followed the proposed model, and missed many opportunities to prepare their students for a global society. However, this was often due to structural problems and not lack of knowledge or interest. For example, the teachers liked active learning and wanted to use it but gave reasons why they were unable to (e.g., Turkish teachers did not want to compromise the hierarchy, Iranian teachers were working two or three jobs due to low salary and worried that 'critical pedagogy' was too threatening to the government). As such, gradual changes are likely needed to move the schools towards a more global model of educational leadership.