Leading Schools for Gifted Students: Contextual Demands on the Principal and the Case for Creative Competence
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Research on school leadership has largely treated the principalship as a generic role, with contextual variationexamined mainly in terms of school size, socio-economic setting or performance level. This article argues that schoolsspecialising in the education of gifted students constitute a distinct leadership context that has received limited theoreticalattention. Four contextual features of such institutions are identified - a student body selected for high ability andcreative potential, deepened and frequently individualised curricula, a highly qualified and professionally autonomousteaching staff, and outcomes measured through competition and project results. Each feature is shown to generate acorresponding demand on the principal, and the four demands are argued to converge on a single professional capacity:creative competence, understood as the capacity to generate and implement original managerial solutions. The articlefurther identifies a structural tension characteristic of these institutions, in which creativity is expected of students whilethe principal operates within predominantly routine administrative procedures, and considers the implications of this tensionfor leadership preparation.
Author: Zarina I. Ganiyeva
Language: English
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7203936689