Headteacher values in five Dutch Reformed secondary schools: Comparing perspectives of heads, staff and pupils

Dutch Reformed secondary school leaders’ personal and professional values have rarely been studied. This study investigates their values in leading their schools, both espoused and lived out, comparing their own perspective and the perspectives of staff and pupils, in relation to their Christian faith. A three-stage backward design was adopted. Document analysis and exploratory interviews facilitated developing two corresponding questionnaire surveys, for headteachers and staff respectively, available in Dutch and English. Subsequently, two case studies were conducted with headteachers representing substantial variation within this relatively homogeneous group. Three in-depth interviews were conducted with the head, interspersed with focus groups interviews with team leaders, teachers and pupils. The respondents entertain mainstream ideas on school leadership. The questionnaire data suggest that heads as a group and teachers as a group agree to a large extent. However, this conceals underlying individual differences between the heads, as emerged from the case studies. The degree to which staff agree with their heads on his values varies. Furthermore, heads differ significantly in the extent to which they formulate a direct link between their values and their faith. In the questionnaires approximately 25% of the answers given by both groups on open questions on values contain explicitly Christian elements. Analysis of the interview data suggested four mediating variables on the perceptions followers have of their leaders’ values. These include whether the headteacher has a focussed set of values; the extent of integration of his worldview, values and actions; the nature of the content of his values; and the extent to which a head’s vision is clear, coherent and convincing. Some characteristics of a head’s ongoing professional development appear to moderate these four variables. An integrated conceptual framework of perceptions of a head’s values and actions, sources and contexts was developed beforehand and refined afterwards to include these newly-found variables.