Abundant scholarly evidence has over the years established the influence of school leadership on student learning outcomes. A focus on preparing and supporting educational leaders to effectively lead in increasingly complex environments around the world calls for collaborative efforts to meet these challenges. While examples of partnerships between university-based leadership preparation providers and schools, districts and municipalities exist in the current literature, research on partnerships for educational leadership preparation and development that include international perspectives remains limited. Thus, the aim of this special issue is to highlight nine examples of partnerships that provide professional learning opportunities for aspiring, pre-service and practicing school leaders from multiple regions of the world.
In meeting this aim, the special issue attempts to better inform the preparation and continuing development of educational leaders by examining how partnerships between entities such as schools, districts, municipalities, universities, communities and governmental agencies operate in multiple national contexts with differing policies, practices and ways of knowing. In addition to the nine empirical studies, the special issue includes a commentary. In the commentary, which concludes the special issue, Gurr (2026) provides a collective synthesis of the findings presented in the articles.
In the first article, Okilwa and Barnett (2026) begin by providing an historical perspective of partnerships for leadership development between universities and school-based practitioners. They then examine the perspectives of 31 graduates of a long-term school-university partnership in the United States to assess the benefits and challenges of participating in such partnerships. The article sets the stage for considering the advantages and challenges of creating partnerships between universities and schools to develop and sustain leadership pipelines throughout the remainder of the special issue.
Like Okilwa and Barnett (2026), in the second article, De La Garza et al. (2026) examine the perspectives of program graduates to assess the impact of their principal preparation program. In this instance, De La Garza et al. (2026) used leader-member exchange theory to focus on the 15-month field-based residency of one program. The authors found that high quality exchanges between mentor principals and aspiring leaders included empowerment, open dialogue and feedback, model leadership practices and systems thinking and strategic leadership. The results of this study also shed light on the important role of the mentor principal in preparing aspiring school leaders.
The third article, Benerdal and Ärlestig (2026), is the first of four articles highlighting the role of research-practice partnerships as a medium for the collaborative efforts of university faculty and field-based educators to bridge the gap between research and practice and create new and practical knowledge for school improvement. In the article, the authors report the findings from a study of 15 Swedish principals from one municipality who participated in a partnership with one university that was initiated by the Swedish Ministry of Education. Their findings illustrate how a research-practice partnership and research and development process can be utilized to contribute to various categories of learning that directly or indirectly support organizational development.
In the fourth article, Jackson (2026) describes how principal preparation program coordinators from 11 institutions of higher education in the United States leverage university district partnerships to support their efforts to prepare school leaders for equity. Jackson found that institutions which are successful in meeting this goal adopt collaborative and mutualistic approaches throughout all aspects of the program including recruitment, instruction and continuous improvement.
In the fifth article, Paufler et al. (2026) share how faculty from an educational leadership preparation program at a university in the United States with a focus on improvement science formed a research-practice partnership with leaders in a consortium of 14 school districts to support leadership development in rural, high-poverty and under-performing schools. Their findings illustrate how a principal from one high school learned to lead systemic changes that built a positive school culture through a personalized approach to leadership development with the support of a leadership coach and membership in a structured professional community.
In the sixth article, Awaludin and Halverson (2026) expand the scope of research-practice partnerships beyond universities and local school districts to include state education agencies, technical assistance providers and other community organizations to co-design programs that advance educational equity for school leaders. They mapped the structure and dynamics of the Equity Centered Pipeline Initiative in the United States and identified the important roles of boundary crossing and social networks in understanding how partnership dynamics can be shaped to increase educational leadership practices focused on equity.
Extending Awaludin and Halverson's (2026) reminder that leadership development partnerships are not limited to universities and districts, the final three articles highlight a variety of partnerships and sources of knowledge in the preparation and development of school leaders. In the seventh article, Angelle et al. (2026) illustrate how leaders in three New Zealand schools learned Māori language and cultural practices from Māori elders and community members. Their findings provide evidence that these partnerships led to the leaders using culturally sustaining leadership practices that increased knowledge and recognition of and respect for Māori students and their culture in the school community. This study highlights the important contributions of indigenous sources of knowledge and ways of knowing to school leaders' abilities to lead in contextually relevant ways.
In the next article, Shiffman and Sijamhodžić-Nadarević (2026) report on a partnership between two higher education institutions, one based in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the other in the United States. The findings of the study showed that the 40 students involved in the partnership increased their cultural and linguistic awareness and intercultural team functioning abilities while developing a deeper understanding of the educational leadership policies and practices in each country through their participation in the collaborative online international learning initiative.
The final article by Hayes et al. (2026) focuses on one type of research-practice partnership for educational improvement and collaborative learning, networked improvement communities. The partnership, called the Al-Tatweer Al-Mustanid ila Al-Madrasa (TAMAM), included schools across multiple Arab countries with the American University of Beirut serving as the university hub of the community. In this case study, the authors highlight the experiences of the TAMAM leadership team in designing, developing and sustaining a networked improvement community. This article further extends the notion of partnerships to also include stakeholders in multiple countries within a region, focused on designing school improvement interventions that are aligned with local sociocultural contexts and illustrate the structures, practices and conditions that enabled the initiative to be sustained over time.
