From hierarchical leadership to a mark of distributed leadership by whole school inquiry in partnership with Higher Education Institutions: Comparing the Arab education in Israel with the education system in England

This paper presents a comparative analysis of two high schools, one in the Arab Education system in Israel and the other in the UK Education system. The comparative analysis focuses on two principals’ perspectives of how they led their schools, in partnership with the authors from Higher Education Institutions, by implementing a distinctive mark of distributed leadership using whole school inquiry, which led inter-cultural change. The change facilitated knowledge exchange, mobilisation, and dissemination activities that empowered staff and young people to become societal innovators for equity and renewal which improved student outcomes between - 17% and 27% The research reveals that distributed leadership, sharing aims, themes and methods through whole school inquiry developed new inter-cultural understandings. It built respect, trust, and local research priorities and practices in communities of diverse race, ethnicity, cultural, religious, for both citizens and refugees. Members of diverse communities were able to hold each other to account, and became more autonomous in their plans for the future in coping with gaps in status in both studied contexts.