Challenges facing Education Leadership in the Shadow of War

Book excerpt: This incredibly timely volume offers insight into how educational leadership is managed, demonstrated, and enacted in zones of conflict, underlining the pivotal role educational leadership plays in peacebuilding and conflict-resolution efforts internationally. Employing qualitative, quantitative, and theoretical methodologies, as well as on-the-ground lived experiences and empirical case studies, the book’s diverse chapters showcase perspectives from areas of current or historic conflicts in Israel, Ukraine, Russia, Germany, USA, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Norway. Guided by the overarching themes of resilience, decision-making, inclusion, and post-conflict rebuilding, the chapters focus on a range of leadership contexts such as the Arab-Bedouin and Ukrainian education systems, refugee Ukrainian children in Germany, the work of women educational leaders in Pakistan, and the experience of Israeli educational leaders during the conflict. Ultimately making a significant and groundbreaking addition to the literature on educational leadership in conflict zones, this book will be necessary for researchers, scholars, and postgraduate students working in educational leadership and strategy, international and comparative education, and sociology of education. Policymakers working in war and conflict studies as well as educational crisis may also benefit from the volume.