Educational leadership behavior of school principals within the framework of ecological systems theory

In this study, it is aimed to determine the factors affecting the instructional leadership behaviors of school principals within the framework of ecological systems theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1979) and how these factors affect their behaviors. For this purpose, the perspectives of the school principals were considered valuable, and the qualitative research method was used and the phenomenology pattern was adopted. The study group of the research consisted of 21 school principals working at primary, secondary and high school levels in Şahinbey and Şehitkamil districts of Gaziantep province in the 2020-2021 academic year and determined by maximum diversity sampling, one of the purposive sampling strategies. The research data were obtained as a result of the semi-structured interview form applied to the study group. The obtained data were analyzed with the "descriptive analysis" and "content analysis" techniques. The questions in the semi-structured interview form include instructional leadership behaviors defined by Hallinger (1982, 1983, 1990) within the framework of three main dimensions: "defining the mission of the school, managing the curriculum, and developing a positive learning climate". When the answers of the school principals to the factors affecting the instructional leadership behaviors and how these factors affect their behaviors are analyzed, it is seen that 42 different factors can be determined by limiting their behaviors (insufficient budget, minority students, popular culture, etc.) or supporting them (group cooperation, feedback from the school's stakeholders, etc.). appeared to be affected. When the place of the emerging factors in ecological systems was examined, it was determined that school principals were distributed in micro-, meso-, exo-, macro- and chronosystems and concentrated mostly in microsystems. As a result of the research, it has been concluded that the instructional leadership behaviors of school principals are shaped in the context of all ecological systems surrounding them and are mostly influenced by their microsystems. Keywords: Instructional Leadership, Ecological Systems Theory, School Principal