Leadership for community: Learning from new rural migrant schools in China

Mainland China’s new rural migrant schools are an educational reform situated in national aims of revitalised rural communities, education, and economy. New rural migrant schools call upon school leaders to reimagine education and the integration of rural migrant students for community development. This study examined leadership for community development in the case of new rural migrant schools in Guizhou Province in southwest Mainland China. The research investigated leaders’ perceptions of goals and challenges for school-community development through interviews with 13 local policy actors, principals, and teachers in two new rural migrant schools. Participants articulated high expectations with limited autonomy, adaptation to new rural migrant communities, and leadership recognition and stability as main goals and challenges. With these findings, we argue that new rural migrant school leaders utilise their resources to strengthen their social and economic roles in the community. We also suggest that training in community-centred leadership is required for leaders, from the school- to municipal-levels, to facilitate new rural migrant schools overcoming the identified challenges in rural community development.