Purposeful educational leadership and intersectionality: a conceptual insight for enhancing inclusive and climate-responsive schooling in Ghana

Purpose This paper seeks to understand how purposeful educational leadership (PEL) may translate teachers' intersectional awareness into inclusive and climate-responsive schooling in Ghana. Design/methodology/approach The study adopts a conceptual synthesis design from a critical realist perspective. It integrates five theoretical traditions, namely, intersectionality theory, feminist pedagogy, PEL theory, general contingency theory, and transformative learning theory. The study employs interpretive reasoning to develop a PEL for the intersectional climate-responsive schooling (PEL-ICRS) model. This model links micro-level pedagogy, meso-level purposeful leadership, and macro-level ecological outcomes. It uses evidence from Ghana's lived ecological challenges. Findings This conceptual study reveals that climate change intensifies existing gendered and socio-economic inequalities in Ghana's education system. This situation demands leadership that unites ethics, inclusion, and sustainability. PEL emerges as the ethical infrastructure that translates intersectional awareness into institutional culture and community resilience. The model shows that PEL must be context-sensitive. Flood-prone schools in the Volta Region require different moral and organisational responses than drought-affected schools in Northern Ghana. Practical implications The paper recommends scenario-based professional learning modules that mirror Ghana's diverse ecological zones and promote ethical reflexivity among leaders. Originality/value The paper is the first to offer a purposeful leadership response to the widening gap between inclusion and sustainability agendas in public education. It provides a comparative analysis and differentiated solutions for drought-affected and flood-prone schools in the Volta and Northern regions of Ghana, a developing country. The paper offers a new theoretical lens for achieving Sustainable Development Goals 4 (Quality Education), 5 (Gender Equality), 10 (Reduced Inequalities), and 13 (Climate Action).