School Leadership and Indonesian Culture: Revealing the Local Knowledge Development in Post-New Order Indonesia

Abstract

The debacle of Soeharto's regime has opened up reformation and democratisation in Indonesia. Many structural changes like educational decentralisation, school-based management, and principal preparation training have been made in the education sector since 2001. Research on educational leadership and management (ELAM) has also flourished since academicians and researchers were required to meet journal publication requirements in the 2010s. This chapter consists of a systematic review of ELAM research in the Indonesian context that appears in the GARUDA database, a knowledge-based system of journal articles in the Indonesian language. This review aims to describe the Indonesian knowledge development in ELAM reflecting the Indonesian culture of school leadership. After the selection and sorting stages, 119 journal articles published from 2001 to 2021, and written in the Indonesian language, were reviewed. The review found variations in terms of knowledge production, including different type of articles, methodological approaches, leadership theories, school levels, and research topics. The findings indicate that the development of the Indonesian ELAM knowledge base is promising and more productive compared to the previous era, but capacity development is still needed.