Paternalistic Leadership in Educational Contexts: A Systematic Review and Content Analysis

The purpose of this review is to present what we know about paternalistic leadership (PL) in education. Systematic content analysis was adopted to identify the manifest and latent information across 29 identified empirical studies obtained through the core educational leadership and management journals and the two databases, Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) and Web of Science (WoS). The findings were synthesized from multiple perspectives, including the number of publications from countries, the trend of overtime development, the analysis methods and techniques, PL dimensions measured, key outcomes of PL, research purposes, and target groups. The review reveals a predominance of quantitative studies utilizing regression and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) analysis in exploring PL, the use of different scales to measure PL, and variety in aims and purposes. Findings also reveal that such studies were limited to just five countries. Possible reasons, implications, and recommendations for future research are also discussed.