Abstract:

Instructional leadership has been one of the most dominant metaphors in the contemporary literature while defining school principals’ main responsibilities. Principals, as instructional leaders, are expected to focus more on instructional practices in schools, rather than the conventional managerial work. However, in practice, there are not many principals who can effectively perform their role as instructional leaders (Fink & Resnick, 2001). Graduate programs, specifically Master’s programs, in educational administration play an important role in developing instructional leaders. In this context, the purpose of this study is to analyze and compare educational administration Master’s programs in Turkey and in the U.S.A. in terms of their role in preparing instructional leaders for today’s schools. We chose these two countries because they have very different educational systems and principal selection processes. The results of the study indicate that educational administration Master’s programs in two countries show significant differences in terms of their ability to prepare instructional leaders. Both structure and content of Master’s programs in the U.S.A seem to be more relevant to the concept of instructional leadership.

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