Examining How Social Justice Leadership Relates to Student Engagement in High Schools

The present study elaborates on the relationship between school principals’ social justice leadership behaviors and student engagement in relation to high school students’ opinions. The study was conducted on 968 high school students from two different school types: Anatolian and vocational high schools. The data was collected by Social Justice Leadership Scale (SJLS) and Student Engagement Scale. Data was analyzed by utilizing Pearson correlation, and hierarchical multiple regression. Main results indicated that student engagement and social justice leadership has a moderate level of positive relationship; support dimension of social justice leadership predicted 28 % of the variance in student engagement itself; and all demographics, and dimensions of social justice was found to predict 34 % of the variance in student engagement. Limitations are presented, and future implications for research and practice in the field of educational administration are discussed in relation to the results of the study