The Social Continuum of Educational Leadership Exploring the Offline and Online Social Networks of Elementary Principals

Educational leadership is a widely discussed topic in educational science. However, although the study of social networks in (informal) educational settings is gaining interest in recent years, the intersection between leadership and online social networks has received limited attention. This article investigates the informal sets of networks in both social media and face-to-face spaces in which elementary principals engage in the access, use, and diffusion of information. We undertook an exploratory case study in an urban midsize public school district in the United States and collected online and face-to-face network data from a districtwide leadership team of 97 leaders. Our results shed some light on the underlying information exchange patterns and identify commonalities and differences that are useful to consider for practitioners and policy makers who would like to foster the (informal) professional development of educators, and particularly elementary principals, who often do not have access to more formalized forms of professional development or just-in-time access to resources.