Teachers’ and Parents’ Perceptions on Desired and Practised School Mission: Alignments and Misalignments

ABSTRACTSchool leadership models emphasize the importance of leadership devoting time to the creation of a shared school mission, as a strategy for school effectiveness. This paper focuses on teachers’ and parents’ perceptions of the desired and practised school mission, considering the following dimensions: i) scientific and technological; ii) civic; iii) social and emotional; iv) vocational; v) physical. 3284 teachers and 3258 parents participated. All dimensions were highly valued as part of the desired school mission, mostly civic and social and emotional. However, the averages were lower in all dimensions of the practised school mission. Implications for school leadership are discussed. AcknowledgmentsWe would like to acknowledge all participants who contributed for this research, and the initiative Escola Amiga da Criança – Editora Leya for this research proposal and support in data collection and dissemination. The authors are grateful to the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) for the support to CEDH – Research Centre for Human Development (Ref. UIDB/04872/2020); and financial support from the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (through project UIDB/00731/2020) is also gratefully acknowledged.Disclosure StatementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationFundingThe work was supported by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia [UIDB/00731/2020].