The impact of AI on school leadership practices and policy enactment: A scoping literature review

Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies, more specifically generative AI tools, are having a notable influence on the nature of engagement with information and decision making across society. While the ubiquity of AI in education may be regarded as an inevitability, its successful integration in the field of educational leadership remains elusive due to the absence of research, guidelines, policies and regulations related to its ethical adaptation. While potentially AI provides novel opportunities for school leadership, it simultaneously raises more equivocal questions for school leaders. Our scoping literature review, covering the 2010–2024 timespan, explores the intersection of educational leadership, policy and AI and examines how these have been investigated in relation to compulsory school settings. Using PRISMA guidelines, 89 journal articles were identified from Scopus with a narrative synthesis enabling us to identify four broad themes revolving around: school leadership; policy provision; instructional (teaching and learning) practices; and ethical considerations. These findings have implications for theory, policy and practice as education systems world-wide navigate this challenging landscape, by offering a focus on school leaders’ priorities; their perceptions of and engagement with AI; as well as the leadership support needed for AI integration.