Scopus Journal Call for paper: Quality Education for All (Rethinking Leadership in and for Teacher Education and Development: Practice, Policy, and Partnership )

This special issue brings critical attention to the underexamined relationship between educational leadership and teacher education and development, positioning this intersection as central to advancing Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4). Although educational leadership and teacher education are well-established fields, they are too often treated separately. This issue seeks to bring them into closer conversation by examining how leadership at school, system, university, and policy levels shapes the conditions, quality, and outcomes of initial teacher education (ITE) and ongoing teacher learning and development. In doing so, it highlights leadership as a key influence on strengthening teacher preparation and professional growth in ways aligned with equitable and inclusive education systems.

The contributions in this collection illuminate how leadership practices influence teacher learning across multiple contexts, including, for example, school–university partnerships. They offer international perspectives on leadership development within ITE – spanning mentoring, induction, and early-career teacher retention – and advance theoretical and empirical work on system-level leadership for teacher workforce development. The issue also fosters deeper dialogue between educational leadership and teacher education scholars, encouraging conceptual integration and cross-disciplinary insight. In keeping with SDG 4’s commitment to inclusive and equitable quality education, contributions will investigate how inclusive, culturally responsive, and equity-oriented leadership influences the design, enactment, and outcomes of teacher education and development, including efforts to widen participation in and diversify the profession

The originality of this issue lies in its explicit focus on the intersection between educational leadership and teacher education, an area that has received limited sustained analysis. Existing research touching on these relationships tends to be dated, context-specific, or focused on isolated components of the leadership–teacher learning nexus. By foregrounding leadership as a structuring influence on partnerships, conditions, and outcomes across the teacher career continuum, this issue challenges the siloed nature of current scholarship and supports the development of a more integrated research trajectory. It offers conceptual and empirical insights with practical implications for teacher education and development, workforce sustainability, and education system innovation.

The timeliness of this issue is clear. Leadership is increasingly recognised internationally as an influence on teacher quality and retention across all stages, from ITE to early-career induction and in-service development. Teacher shortages and persistent equity concerns demand joined-up approaches to workforce development in which leadership plays a pivotal role. Policy shifts emphasising school–university partnerships and shared leadership underscore the need for coherent approaches to teacher learning. Moreover, recent global disruptions, including COVID-19, have highlighted the necessity of leadership in enabling professional learning under challenging conditions and in sustaining commitments to global equity and quality imperatives such as SDG 4. By drawing together international scholarship that examines how leadership shapes the conditions, content, and outcomes of teacher learning and development, this special issue offers a timely and necessary more coherent perspective and maps a future research agenda connecting educational leadership with teacher education and development.

List of Topic Areas

Educational leadership across school, system, and policy levels
Leadership for initial teacher education (ITE) and continuing professional development (CPD)
Leadership of collaborative partnerships among schools, universities, systems, and/ or NGOs for teacher education and development
Leadership for mentoring, induction, and early-career teacher learning
Inclusive, culturally responsive, and diversity-responsive teacher education
Leadership for teacher workforce development and sustainability
Leadership for widening participation and diversifying the teaching profession
International and comparative perspectives on leadership in teacher education and development

Journal Information: Scopus Journal Q1 , H-Index 1

Submissions Information

Submissions are made using ScholarOne Manuscripts. Registration and access are available at: ScholarOne Manuscripts

Author guidelines must be strictly followed. Please see: https://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/journal/qea

Authors should select (from the drop-down menu) the special issue title at the appropriate step in the submission process, i.e. in response to “Please select the issue you are submitting to”.

Submitted articles must not have been previously published, nor should they be under consideration for publication anywhere else, while under review for this journal.