Relationships in distributed leadership, inquiry-based working, and realizing educational change in Dutch primary education: teachers’ and their school leader’s perceptions

Although distributed leadership and inquiry-based working are relevant topics to primary education, there has been little discussion about how team members perceive these practices as meaningful in their day-to-day work. Following on from prior quantitative studies, the present study conducted a case study in which semi-structured interviews were employed to collect data. The findings suggested that teachers and their principal perceive distributed leadership and inquiry-based working as crucial to realizing educational change. More specifically, the case study showed how inquiry-based working could support distributed leadership and teachers’ ability to take the initiative to create educational change. Specifying the relationships could help teachers and school leaders to consciously leverage distributed leadership and inquiry-based working techniques to fully meet students’ needs.