Demystifying educational leadership and administration in the Middle East and North Africa/editorial introduction

This chapter maps pictographically the main educational reforms and policy development in the MENA region in the last half century. It also explores the pendulum of internationalization versus localization and contextualization of educational policy, reforms, and leadership in the region. Hence, there is rapid growth and interest in educational restructuring, educational reforms, policy, and leadership landscape in the region. This chapter aims to systematically collect, document, scrutinize, and critically analyze the current main challenges facing education systems in the region, their features, impact, shortcoming, and future development. Furthermore, we will map and identify key scholarship, knowledge production, and research strengths and weakness in order to set the stage for the next future research agenda. Beyond this, our review is to consider policy informing education development in this region. This analysis allows us to identify policy, strategy, and research patterns, trends, geographic origins, and scholarship scope that affect leadership and managerial perceptions in leading educational system. Nevertheless, our analysis will identify policies, theoretical, conceptual, and methodological limitations contributing to the nature of scholarship in this region and its interrelated connection with global trends. Further conclusion and implication for future research and practice will be fully discussed. Copyright © 2024 selection and editorial matter, Khalid Arar, Selahattin Turan, Sedat Gümüş, Abdellatif Sellami and Julia Mahfouz; individual chapters, the contributors.