An Investigation of State Superintendents in the United States: Ethical Leadership Perspectives, State Leader Demographics, and State Education Characteristics

• Main Authors: Denver J. Fowler, Raymonnesha Edwards, Hsien-Yuan Hsu
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Athens Institute for Education and Research 2018-08-01
• Series: Athens Journal of Education
• Subjects: state superintendent; ethical leadership perspectives; united states; state leader demographics; state education characteristics
• Online Access: http://www.athensjournals.gr/education/2018-5-3-1-Fowler.pdf

The purpose of this study was to investigate the ethical leadership perspectives of state superintendents across the United States, including the District of Columbia, and the Department of Defense. Secondly, the researchers examined to what extent the ethical leadership perspectives of state superintendents were correlated with school leader demographics. Furthermore, the researchers examined to what extent the ethical leadership perspectives of the state superintendents were correlated with state education characteristics. Included in this survey were the Ethical Leadership Scale (ELS) and Social Desirability Scale (SDS). The ELS was used to measure the ethical leadership perspectives of superintendents in the study. The SDS was used to measure the socially desirable response tendencies of superintendents in the study. Additionally, the researchers collected self-reported state leader demographics and state education characteristics. The survey was sent to 38 state superintendents in the United States. A correlation analysis was used to analyze the data. This analysis was used to determine the correlation between the superintendents’ ethical leadership perspectives and the self-reported state leader demographics and state education characteristics. Furthermore, the correlation analysis was used to identify which variables (state leader demographics and state education characteristics) have the strongest predictive relationship with the ethical leadership perspectives of the superintendents in the study.