Leading with Local Knowledge: How School Leadership in Nepal Mobilises Community Culture to Shape School Policy and Practice

Abstract

Background: This study examines how school leaders in Indigenous-majority contexts mobilise community cultural knowledge to shape school policy and practice. It draws on culturally responsive leadership and transformative leadership theories and focuses on public schools in southern Lalitpur, Nepal, a region predominantly inhabited by the Tamang community. Although Nepal's education policies promote inclusion and the integration of local knowledge, little is known about how these commitments are enacted at the school level.

Methods: A qualitative exploratory design was employed across four public schools. Data were generated from 14 participants through 6 in-depth interviews with headteachers, one assistant headteacher, and School Management Committee (SMC) chairpersons; 2 sharing circles involving eight teachers; school observations; and document analysis, including school activity records, academic calendars, codes of conduct, and local curriculum materials.

Findings: The findings reveal that school leaders conceptualise local knowledge as a living system encompassing language, rituals, ecological knowledge, moral values, and community institutions. Leaders with cultural and linguistic proximity to the community build stronger trust, mediate conflicts more effectively, and involve elders and local knowledge holders in the decision-making processes. Local knowledge was integrated into the curriculum, school activities, and calendars through language instruction, cultural performances, ecological learning, and community participation. School leaders also play a critical advocacy role by translating cultural values into formal policies and negotiating with local governments. However, these efforts were constrained by examination-oriented schooling, limited resources, insufficient teacher training, language politics, inability to map local knowledge, and weak institutional support.

Conclusion: The study highlights culturally responsive leadership as relational, context-sensitive, and advocacy-driven, demonstrating how school leaders function as cultural agents and policy translators.

Novelty: This study provides one of the first empirical accounts of how the Indigenous Tamang community's cultural knowledge is mobilised through school leadership practices in Nepal, helping to bridge the gap between national policy rhetoric and local enactment.