Study title

This compilation of "Leadership for Literacy" data provides both quantitative and qualitative data gathered from learners, teachers and school leaders/managers in township and rural schools in South Africa. These data were gathered as part of the mixed methods study “Understanding resilience and exceptionalism in high-functioning township and rural primary schools in South Africa”. The quantitative data is obtained from 61 primary schools in three South African provinces (KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo and Gauteng) at the beginning and end of the school year. The quantitative dataset contains: 1) A plethora of contextual datasets on each school to establish school wealth, resourcing and school climate factors, teacher perceptions of school leadership and management processes and observational data on indicators of school functionality. These data are gathered from interviews with teachers, principals and deputy principals as well as conducting observations of the school and classroom environment. 2) One-on-one reading assessment data in English and 3 African languages (isiZulu, Sepedi and Xitsonga) from tests of oral reading fluency, letter recognition and word recognition for over 600 grade 3 children and grade 6 children. Pre- and post-test data were collected for the same children. 3) Reading comprehension and vocabulary test data for over 2600 grade 6 learners with pre- and post-test data available for the same learners. Qualitative data comprise 8 case studies that were compiled after in-depth interviews in a sub-set of the 61 schools. The aim of the present study is to understand resilience and exceptionalism in high-functioning township and rural primary schools in South Africa. Previous research has shown that a large part of the explanation behind these schools' success is the leadership and management practices of teachers and particularly principals. Despite this near universal acceptance of the pivotal role of school leadership and management (SLM)...