Explaining the mechanisms of the impact of school principals' educational leadership on teachers' organizational inclusion: A study with a grounded theory approach

The aim of this study is to explain the mechanisms of the impact of school principals' educational leadership on teachers' organizational inclusion in the context of public schools. The present study was conducted with a qualitative approach and grounded theory method. The research field was public schools in District 15 of Tehran, and the participants included teachers with at least five years of teaching experience who were selected through purposive sampling. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 20 teachers and then analyzed using Strauss and Corbin's three-stage coding approach. The findings showed that principals' educational leadership promotes teachers' organizational inclusion through a set of interactive and structural mechanisms - including building professional trust, learning-oriented support, facilitating participation, constructive feedback, distributing responsibilities, and regulating a school culture based on respect and engagement.Organizational inclusion in this study was represented in the form of a sense of professional belonging, perception of role value, possibility of influencing educational decisions, and experience of interactional justice. According to the resulting model, effective educational leadership in a context of transparent professional communication, sustainable managerial support, and opportunities for real participation can play a decisive role in strengthening organizational inclusion and can increase teachers' organizational inclusion by influencing the central phenomenon, causal conditions, interaction action strategy, contextual conditions, and intervening conditions in three organizational, individual, and educational domains. Theoretical and practical implications of the results for educational policymaking and professional development of school administrators are discussed