From Action to Vision: Expanding Educational Opportunities through Equity-oriented Leadership in Constrained Educational Systems

This study examines how equity-oriented leadership is conceptualised and enacted within a low-autonomy educational system through a case study conducted within the International Successful School Principalship Project protocol in an Italian comprehensive school. Drawing on qualitative and survey data, findings show that equity is advanced through interconnected practices of narrative reframing, relational care, redistribution of opportunities and coordinated governance. Using an ecological and complexity-informed lens, the paper proposes the From Action to Vision mechanism to explain how purposeful equity-oriented actions in schools can address social, cultural and economic barriers and expand students’ horizons of educational and future possibility within a constrained educational system.