A Theoretical Framework for Educational Leadership in Post-Conflict Societies: Evidence from North East Nigeria

This study develops and empirically tests a theoretical framework for educational leadership in post-conflict societies, drawing on evidence from secondary schools and tertiary institutions in North East Nigeria. Post-conflict educational environments present unique administrative challenges that existing leadership theories, developed largely in stable Western contexts, have not fully addressed. The North East zone, recovering from over a decade of Boko Haram-related insurgency, offers an unprecedented empirical setting for constructing and testing a contextually grounded framework. The study employs a sequential mixed methods design. Phase one uses in-depth interviews and focus groups with 60 school administrators, education officials, and community leaders across Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe States to develop framework propositions grounded in lived administrative experience. Phase two deploys a structured questionnaire to 320 teachers and administrators to test the framework using structural equation modelling. The study integrates Reconstruction Theory, Resilience Leadership Theory, and the Capabilities Approach. Findings result in a five-construct Contextual Resilience Leadership Framework encompassing community trust building, adaptive resource mobilisation, trauma-informed administration, conflict-sensitive curriculum management, and distributed governance. All five constructs demonstrate significant positive associations with post-conflict school recovery indicators. The framework makes an original theoretical contribution to the literature on educational administration in fragile contexts. Recommendations include its adoption as a training framework for school leaders in post-conflict communities. Keywords: post-conflict leadership, resilience, educational administration, North East Nigeria, theoretical framework.