Study Under Review: Mifsud, D., & Wilkins, A. W. (2025). A systematic review of school governance literature between 2000 and 2023. Leadership and Policy in Schools.
This systematic review maps the field of school governance research across more than two decades, offering a bird's-eye view of how the field has evolved and where scholarly attention has concentrated. For practitioners and policymakers seeking evidence-informed governance approaches, understanding what the research base actually covers, and where it falls short, is a prerequisite for critical engagement. For a full explanation of the PEARLS framework used in this review, see our [methodology page](/methodology.html).
The "participants" in a systematic review are the publications themselves rather than human subjects, and the authors identified 361 peer-reviewed journal articles published between 2000 and 2023. The selection process followed PRISMA guidelines, searching Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar, three established academic databases. However, the authors explicitly excluded theses, conference proceedings, and gray literature, which means the review captures only what made it into indexed journals. This creates a structural limitation: the review necessarily reflects the publication biases of academic journals, including their preference for English-language work and for research from institutions with the resources to pursue formal publication. The sample is substantial in absolute terms, but it is not a comprehensive accounting of all scholarship on school governance. It is a snapshot of what the peer-reviewed ecosystem chose to publish. For practitioners in districts outside the Global North or working in languages other than English, the representativeness of this literature base is questionable.
The methodology is a systematic literature review using PRISMA guidelines, which represents a recognized and replicable approach to synthesizing existing research. This is not an experimental design. It does not test an intervention or establish causal relationships. Rather, it maps the structure of a scholarly field, tracking publication volumes, geographic distributions, and thematic clusters. The authors' stated aim is descriptive and organizational: to organize the field into a conceptual framework for future study. The rigor of this approach depends on the completeness of the search strategy and the transparency of inclusion criteria. The three-database search is reasonable, though the exclusion of gray literature and conference proceedings means the review may miss emerging findings and practitioner-relevant work that has not yet entered the formal journal pipeline. The authors acknowledge this limitation, which is appropriate. The study is methodologically sound for its stated purpose, but that purpose is cartographic rather than diagnostic. It maps territory rather than testing which governance approaches work.
The authors analyzed the 361 articles by mapping them across four dimensions: volume over time, geographic distribution, dissemination patterns, and conceptual themes. They identified five thematic clusters: participation politics, autonomy and control, policy reform trends, global education confluences and influences, and digital governance. The analysis is descriptive and synthetic rather than quantitative in a statistical sense. The authors are not testing hypotheses but organizing a body of literature. The key finding is that school governance is a substantive and growing research area, but the literature is geographically uneven, clustered in certain journals and regions. This is a reasonable interpretation of the data presented. However, the review does not evaluate the quality of the underlying studies or synthesize their findings into meta-analytic conclusions about what works. It tells readers what has been studied and where, but not what the studies collectively conclude. The authors do not overstate their findings in this regard. They present the review as a mapping exercise, which it is.
The study was published in early 2025 and analyzes literature through 2023, meaning there is a roughly two-year gap between the cutoff date and publication. For a rapidly evolving field, this gap matters less for foundational governance concepts than for emerging areas like digital governance, where the field may have shifted significantly since 2023. The temporal relevance is moderate: the core themes (participation, autonomy, policy reform) have not fundamentally changed, but practitioners should be aware that the review captures pre-pandemic and pandemic-era scholarship but may not reflect the most recent developments. For a practitioner in a specific district, the findings are indirectly applicable. The review does not test governance models or provide evidence about what board practices produce better outcomes. It tells practitioners what scholars have been writing about. This is useful background but not a guide to action.
The study is published in Leadership and Policy in Schools, a peer-reviewed journal with a reputable standing in educational leadership and policy. The authors' institutional affiliations and the funding source are not detailed in the information provided. This is a notable gap: without knowing who funded the research, readers cannot assess whether financial, business, or ideological interests may have influenced the scope or direction of the review. The authors do not disclose conflicts of interest or funding. For a systematic review, this omission is a weakness. Readers should note that the study appears to be academic work conducted within a university context, but the absence of funding disclosure limits full assessment of potential biases.
The review is broad in temporal scope (23 years) and geographic ambition (international), but it is shallow in analytical depth. It maps what has been published and how that publication activity is distributed, but it does not evaluate the quality of individual studies, synthesize their empirical findings, or assess the strength of evidence for specific claims. The five thematic clusters represent a useful organizing framework, but the review does not interrogate whether those themes are well-supported by the underlying evidence or whether they reflect scholarly fashion rather than substantive findings. The authors acknowledge that the review is limited to indexed journal publications, which is a real constraint. The scope is comprehensive in its mapping function but not in its critical synthesis. Whether this represents a strength (broad coverage) or a weakness (surface-level treatment) depends on what the reader seeks: the review serves as a useful index of the field but not as a critical assessment of what the evidence actually shows.
Practitioners should treat this review as a map of the scholarly terrain, not a guide to governance practice. The five themes identified (participation politics, autonomy and control, policy reform, global influences, and digital governance) represent the major preoccupations of researchers, which may or may not align with the challenges boards face in their specific contexts. The geographic clustering of the literature suggests that the evidence base reflects the concerns of researchers in certain regions, and findings may not transfer cleanly to districts in other contexts. Practitioners should not conclude from this review that any particular governance approach is supported by strong evidence. The review does not make that kind of evaluative claim. The actionable takeaway is narrower: use this review to understand what questions scholars have been asking, and to identify gaps where practitioner experience might benefit from research attention. Give this study moderate weight. It provides useful orientation but does not replace the need for context-specific evidence when making governance decisions.
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