Pedagogical leadership and rural school management: a systematic documentary review

This paper presents a systematized documentary review on pedagogical leadership and school management in rural contexts, aiming to identify trends, challenges, opportunities, and gaps in recent scholarship through a territorial and socio-critical lens. A qualitative–interpretive approach was adopted using the SALSA framework (Search, Appraisal, Synthesis and Analysis), with quality appraisal criteria adapted from CASP. The search across international and regional academic databases resulted in a final corpus of 27 studies. The thematic synthesis produced five dimensions: (1) transformative and collaborative leadership, (2) teacher professional development and pedagogical accompaniment, (3) contextualized and adaptive management (processes, innovation, and rural curriculum), (4) technological integration and the digital divide, and (5) community participation, family-school linkage, and territorial governance. Findings suggest that rural management depends on the interdependence between leadership, territorial equity, and contextualized technology, supporting the proposed Rural Pedagogical Leadership Triangle for Educational Equity as an integrative framework