Leading education under educide: a conceptually informed qualitative study of Palestinian school leaders

This article presents a conceptually informed qualitative study situated at the intersection of educational leadership, educide, scholasticide, and epistemic erasure. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with ten Palestinian school leaders and informed by decolonial, transformative, and crisis leadership scholarship, the study examines how educational leaders sustain learning, care, continuity, and hope under conditions of systemic educational destruction. Situated within the ongoing devastation of Palestinian education, the study explores how school leaders navigate displacement, loss, insecurity, and the collapse of educational infrastructure. Through thematic analysis, participants described leadership practices centered on sustaining learning, providing psychosocial support, mobilizing community resources, preserving educational purpose, and nurturing collective resilience despite conditions of extreme uncertainty. The findings suggest that educational leadership in such contexts extends beyond conventional administrative functions and becomes a practice of educational survival, cultural continuity, and epistemic resistance. In response, the article advances the concept of anti-scholasticide leadership praxis to explain how educational leaders protect educational continuity, preserve conditions for future knowledge production, and resist the erasure of collective memory and identity. By bringing together empirical testimony and conceptual development, the study extends understandings of educational leadership in contexts of war, violence, and educational destruction and argues that leadership under educide must be understood as a practice of care, continuity, and educational justice.