School Leadership and Community Engagement: Scholarly Explorations, Theoretical Contributions, and Future Directions

School–community engagement (SCE) fundamentally contributes to establishing a safe and effective learning environment for students. Its significance has become increasingly evident in both global–local education policies and empirical studies. Existing evidence suggests that school principals are key agents in engaging and sustaining families in school activities, although collaboration practices differ across contexts. Currently, although some studies have attempted to examine SCE in various settings, there is a limited understanding of overall trends in the literature, as well as the theoretical contributions and methodological approaches used in previous studies. This study aims to expand our understanding of the dynamic role of school leadership in SCE, focusing on geographical distributions, adopted research methods, and theoretical developments, by employing Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analysis (PRISMA) guidelines to identify publications in the Scopus database. Initially, 422 papers were identified, and 15 papers that met the evaluative criteria were selected for analysis. The results indicated that most papers, particularly 14 studies, used qualitative methods, suggesting limited variation in scholarly approaches. In addition, inadequate empirical concentrations, along with geographical disparities, have created ambiguity regarding leadership practices in SCE in various educational settings. The adopted theoretical frameworks typically focus on two patterns: school leadership and social theories. This study, therefore, offers a comprehensive review of SCE and calls for stronger scientific contributions in different contexts, as well as diverse methodological adaptations and theoretical advancements.