Artificial Intelligence and Analytics in Action: Rethinking School Leadership in China’s K-12 Education

This qualitative study explores how school leaders in urban Chinese K12 schools perceive, implement, and navigate artificial intelligence and educational analytics in school management. Despite strong national policy promotion of AI driven educational transformation, empirical evidence on AI leadership practices in China remains limited. Drawing on semi structured interviews with eight principals and administrators from six public and private schools in Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen, the study identifies four interrelated themes: an instrumental understanding of AI, fragmented application scenarios, multifaceted implementation challenges including limited expertise, ethical and privacy concerns, insufficient policy guidance, and resource constraints, and enabling leadership strategies such as vision building, professional development, data culture cultivation, and external collaboration. Based on these findings, the study proposes a contextualized AI leadership framework for Chinese K12 schools that conceptualizes AI integration as a dynamic interaction among policy directives, leadership agency, technological resources, and organizational culture. The findings offer theoretical insights into context sensitive AI leadership and provide practical implications for school leaders and policymakers seeking to promote strategic, ethical, and sustainable AI integration in education.