94 who are called followers (they can be teachers, school principals, and staff members) (Daniëls et al., 2019; Harris & Spillane, 2008; Spillane, 2005). The focus on practices means that leadership revolves less around individuals and personal leadership acts, and more around practices that are the outcome of relations and interactions (Gronn, 2002; Harris & DeFlaminis, 2016; Spillane et al., 2004). 5.2.2. Distributed leadership practices in sociocultural contexts Distributed leadership practices have been argued to be embedded in, and defined by, a wider sociocultural context (Rogoff, 1990; Spillane & Sherer, 2004; Tian et al., 2016). The recognition of the importance of sociocultural contexts is theoretically anchored in sociocultural activity theory. This theory examines the link between activities of individuals, such as leadership practices, and the social contexts in which these activities occur (Pea, 1993). Teachers and school principals act in school organizations and interact with each other. Their interactions are mediated by aspects of the wider sociocultural context (Pea, 1993; Rogoff, 1990). This means that leadership practices have to be understood in the contexts in which they are embedded (Powell & DiMaggio, 1991). Furthermore, various levels of the wider sociocultural context are linked to each other. There are no clear boundaries between context levels, such as individual, interpersonal, and institutional levels of analysis (Giddens, 1984; Orton &Weick, 1990; Rogoff, 1990; Spillane & Sherer, 2004). Within schools, three interrelated levels can be distinguished: The individual level or the level of teachers within schools; teachers working in teacher teams, thus forming a team level; and the institutional or school level, including school principals, support staff, structures, and resources. While these theoretical underpinnings suggest that the sociocultural context needs to be considered in studying leadership practices, only a few researchers have studied this (e.g., Liu et al., 2018). Therefore, several have highlighted the importance of identifying those characteristics of the sociocultural context that are critical in constituting distributed leadership practices (Daniëls et al., 2019; Harris, 2013; Liu, 2020; Liu et al., 2018; Or & Berkovich, 2021; Spillane & Sherer, 2004). 5.2.3. The link between sociocultural context levels and distributed leadership When researchers study distributed leadership practices in sociocultural contexts, they mainly focus on one contextual level, and thus cannot address relatedness between context levels. The studies either focus on individual (e.g., Liou & Daly, 2014; Tam,
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