Reimagining Educational Leadership through Fei Xiaotong’s “Chaxu Geju”: A Global South Epistemology of Relational Governance

Abstract

This article explores Fei Xiaotong’s (1992) concept of chaxu geju (差序格局), the differential mode of association, as a distinctive epistemological foundation for educational administration and leadership in the Global South. Rather than positioning chaxu geju as a simple alternative to a homogenized “Western” paradigm, the article places it in critical dialogue with diverse leadership typologies. It argues that chaxu geju contributes a distinctive account of leadership as differentiated moral and relational judgment, in which trust, obligation, and influence are patterned through concentric degrees of social proximity. The article draws on a qualitative study involving ten school head teachers and three directors of educational non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working with rural-to-urban migrant children in Guiyang, southwest China. The study shows that these leaders navigate fragile and under-resourced educational settings not primarily through formal hierarchy or standardized procedure, but through trust-based networks, moral credibility, and relational judgement. Leadership emerges as an ongoing practice of care, mediation, and differentiated responsibility across uneven social circles. By centering a Chinese indigenous concept as an analytic resource, this article contributes to the decolonization of educational leadership theory and practice. It suggests that chaxu geju enriches the theoretical repertoire of educational administration by illuminating forms of relational governance that remain under-theorized in dominant frameworks and by showing how leadership legitimacy is produced through morally embedded and socially differentiated relationships.