Description
Stakeholders in Education in Nakuru County, Kenya have expressed great concern over
the high levels of students’ non-conformity to school rules in secondary schools. There
is a problem of students’ non-conformity to school rules. This study sought to investigate the
relationship between principals’ democratic leadership style and students’ conformity to rules in
public secondary schools in Nakuru, Kenya. The objective of the study was to determine the
relationship between principals’ democratic leadership style and students’ conformity to rules in
Public Secondary Schools in Nakuru County, Kenya. The study was anchored on the Social Control
Theory by Hirschi (1969). The study adopted a correlational research design. The target population
was 338 Principals, 338 Deputy Principals, 3426 teachers and 116374 students in 338 public
secondary schools in Nakuru County, Kenya. Stratified random sampling was used to select 100
schools. Purposive sampling was used to select 100 Principals, 34 Deputy Principals, 346 teachers
and 383 students’ councils. Questionnaires were used to collect data from Principals, Teachers and
students, while interviews were used to collect data from Deputy Principals. Test – retest reliability
revealed a coefficient above 0.70 indicating that the instruments were reliable. The finding showed
that both teachers and principals responses indicate a high positive relationship between principals
use of democratic leadership style to enhance students’ conformity to school rules related to
learning(r=0.334;p< 0.05. It was concluded that democratic leadership style when used by principals
in public secondary schools in Nakuru County, Kenya has a significant positive relationship to
students’ conformity to school rules. This implies that when a principal uses democratic leadership
style, students are likely to conform to school rules. The findings of the study will help education policy makers
to come up with strategies of enhancing students’ conformity to school rules.
Key words: Democratic, leadership, style Conformity, school Rules
