societal culture is clearly an important concept for comparative studies of school leadership. It draws attention distinctive patterns of constraints and to possibilities of required and accepted ways of thinking, acting, and feeling that are fundamentally connected to mastery and control of the social and physical world. We have argued for a sociopolitical analysis of culture that takes its starting point the social, economic, and political problems that as Singapore faced at independence and that are still grappled with today though in different forms. We have identified two predominant cultural strands, and argued that Singapore culture is best understood as a mix between traditionnal and modernizing culture,nigitiated and ligutimized in terms of national interests