Theorizing School Leadership as a Profession: A Qualitative Exploration of the Work of School Leaders

Autor/inn/en	Stone-Johnson, Corrie; Weiner, Jennie
Titel	Theorizing School Leadership as a Profession: A Qualitative Exploration of the Work of School Leaders
Quelle	In: Journal of Educational Administration, 60 (2022) 4, S.386-402 (17 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Zusatzinformation	ORCID (Stone-Johnson, Corrie) ORCID (Weiner, Jennie)
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0957-8234
DOI	10.1108/JEA-05-2021-0112
Schlagwörter	Principals; School Administration; Elementary Schools; Professional Occupations; Leadership; Teaching (Occupation); Public Schools; Administrator Attitudes + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Principal; Schulleiter; Elementary school; Grundschule; Volksschule; Berufsklassifikation; Führung; Führungsposition; Teaching; Lehrberuf; Public school; Öffentliche Schule
Abstract	Purpose: In response to the proliferation of neoliberal reforms and a "new professionalism" (Evetts, 2009, 2011), researchers argue that school leaders, like teachers, have experienced a form of "de-professionalization" (Keddie, 2017) and that the principalship may even be an "emergent profession" (Stone-Johnson and Weiner, 2020). Such framing assumes school leaders are indeed part of a profession. And yet, while research abounds regarding teaching as a profession (Ingersoll and Collins, 2018; Sachs, 2016; Torres and Weiner, 2018), no parallel literature exists about school leaders. Such information is critical to ensure educators receive the appropriate professional development and support (Sachs, 2016) and move the field forward and thus motivated the authors to ask how principals view their work and whether it can be seen as part of a discrete profession. Design/methodology/approach: The authors utilized an interpretative phenomenological approach (IPA) drawing on qualitative interviews with sixteen elementary school principals in two US states. Findings: The authors find administration, and specifically the principalship, exists adjacent to, but distinct from, teaching. Additionally, the authors find school leadership is an "emergent" profession, with aspects of the work that indicate leadership is a profession but others that do not. Originality/value: This study extends early work (Stone-Johnson and Weiner, 2020) on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on principals' professionalism to shed light on the larger and more long-standing features of principals' work that support and hinder its development as a profession and the implications of such designation on attracting and retaining school leaders, as well as underscoring that because school leadership and teaching can be considered discrete professions, teachers need not leave their classroom to be true professionals. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01