Effective Principals Serving in High Poverty Schools in Chile: Managing Competing Realities

Abstract

This article focuses on three elementary public schools principals in Chile who are serving socially and economically disadvantaged communities. It explores how these principals manage competing pressures and respond to the harsh realities of the lives of many young people in their schools. Using the lenses of place and belonging, these issues are located within the growing corpus of research in the field of leading high-poverty schools. Drawing on in-depth interviews with the principals, the authors identify factors in the lives of young people, which have significant implications for the competing realities of school leadership.