Rational, bureaucratic, collegial, and political views of the principal's role

Abstract

Thomas Sergiovanni Faculty of Educational Administration and Supervision University of Illinois Urbana, Illinois In the more established professions, and to a lesser extent in educational administration, frames of reference, models or paradigms govern professional practice. The terms frames of reference, models and paradigms are used by theorists to refer to systematic ways of thinking, conceptual frameworks, patterns, examples, miniature representations and other approximations of reality which help to more fully understand this reality. For purposes of their discussion the term will generally be used to encompass the three. Models are systematic approximations of reality. They come complete with a convincing internal logic, a set of assumptions, postulates, data, and inferences about some phenomenon. Sometimes models are formal and explicit but often models are implicit and indeed articulated unknowingly by administrators. Models determine what problems are critical for a particular profession and provide the practitioner with a theoretical framework for understanding and dealing with problems. Models underlying the administration of special education, for example, emphasize remediation of difficulties rather than prevention. Thus special education administrators are more likely to be concerned with the critical problem of learning disabilities in urban youth than poor nutrition of pregnant women in urban areas though the first seems causally related to the second. Models undergirding the various professions also suggest to the practitioner certain actions or routines as being more valid than others and certain standards of proof for determining effectiveness of these methods. A principal who operates from a human relation model, for example, might consider interpersonal relationships as the critical administrative priority in a school. This principal would employ specific techniques such as participating in decision-making to improve these relationships and would judge his effectiveness by positive changes in morale of the staff. Another principal who operates from an accountability model might consider increased performance as the critical concern in this same school. This principal would employ specific techniques such as management by objectives (MBO) and teaching by objectives (TBO) to improve performance and would judge his effectiveness by the number of objectives achieved. The behavior and orientation of each principal is governed by the model from which he is working. This article examines the development of thought in administration seeking to identify the major models which undergird the profession and shifts in these models which help explain changes in professional practice. Examining the development of thought in