Abstract
The article proposes an emerging approach in research on school leadership, within the framework of the “International Successful School Principalship Project(ISSPP)”, where one of the three key research strands is “Principals’ identities”. It formulates, first, the theoretical framework for the professional identity from a narrative approach, linked -at the same time- to the practice of leadership, as an interactive relationship with the other members of the school. Successful leadership practices depend to a large degree on strong principals’ identities. Second, it analyzes the biographical interviews of 15 school principals, through a process of structuring and categorizing the data collected, applying content analysis. The dimension of the principals’ identities emerges in different categories: a) Personal identity; b) Professional identity (internal perspective); c) Professional identity (external perspective); d) Social identity; e) Professionalization; [and] d) Dual identity. Finally, the results are discussed, and lines are proposed to articulate and strengthen the identity of school principals in Spain.
Highlights
The article proposes an emerging approach in research on school leadership, within the framework of the “International Successful School Principalship Project (ISSPP)”, where one of the three key research strands is “Principals’ identities”
Successful leadership practices depend to a large degree on strong principals’ identities. It analyzes the biographical interviews of 15 school principals, through a process of structuring and categorizing the data collected, applying content analysis
We present the results of the study, accompanied by the fragments extracted from the interviews carried out with the school principals
Summary
The article proposes an emerging approach in research on school leadership, within the framework of the “International Successful School Principalship Project (ISSPP)”, where one of the three key research strands is “Principals’ identities”. Similar to the situation in France (Duchauffour, 2013; Pelletier, 2017), the principal in Spain presents an ambivalence in his/her functions: being principal and teacher at the same time, along with the “dual identity of transition” that has to take place: from teacher to head of the teaching establishment This transition is rarely supported by the appropriate training. Professional identities are established as a reciprocal transition (objective and subjective) between the attributed identity for others and the assumed identity Both are binding, as they are the result of a long socialization process, with three interacting factors emerging (Day, Stobart et al, 2006; Whiteman et al, 2015): sociocultural, work context, and personal factors. The professional identities of the school leadership, like those of the teachers, are composed of interactions among personal, professional, and situational dimensions (Carroll & Levy, 2010)
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