No abstract

An influx of new principals having improved base-entry qualifications has raised some concerns about principal-school ‘fit' in Trinidad and Tobago. This chapter encompasses findings on three new principals' professional judgment in relation to their leadership and its impact on their schools, focusing on their school culture awareness. A multi-method case study approach is adopted. Findings suggest that the new principals' school culture awareness is indirectly associated with school change, having informed both what they attended to (their improvement foci) and how they did that (leadership practice and strategies).

This chapter presents a cultural diagnosis of three schools of differing effectiveness states – ‘excelling', ‘mostly effective' and ‘under academic watch' within Trinidad, which face socio-economic challenges. It utilizes a multi-method, multiple case study approach and presents an adapted conceptualization of school culture, which is used as an analytical framework to diagnose the professional orientation of teachers within the cultures of the participating schools. Findings reveal that teachers' professional orientation, particularly their dispositions and psychological states, are critically important to many aspects of schooling, including students' orientations and their academic performance and achievement.