Making sense of school leaders’ sense-making

Ganon-Shilon, Sherry; Schechter, Chen

doi:10.1177/1741143216628536

Cited by 85 publications

(48 citation statements)

References 50 publications

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“…In other words, despite what principals knew to be good or strategic hiring, creative and transactional hiring reflected an active negotiation of assessing risk and modifying strategic behaviors to meet schools' internal staffing needs. These findings are consistent with prior work on sensemaking in school leadership (Ganon-Shilon & Schechter, 2017;McHenry-Sorber & Campbell, 2019;Rutledge et al, 2009), but extend current understanding of principals hiring practices by contributing a more nuanced framework for classifying and describing hiring practices in a unique context.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

Tensions Between What Principals Know and Do: The Role of Labor Market Conditions on Teacher Recruitment and Hiring

Castro

2020

Leadership and Policy in Schools

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Teacher hiring is a critical lever for improving school outcomes. However, the availability of supply is a significant barrier that affects principals' processes for teacher staffing. Drawing on sensemaking theory and concepts of fit, this study investigates how principals make sense of recruitment and hiring in a local labor market with severe teacher shortages. Findings illustrate labor market conditions constrained principals' attempts to hire strategically and shaped new practices and hiring behaviors. By presenting a conceptualization of these hiring arrangements-strategic, creative, and transactional hiring-this study reveals the micro-negotiations principals make when recruiting and hiring in teacher shortage environments. Teacher hiring is one of several key organizational tasks proven to be a significant predictor of school accountability performance and teacher satisfaction (Grissom & Loeb, 2011). As a critical lever for improving human capital within schools (Donaldson, 2013; Tamir, 2019), some have argued that teacher hiring is "the single most important task of a principal" (Mason & Schroeder, 2010, p. 18). Teacher hiring is a multifaceted process of recruiting, screening, and selecting the best candidate for the school environment (Engel & Curran, 2016; Harris et al., 2010; Jabbar, 2018). How principals go about this process is the focus of a growing body of research. Studies explore the kinds of tools principals use, principals' perceptions of applicant fit, specific screening and selection procedures across schools (i.e., charter or traditional public schools) and school levels, as well as the impact of policy accountability on principals' conceptualization of teacher quality (

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

Tensions Between What Principals Know and Do: The Role of Labor Market Conditions on Teacher Recruitment and Hiring

Castro

2020

Leadership and Policy in Schools

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“…Because principals are fundamentally important to school improvement efforts these individuals are expected to take on numerous responsibilities (Peck, et al, 2013). For example, in the USA, recent policy changes, such as new teacher evaluation policies/systems, have placed new and intensified work-related demands on school principals (Ganon-Shilon and Schechter, 2016; Grissom et al, 2015; Spillane et al, 2015). Although principals have historically engaged in tasks similar to what they do today, such as acting as a mediator between the school and community or monitoring teacher development (Kafka, 2009), how principals go about this daily work has evolved and will likely continue to evolve in the future.…”

Section: Framing the Work: Making Sense Of The Future Of School Princmentioning

confidence: 99%

US principals’ sensemaking of the future roles and responsibilities of school principals

Reid¹

2020

Educational Management Administration & Leadership

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School principals are fundamentally important to school improvement. Due in part to this importance, the roles and responsibilities of school principals are constantly evolving. To explore leader sensemaking about this phenomenon I conducted 30 interviews with 10 public school principals in the US state of New Jersey during the 2018–2019 school year. Specifically, in this study I asked: (a) What are current public school principals’ predictions of the future role of school principals? and (b) In what way(s) do these predictions shape principals’ thinking about remaining in the profession? The findings of this work indicate: (a) principals believe the future of the school principal will focus heavily on safety and security; (b) principals believe the future of the role will include an increased emphasis on supporting student and teacher emotion and mental health; and (c) principals believe their future role as a school leader will evolve in how they interact with parents/guardians. Finally, an analysis of data shows in some cases how principals make sense of the future of the profession shapes their thinking about remaining in or exiting the role of school principal. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.

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“…Despite this, it is not well understood, and ambiguity and heterogeneity surround interpretations of its nature. Nevertheless, we identified shared and common beliefs, which we suggest could be related to the professionalization university teachers have undergone as doctoral students and junior lecturers (Batistič, 2018; Ganon-Shilon and Schechter, 2017; Kowtha, 2018; Robertson and Richards, 2017).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 88%

The Humboldtian ideal meets employability? University teachers and the teaching–research relationship in marketized higher education

Macheridis¹,

Paulsson

Pihl

2020

Industry and Higher Education

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This study examines how university teachers in two Swedish higher education institutions grapple with the challenge of connecting research and teaching. With the increasing pressure in higher education to improve graduate employability, teaching is expected to include skills-oriented, vocational training which may (or may not) conflict with the more traditional Humboldtian ideal, in which teaching is built on research. Drawing on the rich bodies of literatures on employability and the teaching–research relationship, the authors find that university teachers practice the relationship in four ways: by using scientific articles in the curriculum; by teaching students a critical research attitude; by lecturing about their own research results; and by relying on the formal skills of fellow teachers. These practices of establishing a close connection between teaching and research are, this study suggests, met with resistance from colleagues, who are perceived to favor vocational training and emphasize employability; from students, who are also perceived to worry about employability; and finally from other policies that target partially conflicting objectives, including those for employability.

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Making sense of school leaders’ sense-making

Cited by 85 publications

References 50 publications

Tensions Between What Principals Know and Do: The Role of Labor Market Conditions on Teacher Recruitment and Hiring

Tensions Between What Principals Know and Do: The Role of Labor Market Conditions on Teacher Recruitment and Hiring

US principals’ sensemaking of the future roles and responsibilities of school principals

The Humboldtian ideal meets employability? University teachers and the teaching–research relationship in marketized higher education

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