Presents field study research focused on (1) the socialization processes that the assistant principal undergoes as an aspiring administrator and (2) the processes that make an assistant principal effective and mobile within the organizational structure. Reports that roles and tasks are often poorly defined and that assessments of job performance…

The position of assistant principal has been virtually ignored and sometimes maligned. Based on perspectives that arise from administrative theory, career development research, and school administration studies, this document describes the special nature of the assistantship, daily work, rewards, and frustrations. Five chapters include: (1) "What…

Introduces special issue on the role of the assistant principal. Briefly reviews the contents of a series of articles which examines research on assistant principals, describes their experiences and major functions, and discusses their potential contributions to managing and improving instruction. (KH)

Common views of the assistant principal (AP) as the "Marine Corps sergeant type" with nowhere better to be are outdated. Career APs have diverse roles in school administration, often including, but not limited to, discipline. Many career APs find rewards in working with children and put high value on having a balanced personal life. Two…

This paper identifies four models of educational administration--the rational, mechanistic, organic, and bargaining models--and argues that a fifth model of leadership--a caring model--is needed. The ethic of caring (Nodding, 1986) is reciprocal, natural, and ethical and emphasizes connection, responsibilities, and relationships. Creating a model…

The relationship between assistant principals' orientation process and career mobility is examined in this qualitative study, based on the assumption that the assistant principalship is a testing and an opportunity position for both the candidate and the organization. Methodology involved formal and informal interviews with 20 secondary school…

Analyzes the assistant principalship in terms of socialization, the enculturation process, and the actual work activity of assistant principals. Training and work of assistant principals should be restructured to avoid a trend toward development of a custodial, non-risk taking, noninstructional leader orientation. (PS)

Studies school-site administrators' understanding about ways of gaining/maintaining power, control, and predictability. Multisite study data concerning assistant principals identify rules of the game for four micropolitical (site-level assumptive world) domains. Assumptive worlds create avoidance of value conflicts and risky change, group-think…

School administrators' uses of subjective understandings and common language to gain and maintain power and predictability in their environments are described. Micropolitical theory, with a focus on language, is utilized to understand administrators' knowledge of the assumptive worlds of their subculture, and how these assumptive worlds constrain…