Purpose: This study examined the diverse expressions of self-fulfillment among principals working in Israel's special education system for complex disabilities. It addressed two primary questions: (1) What are the perceived manifestations of self-fulfillment among principals in the context of complex disabilities? (2) What examples of…

Instructional leadership can be explained as an educational leadership approach whereby the school principal engages in a wide range of activities aiming to improve teaching and learning for all students. A recent meta-analysis found that female principals engaged in more active instructional leadership than male counterparts. The current…

This paper is based on a study about managers of daycare centres in Israel, which provide early childhood education (ECE) for the ages of birth to three years old. It focused on the daycare managers' professional and female identities. On the background of the relatively low educational standards in the centres, the study strives to make the…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to focus on gender and social justice (SJ) among pioneer female principals and superintendents in the Arab education system in Israel. The research questions were: what motivated these women to act for SJ? Are there common personal characteristics and educational values which characterize these women? What…

This quantitative investigation focuses on women high school principals at Jewish secular schools throughout Israel. Despite challenges, Israeli women have succeeded in obtaining over half of the principal positions at Jewish secular high schools, but the degree to which there is equal gender access to leadership roles in the school system remains…

This paper examines emotional expression experienced by female principals in the Arab school system in Israel over their managerial careers--role-related emotions that they choose to express or repress before others. I employed narrative methodology, interviewing nine female principals from the Arab school system to investigate expression of…

This article discusses challenges facing novice principals (hereinafter: NPs) and the coping strategies they develop at the inception of their managerial careers. Qualitative research employed semi-structured interviews with 40 principals in the Arab education system in Israel. Findings indicated that Arab NPs face conflicting demands of their…

This paper discusses the decision of Muslim female principals in Israel to don the hijab following their appointment to school principalship. This research employed narrative life-story interviews to understand the women's decision to alter their appearance and how this transition is connected to their role as female school principals in the…

Transformational learning is a process resulting in deep and significant change in habitual patterns of identity, thought, emotion, and action, enabling new approaches to role enactment. This article explores how moving from a framework of dilemmas, which require solutions and one-sided choices, to a framework of paradoxes that embraces tensions…

Israel is a multicultural state where ultra-Orthodox groups run their own separate schools. The present phenomenological study examined and compared the management patterns and educational emphases of three women principals of religious schools (Muslim, Christian [Franciscan], and ultra-Orthodox Jewish). The findings show that the ultra-Orthodox…

This study investigates the managerial career development of two Arab women, pioneer principals within the Arab education system in Israel. Using in-depth interviews relating to the characteristics of the different stages leading up to and within their careers as school principals (childhood and academic studies; the struggle to achieve the…

This article presents the results of in-depth interviews with three Israeli women Druze school principals. They are among the first such educational leaders in their community and the interviews with them demonstrate their personal strengths, the importance of family support and of mentors and key academic programs in propelling them forward, the…

The study of women's management and leadership in education has become a central research topic and the copious work published in many countries encompasses various issues relating to gender and educational leadership. The study of female school principals from the Arab minority in Israel has only recently begun. This is a minority that lives…

Purpose: This paper's purpose is to tell the life-stories of four women who succeeded in forging paths to senior positions as principals in Arab schools in Israel and to describe the personal, professional and sociopolitical contexts of their principalship. Design/methodology/approach: This is part of a larger research effort that explored the…

The purpose of the current study was to unearth subjective interpretations of women principals concerning job satisfaction and dissatisfaction in their career and to examine whether their interpretations differ from common, "androgynous" constructions of job satisfaction developed outside the field of education but that constitute the…