Adam E. Nir

Planning for academic excellence: tenure and professional considerations

Based on role theory suppositions, the following study explores how role stress which follows occupational insecurity influences the professional considerations of pre‐tenure faculty. In‐depth interviews were conducted with ten Israeli pre‐tenure and six tenured faculty members working at three different Israeli universities in the faculties of humanities and social sciences. The findings reflect pre‐tenure faculty’s stress, following their difficulty in determining to what extent individual professional conduct meets the institutional standards of excellence that make one eligible for tenure. Moreover, it was found that such circumstances encourage pre‐tenure faculty’s tendency to ‘play safe,’ which was evident in their inclination towards conservatism dominating their professional considerations. Conversely, tenured faculty who experience stress which results from their struggle for recognition and professional fulfilment reported they are less worried regarding their professional future, and are therefore more willing to take risks and become involved in more profound and speculative ventures. It is suggested that providing support through mentorship and periodical formative assessments are likely to make new faculty’s role stress more manageable. In addition it is argued that tenure and the security it provides is an important feature of academic life, and a major means for sustaining faculty members’ motivation to pursue new endeavours.

School‐based management and the role conflict of the school superintendent

Although superintendency has long been considered a high‐conflict role, little is known about the way decentralization initiatives are perceived by superintendents and how they influence their coping strategies, especially when confronting role conflict following the introduction of school‐based management (SBM) in centralized educational systems. Data collected in a set of in‐depth interviews conducted with school superintendents provide evidence for a role conflict that they experience following the introduction of SBM. It is evident that superintendents tend to employ rationalization and resistance as two major coping strategies with these newly created circumstances, in an attempt to restore the relevancy and the professional status of their role. Based on the findings, it is argued that superintendents are more likely to adopt a destructive rather than constructive problem‐focused coping strategy and may therefore, prove to be restraining factors and obstacles for the implementation of SBM in a centralized educational system.

School-Parents Relationship in the Era of School-Based Management: Harmony or Conflict?

Parents’ expectations and demands of schools have traditionally exposed school-level educators to a major difficulty of maintaining a proper balance between parental involvement and intervention with schools. The following study explores how the increase in schools’ authority following the introduction of School-Based Management (SBM) in schools and involvement with the community schools’ ideology provoke parents’ militant behaviors against schools. Questionnaires were administered in the Israeli educational system to 991 parents affiliated with three different groups of elementary schools: 20 SBM schools, 21 community schools and 19 SBM-community schools. Findings show that parents express the highest degree of militancy in terms of their willingness to use sanctions against schools in SBM-community schools. This finding remains stable even when parents’ trust and satisfaction with schools are statistically controlled. Taking into consideration the close relations maintained between parents and community schools and schools’ extended formal authority following the introduction of SBM, this finding indicates that the SBM-community school combination provokes parents’ militancy when they realize that schools capable of meeting their demands are reluctant to do so. It is concluded, therefore, that while SBM intends to empower schools by extending their authority and autonomy, it may lead to the opposite result in different organizational settings. This study was sponsored by the Silbert Fund.

School autonomy and 21st century skills in the Israeli educational system: Discrepancies between the declarative and operational levels

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze two parallel processes in the Israeli educational system: first, the idea of school autonomy, exploring its origins and its pedagogical implications and effectiveness; and second, the development of the progressive education evident mainly in the cognitive domain of twenty-first century skills (21st CS), focussing on fostering “deep knowledge” and children’s thinking skills. The manuscript explores the various “waves” of progressive pedagogies that have taken place in the Israeli school system over the years, describing and analyzing the processes that characterize them. Design/methodology/approach Based on a historical perspective, the paper describes chronologically the main developments related to school autonomy and 21st CS policy initiatives, based on a literature review and analysis of policy documents. Findings The review indicates that the Israeli educational system is still caught in the “centralization trap,” inhibiting major changes in the patterns of central control and degrees of freedom granted to school-level educators. As for school pedagogy, it is evident that most of the changes in pedagogy suggested by the numerous policy documents over the years have not resulted in sustainable, system-wide change. In both issues a large disparity is evident between declarations about innovative pedagogies and school autonomy and their actual implementation. Originality/value The review reflects the idiosyncratic articulation of policy plans conducted by the Ministry of Education, producing discrepancies and incongruences at the school level. Some implications of the “declarative culture” created are further discussed.

School principals’ leadership style and school outcomes

Purpose – While the significance of principals for the organizational behavior of schools is crucial, school leaders’ influence on school outcomes is indirect and mediated through various means that leaders employ in order to increase the productivity of their school. Although the exercise of power is viewed among the main factors explaining followers’ willingness to comply with leaders’ demands and means to promote school effectiveness, it is rather surprising that the educational administration literature lacks substantial evidence testifying to the mediating effect that principals’ use of various powerbases has on school effectiveness. The purpose of this paper is to make an attempt to fill this gap. Design/methodology/approach – Questionnaires were administered to 954 teachers coming from 191 randomly sampled public elementary schools. Findings – Evidence testifying to the relation between leadership styles and use of powerbases suggests that the transformational leadership style is positively related...

The impact of school‐based management on supervision instructors’ professional considerations

The following study examines how, and to what extent, the introduction of school‐based management (SBM) in schools and the authority thereby delegated to principals to hire and dismiss supervision instructors have changed instructors’ role expectations and job conflict and affected their professional considerations. Based on data gathered from in‐depth interviews, it was evident that before SBM, supervision instructors typically faced multiple and contradicting expectations and, therefore, used various strategies to avoid role conflicts. However, after SBM was introduced, the discrepancy among these expectations has increased, and so did the uncertainty and insecurity that instructors perceived on the job. These circumstances have encouraged instructors to prefer personal concerns over professional obligations and to direct their efforts so that their future employment will be ensured. The study concludes that school principals need to increase their professional knowledge regarding supervision instruction and devote their efforts towards establishing an organizational learning culture in their schools.

Opportunities and Challenges of Integrated Education in Conflict-Ridden Societies: The Case of Palestinian-Jewish Schools in Israel.

The Political Context As much as any other modern nation-state, Israel is a product of an invented tradition (Hobsbawm, 1983) and has institutionalized itself by establishing public education, organizing a standardized legal system, and developing a secular equivalent to the church (Ben-Amos & Bet-El, 1999; Gellner, 1997; Handelman, 1990). The Palestinian-Jewish conflict started with the birth of political Zionism at the end of the 19th century and the development of Arab nationalism in response to colonialization in the Ottoman and the British Empires in the 19th and 20th centuries (Abdo & Yuval-Davis, 1995; Kelman, 1997). Since the 1920s, violence has afflicted the area, and became fiercer when Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion declared Israel’s independence in 1948 without declaring the state borders, a declaration that ensued from the UN partition decision in 1947. The 1948 war, called the War of Independence by the Israelis and the Nakba (“The Catastrophe”) by the Palestinian Arabs, was the first open military clash between the Zionist and Arab nationalist movements. Four major wars have erupted since then in 1956, 1967,1973, and 1982. In 1977, Israel and Egypt signed a peace agreement. The intifada outbreaks in 1997 and 2000, organized in the conquered territories under the 7 The idea of creating

The Contribution of Perceived Fit between Job Demands and Abilities to Teachers' Commitment and Job Satisfaction.

The current study aims at exploring the common means that may improve organizational effectiveness by focusing on two main facets of organizational qualities: teacher commitment and job satisfaction. Data were collected from 841 randomly sampled teachers employed in 118 elementary schools in Israel. A quantitative questionnaire, which included scales measuring organizational and professional commitment, extrinsic and intrinsic satisfaction and organizational and job-related characteristics, was employed. Multiple regression analyses revealed that the single variable that predicted both types of commitment (organizational and professional) and both types of satisfaction (intrinsic and extrinsic) was teachers’ perceptions of the fit between ones job demands and abilities. The second most influential predictor was principals’ interaction with the teachers. Job-related characteristics had the least impact on teacher’s professional commitment and extrinsic satisfaction. The finding, that perceived job fit predicted both commitment and job satisfaction, reinforces the importance of the assumption about the significance of best practice in recruitment and placement processes, which has long been known to be significant in determining professional conduct. Other implications of the findings are discussed, and recommendations are provided to school principals.

The effect of political stability on public education quality

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide a preliminary analysis to evaluate the implications of political stability for educational quality, evident in the survival rate measure.Design/methodology/approach – Secondary analyses were conducted for data drawn from the Political Risk Service Report, the World Bank Report, the United Nations Report and the OECD Report, using a sample comprising 47 countries, 26 politically stable and 21 politically unstable during a ten‐year period of time (1998‐2008).Findings – The study reveals that political stability plays a major role in explaining the survival rate in education when used as a single predictor or, when introduced in the analysis with the GDP per capita. Following previously reported findings suggesting causal relations between high economic growth and regime stability, the authors’ analyses show that as far as educational quality is concerned, political stability plays a far more significant role compared to countries’ economic circumstances evid...

Administrators’ perceived role vulnerability ‐ A comparison of centralized domesticated and decentralized undomesticated organizations

In what way is administrators’ perceived role vulnerability (PRV) related to the organization’s structural characteristics? A comparison of administrators’ PRV is made of “domesticated” centralized public schools and “undomesticated” self‐governed community centers, both operating and serving children and parents in the same neighborhoods. The findings obtained indicate that school administrators perceive vulnerability to be greater than do community center administrators. These findings are rather surprising considering that public schools are not involved in competition for clients. It is therefore argued that much depends on the degree of autonomy and flexibility that administrators have and that introducing competition to schools has to be synchronized with the autonomy and freedom of action delegated to school administrators.