Binali Tunç

School administrators’ leadership styles and resistance to change

In the study, the relation between school administrators’ leadership style and resistance to change and prediction level of leadership styles for behaviours about resistance to change were discussed. Leadership styles of educational leaders which can vary according to their cultural, personal, psychological and educational qualities play a key role in change process. For this, it was tried to be determined in the study which leadership styles become prominent in managing successfully the change process in education. The study was based on field research using primary data gathered from 287 school administrators by Resistance to Change Scale (Oreg, 2003) and Leadership Style Scale (Tas, Celik and Tomul, 2007). Correlation analysis technique was used to analyze the relation between administrators’ leadership style and resistance to change. In addition, multiple regression analysis technique was used to determine prediction level of leadership styles for resistance to change. There is a low relation between leadership styles and resistance to change, and leadership styles predict resistance to change at a low level. The study group was 287 administrators. The school administrators’ leadership styles (autocratic, democratic, laissez-faire, transformational and transactional) are related at a low level with resistance to change. However, it is understood that resistance to change is also affected by factors other than leadership styles. This point appears to be reasonable when change is considered to be a complex process with multi-factors. Negative relation between autocratic or laissez-faire leadership styles and resistance to change seems a striking result of the study. Consistent with this, it isn’t also expected that democratic leadership style increases routine behaviours. However, the fact that autocratic and laissez-faire leadership of administrators reduce resistance to change doesn’t mean that they support change. It can be said that, no mater what the change is about, resistance is unavoidable due to uncertainties and loss of habits.

Women's Career Barriers and Professional Alienation: The Teachers’ Case in Turkey

Article History: Received 09.01.2018 Received in revised form 14.05.2018 Accepted 05.06.2018 Available online 12.06.2018 In this study, the relationship between career barriers of women teachers and their alienation to the teaching is examined. Although the number of women teachers was close to the male teachers in the study, the reasons leading to the decrease in the number of women teachers in the administrational career steps were taken as career barriers. The study group consists of 728 teachers working in public schools in central districts (Mezitli, Yenişehir, Toroslar and Akdeniz) of Mersin. Data were collected through “Women Employees’ Career Barriers Scale” (WECBS) by İnandı (2009) and “Alienation Scale” (AS) by Elma (2003). It was revealed that there is a linear relationship between women teachers’ career barriers and alienation, and also, career barriers have predictive power on alienation, though at a low level. Research results show that all the women teachers accept the presence of career barriers. Women teachers’ career barriers are sorted according to their predictive power as “domestic barriers, social gender stereotypes, women’s viewpoint of career, education, working hours, age, economic reasons and marital status, and school-environment barriers”. Women teachers are most influenced by domestic barriers. In other words, women teachers are expecting the most support from their families during career development. On the other hand, social gender stereotypes are still influential in teaching profession, which brings about negative consequences for women.