Proposes a framework to examine principals' careers and argues for more research attention on that subject. The framework facilitates understanding of the principalship incentive system by showing how objective features of the principal's role and the principal's own assessment of the career are intertwined. Principals' accounts of their careers…

To implement school restructuring, midcareer administrators must change their role conceptions. This article examines literature concerning the major issues of socialization to a role conception (including definitions, sources, and socialization mechanisms for changing role conceptions) and presents a research agenda focused on two reform…