Background: Systems thinking is a holistic approach that puts the study of wholes before that of parts. It does not try to break systems down into parts in order to understand them; instead, it focuses attention on how the parts act together in networks of interactions. Purpose: This study explored the development of holistic school leadership--an…

School principals may be seen as mediating agents, standing at the school doorstep, between the extra-school and intra-school worlds. The principals' mediating role becomes more crucial during a time of education reform, which involves external demands on the one hand, and teachers' resistance to these demands on the other. This study explores how…

The current qualitative study sought to examine how male and female principals enact their instructional leadership. Data were collected through 59 semi-structured interviews with 36 female principals and 23 male principals from Israel, and analysed in a four-stage process--condensing, coding, categorising, and theorising. Findings presented two…

During reforms, principals often experience ambiguity, contradicting demands, and lack of information. As critical change agents and system players, principals interpret reform demands and translate them into school practices through a process of sense-making. The current qualitative research explored 59 elementary school principals' sense-making…

Purpose: Turning an education reform program into school reality greatly depends on the principal. In certain cases, principals choose to implement reform instructions only partially. The purpose of this paper is to explore school principals' considerations leading to their decisions not to fulfill a national reform's guidelines in a full and…

Existing preparation programmes for school principals have been widely criticized for failing to prepare their students adequately for their future roles. This study investigated a workshop at a principal preparation programme which focused on collaborative learning from personal real-life cases, exploring its potential contribution to the…

Purpose: Many countries throughout the world provide all children with free education. However, sometimes there are user charges in publically funded schools worldwide. The purpose of this paper is to explore parental participation fees in school expenses in Israel, depicting the current situation and analyzing its implications.…

As instructional leadership involves attempts to understand and improve complex systems, this study explored principals' perceptions regarding possible contributions of systems thinking to instructional leadership. Based on a qualitative analysis, systems thinking was perceived by middle and high school principals to contribute to the following…

This study explores the official policy of the state of Israel in regard to principal preparation programs, a topic which has hardly been investigated so far and has gone through significant change in recent years. Public documents from Israel were explored. Document analysis was a three-stage process--condensing, coding and categorizing. The…

In recent years, several cities in Israel have labeled themselves "Education Cities," concentrating on education as their central theme. Employing qualitative techniques, this article aims to describe, define, and conceptualize this phenomenon as it is being realized in three such cities. Findings show that Education Cities differ from…

This article presents a case study of a school designed for youth hospitalized for mental disorders, aiming to reveal the educational approach of such a school, a topic on which nothing has been written so far. The study, which lasted a year, employed qualitative techniques: observations, document collection and interviews. The study has found…