Why do teachers become poor performers? In semi-structured interviews, forty elementary school principals in Israel described the personal story of one poor-performing staff member. Half of the problematic teachers were veteran teachers who faced a marked internal and external shift in mid-career. The seeds of their problems were probably planted…

The life stories of seven female midcareer elementary principals in Israel who transferred to new schools depicted a process of self-renewal, including coping with lack of fulfillment, setting new goals, reframing perspectives, and seeking new challenges. Interorganizational transition appeared either to evoke the process or to be stimulated by…

Investigated life history of American career women (N=24) at midlife. The transitions experienced by these women during their lifetimes were categorized into "masculine" or "feminine" types. It was found that they were distributed about equally between the two types of transitions, thus excluding a simple biological approach.…

A study of middle-aged women in five Israeli sub-cultures--immigrant Jews from central Europe, Turkey, Persia, and North Africa and Israeli-born Muslim Arabs--reflects the expectation that culture may shape the response to biological change. The study was carried out in four phases. First, psychiatric interviews were conducted with 55 women. In…