The Future of Education
Do Teachers Need to be Leaders? Perceptions of Educational Leadership and Management in the Israeli Secondary Educational System
Tsafi Timor, The Kibbutzim College of Education, Technology & The Arts (Israel)
Abstract
This study explores the perceptions of the roles of homeroom teachers and subject teachers in secondary schools, in the context of leadership and management. While previous studies refer to the level of school head in the discussion of leadership versus management, the present study addresses the level of teaching with regard to the two prevailing roles: homeroom teachers and subject teachers. The participants of the study are students in the biggest College of Education in Israel. The research questions revolved around two main questions: 1. Is there a dichotomy in the respondents' perceptions, by which homeroom teachers must be leaders while subject teachers must be class managers? 2. Which models of educational leadership are reflected in the students' responses? The analysis was conducted on the students' posts in an online forum of an academic course entitled "Classroom Leadership and Management". The mixed approach was used, combining qualitative and quantitative methods.
The findings indicated a differentiation between the perceptions of the two roles on the level of ideology as opposed to the practical level. The level of ideology indicated a consensus on the fact that teachers' role requires both leadership and management skills, regardless whether the teacher is a homeroom teacher or a subject teacher. The findings regarding the practical level yielded a perceived dichotomy between the two roles: whereas the homeroom teacher was perceived much more as the class leader than as the class manager, the subject teacher was perceived much more as the class manager than as the class leader. The students used a variety of arguments that were clustered into themes to support their answers.
Most of the respondents described leadership as bearing transformational elements. However, a new type of leadership emerged in the study, empathetic/emotional leadership. This new type of leadership emphasizes the humanistic approach to teaching.
It is recommended that further research focus on the exploration of other gaps between school reality and teacher training frameworks, in order to narrow these gaps during the induction phase.
