Search results

During the past 25 years, many researchers and scholars have suggested that schools and school organizations often operate with a structural looseness much different from that of the rational bureaucracy. Coupling and linkage are two metaphors which have been developed to describe the intricacies of life in schools and school organizations. Briefly reviews some of the developments of the linkage metaphor, the relationships between coupling and linkage, and illustrates how the linkage metaphor might be useful in developing greater understanding of change processes in schools and school organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to explore four women principals’ experiences with power in the course of their daily leadership. The data used in this exploration was collected through in‐depth interviews, conducted from a phenomenological perspective, during the second and third years of a three‐year study on the leadership experiences of the four principals. The thematic findings which emerged from this data included empowerment, positive power, traditional power and negative power, and are discussed in relation to three lenses of power: dominance or “power over”, facilitation or “power through”, and as energy and competence or “power with”. The four principals’ experiences were remarkable in that they were extensively engaged in interpreting, experiencing and using power as “power through” and “power with” rather than as “power over”. The findings from this research serve as examples of ways in which power is enacted by women leaders within traditional organizational settings, and the potential of their actions to positively transform school organizations and the experiences of those who work within them.

Power relations affect all aspects of our lives. MacGregor Burns states that “Power is ubiquitous; it permeates human relationships … Power shows many faces and takes many forms”. The purpose of this paper was to explore women principals’ experiences with power relations in the schools during times of increase in decentralization and accountability. The findings of this phenomenological study were that the six principals viewed power as an enabling, and a positive energy for change and growth in schools rather than a source of “top‐down” domination. Their descriptions of power also asserted that “power is not reducible to any one source”, and that an understanding of poststructuralist and structuralist theories of power will be essential for school leaders facing the dilemmas and challenges of the twenty‐first century.