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Viewing school as a feminine bias workplace alongside being a field of power relations as argued by Bourdieu, this study examines (1) gender differences among teachers in different forms of capital (cultural, social, and feminine) and in their participation in decision-making (PDM) at school in three domains: managerial, administration, and teaching; (2) the relations between forms of capital and domains of PDM within each gender group.

The study was based on a random sample of 32 schools in Northern Israel that included 595 teachers (454 women; 141 men) who answered a questionnaire, which included background information; teachers' forms of capital; and PDM in managerial, administrative, and teaching domains. Multiple regression analysis was conducted.

Men tend to have an advantage in PDM in managerial issues, while women have an advantage in PDM in teaching. Further, women more than men perceived feminine capital and social capital as contributing to their work. It was also found that more types of capital are related to PDM among women as compared to men. For men, academic cultural capital predicts PDM in the teaching domain. For women, social capital predicts PDM in the three domains; academic cultural capital predicts PDM in the managerial domain; and feminine capital predicts PDM in teaching.

This study focuses simultaneously on different forms of capital, emphasizing the varying contribution of each capital to men and to women teachers. It also offers a set of resources that can demonstrate the complex factors that contribute to teachers' work.

The purpose of this paper is to understand how primary school principals in Israel cope with the gaps between authority and responsibility in their work, deriving from partially implemented decentralization processes, and how this relates to school-based management (SBM) and accountability principles.

Using the qualitative method, 20 semi-structured interviews were conducted with school principals from one district in Israel. Thematic analysis was used in order to identify themes in the interviews that enable creating codes for the characteristics of authority and responsibility and for the principals’ strategies.

Gaps were found between authority and responsibility, with particularly low levels of authority alongside high levels of responsibility. Coupled with the demand for accountability, those gaps led principals to adopt three strategies – active, partly active, and passive – to help reduce the tension resulting from them. The SBM definition has links to the specific strategy that principals used.

The results indicate the importance of clear definitions of authority and responsibility in principals’ work. The current study deepens the understanding of the gaps between these concepts as key for understanding accountability at decentralized schools; tensions that principals cope with as a result of those gaps; and the strategies that enable principals to ease the tension for the benefit of all those involved in the principals’ work.