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Principals come to their current positions with their own beliefs about their role, about their practice, and about other educational issues related to the nature of education: schools, teachers, students, community, and professional growth. These and all other factors that influence how principals think about their job are what I refer to as "principals' professional beliefs." This study demonstrated that principals bring to change initiatives their professional beliefs and those beliefs influence how they interpret the language of the change initiative, how they conceptualize the change, and how they plan for enactment of the policy change. I used a multi-case study approach to examine how eight principals in a school district that was undergoing a district policy change, thought about their enactment of the change at the school level. I identified three groups of principals: (1) supporters of teacher decision making, (2) facilitators of shared values, and (3) promoters of mutual respect. These principals differed in their involvement in the negotiation of the way the change would be carried out in the school, how much and what kinds of support they offered to teachers, and the degree of autonomy they allowed teachers in determining how the change would be implemented. Three questions guided the study: (1) What factors influence principals' responses to a change in school district policy? More specifically, what are the professional and context-specific issues the principals consider as they interpret a school district policy change and plan for their own action in carrying out that change process? (2) How do principals enact the policy changes in their own schools? (3) What impact did the principals perceive that the policy change had on their enactment of their role? This study provides insights into how principals understand and interpret educational policy language, how they work toward the development of collaborative relationships and collegial cultures, and how their professional beliefs inform their practice. The policy change and the language of the policy is mediated through principals' professional belief systems as they determine how they will enact the policy change. This study disputes findings in existing literature and contributes to our understanding of change in schools by recognizing that principals play significant roles in change at the school level.

The study of promotion or executive succession has been of interest to educators since the beginning of schools. Who should be a school's principal? The purpose of this study was twofold. First to investigate executive succession within large, urban Canadian schools boards, and second, to use a dramatic work---a play---to represent the major findings. Theatre is used to present society and its workings, it is a method of data representation that permits human emotion, care, conflict and tension to become palpable, to provoke an audience. The two purposes of this study merged to provide insight unto the "reality" of school principals' promotions from the perspective of practitioners. / Data on promotion was collected from thirteen seasoned school administrators through extended interviews. Respondents were encouraged to relate stories of individual promotions, as they understood them. The data was transcribed and analyzed using the constant comparison approach. This method yielded multiple levels of analysis including areas of reference, spheres of infra-influcnce (highly related concepts), and rules of inclusion (subsuming large amounts of data). / It was clear that promotion was a "political act" where several stakeholders fought for their interests. Then followed transcendence---the movement from the naturalistically collected and analyzed data to the play---the movement from science to art form. The rules of inclusion inspired the foundations of the novella, the novella led to the play; characters, scenes and actions were developed. A group of actors rehearsed and prepared a staged reading. Tim play was presented to a group of educators who were asked to respond to it at two levels---the work as a provocation device for preparing educational administrators and the work as the "reality" of promotion. / Clearly, the theatrical work stimulated the audience and indicated there is a valid place in administrator preparation programs for dramatic works. As well, the notion of promotion as "seeking the best possible candidate" was challenged as stakeholders' Interests dictated both promotion procedures and candidate succession. The title, Transitional Wars, seemed to capture the essence of the work.