The core purpose of school leadership is to provide leadership and management in all areas of the school to enable the creation and support of conditions under which high quality teaching and learning can take place and which can promote the highest possible standards of learner achievement. This study aimed to examine the roles of the school principals in monitoring teaching and learning in inner-city and township secondary schools in the Gauteng province. The study used a case study research design in which one inner-city and township secondary schools were purposely selected as cases for the study. The school principals, deputy school principals, heads of departments and educators were observed over a period of fourteen days in each school after which were interviewed. Both the observation and interview protocols were piloted. All interviews were tape recorded and confidentiality was assured. Interviews were transcribed and analysed through content analysis (Strauss1987).Emerging themes were used to create a comparative data set across the stakeholders’ content analysis. The analyses were then triangulated as a means of establishing the trustworthiness of the accounts. Observations and questions focussed upon the roles of the school principal in monitoring teaching and learning with reference to the school curriculum, the tools school principals use in monitoring teaching and learning and how school principals monitor teaching and learning in such schooling contexts. They indicate that the role of school principals as instructional leaders in monitoring teaching and learning is supervision which involves leadership roles in educator professional development, curriculum supervision, collegiality, care and response. They not only indicate the complex contextual roles of school principals in monitoring teaching and learning in the challenging circumstances in the inner-city and township secondary schools, but the mechanisms school principals use to monitor teaching and learning in such contexts. School principals minimally participate in the monitoring of teaching and learning and rely on feedback from classroom observations and learner data collected by the deputy school principals’, heads of departments/ subject heads and class educators to monitor learner performances in the schools.

This study focused on the challenges female school principals face in managing their schools effectively and the possible strategies to overcome these challenges. Ten schools from Mpumalanga province were purposively selected as research sites. Participants were the school principal and a member of the school management team of each school. Individual interviews with the school principals and an open-ended questionnaire to the school management team members were used to collect data. The findings revealed that a lack of confidence in female leadership with related gender discrimination, a lack of support and respect from staff and the community, and unfair practices with the promotion procedures of women are the main challenges that hamper female leaders in managing their schools well. The fostering of a positive attitude towards female leadership, a strong support system, female leaders empowering themselves and an effort to build good relationships with all stakeholders represent solution strategies. / Educational Leadership and Management / M. Ed. (Education Management)

La santé psychologique en emploi s’avère un sujet d’intérêt au Québec vu ses nombreuses retombées importantes sur les travailleurs et les organisations. Parmi les différents secteurs d’activités, les travailleurs du milieu de l’éducation, plus spécifiquement les directions d’établissement scolaire, présentent un état de santé psychologique moindre que la population générale. Des responsabilités professionnelles composées de conflits relationnels et d’une surcharge de travail engendrent un coût psychologique pour ces travailleurs. Il s’avère donc important d’identifier les moyens qui permettront d’améliorer et de maintenir une bonne santé psychologique. Le modèle des demandes ressources de l’emploi avance que les ressources interagissent avec les demandes de manière à réduire l’effet négatif de ces dernières sur la santé psychologique en emploi. La thèse aura pour objectif de valider l’effet protecteur de certaines ressources en fonction des principales causes de mauvaise santé des directions d’établissement scolaire. En effet, certaines ressources seraient plus appropriées en fonction des caractéristiques de l’emploi. En considérant que leur état de santé psychologique est principalement engendré par les conflits relationnels et la surcharge de travail vécue en emploi, les habiletés politiques et le sentiment d’efficacité personnel ont été retenus comme ressource. En effet, les études antérieures montrent que posséder un niveau élevé d’habiletés politiques protégerait des difficultés relationnelles, alors que le sentiment d’efficacité personnelle s’avérait utile face à une grande charge de travail. Sous cette perspective, le premier article vise à étudier la structure factorielle des dimensions de l’inventaire des habiletés politiques auprès d’un poste de gestion et plus particulièrement de directions d’établissement scolaire. Une étude antérieure réalisée auprès de gestionnaires montre que l’outil se déploie en cinq facteurs chez cette population. Les constats indiquent que l’outil se déploie en quatre facteurs pour une population de directions d’établissement scolaire, tel que l’outil original validé auprès d’une population non-cadre. Le deuxième article valide le rôle des habiletés politiques comme ressources personnelles pour minimiser l’effet néfaste des conflits interpersonnels sur la santé psychologique en emploi, en concordance avec le modèle demande ressource de l’emploi. Le sentiment d’efficacité personnelle sera également considéré comme étant une ressource personnelle pour contrer l’effet des demandes de l’emploi sur la santé psychologique en emploi. Les résultats constatent que seulement la dimension des habiletés politiques, astuce sociale, modère la relation entre l’anxiété et les demandes de l’emploi. / Psychological health at work is a subject of interest in Quebec because of is many important repercussions on workers and organizations. Among the different sectors of activity, workers in the education sector, more specifically school principals, have a lower level of psychological health than the general population. Professional responsibilities composed of relational conflicts and overwork, generate a psychological cost for these workers. It is therefore important to identify ways to improve and maintain good psychological health. The Employment Resource Requests model suggests that resources interact with demands to reduce the negative impact of demands on psychological health in employment. The aim of the thesis will be to validate the protective effect of certain resources according to the main causes of poor health of school management. Indeed, some resources would be more appropriate depending on the characteristics of the job. Considering that their psychological state of health is mainly caused by relational conflicts and the overload of work experienced in employment, political skills and the feeling of personal efficiency were retained as resources. Indeed, previous studies show that having a high level of political skills would protect relational difficulties, while the feeling of self-efficacy proved useful in the face of a large workload. From this perspective, the first article aims to study the factorial structure of the dimensions of the inventory of political skills in a management position and more specifically school management. An earlier study of managers shows that the tool is deployed in five factors in this population. The findings indicate that the tool is deployed in four factors for a population of principals, such as the original tool validated with a non-executive population. The second article validates the role of political skills as a personal resource to minimize the adverse effect of interpersonal conflict on psychological health in employment, in line with the employment demand model. Self-efficacy will also be considered as a personal resource to counter the effect of job demands on psychological health in employment. The results find that only the dimension of political skills, social trick, moderates the relationship between anxiety and job demands.