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Putting together the pieces of me : an autoethnography of a teaching principal in an exceptionally small rural school

Two factorsrole duality and school sizeimpact teaching principals abilities to fulfill their roles and responsibilities. Principals with significant teaching loads experience role duality a situation in which one person fills two distinct roles. Teaching principals experience role tension and conflicts between professional teaching concerns, leadership demands and management issues. Further tensions are created when policymakers demands fail to recognize complexities around the roles of a teaching principal working in a unique context (Dunning, 1993; Wilson & McPake, 2000). Specifically, though the tensions of role duality are known to be more challenging in small schools, exceptionally small schools are a different context altogether. My autoethnographic study examined the complexity of my teaching principals role in an exceptionally small rural school. It was guided by a central question: How does the context of an exceptionally small, rural school impact upon a teaching principal's role(s)? Sub questions included: (a) How do stakeholder expectations (school staff, community, division, Ministry) impact a teaching principals roles and responsibilities in an exceptionally small rural school? and (b) What challenges and opportunities does a teaching principal face in an exceptionally small rural school? Documentation from two daily personal journals and my what I do log during the 2009 2010 school year provided research data. My analysis focused on three themes: fractured roles, capacity to meet expectations and establishing relationships. This study added to current research rich narratives describing the impact of an exceptionally small school on a teaching principals role.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:SSU.etd-01102011-172037
Date25 February 2011
Creatorsde Gooijer, Joyce
ContributorsStelmach, Bonnie, Prytula, Michelle, Claypool, Tim, Cottrell, Michael, Burgess, David
PublisherUniversity of Saskatchewan
Source SetsLibrary and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
Sourcehttp://library.usask.ca/theses/available/etd-01102011-172037/
Rightsunrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Saskatchewan or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report.

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