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Success of curriculum reforms calls for both collaborative learning and unlearning processes. Focusing on the latter, school doubting process, an innovative term, is used in this paper as an active framework for organisational unlearning through which educators question their existing mind-sets and unfreeze old approaches to teaching and learning. This qualitative study explores how high school principals shape a school doubting process during the implementation of a national curriculum reform. The study analyses qualitative data from semi-structured interviews with 22 Israeli high school principals who have implemented a national curriculum reform from all school districts. The findings indicate two major themes and sub-themes: (1) Nurturing a collective unlearning culture: (a) restructuring school thinking; and (b) creating safe time and space for school doubting; (2) Building school capacity: (a) creating collective opportunities for knowledge and skill development; and (b) encouraging shared responsibility for innovation.

COVID-19 requires educational leaders to collectively make sense of their inclusive practices. This qualitative study explores how COVID-19 crisis shaped Israeli superintendents' and principals' role in fostering school sense-making processes during a reform based on Amendment No. 11 to the Special Education Law. Data were collected with 22 Jewish and Arab district and school leaders via Zoom interviews. Data analysis yielded three major themes: (1) Developing a shared vision and direction; (2) Building school capacity for inclusion: (a) nurturing a culture of collective responsibility (b) maintaining mental-resilience skills and well-being; and (3) Fostering school collaboration and trust with stakeholders.

This qualitative study explores school principals' perceptions and enactments of shared sense-making processes during a generally-outlined pedagogical reform, i.e. "a broad-policy reform allowing educators to exercise their discretion in meeting its pedagogical goals," aiming to inquire what makes such processes critical to schools' collective efficacy within reform implementation. Interviews with 25 high school principals implementing this reform in state and religious-state schools produced data, whose analysis yielded two major themes and sub-themes: (1) Communicating a shared vision: (a) a shared pedagogical vision; (b) a shared values-based vision; (c) a shared vision of pedagogical bluff; and (2) Strengthening school collective efficacy: (a) facilitating a collaborative instructional culture; (b) adjusting school reality toward instructional focus. A shared sense-making process offers a beneficial framework for principals and teachers collectively navigating complexity and uncertainty, while implementing ambiguous pedagogical policy demands within their unique contexts.

Through a sense-making lens, this qualitative study explores high school principals' considerations while they perceive and enact additional resources within a national reform implementation. Principals' allocation of resources, especially as part of a national reform, is a complex matter for schools' effectiveness in an era of accountability. This study investigates data from interviews with 22 Israeli high school principals implementing the national reform in secular and religious state schools from all school districts. Data analysis has yielded three themes: (a) promoting students' learning achievements towards matriculation exams; (b) deepening student-teacher relations; and (c) developing a new pedagogy. Exploring the allocation of resources to suit principals' particular needs through a sense-making prism may contribute to the scholarship and to the practice of school leadership while promoting change within a national reform implementation.

Principals' implementation of national reforms in the educational arena resembles a wild ride on a roller coaster as they face with contradicting demands, ongoing confusion and ambiguity. As critical change agents, principals interpret and translate reform demands into local practices through a process of sense-making. This current qualitative research explored 60 high school principals' sense-making processing of their leadership within a national reform through their use of metaphors. Data analysis yielded four themes: (a) reframing the principal's role and pedagogical autonomy; (b) reframing the principal's work; (c) reframing the school culture; and (d) reframing the principal's relationships with teachers. This study expands the currently limited knowledge about principals' experience with and responses to reforms, and suggests implications and further research on metaphors principals use within reform implementation.

Purpose: This conceptual paper explores a novel model explaining teachers' perceptions of their effective leader through the lens of implicit leadership theory (ILT), using the concepts of school principals' sense-making and cognitive complexity (CC). Design/methodology/approach: The sense-making framework and CC theory were used to explain ILT, which focuses on individuals' perceptions of leaders' prototypical and anti-prototypical attributes. Findings: The theoretical model suggests that school principals as sense-makers with high levels of CC will be perceived by teachers as effective in terms of leadership prototypes, whereas teachers' perceptions of principals with low levels of CC will be related to leadership anti-prototypes. Research limitations/implications: This paper suggests a model for a multidimensional understanding of the relationship between principals' sense-making and CC and their influence on teachers' perceptions of an effective leader. Originality/value: Opening avenues for future research into employee perceptions of different leadership characteristics, this model emphasizes the cognitive aspects of school principals within implicit leadership theories. This theoretical model should be further examined empirically, and other types of CC, such as social and behavioral aspects, or affective complexity and self-complexity, should be considered.

This qualitative study explores how 60 Israeli high school principals vary in their perceptions and enactments of shared sense-making processes while engaging in strategic activities to gain teachers' support during a national reform implementation. Data analysis has yielded three major themes: (a) a common language; (b) a collaborative learning process; and (c) a shared working culture. Leveraging a shared sense-making process can serve as a beneficial framework through which principals and faculty members collectively navigate complexity and uncertainty while implementing policy within their unique contexts. Theoretical and practical implications for faculty members and principals are suggested.

Purpose: The study explores characteristics of strong school cultures through principals' exploitation of additional resources within implementation of a national reform. Design/methodology/approach: An interpretive approach was utilized to analyze qualitative data from semi-structured interviews with 35 Israeli high school principals who implemented a national reform in state and religious-state schools from all school districts. Findings: The article presents four types of cracking cultures led by the principals: (1) a school values-based culture, such as respect; (2) a caring culture based on trust and a positive atmosphere; (3) a maintenance achievement-oriented culture; and (4) a creative culture that supports the teachers and takes risks in using resources beyond their intended purpose. Originality/value: Exploring principals' exploitation of resources within a cracking culture may promote school improvement and innovation during national reform implementation.

Educational reform implementation in today's fast changing world requires a critical transition from individual to school sense-making processes. Managing expectations from above (e.g. external demands) and below (e.g. internal school goals) while performing within multiple overlapping contexts, principals seem pulled in many different directions simultaneously. This article proposes the concept of sense-making as a collaborative framework, explaining how principals make sense with their teachers through dialogue and negotiation to improve their schools as they constantly seek to understand the unique contexts in which they operate. This holistic approach invites a new perspective on how to develop models for reforming education systems while paving the way for a collaborative sense-making process within unique school contexts.

In the face of the dynamic tension between internal goals and external reform demands, school principals' role has become increasingly more complex and their sense-making more crucial. Yet, research has paid little attention to the significant role principals perform as sense makers in local reform implementation processes. This study explores high school principals' perceptions and enactment of and for their role in the implementation of a national education reform. Through a sense-making lens, this qualitative study explores principals' considerations while they perceive and enact their role within a national reform. This study investigates data from interviews with 60 Israeli high school principals implementing the national reform in state (Jewish and Arab sectors) and religious-state schools from all school districts. Data analysis has yielded three major themes: (a) caring for teachers' needs; (b) preserving leadership discretion; and (c) adjusting to school reality. Results demonstrate the principal's role as an active sense-maker in times of education reforms. Exploring principals' perceptions within the framework of sense-making may contribute to the scholarship and to the practice of the complex leadership role in times of national reforms.

During reforms, principals often experience ambiguity, contradicting demands, and lack of information. As critical change agents and system players, principals interpret reform demands and translate them into school practices through a process of sense-making. The current qualitative research explored 59 elementary school principals' sense-making of their leadership within a national reform through the use of metaphors. Data analysis yielded three reframing themes: (1) principal's role; (2) principal's work; and (3) relationships with teachers. This study expands the currently limited knowledge about principals' experience with and responses to reforms, while suggesting implications and further research regarding metaphors within the sense-making framework.

Leading an inclusion and integration reform during COVID-19, educational leaders embraced a multicultural approach responsive to students’ uniqueness. This qualitative study explores how elementary school principals and counselors developed multicultural school competencies (MSC) during the pandemic to promote inclusive multicultural education. Interviews with 25 Israeli educational leaders yielded three main themes: (1) demonstrating multicultural commitment; (2) building relational skills; (3) fostering social-emotional learning. Findings indicate that school counselors played a critical role in developing MSC during the pandemic. We outline a new model that enables multicultural school leaders, principals, and counselors to re-skill and up-skill MSC in a post-pandemic environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effective education reform depends on its successful realization by the school leadership carrying out the reform. School principals and middle leaders in the 21st century re-examine their traditional role so as to understand complexities and ambiguities characterizing their various responsibilities within the context of school reform. As critical change agents and system players, formal leaders interpret reform demands and translate them into school practices through a process of sense-making. Though sense-making is an ongoing process that school leaders undergo personally and collectively during policy reforms, little attention has been paid to the role principals and middle leaders perform as sense-makers. This literature review article explores sense-making in school leadership through a holistic approach. It demonstrates how sense-making is framed in both theoretical and empirical studies as well as suggests implications and avenues for future research.

Success of curriculum reforms calls for both collaborative learning and unlearning processes. Focusing on the latter, school doubting process, an innovative term, is used in this paper as an active framework for organisational unlearning through which educators question their existing mind-sets and unfreeze old approaches to teaching and learning. This qualitative study explores how high school principals shape a school doubting process during the implementation of a national curriculum reform. The study analyses qualitative data from semi-structured interviews with 22 Israeli high school principals who have implemented a national curriculum reform from all school districts. The findings indicate two major themes and sub-themes: (1) Nurturing a collective unlearning culture: (a) restructuring school thinking; and (b) creating safe time and space for school doubting; (2) Building school capacity: (a) creating collective opportunities for knowledge and skill development; and (b) encouraging shared responsibility for innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COVID-19 requires educational leaders to collectively make sense of their inclusive practices. This qualitative study explores how COVID-19 crisis shaped Israeli superintendents' and principals' role in fostering school sense-making processes during a reform based on Amendment No. 11 to the Special Education Law. Data were collected with 22 Jewish and Arab district and school leaders via Zoom interviews. Data analysis yielded three major themes: (1) Developing a shared vision and direction; (2) Building school capacity for inclusion: (a) nurturing a culture of collective responsibility (b) maintaining mental-resilience skills and well-being; and (3) Fostering school collaboration and trust with stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The ongoing challenge to sustain educational reforms requires a learning process through which doubt is induced as a means of fostering productive school change. The purpose of this paper is to explore the concept of doubt as well as the doubting process and its importance to the school community, particularly with regard to educational reforms. Design/methodology/approach: After discussing the notions of doubt and the doubting process in the context of school reform, collective doubting in school administration is presented, accompanied by empirical illustrations. Findings: Whereas existing change management literature acknowledges resistance to change as a negative phenomenon, doubt and doubting--questioning the taken-for-granted need for reform and the way the reform should be carried out--is conceptualized as a positive and constructive phenomenon, a source for collective learning. The paper presents limitations, implications, and avenues for future research regarding the doubting process in the context of school reform. Originality/value: The collective doubting perspective has been sorely under investigated in the educational context. The constructive reform framework of collective doubting may help schools and policy makers develop and sustain educational reforms to foster continuous growth within students and practitioners alike.

This qualitative study explores school principals' perceptions and enactments of shared sense-making processes during a generally-outlined pedagogical reform, i.e. a broad-policy reform allowing educators to exercise their discretion in meeting its pedagogical goals, aiming to inquire what makes such processes critical to schools' collective efficacy within reform implementation. Interviews with 25 high school principals implementing this reform in state and religious-state schools produced data, whose analysis yielded two major themes and sub-themes: (1) Communicating a shared vision: (a) a shared pedagogical vision; (b) a shared values-based vision; (c) a shared vision of pedagogical bluff; and (2) Strengthening school collective efficacy: (a) facilitating a collaborative instructional culture; (b) adjusting school reality toward instructional focus. A shared sense-making process offers a beneficial framework for principals and teachers collectively navigating complexity and uncertainty, while implementing ambiguous pedagogical policy demands within their unique contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

School principals are located at the interface between competing demands by a wide spectrum of stakeholders leading to tensions and ambiguities in their role. Understanding principals’ role tensions within organizational and occupational professionalism during Covid-19 crisis is of considerable importance for improving the capacity of school leadership. This qualitative study examines Israeli principals’ considerations and creative mediation strategies while facing competing accountabilities via the theoretical framework of sense-making and sense-giving in times of crisis. Using a collective case study design, data were collected via semi-structured interviews with 16 elementary and high school principals and policy documents, and analyzed thematically via ATLAS.ti software. The analysis surfaced three strategies and two considerations: (1) school leaders’ sense-making processes yielding protective mediation strategies based on retaining moral discretion; and (2) school leaders’ sense-giving processes transferring collaborative and contrived mediation strategies based on establishing the school's moral-professional cultural orientation. The contribution of this study to the research literature suggests contrived mediation as an innovative school leaders’ strategy. We provide practical implications within training and professional development programs for school leaders advocating principalship mentoring valuing uniqueness to experienced and novice principals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through a sense-making lens, this qualitative study explores high school principals' considerations while they perceive and enact additional resources within a national reform implementation. Principals' allocation of resources, especially as part of a national reform, is a complex matter for schools' effectiveness in an era of accountability. This study investigates data from interviews with 22 Israeli high school principals implementing the national reform in secular and religious state schools from all school districts. Data analysis has yielded three themes: (a) promoting students' learning achievements towards matriculation exams; (b) deepening student-teacher relations; and (c) developing a new pedagogy. Exploring the allocation of resources to suit principals' particular needs through a sense-making prism may contribute to the scholarship and to the practice of school leadership while promoting change within a national reform implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This qualitative study explores how 60 Israeli high school principals vary in their perceptions and enactments of shared sense-making processes while engaging in strategic activities to gain teachers' support during a national reform implementation. Data analysis has yielded three major themes: (a) a common language; (b) a collaborative learning process; and (c) a shared working culture. Leveraging a shared sense-making process can serve as a beneficial framework through which principals and faculty members collectively navigate complexity and uncertainty while implementing policy within their unique contexts. Theoretical and practical implications for faculty members and principals are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the face of the dynamic tension between internal goals and external reform demands, school principals' role has become increasingly more complex and their sense-making more crucial. Yet, research has paid little attention to the significant role principals perform as sense makers in local reform implementation processes. This study explores high school principals' perceptions and enactment of and for their role in the implementation of a national education reform. Through a sense-making lens, this qualitative study explores principals' considerations while they perceive and enact their role within a national reform. This study investigates data from interviews with 60 Israeli high school principals implementing the national reform in state (Jewish and Arab sectors) and religious-state schools from all school districts. Data analysis has yielded three major themes: (a) caring for teachers' needs; (b) preserving leadership discretion; and (c) adjusting to school reality. Results demonstrate the principal's role as an active sense-maker in times of education reforms. Exploring principals' perceptions within the framework of sense-making may contribute to the scholarship and to the practice of the complex leadership role in times of national reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During reforms, principals often experience ambiguity, contradicting demands, and lack of information. As critical change agents and system players, principals interpret reform demands and translate them into school practices through a process of sense-making. The current qualitative research explored 59 elementary school principals’ sense-making of their leadership within a national reform through the use of metaphors. Data analysis yielded three reframing themes: (1) principal’s role; (2) principal’s work; and (3) relationships with teachers. This study expands the currently limited knowledge about principals’ experience with and responses to reforms, while suggesting implications and further research regarding metaphors within the sense-making framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effective education reform depends on its successful realization by the school leadership carrying out the reform. School principals and middle leaders in the 21st century re-examine their traditional role so as to understand complexities and ambiguities characterizing their various responsibilities within the context of school reform. As critical change agents and system players, formal leaders interpret reform demands and translate them into school practices through a process of sense-making. Though sense-making is an ongoing process that school leaders undergo personally and collectively during policy reforms, little attention has been paid to the role principals and middle leaders perform as sense-makers. This literature review article explores sense-making in school leadership through a holistic approach. It demonstrates how sense-making is framed in both theoretical and empirical studies as well as suggests implications and avenues for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]