טיפוסי "מנהיגים דואגים לאחֵר" (caring leaders) בקרב מנהלים בבתי ספר יסודיים ממלכתיים

Caring for others is a basic skill in human development that facilitates the individual's growth, and shapes their self and personality. In education, caring is depicted in terms of an educational ethos that is distinguished from cognitive aspects of development, which are measured by standards and achievement. Thus, the present study focused on caring among educational leaders in elementary education, and traced their types of caring for others in the school context. The study was grounded in the naturalistic-constructivist view, in a qualitative paradigm, and employed multiple case study design and grounded theory as its main research strategy. The research tools were vignettes and semi-structured interviews with 30 elementary school principals in the Jewish and Arab education sectors. This paper presents two types of caring for others among Israeli principals – the value-social type and the instructional-functional type. These types express two different modes of coping with the tension stemming from the demand to promote student achievement through standards and measurement on the one hand, and educational policy that places emphasis on emotional aspects and personal relationships, on the other. The paper reveals the different strategies principals employ to reconcile this tension. Practical implications for principal preparation programs and the public discourse on the place of caring in educational leadership nowadays are proposed.