Izhak Berkovich
Publications - In press
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Abstract
This first years of teaching constitute entry stage to the profession and are considered a period of critical importance for determining the new teacher’s professional identity. This study explores the associations between novice teachers’ perspectives of their relationship with their mentors and their professional commitment. This qualitative study utilises data from semi-structured interviews conducted with 35 second-year Israeli teachers (subsequent to a year of internship). The findings indicate an association between novice teachers’ high professional commitment and a functional mentoring relationship and lack of association between novice teachers’ low professional commitment and other types of mentoring relationships. The results and their implications are discussed.
Abstract
Much research is concerned with the contribution of middle-level management in the education system. Yet, little research has been devoted to investigating supervisors’ considerations in outlining job definitions of middle-level managers, and how these elements shape diverse middle-level managers’ leadership models. This study draws on role theory to understand supervisors’ contribution to the design of middle-level management roles, with emphasis on leadership styles. Data included 25 interviews with preschool superintendents who appointed new middle-level managers in the role of early childhood leaders. Based on the interviews, we identified four types of middle-level leadership models: pedagogical, supportive, change, and administrative.
Abstract
This study aimed to explore the rigor strategies and ethical steps reported in qualitative research of educational administration journals in the recent decades. Using a focused search procedure, 321 relevant empirical qualitative articles were identified. Results suggest that qualitative educational administration, management, and leadership research frequently reported using some rigor strategies and greatly underreport on using ethical steps. Moreover, we found stability in the number of strategies and steps reported over a period of two decades. Thus, it is unclear whether rigor and ethics norms in the field have been crystallizing over time. The findings and their implications are discussed.
Abstract
Despite the popularity of distributed leadership theory, the investigation of the micro-political aspects of such models have scarcely been explored, and insights on the cultural variety of distributed practices in schools are limited. The present study aimed to explore what micro-political aspects emerge in participative decision‐making in collectivist and individualist cultures. To this end, a multiple case study method was adopted, focusing on four Israeli public high schools. Schools were chosen to represent an ‘extreme’ case selection rationale: two non-religious urban schools representing individualist cases, and two communal schools in religious kibbutzim representing communal schools. The analysis shed light on three micro-political points of comparison between the prototypes of participative decision making in collectivist and individualist cultures related to control, actors, and stage crafting. The findings and implications are discussed.
Abstract
This study aimed to extend the limited knowledge on the motivational and identity aspects of youth at-risk in second chance programmes. The study examined the relationships between autonomy-supportive climate, adolescents’ sense of authenticity, and their dropout risk, as well as the mediating role that authenticity plays in the relationships, within the context of a second chance programme for at-risk youth. Participants were 181 students at-risk from Israel. Results from a multilevel path model analysis support the hypotheses. The findings indicate a positive correlation between autonomy-supportive climate and authenticity of students at risk. The analyses also revealed a negative individual-level relationship between authenticity of students at risk and their dropout risk, and a negative cross-level relationship between autonomy-supportive climate and students’ dropout risk. The effect of autonomy-supportive climate on students’ dropout risk was partly mediated by students’ authenticity. The present study extends the knowledge on the influence of autonomy-supportive climate on schooling by pointing out cross-level relations between this climate and youths’ authenticity, and by shedding light on the connection of these constructs with dropout risk. As this model of relationships is often reflected in the pedagogical rationale behind the design of second chance programmes for youths at risk, the study has important practical implications for administrators, teachers, and policymakers leading these programmes.
Abstract
The present study examines how changes in higher education systems ― caused mostly by neoliberal ideologies and the knowledge revolution ― affect non-faculty professionals such as academic librarians, and how they cope with these changes. Specifically, relying on Bourdieu’s theory of distinction, we show how Israeli academic librarians adopt three types of distinctions ― cultural, aesthetic, and professional ― and construct occupational capital that bestows on them power and renewed legitimacy in the face of threats to their professional identity and to their role in academic studies. The study in based on interviews with librarians working in the leading universities in Israel, and it examines the librarians’ experiences and attempts to adjust their professional identities to the emergence of neoliberal “new public management” (NPM) culture within academia.
Abstract
The present study examined the relationship between workgroup emotional climate in schools, teachers’ burnout and coping style. Data were collected from 278 teachers in 19 state elementary schools in Israel. Confirming the hypotheses, there was a positive relationship at the individual level between an other-focused negative workgroup emotional climate and burnout, and a positive cross-level relationship between an ego-focused negative workgroup emotional climate and burnout. In schools with a high ego-focused negative workgroup emotional climate, teachers’ active coping style impacted less on their burnout than in schools with a low ego-focused negative workgroup emotional climate.
Abstract
This article aims to integrate over two decades of empirical research findings on teachers’ organizational commitment (OC) to explore its antecedents and outcomes. Via a criteria-based approach, 68 peer reviewed quantitative empirical articles published between 1994 and 2018 were identified and included for analysis. A systematic review revealed three core themes: demographic, within-person and role related predictors of teachers’ OC; interpersonal and contextual predictors of teachers’ OC; and outcomes of teachers’ OC. Our review detected major “blind spots” related to antecedents, mediators and moderators, and outcomes. Recommendations are provided to help advance knowledge on teachers’ OC in upcoming decades.
Abstract
The present study explores the effect of teachers’ authentic leadership in second chance programmes on students’ psychological need satisfaction climate (according to self-determination theory), and the manner in which teachers’ gender moderates this effect. Data collected from 60 teachers and 183 students in second chance programmes in Israel wеrе analysed at the group level. The study found that for male teachers, authentic leadership negatively predicted psychological need satisfaction climate in the classroom. The implications of findings for authentic leadership in general and for teaching in second chance programmes are discussed.
Abstract
Ethical considerations have been examined in American and European school management research, indigenous and comparative aspects have largely been understudied. To better understand the ethical decision-making of indigenous school leaders, the present research aims to examine the ethical considerations of one such minority group—Bedouin Arab educators in Israel—and to compare their ethical decision-making with that of their counterparts in Israel’s Jewish majority. The research utilised the pre-designed multiple Ethical Perspectives Instrument, which requires participants to resolve school dilemmas by choosing one of two given ethical perspectives taken from the following six: fairness, utilitarianism, care, critique, profession, and community. Two exploratory studies were carried out: Study 1 examined the ethical judgements of Bedouin BEd students (n=28), and their perceptions of the ethical judgments of hypothesized Bedouin school leaders. Study 2 compared the ethical judgements of Bedouin (n=30) and Jewish (n=39) MA Ed-Admin students. Bedouin undergraduates reported care and critique as their own dominant ethical preferences, but viewed utilitarian considerations as being dominant among hypothesized Bedouin school leaders. Among the graduate students, utilitarian considerations were more dominant among the Bedouin group than the Jewish group. The implications of the findings are discussed.
Abstract
The myth of “tough love” leadership emerges in cultural narratives as a superior approach to improving students’ educational opportunities in urban schools facing challenging circumstances. This model, however, has not been conceptualized, and consequently, empirical research about it is lacking. We formulated a typology of tough love leadership as a mix of four behaviors that combine “tough” and “loving” approaches, with a focus on crisis management and a positive school vision. The study used the tough love leadership conceptualization to explore different mixes of tough love leadership, manifesting in four urban schools facing challenging circumstances. The study’s implications are discussed.