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School Change and Self-renewal: Some Reflections from Life Stories of Women Principals

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Abstract

The current article provides insight into thesubjective meanings attached to school changeby women school principals and the ways theyconstruct and interpret the relation between adesired school change and their own self-renewal.

Through an inductive analysis of life storydata of 6 women principals in mid-career, thestudy unearthed school change-renewal cyclesthat prevail throughout their career span.Every cycle links four personal experiences:lack of stimulation in their work, search forchanges and innovation at school,energy-replenishing, and a sense ofself-fulfillment. Our results show that throughthe construction of school change-renewalcycles in the life stories, the initiation andimplementation of school change is implicitlyconceived as a positive contributor of one'srenewal and growth.

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Oplatka, I. School Change and Self-renewal: Some Reflections from Life Stories of Women Principals. Journal of Educational Change 4, 25–43 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1023081708728

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