s La dirección escolar: hacia la definición de su identidad profesional

Abstract

Under the title "School management: towards the definition of its professional identity", a research work is developed that advocates the professionalization of school management as a solution to the problems currently faced by the management of public schools. The thesis analyses aspects derived from the lack of professionalization suffered by people who occupy the management position on a temporary basis, such as: dual teaching-management identity, lack of leadership and the absence of a training itinerary that provides the skills required to carry out the functions of school principals. The influence of school management in the improvement of educational quality is irrefutable, which is why this thesis advocates positioning it in its rightful place and providing it with the necessary complements and tools to make it more attractive, as well as limiting access with requirements in line with the responsibility it entails. It proposes as a general objective to defend a model of professional school leadership based on a comprehensive organizational leadership for social justice, pedagogical and distributed, built on a defined and officially recognized identity of the figure of the principal. In order to carry it out, in the theoretical framework, a review of the legal, real and scientific literature is carried out, and in the empirical study a mixed qualitative-quantitative design is used to collect the opinions of the headmasters and headmistresses of non-university public schools in the Autonomous Community of Navarra. Data analysis is carried out by means of methodological triangulation of the information obtained. The results corroborate the weakness of school management. There are structural problems that justify the lack of attractiveness of the post and the consequent scarcity of candidates, which means that, in many cases, school headships are awarded by name by the Department of Education to teachers who do not meet the requirements for access to the post. It is unlikely that these teachers assigned to headships will serve as leaders of the organization.