The Social Psychology of Organizations.

New Patterns of Management.

School principals world-wide report high levels of strain and attrition resulting in a shortage of qualified principals. It is thus crucial to identify psychosocial risk factors that reflect principals' occupational wellbeing. For this purpose, we used the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire (COPSOQ-II), a widely used self-report measure covering multiple psychosocial factors identified by leading occupational stress theories. We evaluated the COPSOQ-II regarding factor structure and longitudinal, discriminant, and convergent validity using latent structural equation modeling in a large sample of Australian school principals (N = 2,049). Results reveal that confirmatory factor analysis produced marginally acceptable model fit. A novel approach we call set exploratory structural equation modeling (set-ESEM), where cross-loadings were only allowed within a priori defined sets of factors, fit well, and was more parsimonious than a full ESEM. Further multitrait-multimethod models based on the set-ESEM confirm the importance of a principal's psychosocial risk factors; Stressors and depression were related to demands and ill-being, while confidence and autonomy were related to wellbeing. We also show that working in the private sector was beneficial for showing a low psychosocial risk, while other demographics have little effects. Finally, we identify five latent risk profiles (high risk to no risk) of school principals based on all psychosocial factors. Overall the research presented here closes the theory application gap of a strong multi-dimensional measure of psychosocial risk-factors.

Validating the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire (COPSOQ-II) Using Set-ESEM: Identifying Psychosocial Risk Factors in a Sample of School Principals.

http://library.um.ac.id/free-contents/downloadpdf.php/buku/the-new-school-executive-a-theory-of-administration-thomas-j-sergiovanni-fred-d-carver-20649.pdf

The New school executive : a theory of administration / Thomas J. Sergiovanni, Fred D. Carver

Most research into emotional labour is focussed on front-line service staff and health professionals, in short-term interactions. Little exists exploring the emotional labour involved in repeated o...

Emotional demands, emotional labour and occupational outcomes in school principals: Modelling the relationships

We study the benefits of junior kindergarten for linguistic-minority 4-year-olds compared to their linguistic-majority classmates from the same low-income neighborhoods. At the end of the school year, linguistic-minority children made significantly greater improvements in language skills than their host society classmates. At the mid-year point, junior kindergarten teachers made efforts to help linguistic-minority children overcome the challenges of the school environment of their new host society by adapting their pedagogical strategies to those showing difficulty in their receptive vocabulary skills. They also offered greater means of contact to parents of linguistic-minority children having difficulty attaining language proficiency than to parents of children showing better improvements. Parents of linguistic-minority students showing smaller gains were more likely to use a larger proportion of the communication methods offered by teachers and participate in the parent–school relationship for the well-being of their children. Long-term results suggest that linguistic-minority children continued to make significant improvements.

Effects of Junior Kindergarten on Emerging Literacy in Children from Low-Income and Linguistic-Minority Families

The rapid pace of ongoing change in the Quebec education system has had an important impact on the complexity of the job and the workload of school principals. The present study examined the coping...

Coping with Administrative Constraints by Quebec School Principals.

Using data from the first cycle of the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth, this study examines the impact of junior kindergarten on children’s behavioural development, above and beyond regional differences and individual/household factors. It was hypothesised that earlier schooling would help children learn behavioural control skills for participating in group settings like the elementary school classroom. Research has established that children from disadvantaged environments face an increased risk of behavioural problems, usually by virtue of accompanying risk factors. As such, we hypothesised that junior kindergarten attendance would reduce the risk gap for behavioural problems between children from economically disadvantaged and advantaged families. The results revealed that on the whole, junior kindergarten did not seem to decrease problem behaviour. These results are above and beyond a number of controls (sex, age, region, SES, family functioning, family configuration, education, and ...

The impact of junior kindergarten on behaviour in elementary school children

De nombreux acteurs dans le domaine de l’education insistent sur l’importance que les directions d’etablissement doivent accorder a l’encadrement de l’activite pedagogique. Dans cette perspective, ce chapitre examine l’allocation du temps de travail et la frequence des interventions des directions par rapport a la gestion educative et a la gestion administrative de leur etablissement. Les donnees proviennent d’une enquete menee aupres de 138 directions et 421 enseignantes et enseignants dans des ecoles primaires du Quebec. Les directions rapportent avoir consacre autant de temps a la gestion administrative qu’a la gestion educative de leur etablissement. Par rapport a cinq domaines de la gestion educative, les directions interviennent plus dans les domaines visant a assurer la collaboration des parents et le soutien aux eleves a risque que dans ceux lies a la supervision des enseignants et au rendement des eleves. Cette analyse fournit des elements de discussion sur l’engagement des directions dans la gestion educative de leur etablissement.

Pierre Lapointe

Papers

Effects of Junior Kindergarten on Emerging Literacy in Children from Low-Income and Linguistic-Minority Families

Coping with Administrative Constraints by Quebec School Principals.

The impact of junior kindergarten on behaviour in elementary school children

Regards sur la gestion éducative des directions d’établissement d’enseignement primaire au Québec

Perspective historique de la construction du modèle québécois de gestion scolaire axée sur les résultats