The impact of societal culture on leadership in Arab secondary school in Haifa area in Israel

This study explores the perception of Arab secondary school principals and teachers in Haifa area in Israel regarding their perception of appropriate and actual school leadership and management. Israel consists of a complex mix of diverse cultures mainly Jewish and Arab cultures. In Israel Arab schools and their principals and teachers are exposed to the dominant Israeli culture, the Arab societal culture and Western cultures. The current trend in the Israeli educational system is towards decentralization and school based management. It is therefore important to examine whether and to what extent traditional Arab values are maintained in their schools and the extent to which the school culture and its leadership and management reflect combined diverse characteristics. A closed questionnaire and an open-ended question were developed especially for this study (please see Appendix No. I). The five-point response scale ranges from (strongly agree) to (strongly disagree). The closed end responses were analyzed for their frequency distribution by item and by attribute. Further, leadership and management items and attributes were analyzed for congruence with school and societal culture items and attributes. The open-ended response was coded and analyzed for congruence with collateral closed-end responses. Further, the open-ended provided insights into perception not revealed within the constraints of the closed-end item mechanisms. The findings of the present study reveal * modern 1 values underlying leadership processes as perceived by principles and teachers which run counter to the traditional cultural norms of the Arabic society as considered by Hofstede's (1991) cultural map.