Purpose: A school principal’s ability to engage with external stakeholders is critical for achieving a range of school objectives such as involving parents, implementing policy mandates, and accessing resources from the school district. This study examines how novice school principals make sense of different external stakeholders’ demands and their own role in relation to external stakeholders during their first year on the job. Research Approach: We analyze 53 semistructured interviews conducted with 18 novice principals throughout their first year on the job. We use an iterative process of coding and analysis to identify patterns and verify our findings by ensuring interrater reliability in our coding and examining disconfirming evidence. Findings: We find that novice principals struggle to make sense of external stakeholder claims that they perceive to conflict with their own understanding of the goals and values of the school. In particular, conflicting claims elicit sense-making about a new principal’s role vis-à-vis external stakeholders. Across time, a majority of novice principals narrow the scope of their role by coming to terms with taking an unpopular position, setting priorities, and modifying their expectations about the job. Implications for Research and Practice: Our study highlights the cognitive, rather than behavioral, responses that principals have toward conflicting claims. Furthermore, we extend work on the occupational socialization of school principals by showing how conflicting claims shape novice principals emerging understanding of their role vis-à-vis external stakeholders. Our findings have implications for improving principal preparation programs and succession planning.

中文翻译：

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新校长构建自己的角色 面对外部利益相关者：（不）试图成为“所有人的一切”

目的：校长与外部利益相关者互动的能力对于实现一系列学校目标至关重要，例如让家长参与、执行政策任务以及从学区获取资源。本研究考察了新任校长在入职第一年如何理解不同外部利益相关者的要求以及他们自己在与外部利益相关者相关的角色。研究方法：我们分析了 18 名新手校长在工作第一年进行的 53 次半结构化访谈。我们使用编码和分析的迭代过程来识别模式并通过确保编码中的交互者间可靠性和检查不确凿的证据来验证我们的发现。发现：我们发现，新手校长很难理解外部利益相关者的主张，他们认为这些主张与他们自己对学校目标和价值观的理解相冲突。尤其是，相互矛盾的主张会引发对新委托人相对于外部利益相关者的角色的理解。随着时间的推移，大多数新手校长通过接受不受欢迎的职位、设定优先级和修改他们对工作的期望来缩小他们的角色范围。对研究和实践的影响：我们的研究强调了校长对相互矛盾的主张的认知反应，而不是行为反应。此外，我们通过展示相互矛盾的主张如何塑造新校长对他们相对于外部利益相关者的角色的新理解，扩展了关于校长职业社会化的工作。我们的研究结果对改进校长准备计划和继任计划有影响。