ABSTRACT

Focusing on primary school principals’ espoused strategies for developing social capital over their early years in the principal’s office, we show that investing in social capital was a core challenge during their formative years. Based on our analysis of data from a longitudinal study of 35 new principals, we argue that school principals made sense of the social capital challenge in two ways: First, developing their own relationships with key stakeholders such as teachers, parents, and students. Second, working to build and improve relationships among stakeholders, both within and among stakeholder groups (e.g. among teachers, between teachers and students). Further, we argue that school principals reported using a combination of three strategies to address their sense of the social capital challenge – being present by being visible and accessible to stakeholders; building infrastructure to cultivate relations with, within, and among stakeholders; and channeling relationships both with, within, and among stakeholder groups by focusing the nature and/or content of these interactions. Our analysis systematically attends to, the resource(s) that principals hoped to access through their social capital building efforts, the strategies they employed, and the stakeholders they implicated in their efforts.

摘要

我们关注小学校长在校长办公室早期支持的发展社会资本的策略，我们表明投资社会资本是他们成长时期的核心挑战。根据我们对 35 位新校长的纵向研究数据的分析，我们认为学校校长通过两种方式理解社会资本挑战：首先，发展自己与教师、家长和学生等主要利益相关者的关系。其次，努力建立和改善利益相关者之间的关系，包括利益相关者群体内部和利益相关者群体之间（例如教师之间、教师和学生之间）。此外，我们认为，学校校长报告使用三种策略的组合来解决他们对社会资本挑战的感觉——在场通过对利益相关者可见和可访问；建立基础设施以培养与利益相关者、利益相关者内部和利益相关者之间的关系；通过关注这些互动的性质和/或内容，引导与利益相关者群体、内部和利益相关者群体之间的关系。我们的分析系统地关注了校长希望通过他们的社会资本建设努力获得的资源、他们采用的策略以及他们在努力中涉及的利益相关者。