The influence of union leadership on principals' identity

Abstract

To date, few studies have been conducted to investigate the influence of union leadership on the roles of the principals who are union leaders in South African schools. This study investigated the influence of South African Democratic Teacher Union (SADTU) leadership in determining the identities, perspectives and leadership styles of principals who are union leaders in urban schools. The study specifically sought to ascertain whether the unionization discourse constructs principals’ identities and, if so, how it does this and what consequences this may have on the principals’ leadership style in urban schools. The literature review focused on the origins of the policy of apartheid in South Africa and its political effects on education and contextualized the historical and political development of the SADTU union. The research was grounded in the social constructivist tradition, using an ethnographic research design, with participant observation and focus groups as data collection strategies. Data were analyzed using critical discourse analysis to construct four core themes, namely, shop-floor unionism discourse, perceptions of educational authorities, rationalizing discursive strategies and democratic discursive strategies in urban schools.