Browsing by Author "Suomalainen, Vilma"

The purpose of this thesis was to collect information on schools headmasters' and headmasters' assistants' opinions of pedagogical leadership and coping strategies. The main focus is on discovering: 1. What do the headmasters think about pedagogical leadership? 2. What kind of coping strategies the headmasters have? 3. How have the demands and the nature of the job changed over time? The thesis focuses on building an image of pedagogical leadership in a changing societal environment. The study was carried out using a qualitative phenomenographical approach. The data were collected by interviewing seven headmasters and headmasters assistants working in metropolitan area. The interviews took place in January and February 2017. The analysis was carried out using a Grounded Theory approach which was used as a tool in phenomenographical research. The respondents had a hard time defining pedagogical leadership. The headmasters' will was to lead the pedagogy: all of the headmasters tasks were linked to pedagogical leadership, yet there was a fear of not having enough time for pedagogical leadership. The respondents stated directly and indirectly that these days pedagogical leadership is often seen as shared leadership with distributed responsibilities among the working community. The results suggest that shared leadership is an important coping strategy and stress-reduction mechanism for the headmasters. The coping strategies of the respondents were mainly problem-oriented strategies. Coping strategies were also purpose-based so that the respondents aimed to find positive elements about stressful things in the profession. The respondents stated that the amount of tasks had increased over time. The nature of the job had also changed and now included more administrative tasks as well as remote leadership. In the light of Herzbergs theory of motivation the respondents seemed to be quite satisfied with their jobs.