Principal educators‘ and policy makers’ predominant expectation from school principals to serve as instructional leaders—who engage primarily in a wide range of activities that clearly focus on improving teaching and learning for all students—has scarcely been applied in practice by principals in today's schools. Researchers have found several reasons for this gap between professional recommendations and actual principal behavior. The current qualitative study, based on semi-structured interviews with 41 Israeli principals, suggests one more explanation for today's reality of principals‘ limited engagement in instructional leadership: Some principals uphold a non-academic definition of schools’ major goal—focusing on students‘ well-being, social skills, values, etc.—and thereby claim that improvements in teaching and learning should not be at the top of the school administrators’ priorities. This goal as a possible mechanism underlying principals' noncompliance has not been investigated to date.
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