Abstract
D.Ed. (Educational Management)
The influence of union leadership plays an important role in determining both the perspectives and leadership styles of the principals who hold positions of leadership in teacher unions. Although there is extensive literature on the basics of the development of the concept of identity in general, little is known about how identity is forged in education unionisation in general and what specific leadership character may result out of the principals who are union leaders. As is commonly known, such knowledge is crucial because principal leaders are continuously faced with making leadership decisions, acquiring endless information and implementing educational policies whose effectiveness might be tainted by union biasness and favoritism. In the light of continued absence of knowledge of how identity is forged in unionisation, coupled with the ever increasing election of principals by teacher union members to occupy leadership roles in these unions, this inquiry explored how such occupation of union leadership roles shape the self-knowledge of these principals and what leadership style may result as a reason there off. The inquiry specifically sought to determine whether the unionisation discourse constructs the identities of the principals who are leaders and if so, how it does this and what consequences this is likely to have on the leadership style of the principals concerned. The identity theory of Stryker and Statham (1985) (Owens, Stryker and Goodman, 2006) was used to addresses this aim.
In addition to this, the inquiry used the principals who hold positions of leadership in Teacher Union A, Teacher Union B and Teacher Union C respectively as case studies, focusing specifically on the broader social discourses that exist subjectively in these unions as a vehicle to demonstrate the development of the identity of the principals who are leaders in them. The language used by these principals in focus groups discussions and participant observations were the main source of data for this inquiry. By doing so, this inquiry aimed to illuminate how union leadership act to produce self-knowledge that, in turn, leads to the discursive coordinates by which the principals who are union leaders come to define themselves. This was achieved by conducting focus groups interviews and participant observations of the principals who are in positions of leadership in these three unions and thereafter drawing on Critical Discourse Analysis in order to interpret the transcripts of the data collected by both focus groups interviews and participant observations.