Chapter 7: The Identity of School Principals

Becoming a competent principal who positively impacts the students, teachers and the school learning and development involves a process of continuous professional identity development. In this chapter we propose to delve into the mechanisms involved in the construction of the identity of school principals from the perspective of Dialogical Self Theory (DST), with the purpose of gaining knowledge regarding how principals’ positioning in everyday situations relate to their professional identity development. Based on that knowledge we also aim at providing recommendations and guidelines for building innovative training proposals that facilitate the professional development of school principals. To this end, we first state the European trends and policies that characterize functions and roles of school principals and revise what we know from research on how different leadership approaches impact on school and students learning. Second, we draw on two cases with different expertise and trajectories as school principals to analyze their dialogical self as principals and identify dialogue among positions when dealing with professional duties and challenges. In the last section, we reflect on how understanding the mechanisms guiding principals’ positioning is useful and suggest the required principles to create evidence-based training proposals promoting the professional identity development of the school principal.