Unethical Decision-Making of School Principals and Vice-Principals in the Arab Education System in Israel: The Interplay between Culture and Ethnicity

Abstract

Following Starratt’s (1991) proposed conceptual framework for ethical leadership that is no longer defined as a style or an attitude, but as the basis for moral dimensions and actions that can be developed and based on the ethics of care, critique, and justice, this chapter traces the following questions: (a) How does cultural and social context influence the meaning and practices of unethical leadership in the school? (b) How do principals and vice-principals preserve and interpret their unethical practices? Using Langlois’s interview guide on ethical dilemmas (1997), 10 interviews were conducted with school principals and vice-principals in the Arab education system in Israel. The chapter presents unethical behaviors emerging from content analysis of the interviews such as personal development versus loyalty to others (unethical behaviors that are related to managing staff underperformance or appointing candidate teachers); or loyalty to my minority-society or to the government. The chapter fosters better understanding of both national specificities and universal commonalities associated with unethical leadership, as well as of the cultural and social characteristics that facilitate or hinder the development of ethical leadership, and finally explains some approaches to leadership that would improve the practice.

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