National and State Cultural Influences on Principals' Administration of Local Schools

The conceptual core of this essay focuses on the dual conceptof leadership as one who manages versus one who transforms values.The central research question is: Did a state-based versus national-basedprofessional culture of cognitions dominate a 1, 200 sampleof principals in six states, two each from Elazar's politicalcultures? The principals were asked attitudes about their tasks,and explanations of differences were sought through cultural,personal, and other factors by using graphic and regressiontechniques. There were wide differences among the sample states,and political culture had some minimal effect, all results thatweakened the concept of a national professional culture.