School Administrators Who Serve in Different Institutions Ethical Dilemmas and Their Attitudes towards These Dilemmas
Ministry of National Education, School Director, 34000, İstanbul/Turkey
Abstract
The aim of the study was to determine what ethical dilemmas are faced by school administrators working in different institutions, what they are doing to solve the dilemmas / according to the motives. The research is a patterned qualitative case study and multiple case design is used. 50 school administrators participated by easy-to-reach state sampling method participated. The data were collected by standardized open-ended interview technique and examined by categorical content analysis method. According to the study, all school administrators have the highest ethical dilemma related to "student affairs", "school external affairs", "personnel affairs", "monetary business of the school" and "school and student-parent associations" were experienced. It has been found on all school type, to be solved these dilemmas by "taking risks for the benefit of the school / student", "listening to the voice of the conscience", "doing what the law says it" or "seeking ways to compromise". These results are discussed in the light of literature and suggestions are presented.
Keywords: Ethics, Ethical decision, Ethical behavior, Ethical attitude, School administrators.
1. Introduction
Management is a phenomenon that begins with the existence of mankind. The oldest of the arts is called the newest of the sciences. If there are people, there is management and organization. Within the historical development process of human civilizations, the importance of management has increased, and scientific research has become a subject that is being researched more and more every day. Nowadays, management is handled separately in each specialty and profession; Such as Health Institutions Management, Education Management, and Marketing Management. These areas have a separate emphasis on the management of the educational entity that designs the future of communities.
Decision making is the essence of management work. Koçel (2013) adds that "the most basic element of management is the decision making," he adds. In fact, it can be said that '' life is itself made up of decisions.'' Management is getting more and more important when it comes to higher levels. Supervisors are more likely to make decisions under strategic and unscheduled and uncertain conditions (Koçel, 2013). Between executives and decision-makers, over 350 international business executives, the most important features of high-performance organizations in their research on the effectiveness of organizations have been to pass on the quality, speed and decisions they make (Turkey Metal Industrialists' Union, 2007).
There are many factors that influence the decision-making process. All the information and data that need to be taken are relevant to the past, even though every decision is related to that moment or the future. The importance of such information and data used in decision-making, as well as the manner in which they are presented is of utmost importance. Einstein emphasizes the importance of this issue by saying that '' the expression of a problem, that is, its formulation is much more important than its solution ''. This presentation style can be expressed as '' manipulation '' or '' framing effect '' (Koçel, 2013). Again, ethical decision-making, the lifestyles, beliefs, moral systems and traditions of societies come to the forefront. For example; the motives and reasoning styles that an American business manager and a Japanese business manager consider when deciding are different. There are a lot of research on this (Koçel, 2013). In short, ethical concerns come to the forefront when the manager decides.
Due to its position as school manager, s/he is in contact with many sections of the society. These different sections have different expectations and wishes from the school administration. Parents; in the selection of teachers. Political groups, on the registration of students who are most outside the registration area. public union; in terms of membership, religious groups; making demonstrations in school, hanging posters, registering students in their dormitories with the school and participating in the meetings (Urun and Gökçe, 2015). These expectations and requests constantly bring school administrators with ethical problems.
In such cases, school administrators are expected to behave in accordance with the laws and policies as well as professional ethical principles when they fulfill their duties (Taymaz, 2003). Requests from various authorities have to pass a filter between their ethical beliefs and their anxiety about what they would do if they did not. We can also express the ethical decision-making process of school administrators with the 'decision process model we have developed Figure 1.
Figure-1. School manager ethical decision process model
Source: this figure is provided by researcher.
School administrators have responsibilities for both the students, the foremen, the superiors, and for the social environment as a result of their work. Because decisions they make directly or indirectly affect all of them. When school administrators decide on any issue, they should evaluate all these responsibilities and make decisions as balanced as possible.
School administrators may have some ambivalence or dilemma about which behavior is ethical when trying to make a decision based on all these balances. "Every decision in the administration is a restructuring of human life. Therefore, the solution of ethical dilemmas will take place in the heart of the administration"(Erdoğan, 2012).
In short, ethical dilemma; when there is ambiguity about which option is better between two or more options, the alternatives for solution do not suffice (Akfert, 2012). School administrators need to learn and internalize ethical decision-making strategies in order to cope with ethical dilemmas. Basically, these managers need to be sensitive, accountable and questioning in order to have ethical awareness. From here, school administrators need to be aware of developments in the scientific literature, to have a conscience that integrates personal morality and professional morality, and constantly question themselves as they know ethical standards and legal responsibilities of the profession very well.
There was no coincidence in the literature as to which principals the ethical decision-making behavior of the school administrator should be examined. Some researchers have been based on the criteria of the Association of America's School Administrators, while others have conducted research on some of the principles that have taken place in the summer. Each society is different from the others by their traditions, customs, their way of life and their way of looking at events. This difference is also reflected in public administration styles. Therefore, in Turkey and in each country, a unique school management should be developed based on the country’s own ethical principles. The school administrator is perhaps the most engaged public official. In this respect, instead of the ideal and more fictional approaches mentioned in theory, the schoolmaster must actually transfer the events that he lived in his school to his work. For this purpose, it is necessary to first determine the school administrators' duties. In our work, we tried to group the day-to-day affairs of the school administrators into the legal regulations of the Ministry of National Education (MEB) in terms of the quality of the reality. Inspection guides have also been examined to see what the ministry expects from the school administrator.
The MEB regulates the activities of school and institution types and the activities have been carried out accordingly. In these laws and regulations, it is clear who the school administrator is, the definition and what the duties are. The duties of the school administrator in the regulation of MEB secondary education institutions published in the Official Gazette dated 07 September 2013 and numbered 28758; a) Research and planning, b) Organizing, c) Guidance, d) Monitoring, supervision and evaluation, d) Communication and governance.
Again in the Regulation of Pre-school Education and Primary Education Institutions issued by the official gazette dated 26/07/2014 and numbered 29072, in terms of duty, authority and responsibility of the schoolmaster “the Manager” have been defined as “s/he makes the duties to be done regarding the all kinds of education, administration, personnel, accrual, movable property, correspondence, education and social activities, boarding, scholarship, movable education, security, nutrition, care, protection, cleanness, order, guard duty, public relations and the like and also duties assigned by MEB and the Provincial/Provincial Directorates of National Education” (meb.gov.tr.Mevzuat bankası, 2017).
In the guide book of the inspectors of MEB Supervisory Board Presidency, school management activities have been defined as: 1. Research and Planning, 2. Organization, 3. Student work, 4. Boarding work, 5. Human resources work and operations, 6. Surveillance, Monitoring and Evaluation, 7. Communication and Governance, 8. IT Systems (Ministry of National Education, Inspection Board, 2017).
As a result of all these examinations, the task scope of the schoolmaster can be determined as follows;
1. Student Affairs: a) Admission Acceptance class processes such as jumping, changing, graduation, clothing, course selection, help, health, permission, acceptance to class, nutrition, etc. b) The student's grade and academic achievement, relationships with school / class mates, and his/her compliance with class / school rules, discipline, sanction, guidance.
2. Personnel work / Human resources
3. School Management (School family association and monetary transactions)
4. School parents relations
5. School outer environment relations: a) School local governments associations relations, b) Education unions, c) NGOs and religious structures-groups
6. Correspondence, representation and office work.
In the preliminary studies of data collection in our research it has also been seen that these groupings have been frequently expressed and samples have been given according to these categories.
Although there has been no study in Turkey regarding the ethical dilemmas that the school administrators face and their attitudes towards these dilemmas, there are studies measuring the status of the principals in ethical decision making. Out of these researches, Küçükkaraduman (2006) it has been found that the behaviors of school principals are generally in conformity with the ethical principles. In a study (Erdoğan, 2012) in which the attitudes of the principals have been evaluated according to the ethical principals have been evaluated both by teachers, principals and also the inspectors who audit the principals, the level of school principals 'compliance with ethical principles was found to be of the higher than the school principals' perceptions, but lower than the educational inspectors’ perceptions, however partially higher according to teachers’ perceptions.
Despite the importance of the ethical concept in school management profession, when we examine the studies in the school management in Turkey, it has been seen that the studies regarding the ethical dilemmas and the structures of the ethical infringements are insufficient. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to determine the structure of ethical dilemmas faced by school administrators working in different school types, as well as to learn what they have been doing to solve these dilemmas and also what are the obstacles they face in solving these dilemmas. It has been thought that when these determinations have been done, it will create a unique data base to construct ethical standards in the field of school managers and contribute to the literature of the school administrator’s ethics.
It is being thought that these findings will contribute as scientific information on the ethical behaviors of school principals in topics such as laws and regulations, regulations on institutional policies, and determination of in-service training needs, etc. Additionally, it is being hoped that the research findings will create an awareness of ethical behavior in school principal’s management and draw attention to the ethical principles in school management.
2. Method
2.1. Research Model
In this study, multiple situation models were used in qualitative research designs. In this study; school managers working in different segments of the educational levels such as primary school, middle school and high school levels school have been considered as different analysis units. Again, the status of the school making normal and bilateral education, the tertiary graduation level of the administrator, his/her experience time in the profession, his/her gender, marital status and age have been examined as other variables.
2.2. Research Group
This study has been conducted with 50 school administrators who work at various school levels in Istanbul’s European side, who do not mind giving information and contact addresses about participation. Participants have been identified with an easily accessible status sampling. This method of sampling gives speed and practicality to the research (Yıldırım and Şimşek, 2006). According to this, while determining the school administrators who do not have any inconvenience in giving the communication addresses, their information of gender, age, institution s/he has been working in, educational status and working years of the field have been taken into consideration. It has been reported that there are 5736 official and private educational institutions in Istanbul according to the official website. All of these have been governed by the same legislation. 44% of the participants in the survey are in primary school, 36% are in junior high school and 20% are high school administrators. It has been found that 80% of the participants were male (n = 40), 20% were female (n = 10), their age average has been between 20-30 and the average of their working years has been between 1-4 years. In addition, 34% of the participants stated that their education status is graduate and 66% of them have bachelor's degrees. It has been seen that 80% (n = 40) of the schools in which the participants were working has dual education and 40% (n = 20) has normal that is all day education. Types of schools in which the participants are working; age, gender, school level graduated, years of management, and the type of school studied (dual education / normal education) can be seen in Table 1.
Table-1. Demographic distributions of participants according to school types.
| Primary | Secondary | High School | ||
| Gender | Male | 18 | 15 | 7 |
| Female | 4 | 3 | 3 | |
| Age | 20-30 | 10 | 9 | 4 |
| 31-40 | 5 | 6 | 3 | |
| 41-50 | 4 | 2 | 2 | |
| 51 + | 3 | 1 | 0 | |
| School graduated | Graduate | 12 | 13 | 8 |
| Master of arts | 7 | 6 | 4 | |
| Management experience (years) | 0-1 | 6 | 5 | 2 |
| 4-Jan | 10 | 6 | 4 | |
| 8-May | 4 | 4 | 3 | |
| 9 + | 2 | 3 | 4 | |
| Education type of the school | Dual | 19 | 15 | 6 |
| Single | 3 | 3 | 4 | |
Source: Demographic distributions of participants according to school types in this article. The results obtained here are shown in Table 1
2.3. Data Collection Tool
The data for the study have been obtained by standardized open-ended interview technique. This interviewing approach involves asking the same type of questions carefully written and put into a certain order to be asked in a certain order and at the same style and order for each person interviewed (Yıldırım and Şimşek, 2006). While preparing the interview questions, literature was utilized. The scope validity of the interview questions has been realized by consulting the opinions of 5 school administrators’ still working in the field. In addition, the interview questions have been presented to a faculty member who is a management science teaching specialist and another faculty member specialist in research methodology in the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Gelişim. The interview questions have been revised after the results of the preliminary study and the comments of the instructors. In the first part, demographic information regarding the gender, marital status, ages, education status, total working time in the area, school level, school learning style (dual-singles) have been asked to the participant. In the second part, the following questions have been included:
1. What kind of ethical dilemmas do you face when you are working on the field?
2. How do you deal with these ethical dilemmas and how do you decide?
Apart from the two basic questions of the survey, sub-questions have also been created depending on the responses of the participants during the interviews. For example, a participant who said that he / she had an ethical dilemma related to student enrollment had been asked "Could you give an example of these dilemmas you experienced?" also. In the scope of external reliability of the research, the processes of data collecting, processing, analyzing, interpreting and reaching results have been explained clearly and in the scope of the internal reliability, the collected data has been presented directly using a descriptive approach without any comments.
2.4. Collection of Data
The data in the study have been collected during the first semester of the academic year of 2017-2018. The interviews have been carried out by the researcher. The interviews have been realized face-to-face in environments where participants felt comfortable and each interview lasted around 30-40 minutes. During the interview, participants had been informed about the purpose of the study, and their permissions had been requested for the voice recording; they have been given promise about that the privacy will be emphasized and the information will be used for research purposes. There were participants who did not need voice recording and responded in writing. It is stated that personal information will only be used for follow-up.
2.5. Analysis of Data
In the analysis of the data obtained from the school administrators, categorical content analysis has been used out of the content analysis types, and the data has been analyzed in four stages.
2.5.1. Encoding the Data
In the analysis of the data in the research, the voice recordings of the participants had been written by the researcher and a 62-page word document had emerged. Later all the data obtained from the participants have been examined and divided into meaningful parts and these parts forming meaningful totals in themselves have been coded by giving names. After all the data has been encoded this way, a "code list" has been created. In the determination of codes and categories, besides the related literature, the concepts emerged in the findings have also been influential. First, the data of 10 administrators selected out of 50 participants had been evaluated by two specialist lecturers besides the researcher; and the consistency of the two data processors has been examined. For reliability, the formula of Reliability=Opinion Alliance/Opinion Alliance+Opinion Separation x 100 has been applied on the coding made by both experts (Saban, 2008). As a result of the calculation, the consistency has been found to be 95%. Because the reliability over 70% or more has been found sufficient, the consistency of data analysis has been provided. Later, the transformation of the data into the thematic has been carried out by the researcher and the expert lecturer discussing until a common opinion has been reached.
2.5.2. Finding Themes
At this stage, the codes determined in the coding process of the data collection has been put into certain categories and the themes have been created. For example, in case of the registration of a student from outside of the school registration area, the dilemmas experienced by the school administrators have been taken into the scope of student registration and transfer work which is the sub contact of the main subject of student work and the common directions between the codes have been tried to be found. In the determination of codes and categories, concepts emerging from findings have also been influential as well as the literature.
2.6. Organizing the Data According to Codes and Themes
At this stage, participants' opinions have been explained to the reader. Footnotes have been used to determine the participants, and the interview notes have been given in quotation marks. Then, the participant has been indicated in parentheses. Findings have been written in the order of the school types of the participants. The same order has been used in the quotations also. Additionally, there are not any comments that may reveal the participants' information while the school administrators are quoted from the interview notes because of their limited and limited number.
2.7. Interpretation of Findings
The collected data were interpreted through the steps required by qualitative research and the results were extracted. These results are supported by the literature and explanations about the importance of the results are given in the discussion section of the study.
3. Results
3.1. Ethical Dilemmas Faced by School Administrators
When analyzing the answers given by the school administrators to the question of "What kind of ethical dilemmas do you encounter when working in the field?", the ethical rules valid for the civil servants working in Turkey (Sen, 2017) and the regulations related to the task scope of the school administrators stated by the laws and the law defined the regulations regarding school administrators task areas (meb.gov.tr, tkb.meb.gov.tr), (meb.gov.tr, the legislation bank) have been taken into consideration. As a result of the content analysis, the ethical dilemmas experienced by the school administrators have been analyzed into 6 themes (student affairs, personnel affairs, school business / school monetary affairs, school parent relations, school external relations / local administrations, politicians, unions and office work, correspondence, and representation work). The dilemmas faced by the school administrators have been presented in Table 2 according to the school type.
Table-2. Distribution of ethical dilemma themes of school managers according to school types.
| Ethical dilemma areas | Primary | Secondary | High School | |||
| f | % | f | % | f | % | |
| 1.Main theme/ Student Affairs | 5 | 10% | 4 | 8 | 4 | 8% |
| -Student Enrollment, transfer, class determination | 4 | 8% | 3 | 6% | 1 | 2% |
| -Student marks, discipline, guidance | 1 | 2% | 1 | 2% | 3 | 6% |
| 2.Main Theme /personnel affairs | 0 | 0 | 2 | 4% | 3 | 6% |
| 3.Main Theme / School Management | 4 | 8% | 4 | 8% | 2 | 4% |
| 4. Main Theme / School Parents Relations | 4 | 8% | 2 | 4% | 0 | 0 |
| 5.Main Theme /School Outer Environment Relations | 5 | 10% | 4 | 8% | 5 | 10% |
| -Unions | 3 | 6% | 2 | 4% | 3 | 6% |
| -Religious groups | 0 | 0 | 2 | 4% | 1 | 2% |
| -Local managements and politicians | 2 | 4% | 2 | 4% | 2 | 4% |
| 6.Main Theme /Office works, representation, correspondence | 1 | 2% | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2% |
Source: In this study, multiple situation models were used in qualitative research designs. The results obtained here are shown in Table 2.
It has been found that the themes related to student work, school external environment associations and school management are common dilemmas in all types of institutions. Apart from this, least the dilemma experiencing areas have been reported as office work, representation and correspondence. These have been described below in the main headings.
3.1.1. Student Affairs
In this study, the theme of student affairs consists of the main purpose of the school is the education of the student. Student’s enrollment, transfer, class, teacher, health, leave, health report, discipline, note, extracurricular studies, friendship relations etc. cover all situations. The structure of the school administrators' ethical dilemmas according to the student affairs has been regarded considering the types of schools they work. It has been found that ethical dilemmas experienced by school administrators with student records rank first for high school for school administrators working in elementary and secondary school types. In the sub-dimensions; student enrollment procedures were found to be the first ethic conflict area in primary schools, whereas in middle schools and high schools students discipline and note dimension were the most encountered ethical conflict areas (Table 2).
Some participants gave the following answers regarding the dilemmas related to the issues of enrollment, transfer, classroom identification, classroom change of the students in the subjects:
"We have to take students from outside the registry. The system does not allow it anyway.'' But he finds a vacant apartment on the spot where he finds his name on paper and I come here to sit. I am experiencing internal unrest, internal conflicts about what to do in this situation."(K22)
"A parent wanted to give the name of a teacher and give his child to that class at the beginning of the year. Teacher selection requests like this are very common.”(K37)
Regarding the ethical dilemmas of the student's grade and academic achievement, their relationship with other friends, and their adaptation to class/school rules, discipline, sanctions etc. some participants expressed the following:
"The student who received a lower grade in the physical education course said that the other grades were higher and he wanted the grade to be raised. He said your child dropped the grade average. Indeed, his other grades were high."(K36)
''A student who went to high school last grade had a problem with his mathematics teacher and was referred to the discipline board. The Board decided to sanction. However, because the child was in the last grade and the university preparatory stage, the family was found to be insistent. Ethical conflict in the implementation of this decision.'' (K8)
3.1.2. Personnel Affairs
In this work, the theme includes teachers working in the school, assistant personnel and security, job sharing of all employees such as civil servants, personal affairs. This theme has been observed to be reported in middle school administrators at most, and it has been the least experienced ethical dilemma in high school administrators, but it has never been reported in primary school administrators. Some participants said:
"A successful teacher wanted us to clear his classes on Fridays. We could not refuse this request because our teacher was very self-sacrificing. But we also knew that if the other teachers had similar demands, the curriculum would not sit down."(K19)
''Our teacher, who objected to every subject, objected to constant patrols. I created the seafaring preparation commission and gave this friend the task of commissioning the seizure preparation commission. But he objected. The board decided to give it by decision. He stated that other teachers should also be asked. I gave it to him because he objected to everything.''(K2)
3.1.3. School Parents Relations
In this study, the meaning of the school parent relationship is the request of the school administrators from parents, and the requests of the parents from the school. The area of parental involvement has been found to be the area of ethical dilemma that most elementary school administrators faced and less faced by middle school administrators. There has been no sample in this area in high schools. A few of these dilemmas have been presented below.
"We had a parent who said that the psychology of the teacher's child was broken. He was constantly coming and complaining about your teaching. The teacher changed the classroom layout, did not give equal rights to students, did not pay much attention, and so on. We've been reviewing the situation over and over again and saying that nothing like that happened. However, the parents were constantly busy. We were experiencing internal unrest every day listening to this child and listening."(K5)
''Our region, such as municipal wardrobe, stationery and so on. it distributes constant aid and this is being abused. The welfare is forming the confluence on the doors of the school administrators. The municipality is asked to identify poor people. Some parents and I have made it a habit, and they come to the room for continuous help. I cannot go out anymore."(K27)
3.1.4. School Management/Economic Needs of the School and School Parents Association
In this study, the concept of economic needs of school and the school-parents association involves economic needs of school assistant personnel, servants, security needs, cleaning materials, repair maintenance, stationery and all kinds of building physical needs. This group of ethical dilemmas, defined as school administration in the field of literacy, has been found to be encountered in all kinds of schools. It is the highest group of dilemmas that elementary and secondary school administrators’ face. In the high school administrators, it is in the 5th rank. A participant related to this said:
“In his mind all the needs of the school are met by the state and it is called free. However, there are not even 1 staff that the government gives in a school where 10 servants work.''(K40)
3.1.5. School External Environment Relations
This ethical dilemma, defined as the external stakeholders of the school, not related to direct service exchange with schools, but to the communities in the same society, local governments, non-governmental organizations, local politicians and religious groups, has been found to be ranking 1st in all school types. Subheadings were created according to the most intense encountered situations. Relations with unions, local administrators and politicians came first in all school types. A participant associated with it expressed the dilemma that they experienced:
''The municipality is distributing constant aid such as clothes, stationery, and this is being abused. Since the municipality has done this work on us, we are asked to identify the poor. Some parents and I have made it a habit. We cannot determine the economic situation of the lord. But we have to do it in a way.''(K29)
''Since my school is Anatolian high school students will automatically come with exam scores. We do not have a chance to intervene. Despite this, he is looking for a deputy mayor and he sends us to him.''(K31)
''The reeve of the neighborhood came to me to receive a child outside the registry. We have been told many times that this man and wife could not have done this before. We also talked about it. But the headman complained about us as soon as we became a governor."(K9).
3.1.6. Office Work, Correspondence, Representation Work
This theme refers to jobs represented by school administrators such as correspondence with superiors and other institutions, information processing integration and coding processes, participation in meeting interviews representing the office of the director, reception, visitation and visit. This theme has been seen as the least encountered theme of ethical dilemmas for all school types. Some examples have been given at primary and middle school levels and no examples have been given in high school managers. These two examples presented are as follows.
"As school administrators, we are invited to at least one meeting every week. Most of them are unnecessary meetings. Both the manager and assistant manager are being called. We attended a recent meeting. The attendant was unable to open the computer program, it was already late. Finally, you said you would open it and go."(K50)
''We have to make interviews with parents who watch for hours. Some parents think that this is the manager solving. I do not think managers should be put forward to make any decisions on every issue. It is both unnecessary waste of time and misunderstanding when sending to the assistant manager or the concerned person.”(K11).
3.1.7. The Attitudes and Behaviors of the Ethical Dilemmas Faced by the School Administrators
Question of "How do you deal with these ethical dilemmas and how do you decide?" to be examined, the school administrators reported their opinions in 9 themes. The school administrators said that "by putting themselves at risk for the benefit of the school or the student", "listening to the voice of their conscience", "doing what the law says", "flexing the rules to solve the problem", "seeking compromise" or "they have tried to solve the dilemmas by leaving it to time". The attitudes and behaviors of the school administrators regarding the dilemmas they faced have been presented in Table 3 according to the institution type they have been working in.
Table-3. Distribution of school administrators’ attitudes and behaviors towards ethical dilemmas according to school types.
| School administrator’s attitude and behavior in case of the ethical dilemma | Primary | Secondary | High school | |||
| f | % | f | % | f | % | |
| I take the risk for the benefit of the school/student. | 6 | 12% | 4 | 8% | 2 | 4% |
| I listen to my conscience. | 4 | 8% | 4 | 8% | 2 | 4% |
| I do what the law says. | 2 | 4% | 2 | 4% | 4 | 8% |
| I solve the problem by flexing the rules. | 2 | 4% | 1 | 2% | 1 | 2% |
| I try to find a way to compromise. | 4 | 8% | 2 | 4% | 1 | 2% |
| I try to solve the case before it piles up. | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2% | 0 | 0 |
| I seem to be doing but don’t do it. | 2 | 4% | 1 | 2% | 1 | 2% |
| I transfer it to my superiors. | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2% | 1 | 2% |
| I leave the case as it is, I wait until it resolves itself. | 1 | 2% | 1 | 2% | 0 | 0 |
Source: In this study, multiple situation models were used in qualitative research designs. The results obtained here are shown in Table 3.
As seen in Table 3, elementary and secondary school administrators have been trying to produce a solution when they see ethical dilemmas, by taking the risk for school / student benefit, listening to the voice of conscience and trying to compromise. In all three school types, the least mentioned attitudes have been referred as ''transferring to the superiors'', “trying to solve the case before it piles up” and ''leaving the case as it is'' respectively. Some participants expressed the following opinions in relation to this situation:
"I act in a way that will benefit my student when I meet ethical dilemmas. Because our aim is to provide education for the child, we will evaluate it in this direction."(K20)
"Sometimes we encounter such things that the rule creates victimization. In such situations, I decide how my conscience is comfortable."(K6)
''Sometimes such projects are being implemented so that they do not get in on their usefulness or functioning. But you need practice. You cannot appeal because the county office believes that it seems to be more successful in this regard than the top authorities. For example, '' orphan sister project"(K16)
''I seem to have to do it. If you do not, the county manager will be able to reduce your rating on your supervisor and interviews, performances, etc. So if you want to continue your mission you will do.”(K30)
However, the high school administrators, have stated that they found solutions to ethical conflicts by doing what the law says, listening to the voice of their conscience and taking risks for the benefit of the school / student. A high school manager said:
"In this case, I prefer not to go into the details of the law. I am reviewing the legislation again. I look at how they found solutions to similar issues."(K44)
4. Discussions, Conclusion and Suggestions
The findings of the research have been mentioned above and these findings have been interpreted and suggested as in the following. It has been stated that the interpretation of the collected data and making inferences out of it have been very important. The most important and most useful part of the research has been the final step where the researcher has interpreted the data he collected by using the cause and result relations (Yıldırım and Şimşek, 2006).
The interpretation of findings about the types of ethical dilemmas faced by school administrators; In the study, it has been seen that the school administrators working in different institutions mostly have dilemmas with the student affairs and the relations of the school with the external environment. When it is thought that the main element of the school is the student, it is natural that the student affairs have been the area where the school administrator works the most. It can also be said that on the basis of the relations with the external environment of the school there is also the case related to the student. There have been supportive studies in the literature about this (Urun and Gökçe, 2015).
Another area of ethical dilemma frequently encountered has been the area of parent’s involvement. It can be said that the reason for this theme to come to the forefront has been that the student's education has been the main purpose of the school. The student has been the most valuable asset of the parent, and this situation requires a strong relationship between the school and the parent. In this connection, it has been understood out of the participants’ views that the level of education and the socio-cultural structure of the parents have also been determinative factors. Many participants have emphasized this with the expressions such as 'ignorance of the parents' and 'parents having difficulty in understanding'. This subject varies according to the socio-economic structure of the school. Again, it can be said that the reason for this theme to be mentioned more frequently by primary school administrators than the other school types administrators has been that the age group in which the first meeting with the school becomes in the primary school and therefore it requires more attention.
The narrations about the relationships with the external environment of the school show that the unions, local politicians, local governments and religious groups can easily intervene in the functioning of schools. The reasons for the more intensive expression of relations with religious groups have been in secondary and high schools can be regarded as the age group of the students and the start of the school branching. Requests for making activities at school from groups such as religious associations and foundation, requiring students to the meetings such as political meeting rallies for crowded attendance have been stated by the participants. A statement of the Istanbul provincial mufti which has been reflected in the media also, supports this issue in a sense by emphasizing the uncontrollability of religious groups (Hurriyet Newspaper, 2018). The reason for the primary school administrators have not provided a sample of relations with the religious groups could be that the primary school age group has not been in the scope of any religious organization nor the activity. In other words, it can be said that primary schools have not been regarded as potential for religious groups. However, while the religious group theme has been low in primary schools, the unions theme has been found high. It has been reported that the education union administrators communicate in terms of recruiting members, assigning school administrators, board commissions, class assignments, interfering with teacher supervisor relations. Similar studies have also been found supporting this conclusion (Urun and Gökçe, 2015).
While the school management issue ranks high in primary and secondary schools, it ranks 5th in high schools; the reason for this could be that the high schools get some subsidy. It has been thought that the reason for the school parent’s association and the meeting of the school’s economic needs issues to be ranking high in primary and secondary schools could be that these schools have not got subventions and they have to meet their financial expenditures for the cleaning and servant needs using the donations from parents.
The interpretation of findings on attitudes and ethical dilemmas faced by school administrators;
In the case of the ethical dilemma encountered, the indication of all school administrators about taking risks for the school / student benefit can be regarded as a consequence of the responsibilities of education administrators about the future of the student and the administration of the school. It is stated that the first ranking ethical attitude of the school principals should be the benefit of the student in every decision (Erdoğan, 2012).
The intensive expression of the "I listen to the voice of my conscience" can be attributed to the fact that the conscience has been the basis of the ethical concept (Cerit, 2010). One of the important findings of the study has been that the theme of "I do what the law says" has been more frequently expressed in high schools than other school types. The reasons for this theme came first in high schools could be that the decisions made by the high school administrator has more influence and the compensations have been difficult. Because the student has become an adult and is in an important period of transformation in his life. It is the period during which the university exam and professions have been selected. The decision given by the school administrator can also be questioned in the field of law. In this case, school administrators may not want to take such a risk.
The fact that the school directorate has not been affiliated with a cadre and that the assignment has been mandatory (MEB school director appointment directive), the duration of the assignment is limited and it works according to the interviewing system, it affects the daily decisions of the principals about their work. It can be said that this status weakens the power of school administrators to stand ethically against external authority interventions. As mentioned above, the method of appointing the school administrator can be regarded as causing the school administrators to worry.
The second important finding for demographic variables has been the fact that there have been too many ethical problems in the field of parental involvement in dual education schools. The reasons for this have been that the school needs to deal with more parents, and bilateral education is overly complained by the parents to the channels such as 147, bimer, cimer, and school administrators have been seen as interlocutors.
Another point is that most of the school principals have been giving decisions about ethical principles with scrutiny, however hesitant to apply ethical filters for the requirements from external authorities and superiors. It can be regarded as the school administrator has been anxious about his / her future. At the same time, these results also draw attention to the interventions of external authorities to be directed to school administrators, the process of appointing and retaining school administrators, the worry that the interview method has been caused, and the problem of not being paid to schools. When questioning whether the school administrator's decision has been ethical, it should not be ignored that the school administrator has been in such a difficult situation. In future work, it may be advisable to focus on the reasons that push school administrators out of ethics.
It is understood from the examples of the participants that the district national education directors may form the demand sources which cause ethical dilemmas. Appointments to these positions requires to be done with important and objective criteria, with announcements and exams that will provide equal opportunity. Currently, MEB does not include a test in its own internal regulation (meb.gov.tr, legislation bank, regulation of promotion and change of title) whereas the government personnel headquarters foresees a test. For example; a teacher or a vice school principal who has not got administrator experience can be appointed as the district national education directorate. This can be seen from the career process in the curriculum vitae pages of county directorates, although it has not been deemed appropriate by the researcher to show the name of any district national education curriculum as a source of the study. It can be stated that this prevents the district national education directors from resisting some unethical demands. It has been understood from the participant's opinion that various pressure groups have been the vehicles for some requests. It must be remembered that the development of societies can only be possible through education (Petrov, 1925).
In order to resolve ethical dilemmas faced by school administrators in Turkey; it is necessary that the “school management” should not be regarded as the second duty, to eliminate the anxieties of the school administrators about the future of their positions and transfer their cadres from the education and training service class to the management services class. In this way school administrators' ethical decision-making power can be increased. Because increasing ethical sensitivities of school administrators through in-service trainings does not make sense by itself, the ethical standards and legal legislations (such as unions, religious groups, politicians) must be established and existing laws must be applied resolutely for the external stakeholder groups.
References
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