THE MAN IN THE PRINCIPAL'S OFFICE An Ethnography Updated Edition @ Harry F. Wolcott‘This work was developed under contract from the U.S. Office of Education, Department of Health, [Education and Weitare. However, the opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the position or paliey of that Ageney, and no official endarserment should he referred ALTAMIRA PRESS A division of Rowman & Litlefield Publishers, Inc 1630 Nosth Mann Street, #367 Walnut Creek, CA 94596 wwnwaltamirspress.com Rowman & Litlefeld Publishers, tne ‘A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Ine 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 209 Lanham, MD 20706 PO fox 317 Oxford OX2 9RU, UK Copyright © 2003 by AltaMina Press Originally published im 1975 by the University of Oregon All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stoved ina retrieval system, or lransmaitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or ‘otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, British Library Cataloguing in Publication information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Wolcott, Harty F., 1929- The man in the principal's office: an ethnography / Harry F. Wolcott Updated ed poem Inchides bibliographical references (p. ) ISBN 0.7591 .0820-4 (pbk: alk. paper) 1. Elementary school principals— United States Case studies, 2. Educational anthropology ‘United States. | Title 1.82831.92.W6s 2003 ez 2003030278 in the United States of America ©" ne paper use in thi publication meet the nina requirements of American Nations] Stadad for tformation Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Matera, ANSINSO 23958-1952 ' |1/A principal investigator in search of a principal In the lexicon of che social sciences, the person who disects a research project is formally designated the principal investigator. As I prepared the initial research proposal describing the ethnographic approach | intended to take in study- ing the social behavior of one elementary schoo! principal, I realized how literally my newly acquired title fie the task before me ‘This chapter introduces the study by describing how I proceeded as a principal investigator—how the fieldwork was initiaced and how the ethnographic account provided in the ensuing chapcers was obtained! This review of methodology begins with a discussion of the problems of locating 2 principal who would be the primary subjece of the research, The chapter inchides a consideracion of some of the real and anticipated problems in conducting the research and of the formal field seudy methods by which the research was carried out, A Principal Investigator i Search of a Principal Locating a principal willing to participate in this study was clearly a crucial step in its accomplishment. Aithough I attempeed co approach that step as systemati- cally as possible, as [ look back on how Edward Bell became my associate in this venture, I can not help bur wonder at my good fortune. Before I began my search I identified criteria for selecting a principal which seemed either essential for the purposes of the study, necessary for the relationship between investigator and subject, or compatible with some personal biases of my own. These criteria in cluded: that the principal be a full-time, supervising principal (in contrast 10 & teaching principal); that he be responsible for only one elementary school; that he not be new co administration or to a particular building at the outser of the study; that, like the majority of elementary schoo! principals, he be male; and that he re- gard himsclf as 2 carcer principal rather than someone consciously using the prin cipalship as a stepping-stone to a “higher” position. 1 also felt the principal with 2 Brief accounts of the fieldwork have also been reported elsewhere: "An Ethnographic Approach to the Study of School Administrators" (Wolcott 1970) and “The Elementary School Principal: Notes from a Field Study” (Wolcott, 1974), 1