Abstract
Ethical considerations have been examined in American and European school management research, but indigenous and comparative aspects have largely been understudied. To better understand the ethical decision-making of indigenous school leaders, the present research aims to examine the ethical considerations of one such minority group – Bedouin Arab educators in Israel – and to compare their ethical decision-making with that of their counterparts in Israel’s Jewish majority. The research utilized the pre-designed multiple Ethical Perspectives Instrument, which requires participants to resolve school dilemmas by choosing one of two given ethical perspectives taken from the following six: fairness, utilitarianism, care, critique, profession and community. Two exploratory studies were carried out: Study 1 examined the ethical judgments of Bedouin bachelor of education (BEd) students (n = 28), and their perceptions of the ethical judgments of hypothesized Bedouin school leaders. Study 2 compared the ethical judgments of Bedouin (n = 30) and Jewish (n = 39) masters (MA) educational administration students. Bedouin undergraduates reported care and critique as their own dominant ethical preferences, but viewed utilitarian considerations as being dominant among hypothesized Bedouin school leaders. Among the graduate students, utilitarian considerations were more dominant among the Bedouin group than the Jewish group. The implications of the findings are discussed.
Introduction
School leaders are regularly exposed to complex situations that present ethical dilemmas (e.g. Arar, 2015; Berkovich and Eyal, 2020; Eyal et al., 2011; Langlois et al., 2014; Oplatka and Arar, 2016). The vast majority of research to date on this issue has focused on Eurocentric contexts. Thus, while scholars have argued that ethical considerations are embedded in culture and in socio-political settings, only a few empirical works have attempted to directly investigate this topic in non-European contexts in general, and in Arab cultures in particular (Arar et al., 2016; Jarrar, 2013).
In this paper, we define a Eurocentric context as a civilization found in Western European countries and their derivative settler societies in North America and elsewhere. More specifically, a Eurocentric context refers to a set of features distinguished by a broad integration of science and technology, a democratic tradition and an individualistic orientation (Samoha, 2005). Accordingly, Israeli society can be considered a semi-western country, rather than a fully Eurocentric context (Eisenstadt, 2000; Golan and Mishol-Shauli, 2018; Samoha, 2005). However, Israel’s key orientation, particularly that of its Jewish hegemonic group towards the Eurocentric model, contrasts with that of its Bedouin minority. Hence, comparing ethical judgments may reveal traditional–modern convergences as well as divergences in cultural, organizational and educational contexts.
Among all people engaged in decision-making, moral and ethical differences can be found by examining the internal ‘cultural model’ of a given group, which represents the ‘blend of normative beliefs and moral prescriptions’ (Markus, 2004: 78), and also through external cross-cultural comparison with other groups (Resick et al., 2006). School leaders in marginalized ethnic groups may face additional challenges (such as hegemony–periphery relations) when considering ethical dilemmas (Arar et al., 2016); thus, investigating the ethical judgment they deploy can provide further insight into the use of multiple ethical paradigms.
Our research sought to examine the ethical considerations of one such minority group – Bedouin Arab educators – and to compare their ethical decision-making with that of their counterparts in Israel’s Jewish majority. We employed the Ethical Perspectives Instrument (EPI) developed by Eyal et al. (2011), but adapted it to fit the cultural sensibilities of the Bedouin community given their specific culture, and socio-political marginalization while taking researcher–participant relations into account. Utilizing the EPI enabled us to illuminate multiple facets of value-based decision-making from an indigenous perspective, reflecting Bedouin school leaders’ thinking as they negotiate the tensions between their roles as agents of both the state and their indigenous community. This research is particularly important inasmuch as the ethical judgments of educational practitioners (from both hegemonic and minority groups) are seldom systematically explored using a pre-defined ethical framework.
Literature review
Normative approaches to researching ethical judgment in educational management
Normative approaches to ethics attempt to justify a particular moral standard (Harvey et al., 2009). One of the most, if not the most, popular normative frameworks for ethical judgment in the field of school leadership is the multiple ethical paradigms approach. Studies suggest that simultaneously weighing multiple ethical considerations can substantially help school leaders to frame the everyday dilemmas they face (Shapiro and Stefkovich, 2016; Starratt, 1994). Multiple ethical perspectives promote flexibility and facilitate arriving at complex and non-dogmatic solutions that are in the best interests of students, thereby outperforming the use of any unidimensional ethic (Stefkovich, 2014; Stefkovich and Begley, 2007). While Shapiro and Stefkovich (2016) acknowledge that individuals are inherently disposed toward certain ethical frames, they urge the adoption of a new normative ideal in which educators consider multiple different frames when making ethical decisions.
The original paradigmatic model for this approach included four ethical perspectives (Shapiro and Stefkovich, 2016): the ethics of justice, care and critique, which are merged with a fourth ethic of profession. Three of these original perspectives (justice, critique and care) were first discussed by Starratt (1994). A fifth ethic, the ethic of community, was added to the educational ethics discourse later on (Furman, 2004). Eyal et al. (2011) extended the multiple ethical decision-making paradigm to a total of six ethics, by parceling out the ethic of justice into two component ethics of fairness and utilitarianism. Below, we provide a review of these six ethics and the distinctions between them:
The ethics of fairness and utilitarianism
The justice ethical perspective can be deconstructed into two sub-perspectives: fairness and utilitarianism (Berkovich and Eyal, 2020; Eyal et al., 2011). The ethic of fairness seeks equality in the form of just treatment for all, based on universal standards (Shapiro and Stefkovich, 2016; Starratt, 1994). It calls for a reallocation of resources within the existing social structure so as to assure individual rights to equal treatment (Begley, 2007). Frequently, the ethic of fairness takes the form of procedural justice, which is associated with compliance with the regulations of the existing system (Berkovich and Eyal, 2020; Eyal et al., 2011). By contrast, the ethic of utilitarianism seeks to improve the public good by maximizing the aggregated good of all members (Leung, 2002; Strike et al., 2005). Utilitarianism thus supports decisions that benefit the student body as a whole, despite the harm that may result to specific individuals (McCray and Beachum, 2006).
The ethic of critique
Unlike the justice-based ethical perspectives, the ethic of critique challenges the accepted power structures to advocate for an alternative social narrative (Apple, 2003) that acknowledges ethnic diversity (Norberg and Johansson, 2014). To promote social justice as a universal principle, this ethic questions the social norms, institutions and infrastructures that harm and oppress weaker populations (Berkovich and Eyal, 2020; Eyal et al., 2011). In education, the ethic of critique seeks to subvert structures that generate inequality, and advocates for the redistribution of resources in a manner that would compensate for socio-political oppression (Berkovich and Eyal, 2020; Eyal et al., 2011).
The ethic of profession
The ethic of profession is also based on a generalized moral principle. While some scholars have proposed viewing professionalism as a meta-ethic that merges together other ethics (see Shapiro and Stefkovich, 2016) in order to promote ‘students’ best interests’ (Stefkovich, 2014; Stefkovich and Begley, 2007), others have criticized this definition. Eyal et al. (2011) noted a conceptual confusion due to an overlap between the ethic of profession and other ethics, and suggested a narrower definition of the concept that focuses on valued codes of professional conduct. According to this approach, school leaders who apply the ethic of profession are those who base their ethical decisions primarily on their professional knowledge, their personal experience, and cutting-edge research (Berkovich and Eyal, 2020; Eyal et al., 2011).
The ethic of community
In contrast to the previous ethics, the ethic of community is a particularistic ethical consideration manifested in multicultural societies (Berkovich and Eyal, 2020; Eyal et al., 2011). Furman (2004: 215) claims that it ‘centers the communal over the individual as the primary locus of moral agency in schools’. Accordingly, school leaders are expected to prioritize the values, beliefs and desires of the community in their decision-making (Furman, 2004). This ethic considers the community as vital, seeing it as the setting within which ethical decisions are often made (Furman, 2004). For the sake of conceptual distinction, our specific definition of the ethic of community in this article adopts the view of education as a mechanism of community reproduction rather than as a mechanism for altering socio-political relations (which would blur the ethic of community with the ethic of critique) (Berkovich and Eyal, 2020; Eyal et al., 2011).
The ethic of care
Finally, on an even more particularistic level, the ethic of care is unique in its precise focus on the maintenance of authentic relationships between individuals, built on the dyadic as well as reciprocal commitments that are essential for individual well-being (Beck, 1992; Langlois et al., 2014). When utilized by the decision-maker, this ethic reinforces school leaders’ responsibility to counter the anguish experienced by individuals and to empower them (Noddings, 2003).
Shapiro and Stefkovich (2016) suggested that the implementation of a multi-ethical paradigm in decision-making will necessitate simultaneous consideration of all of the above ethical perspectives when decisions are being made. Thus, ethical decision-making is considered a rational challenge in which the decision-maker can arrive at optimal solutions after considering all possible options. This normative view of ethical judgment assumes that individuals can make complex decisions in a systemic manner and independent of their own ethical preferences; however, this somewhat idealized premise is not borne out by the findings of previous studies (Berkovich and Eyal, 2020; Eyal et al., 2011).
The descriptive approach to researching ethical judgment in educational management
In contrast to the normative approach to ethical decision-making, which aims to prescribe specific uses of ethics or specific ethical decision-making processes, the research literature also offers an alternative, descriptive approach that focuses on mapping the use of different moral standards in practice (Harvey et al., 2009). Descriptive research has led scholars to conclude that ethical judgment is ‘bounded’ due to cognitive biases (e.g. Kern and Chugh, 2009). This description of human decision-making is in line with Simon’s (1957) theory of bounded human rationality, in which he argues that the cognitive capacity to process and solve complex problems is very limited and biased. One quantitative study that investigated school leaders’ use of multiple ethical paradigms demonstrated that leaders cannot simultaneously consider all possible ethical approaches (Eyal et al., 2011). More specifically, the structure of school leaders’ ethical logic (that is, the manner in which various ethical considerations are co-aligned in their cognition) contains inherent contradictions. Eyal et al. (2011) found negative correlations between school leaders’ ethical choices reflecting values of fairness and those reflecting utilitarianism and care. Likewise, choices reflecting values of community correlated negatively with those reflecting care, critique and profession. This bounded cognitive processing can be seen even more clearly in the fact that many school leaders are inclined to favor one particular ethical consideration in multiple decision-making situations (Eyal et al., 2011), meaning that their ethical processing is clearly biased towards a certain ethic. A number of qualitative studies have also confirmed that school leaders are inclined to favor particular ethical considerations over others (e.g. Norberg and Johansson, 2007). However, despite these initial findings, there is a dearth of empirical research into school leaders’ application of multiple ethical perspectives.
Moreover, school leaders’ ethical preferences and judgment are mostly explored in Eurocentric contexts (Begley, 2007). Scholars have wondered whether Euro-grounded moral frameworks are relevant to professionals in traditional societies (Arar et al., 2016), and have argued that cultural differences influence the ethical judgment of professionals (Baïada-Hirèche and Garmilis, 2016). Therefore, there is a need for further investigation of the ethical decision-making of non-European school leaders from a descriptive approach. In this study, we examined the ethical judgments of practitioners from an indigenous group operating in a deeply westernized context in order to illuminate how culture and socio-political settings affect ethical inclinations.
Indigenous communities as a research context for studying school leaders’ ethical judgment
‘Indigenous’ refers to people who were native to a particular land prior to imperial settlement (Scott et al., 2013: 317). For most indigenous peoples, their relationship to the land is infused with economic, social and spiritual significance, and, as such, is central to their culture and overall way of life (Abu-Saad, 2015). Indigenous peoples share a history of exclusion from the dominant society’s decision-making processes that directly affect them (Abu-Saad, 2008). However, not much is known about the extent to which the decision-making of indigenous professionals, particularly on ethical issues, is aligned with that of the hegemony group.
While previous studies have not focused on the ethical judgments of indigenous school leaders per se, some studies have touched upon indigenous school leaders’ unique role as mediators between different cultural worlds – between modern ideals and indigenous-traditional values. Indigenous school leaders in Australia, Canada, Kenya, and New Mexico in the United States were found to emphasize their responsibilities towards students’ academic success, professional values and compliance with state policies on the one hand, while also upholding the indigenous group’s identity and communal affiliation on the other (Bird et al., 2013; Scott et al., 2013). In addition, indigenous school leaders were found to emphasize the care ethos (Arar et al., 2016), often by treating students as extended kin and dedicating continuous efforts to promoting student and community well-being (Scott et al., 2013). In this research study, we aimed to broaden empirical knowledge about indigenous school leaders by focusing specifically on ethical judgments and on the under-investigated population of Bedouin school leaders in Israel.
The case of Bedouin Arabs in Israel
The Bedouin Arabs in Israel, numbering approximately 194,000 people, comprise about 15.6% of the country’s larger Palestinian-Arab minority, which in turn makes up about 20% of Israel’s total population (Central Bureau of Statistics, 2009; Rudnitzky and Abu-Ras, 2012). The Israeli Bedouins today are divided into two groups: those living in the southern Negev desert, and those living in the north. Additional minor concentrations of Bedouins are scattered throughout other locations around the country.
The Bedouins view themselves as authentic Arabs who follow a deeply rooted traditional Arab culture, and as distinct from the larger Palestinian-Arab minority (Abu-Rass, 2010; Ben David, 2004). This subgroup, with its cultural, historical, social and political uniqueness, is thus a minority among minorities (Ben David, 2004). The Bedouins maintain a strong tribal social system (Abu-Rass, 2010; Ben David, 2004; Mizel, 2009), with a corresponding highly patriarchal society which has been characterized as bearing an intense power distance (Abu-Rabia-Queder and Oplatka, 2008). Although scholars tend to define power distance as a function of its distribution in a given society, its pronounced intensity among the Bedouin Arabs is indicative of high legitimacy associated with social inequality that has been socially institutionalized over time (Sabri, 2012). This inequality ultimately skews its organization toward acute hierarchical relations between superiors and subordinates, and is underpinned by the collective orientation of the community (Hofstede, 2004).
Indeed, from childhood, community members are traditionally educated to value group interests over individual gains (Rinawi, 2003). Recently, however, scholars have observed a certain shift in attitudes towards these collectivist inclinations among the Bedouin, as demonstrated by their gradual disengagement from shared economic relationships and their imitation of Americanized lifestyles (Abu-Rass, 2010; Abu-Saad, 2008). This development corresponds with modernization processes in which these societies have transitioned from a pure communalism that de-legitimated individual interests to ‘cultural dualism’ (Moemeka, 1998; Weinstock et al., 2015). Accordingly, this society, which formerly maintained the ‘supremacy of the community as an entity and the safeguard of its welfare’ (Moemeka, 1998: 125), is now characterized by a ‘softer’ communalism that allows the co-existence of individual interests alongside group interests. This twofold orientation bears implications for numerous social and educational domains, such as achievement–ascription orientation, cooperative–coordinative relations, and collective–individual welfare (Moemeka, 1998; Weinstock et al., 2015).
Ethical considerations among indigenous Bedouin school leaders
The state-affiliated educational context for the indigenous Bedouin population in Israel, alongside the unique communal and social characteristics of this marginalized minority group, creates substantial complexity for Bedouin school leaders. The marginalization of Bedouins is highly evident with regard to education. Bedouin primary and secondary students have low levels of academic achievement and participation in higher education (Abu-Rass, 2010; Abu-Saad, 2015), and the educational services provided to the Bedouin sector fall short (Abu-Saad, 2015). Schools are overcrowded and challenge teachers’ performance as they are insufficiently funded in comparison to all other groups in Israel (Golan-Agnon, 2006).
Although there is a dearth of research on Bedouin teachers, state-sponsored publications and journalists’ reporting have contributed to this scholarship by documenting the impoverished conditions teachers face, the high rates of teacher violence, students’ low achievement scores and high dropout rates (Weissblei, 2017). Most teachers from the communities’ key region of the Negev are young, inexperienced and often only work in this region for short periods of time to get enough professional experience to return to their communities of origin (Eyal et al., 2018). Interviews with Bedouin maths teachers showed that they often fall back on this profession as a result of what they describe as limited opportunities in the Israeli labor market (Gilad and Millet, 2018). In addition, the majority of the teachers working in the Negev are from the northern and central parts of Israel. Some are Bedouins, but many are Muslims of other communities, Christians or Druze. This may be related to policymakers’ efforts to increase regional educational instruction by 80% in the next few years (Weissblei, 2017). This diverse teaching workforce and its rapid turnover reinforce the sense of alienation between the community and its teachers (Abu-Rass, 2010). This alienation is compounded by tribal contentions, which according to journalists’ accounts threaten to impose kinship concerns over professional criteria in the social makeup of the school instructional framework (Ynet, 2018). Thus, public policy and the ongoing inequality experienced by Bedouin teachers appear to have led to deeply entrenched conflicts and professional challenges for these educators.
In a similar vein, some scholars have discussed the ongoing cultural tension that Bedouin schools face between the traditional values of the Bedouin community and those of the modern Israeli public education system (Abu-Saad, 1995). For example, the Bedouin request for gender separation in schools was refused by the authorities (Mizel, 2009). Another educational tension concerns the school curriculum (Agbaria et al., 2015). As Israel’s national Arabic-speaking curriculum developed for Arab education tends to blur rather than enhance the formation of Arab identity, it is argued that Bedouin students are alienated from their culture and required to internalize the values and culture of the country’s hegemony (Agbaria et al., 2015; Al-Haj, 1995).
Bedouin school leaders are state-appointed but are also community representatives, inasmuch as Bedouin schools are clan-based and the tribal sheikh’s authorization of a principal’s appointment is crucial, regardless of formal approval by the Ministry of Education (Mizel, 2009). Previous research has shown the predominance of Bedouin school leaders’ sense of obligation to their community (Abu-Rass, 2010) and cultural identity (Mizel, 2009). For example, Mizel (2009) found that in cases of school-based rather than state-based management, school leaders demonstrated sound accountability towards the community but not towards the organizational apparatus. In addition, the Bedouin community and the sheikhs continue to voice a recurring concern that the school’s primary responsibility must be to preserve tribal culture (Mizel, 2009).
Nevertheless, the profile of Bedouin communities and school leaders has changed somewhat in recent decades, with leaders increasingly attempting to maneuver between contradictory expectations from within and outside their communities. Bedouin school leaders have begun to demand better educational services from the state, in order to function adequately in the broader socio-economic context of Israeli society (Abu-Saad, 2015). Furthermore, the professional profile of Bedouin school leaders has changed. According to a 2011 survey, 61% of Bedouin school principals have a masters degree or higher (Balas et al., 2012), often acquired in a diverse learning environment with Jewish peers. This experience exposes and socializes Bedouin school leaders to modern ideals and hegemonic cultural models.
It would seem reasonable to assume that, for Bedouin school leaders, the challenge of negotiating their contradictory modern and traditional values, and their perpetual dependency on both state authority and tribal authority (e.g. Abu-Rabia-Queder and Oplatka, 2008), would strongly influence their ethical judgments and decision-making. However, we found little empirical research directly examining this phenomenon. To address this lacuna, the current preliminary, exploratory research study sought to examine multiple facets of value-based decision-making from an indigenous perspective, focusing on Bedouin school leaders in Israel.
Research questions
The present research included two studies administered in Israeli academic institutions. The first focused on Bedouin trainee teachers – undergraduate students in education (BEd) who were concurrently enrolled in a teaching certification program. We compared these students’ own ethical considerations during dilemma resolution with their perceptions of how imaginary Bedouin school leaders (hereafter ‘hypothesized Bedouin school leaders’) would respond to the same dilemmas. This internal comparison enabled us to spotlight Bedouin cultural values, in particular the ways in which they pertain to the ethical judgment of school leaders.
The second study focused on serving Bedouin and Jewish teachers who were training to become school principals – graduate students in educational administration (MA Ed-Admin). We compared the ethical considerations of the Bedouin MA Ed-Admin students during dilemma resolution with those of their Jewish peers. Conducting this external comparison allowed us to explore the ethical judgment of marginalized Bedouin school leaders and contrast it with their Jewish-Israeli counterparts who represent the hegemonic judgment. This dual design supported contextualization of the findings and meaningful comparative interpretation.
In light of the paucity of prior research into Bedouin educators’ ethical decision-making, precluding the formulation of specific hypotheses, this exploratory research study was guided by two main research questions:
Q1. Which of the six major ethical considerations dominates Bedouin’s school leaders’ ethical decision-making, serving as a clear disposition in their ethical judgments that outweighs all other ethical considerations? To explore this question, we examined patterns in participants’ personal ethical mode.
Q2. What characterizes Bedouin school leaders’ ethical logic – that is, the manner in which their various ethical considerations are linked with one another during ethical decision making? To explore this question, we examined patterns of intercorrelation among the preference rates for the six ethical perspectives.
The two questions were explored comparatively across both of the studies conducted (internal and external comparison).
Method
This study was initiated and conducted through the collaborative efforts of Jewish and Palestinian-Israeli researchers. We are not of Bedouin descent; rather, our ongoing work (and informal) engagement with these populations stem largely from our instructional experience. This sparked our curiosity and led to an engagement with key informants that guided our preliminary discussions to shape the research design to fit Bedouin participants and society.
Participants and procedure
In this study, we used non-probability sampling, applying two methods. For the Bedouin samples in both studies, we employed purposive sampling because no systematic database is available for locating this specific minority population. For the Jewish sample, we used convenience sampling in institutions with diverse student body size, geographical location and student characteristics.
Study 1 contained 28 Bedouin trainee teachers from 2 Arab colleges in Israel, comprising all the Bedouin BEd students enrolled in the colleges’ 9 pre-service teacher training classes. This group, of which 25 were females (89.3%), had a mean age of 23.73 years (SD = 3.71), with 82.1% of participants from northern Israel and 17.9% from southern Israel. The students were asked to complete the EPI (Eyal et al., 2011) twice: once by selecting the ethical choices that they themselves preferred for the 30 dilemmas (see Figure 1 for sample scenarios), and once by selecting what they thought would be the ethical choices of Bedouin school leaders – that is, their perceived cultural model.
Sample scenarios from the questionnaire given to respondents (the Ethical Perspective Instrument, Eyal et al., 2011).
Study 2 included 69 participants, comprising 30 Bedouin MA Ed-Admin students from 5 higher education institutions in Israel, and 39 Jewish MA Ed-Admin students from a single institution. Most MA Ed-Admin students in Israel study part-time while also working full-time in key school positions (e.g. vice principals, department heads, subject heads). Thus, 89% of the Jewish MA Ed-Admin group and 75% of the Bedouin MA Ed-Admin group were acting in managerial positions in schools. Holding these roles require teachers to engage in more frequent contact with principals, and thus exposes them to a broader perspective of school policies (Bennett, 1995).
Among the Bedouin participants, 24 were female (80%); 66.7% were from southern Israel and 33.3% from northern Israel; the mean age was 36.36 years (SD = 5.66); and mean tenure as a teacher in their school was 12.66 years (SD = 4.51). Among the Jewish participants, 31 were female (79.5%); all were from a large metropolitan area in central Israel; the mean age was 43.41 years (SD = 5.48); and mean tenure was 9.62 years (SD = 8.27). Independent t-test analyses indicated a significant difference in mean age between the Bedouin and Jewish groups, t(67) = 2.54, p < .05, but there was no statistically significant difference in mean tenure between them. All of the participants were asked to complete the EPI (Eyal et al., 2011) once, by selecting the ethical responses they would choose for the 30 ethical dilemmas.
Both studies were conducted after obtaining Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval from the relevant academic institutions. Some of the participants attended classes that were taught by the researchers. Although research on one’s own students is a commonplace practice within (and outside) the field of educational leadership, specific measures were taken to counter both the potentially adverse effects of professor–student dependency and the plight of Bedouin students as a minority and marginalized group in Israeli society and academia.
All the undergraduate participants were enrolled in Arab colleges. As stated above, the questionnaires were tailored to fit the subjects’ cultural affinity, were presented in Arabic and were distributed by Arab-speaking research assistants. Graduate students enrolled in ethnically diverse programs were asked to complete the questionnaires in Arabic. Since these classes are ethnically diverse, the full cohort of students was asked to fill out the questionnaire. This strategy allowed us to minimize any sense of cultural or ethnic labeling of the Bedouin students. All the respondents were invited to submit their questionnaires anonymously and indirectly at a neutral venue (office mailbox or administrative office). In all instances, participation was voluntary, the subjects were assured of confidentiality and could withdraw at any time without repercussions.
Instrument
The EPI used in both studies contains 30 dilemmas that educators and school leaders may encounter in their daily work in schools (EPI form and Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) syntaxes are available at www.izhakber.com/EPI). These dilemmas are often the product of interactions with various stakeholders such as students, teachers, parents, communities and the education system. Drawing from the multiple ethical paradigms approach (Eyal et al., 2011), the EPI presents dilemmas spanning the six different ethical perspectives that are central to the work of educators and school leaders: fairness, utilitarianism, care, critique, profession and community. As seen in the sample dilemmas in Figure 1, the dichotomous structure of the EPI dilemmas requires participants to actively choose between two different perspectives for each dilemma. The EPI has several advantages as compared to other ethics-related Likert scale questionnaires used in school management (e.g. Arar and Oplatka, 2016; Langlois et al., 2014) and general management studies (e.g. Reidenbach-Robin multidimensional ethics scale): The EPI forced choice design bypasses the problem of scenario use with Likert scale items in a factorial design. This is because Likert scale scenarios often generate low discriminant validity between ethical perspectives (McMahon and Harvey, 2007). The EPI captures the ethical complexity described in the literature as the crux of ethical dilemmas. Thus, it can be seen as a favored tradeoff to the conundrum ‘You can’t have your cake and eat it too’ (see, for instance, Hahn et al., 2010). Unlike Likert scale items, forced choice items have been found to be less subjected to self-enhancing biases and faking when assessing integrity-related topics (see Jackson et al., 2000). Forced choice items are known to demonstrate better predictive validity than Likert scale items (Bartram, 2007).
Two EPI scores were calculated: an ethical perspective preference index for each ethic, representing its selection percentage across relevant ethical dilemmas (these scores allowed us to explore participants’ ethical reasoning and logic as manifested by the complementary or contradictory interrelations between the different ethical perspectives); and a personal modal ethical preference, indicating the dominant ethic adopted by each participant. Both ethical reasoning and ethical disposition are key elements in cultural models of ethics. Note that in Study 1, scores were calculated twice, once for participants’ own preferences and once for their perceptions of the preferences of hypothesized Bedouin school leaders.
Expert judges – one non-Bedouin Arab researcher and one Bedouin Arab researcher specializing in educational administration, and both fluent in both Arabic and Hebrew – modified the Arabic version of the EPI to Bedouin culture and translated it into Arabic and back into Hebrew, to verify the validity of the items (Brislin, 1980). Specific attention was given by the Bedouin researcher, a past school principal and superintendent, to ensuring that the nuances of the dilemma descriptions were compatible with the Bedouin schooling context. Differences in translation were discussed until a final version was agreed. Because the original EPI employed dilemmas were modeled on the experiences of Jewish educators in Israel, the adaptation aimed to draw upon the cultural reservoir of Bedouins. For example, a dilemma that originally focused on the attitude towards Jewish-Ethiopian minority pupils was changed to the case of Christian children studying in a Muslim majority school. In another case, instead of a dilemma involving a religious teacher who reveals secular tendencies after hours by removing his skull cap (kippah), the modified version was about a female teacher who removes her Muslim head covering outside the school grounds. Thus, by adapting these scenarios we aimed to balance our goal of making the dilemmas meaningful and appropriate to the cultural milieu of Bedouin culture, while retaining the benefits of the original EPI instrument. See Eyal et al. (2011) for details on the EPI’s validity and reliability.
Results
Study 1
The first research question (Q1) in Study 1 was explored by investigating Bedouin trainee teachers’ own dominant personal ethical mode versus the dominant ethical preference they attributed to a hypothesized Bedouin school leader. Using a series of one-sample t-tests between percentages, as shown in Table 1, the percentages of trainee teachers whose own dominant ethical preference was care (42.9%) or critique (14.3%) were found to significantly surpass the percentages of hypothesized Bedouin school leaders who were speculated to have care (4.8%) or critique (0%) as their personal ethical mode. On the other hand, a dominant ethical mode of utilitarianism was significantly more prevalent for the hypothesized Bedouin school leaders (66.7%) than among the trainee teachers themselves (19.0%).
One-sample t-tests for personal ethical mode, comparing percentages of Bedouin trainee teachers’ (BEd students) own dominant modes with percentages of their perceived dominant modes for hypothesized Bedouin school leaders.
Note: Only the 21 participants (out of total n of 28) who demonstrated one clear dominant ethical mode, surpassing all others, were included in these analyses.
*p < .05, **p < .01, two-tailed.
df: degrees of freedom.
The second research question (Q2) in Study 1 was explored by investigating Bedouin trainee teachers’ ethical logic during ethical decision-making, as measured by the patterns of intercorrelation among ethical-perspective preference indexes. In this first study, using a series of dependent correlation difference tests that utilized Steiger’s (1980) Z-bar2* formula, we compared the patterns of intercorrelation among the trainees’ own ethical-perspective preference indexes (see above the diagonal in Table 2) and the patterns among their speculated ethical preferences for hypothesized Bedouin school leaders (see below the diagonal in the table). Two significant differences in intercorrelation patterns emerged, both pertaining to the fairness ethic. No significant paired correlation was found between fairness and critique for these Bedouin trainees’ own preferences, r = .11, p > .05, whereas a significant negative correlation did emerge between these two ethics for their perceptions of the preferences of hypothesized Bedouin school leaders, r = -.45, p < .05, Z-bar2* = -2.10, p < .05 (two-tailed). In addition, no significant paired correlation emerged between fairness and care for the trainees’ own preferences, r = .09, p > .05, while a significant negative correlation was found between these two ethics for their perceptions of the preferences of hypothesized Bedouin school leaders, r = -.58, p < .01, Z-bar2* = -2.02, p < .05 (two-tailed).
Pearson correlations among Bedouin trainee teachers’ ethical-perspective preference indexes for self and for hypothesized Bedouin school leaders (n = 28).
*p < .05, **p < .01, two-tailed.
Study 2
The first research question (Q1) in Study 2 was explored by comparing the personal ethical modes of Bedouin and Jewish MA Ed-Admin students, using a series of two-sample t-tests. As seen in Table 3, one significant group difference emerged in the distribution of personal ethical modes, with a dominant ethical mode of utilitarianism found to be significantly more prevalent in the Bedouin group (20.0%) than in the Jewish group (2.8%).
Two-sample t-tests between Bedouin and Jewish groups, for percentages of MA educational administration (Ed-Admin) students who revealed a dominant personal ethical mode.
Note: Only those participants who demonstrated one clear dominant ethical mode, surpassing all others, were included in these analyses: 36 of the 39 Jewish participants and 20 of the 30 Bedouin participants.
*p < .05, two-tailed.
df: degrees of freedom.
The second research question (Q2) in Study 2 was explored by comparing the ethical logic during ethical decision-making of Bedouin and Jewish MA Ed-Admin students, as measured by the two groups’ patterns of intercorrelation among ethical-perspective preference indexes. Using a series of independent correlation difference tests (Preacher, 2002; see online calculator at http://quantpsy.org), we compared the Bedouin group’s intercorrelation patterns (see above the diagonal in Table 4) with those of the Jewish group (see below the diagonal in the table). One significant difference emerged: although no significant correlation was found between critique and utilitarianism in the Jewish group, r(39) = -.01, p > .05, a significant negative correlation did emerge between these two ethics for the Bedouin group, r(30) = -.57, p < .05, z = -2.5, p < .05 (two-tailed).
Pearson correlations among ethical-perspective preference indexes for Bedouin and Jewish groups of MA educational administration (Ed-Admin) students.
*p < .05, **p < .01, two-tailed.
Discussion
This exploratory research study sought to narrow a gap in the literature on ethical judgments using multiple ethical paradigms, by undertaking a preliminary investigation of indigenous trainee teachers, and graduate students training to become school principals, which we hoped would elucidate the cultural and socio-political complexities facing educators in diverse societies.
Findings underscore the centrality of the ethic of utilitarianism in Bedouin school leaders’ judgments, both in relation to their own social group and relative to the outer world (majority Jewish society). In their decision-making, these leaders prioritize the collective school-related benefits of their actions, whether for the good of the student cohort or the school’s status (for example, by assigning resources to promote overall school performance on standardized tests).
One possible explanation for this can be taken from critical theory on the reproduction of power structures in education (see Giroux, 1983), which posits that indigenous school leaders tend to adhere to utilitarianism because they conform to the dominant culture’s values. Especially when operating in societies that are subjugated to colonial or other oppressive regimes, school leaders experience cultural dominance and thus may adopt utilitarianism as an isomorphic act (Rogers, 2006) to confront these coercive circumstances and breach the community’s marginal position. According to Arar (2015), Arab schools are forced to deal with government-imposed agendas involving mainly competitiveness and accountability, which ignore the needs of marginal populations. Thus, school leaders respond by adopting a utilitarian approach that promotes overall achievement in order to avoid criticism from the system, meet its requirements and reduce the large gaps in education.
Another explanation is that utilitarian considerations are legitimate both in modern individualistic and traditional Middle Eastern Islamic societies. Prior research suggested that among traditional nomadic Bedouin societies, the exigencies of survival encourage the adoption of practical behavior (Eloul, 2010), which can also be viewed as utilitarianism (Hasan, 2002). In other words, utilitarianism may be considered to be deeply embedded in Bedouin leaders’ cultural mindset. Under this habitus, utilitarianism can serve simultaneously as a way to internally promote the well-being of the community and to externally confront its social exclusion. As such, the ethic of utilitarianism can be seen as a ‘mobilizing ethic,’ one based on key symbols that catalyze shared emotions and value orientations in a community (Ortner, 1973). Such symbols may serve as objects of reverence as well as sources of powerful motivations (Des Bouvrie, 2005).
The rationale behind Bedouin school leaders’ ethical judgments (Q2) can be further investigated by examining several significant differences that emerge in the matrices of Bedouin school leaders’ ethical preferences, created by internal comparison (Table 2 above) and by external comparison with peers from the Jewish majority group (Table 4 above). The differences represent particular significant linkages between ethical considerations; put more simply, they reveal the participants’ ethical logic.
Firstly, in the internal comparison (Study 1), the ethical logic attributed to Bedouin school leaders by Bedouin trainee teachers conflicts fairness with critique and with care. Thus, Bedouin school leaders who tend to apply critique and care are viewed internally (within the Bedouin community) as less procedural/fairness oriented. The second conflict is found in the external comparison (Study 2), where the ethical logic of Bedouin school leaders strongly conflicts utilitarianism with critique, which is not the case among their Jewish counterparts. In other words, Bedouin education professionals experience the choice between utilitarianism and critique as being particularly stark, while their Jewish peers seem to be able to move more freely between the two modes. Consequently, it would appear that far more Bedouin school leaders choose utilitarianism as a dominant mode (for fear of being perceived as taking a critique-oriented, anti-establishment stance) than do Jewish leaders.
These mismatches in ethical logic – the fairness-critique and fairness-care links, and the utilitarianism-critique link – may be interpreted as the result of different cultural pressures experienced by marginalized (Bedouin) and hegemonic (Jewish) education professionals. The first mismatch represents the sanctions to which Bedouin leaders are subjected when adopting the ethics of care and critique, being perceived within their social group as behaving unfairly. The second mismatch in ethical logic depicts the price that Bedouin leaders are fearful of paying when promoting their own group interests – being suspected of acting to subversively undermine the system. This explains their preference for promoting their group’s interests through utilitarianism.
To illustrate the indigenous school leaders’ ethical concerns as compared to key ethical perspectives that may underpin their decisions, Table 5 below classifies the ethical definitions and associates them with imaginary scenarios that derive from the findings.
Conflicting ethical principles and examples of hypothetical moral stances.
Note: *The scenarios are imaginary and illustrate a potential conflict between two ethical considerations. Hypothetical choices dovetail the study’s findings.
** Ethical foundations that stem from a Eurocentric legacy.
Thus, this overview sheds light on the rationale of Bedouin school leaders to employ a utilitarian approach as they negotiate its benefits vis-à-vis other ethical alternatives.
To conclude, our research findings suggest that the degrees of freedom available to Bedouin school leaders in managing ethical dilemmas are extended if they can simultaneously refer to both their in-group and out-group cultural preconceptions. In contrast to the preconception that communal and care ethics outweigh other reflective concerns (Abu-Rass, 2010; Mizel, 2009), utilitarianism was found to be the primary ethical guideline for these educational leaders. Utilitarianism can be conceived as a mobilizing ethic – a tool for rallying the Bedouin community while preserving communal values, and at the same time not radically threatening the hegemonic social structure. It seems that Bedouin school leaders know how to navigate complex socio-political relations and contesting cultures, which may well help them negotiate the socio-political challenges posed by these societies and take advantage of the opportunities they present. Moreover, this careful ethical maneuvering may also help Bedouin school leaders avoid ‘being caught in a web of conflicting loyalties’ (Kelchtermans et al., 2011). This interpretation of our findings is in line with Abu-Rabia-Queder and Oplatka’s (2008) study of Bedouin superintendents. They found female educational leaders to be advancing change by accepting their marginal position in their community.
The present research study extends this assertion and claims that it refers also to school leaders’ ethical conduct towards their in-group as well as towards their Jewish peers and the system. Bedouin school leaders advocate social change for the benefit of their communities while refraining from confronting either their inner or outer social systems and values. In fact, it seems that, by adopting a utilitarian approach, they are able to take advantage of both cultures’ legitimized ideals to promote schooling and education as a tool for improving the social mobility of students and the community. These positions mirror a growing demand in Bedouin society for the realization of Bedouin students’ right to education and for social change (Abu-Saad and Hendrix, 1995).
Despite the innovations of the present research study, it has several limitations. First, although it uncovers many facets of the use of the multiple ethical paradigm for investigating ethical judgment among Bedouin indigenous school leaders, it should be noted that the research approach itself is a Eurocentric model. To overcome this bias, the EPI was adjusted to Bedouin culture and translated into Arabic. Still, we recommend further research on ethical perspectives in the context of developing societies. A second drawback of this study is the use of graduate students in Study 2. Although the use of graduate students is common in the research of cultural aspects and ethics (e.g. Game and Crawshaw, 2017), and despite the fact that most of the participating students held central roles in the school often resulting in their being influenced by their principal’s views due to frequent contact (Bennett, 1995) and the prevalence of distributed leadership (Diamond and Spillane, 2016), there is still value to be had by exploring principals’ ethical considerations in future research. Finally, further research should examine the effects of indigenous school leaders’ ethical judgment on the well-being and performance of students and teachers, and their future educational opportunities, as well as on school leaders’ success in mobilizing change for their students and communities and in renegotiating their community’s position within a multicultural society.
Despite its shortcomings as exploratory research, the present study provides a preliminary ethnic-cultural base for studying school leaders’ bounded ethical judgments. Furthermore, beyond its theoretical contribution, this research may have significant practical implications for the design of school leadership training programs and for the professional development of school leaders.
Footnotes
Declaration of conflicting interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
