Izhar Oplatka
Biographic Data
| ID | 325082 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Izhar Oplatka |
| GIVEN NAMES | Izhar |
| FAMILY NAME | Oplatka |
| SIGNATURE | OPLATKA I |
| AFFILIATIONS | Tel Aviv University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2759-2515 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 38 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 55 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 38 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2001 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Marketing Leadership and Teacher Retention: Lessons From the Literature About Customer Retention
The aim of this commentary is to add a marketing point of view and analyze teacher retention using models and concepts from the literature about customer retention. The commentary uses four strategies of customer retentionreactive campaigns, proactive campaigns, human resource strategies, and loyalty programs—to increaseunderstanding of the management of teacher retention. The commentary ends with a dynamic marketing model of teacher retention th…
Ostracism in the teacher’s lounge and spiritual-emotional leadership: How to cope with a social crisis in the school
Most people can easily remember their experiences of being overlooked, excluded or ignored by other individuals or groups. Such experiences are often labeled ‘ostracism’ (Robinson et al., 2013) and...
The Research on Emotion Regulation in Teaching: A Narrative Synthesis of Antecedents, Strategies and Outcomes
In recent years, many researchers have explored emotion regulation (ER) and emotional labor (EL) in teaching. Yet, although some scholars reviewed the state of the art, they reviewed the research on each concept separately despite the similarity between them and focused on the nature of the research design more than the products of this research. This review aims is to systematically collect, document, scrutinize and critically analyze the curren…
A different kind of familiar: The insider-outsider paradox and negotiating teacher sense of belonging
This study develops a theoretical model to explain teacher retention challenges in culturally distinct communities through interpretive qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews with northern Palestinian teachers in southern Bedouin schools. Investigating the under-researched phenomenon of intra-ethnic marginalization, it reveals how teachers’ insider–outsider paradox emerges within negative contexts of reception where kinship structures inters…
Charisma, Harmony, Unity Building, and Respect: Lessons from the Leadership of Sukarno, Indonesia
The leadership of Sukarno, the first President of post-colonialized Indonesia, stands at the center of this paper. It is commonly accepted that Sukarno played an important role in liberating Indonesia from Dutch colonialism. He was distinguished statesman and respected leader, a “magical verbalizer” and a modern millenarian figure in the Indonesian political cultural context. My purpose in this paper, then, is to analyze Sukarno’s major elements …
Emotional responses of school members and stakeholders from a religious community to a curriculum reform
The purpose of the study was to explore the emotions of ultra-Orthodox Jewish school principals, teachers and parents during the introduction of a new governmental curriculum reform in Israel. This society is highly religious and its main purpose is to conserve God’s commandments and avoid modernity. Based on semi-structured interviews with eight school principals, 16 teachers and 16 parents whose children attend schools that adopted the new curr…
Development of emotion regulation skills among new teachers in special education: The key role of educational leaders and colleagues
The patterns of anger regulation among school principals and their sources
Purpose The purpose of this study was to explore school principals' sources of felt anger and to trace their forms of anger regulation in the workplace. Design/methodology/approach Based on semi-structured interviews with 30 elementary and secondary school principals in Israel, a typology of anger regulation is presented and analyzed. Findings The typology includes three types of perceived anger regulation: anger and surface acting, a moderate ex…
Empathy Display and Suppression among Ultra-Orthodox Male Teachers: The Influence of Culture and Religion
The purpose of the current study was to explore the meanings, regulation, and sources of male teacher empathy in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish schools in Israel from a cultural perspective. More specifically, the study posed three questions: (1) What are the particular meanings attached to empathy by ultra-Orthodox teachers? (2) How do ultra-Orthodox teachers regulate their empathy at work? (3) What are the cultural-social factors that affect these t…
The implications of loneliness among school principals
Purpose This paper explores the subjective interpretations of school principals' experiences of loneliness in the workplace and the implications of those experiences. The study poses two questions: (1) How do school principals perceive that their experience of loneliness affects their emotional well-being? (2) How do school principals perceive that the experience of loneliness influences their performance at work? Design/methodology/approach Semi…
Compassion in Urban Teaching: Process, Arenas, and Factors
The current explorative study aimed at understanding the subjective meanings of “compassion” in teaching and its process and determinants. Based on 14 semi-structured interviews with teachers who are considered by their colleague to be compassionate, it was found that compassion consists of two phases—identification and compassionate behavior, and triggered by varied sources of suffering (e.g., distress at the student’s home, academic failure, ch…
Qualitative Research as a Public Good”: A Review of Patricia Leavy’s The Oxford Handbook of Qualitative Research
The Oxford Handbook of Qualitative Research offers both a retrospective and prospective view of the field. Its 34 chapters provide a wide variety of philosophical/theoretical approaches, research strategies and methodological tools in qualitative research and provide insight into the history of the field, ethics, and innovative streams of thoughts and methods. In this review, several chapters are reviewed to illustrate the wealth and depth of thi…
Emotion regulation among Bedouin teachers in Israel: Inherent conflicts between two different cultural systems of emotion rules
The aim of the current study was to explore Bedouin teachers’ emotion management in schools that serve Bedouin students living in traditional communities in the south of Israel. Semi-structured interviews with 14 teachers from elementary schools (for Bedouin students) emphasised the central place of the local culture in shaping teachers’ emotion management and the dilemmas they face between modern and traditional emotion rules. Emotion management…
School leadership for refugees’ education: Social justice leadership for immigrant, migrants, and refugees
Since the agricultural revolution around 12 thousand years ago, people have been forced to leave their land and move to other people's land for a wide variety of reasons. Many times it was a war th
School principal’s perception of loneliness: A career stage perspective
The current study traced the principal’s own interpretation of loneliness in the workplace throughout various career stages in the principal’s career cycle. The study posed two questions: (1) How do school principals explain the personal and organisational factors that influence their loneliness experience as it relates to different contexts? (2) How do school principals interpret their loneliness experience during work in relation to their caree…
Understanding Emotion in Educational and Service Organizations through Semi-Structured Interviews: Some Conceptual and Practical Insights
The aim of this paper is to illuminate the challenges, complexities, and strategies of semi-structured interviewing in studies about emotion in educational organizations, in general, and about teacher emotion and emotion in educational leadership, in particular, and, thereby, enable interviewers to make thoughtful decisions concerning planning and implementing future interviews on this sensitive issue. After a short review of the literature on se…
Expanding Qualitative Researchers’ Worlds: A Review of David Silverman’s Qualitative Research
A collection of 26 chapters dealing with a host of topics in qualitative research (QR) under the scholarly authority of David Silverman, a putative scholar in the field of QR is to focus of my book review. While reading the book chapters I realized how colorful QR had become in recent years and how many methodologies exist today for those of us who are eager to move their research program a step further. Personally, as a qualitative researcher wh…
Novice principals’ perceptions of their mentoring process in early career stage: The key role of mentor-protégé relations
The purpose of the current study was to explore new Israeli principals’ perceptions, during the first three years in post, of the impact of their mentoring process on their leadership experiences. Based on 12 interviews with newly appointed school principals in the Israeli State Education System, the study found that many of them indicated that their mentor gave them professional and practical advice and performance feedback, especially on techni…
A cross-cultural analysis of educational leadership for social justice in Israel and Turkey: Meanings, actions and contexts
The research compares principals in Israel (Jewish and Arab) and Turkey and how they perceive and practice their role in promoting social justice (SJ) in their schools in order to bridge socioeconomic and pedagogic gaps. It poses three questions: (1) How do Turkish and Israeli SJ leaders make sense of SJ? (2) What do SJ leaders do in both countries similarly and differently? (3) What factors facilitate or hinder the work of SJ in both countries? …
Exploring the Links between Qualitative Inquiry and Global Crises: Some Answers and More Questions
Reading an edited book such as Denzin and Giardina’s 2011 Qualitative Inquiry and Global Crisis that comprises different chapters and authorship patterns may be challenging and evocative, let alone a book that focus on qualitative inquiry in an era of globalization, racism, privatization, and social injustice. To make the journey of reviewing this new book enjoyable, I posed a meaningful guiding question to me: what could a book that links betwee…
Women and leadership in higher education
The issue of gender in higher education (HE) has received much theoretical and empirical attention in the field of education. Researchers worldwide have explored the career experiences of men and w
Muslim and Jewish Teachers' Conceptions of the Male School Principal's Masculinity: Insights into Cultural and Social Distinctions in Principal–Teacher Relations
This qualitative research examined perceptions of Muslim and Jewish teachers in Israel concerning the masculinity of male school principals, and the way in which these perceptions affect principal-teacher relationships. Muslim and Jewish teachers studying for master of arts' degrees in a university and a teacher-education college in Israel completed open questionnaires and participated in semi-structured interviews. Findings indicated similaritie…
Muslim women in graduate studies: Some Insights Into the Accessibility of Higher Education for Minority Women Students
Based on semi-structured interviews with 11 Muslim women graduate students in Israel, the current study provides insight into the determinants enabling this group of women in the Arab sector to apply for a second degree and succeed. Among these determinants are the family, the high school, the individual’s personal drive for learning, the husband’s support and the community. But, it is likely that the women students’ character had much impact upo…
Perceptions and applications of teachers’ evaluation among elementary school principals in the Arab education system in Israel
Travelling towards a mirage? Gender, leadership and higher education
by Tanya Fitzgerald and Jane Wilkinson, Mt Gravatt, Post Pressed, 2010, 174 pp., $59.90 (paperback), ISBN 978‐1‐921214‐68‐4 For the majority of time since the foundation of the first universities
The principalship in developing countries: Context, characteristics and reality
This article seeks to shed light on the contexts and characteristics of principalship in developing countries, as well as to examine similarities and differences between principals in developed and developing countries. Twenty‐seven papers constitute the data on which external influences on principalship, patterns of leadership styles and managerial aspects of the principal's role are analysed. Although there is no one portrait of school principa…
The characteristics of the school organization and the constraints on market ideology in education: An institutional view
The paper raises theoretical insights against central premises underlying the policy of parental choice and educational market from the standpoint of the institutional theory of organization. It discusses how the institutional theory may explain the barriers to diversity, responsiveness, and improvement, all of which are assumed to be driven by the implementation of parental choice reform at the school level, and it looks at what this perspective…
Women and leadership in higher education
The issue of gender in higher education (HE) has received much theoretical and empirical attention in the field of education. Researchers worldwide have explored the career experiences of men and w
Muslim women in graduate studies: Some Insights Into the Accessibility of Higher Education for Minority Women Students
Based on semi-structured interviews with 11 Muslim women graduate students in Israel, the current study provides insight into the determinants enabling this group of women in the Arab sector to apply for a second degree and succeed. Among these determinants are the family, the high school, the individual’s personal drive for learning, the husband’s support and the community. But, it is likely that the women students’ character had much impact upo…
Compassion in Urban Teaching: Process, Arenas, and Factors
The current explorative study aimed at understanding the subjective meanings of “compassion” in teaching and its process and determinants. Based on 14 semi-structured interviews with teachers who are considered by their colleague to be compassionate, it was found that compassion consists of two phases—identification and compassionate behavior, and triggered by varied sources of suffering (e.g., distress at the student’s home, academic failure, ch…
Emotion regulation among Bedouin teachers in Israel: Inherent conflicts between two different cultural systems of emotion rules
The aim of the current study was to explore Bedouin teachers’ emotion management in schools that serve Bedouin students living in traditional communities in the south of Israel. Semi-structured interviews with 14 teachers from elementary schools (for Bedouin students) emphasised the central place of the local culture in shaping teachers’ emotion management and the dilemmas they face between modern and traditional emotion rules. Emotion management…
Novice principals’ perceptions of their mentoring process in early career stage: The key role of mentor-protégé relations
The purpose of the current study was to explore new Israeli principals’ perceptions, during the first three years in post, of the impact of their mentoring process on their leadership experiences. Based on 12 interviews with newly appointed school principals in the Israeli State Education System, the study found that many of them indicated that their mentor gave them professional and practical advice and performance feedback, especially on techni…
A cross-cultural analysis of educational leadership for social justice in Israel and Turkey: Meanings, actions and contexts
The research compares principals in Israel (Jewish and Arab) and Turkey and how they perceive and practice their role in promoting social justice (SJ) in their schools in order to bridge socioeconomic and pedagogic gaps. It poses three questions: (1) How do Turkish and Israeli SJ leaders make sense of SJ? (2) What do SJ leaders do in both countries similarly and differently? (3) What factors facilitate or hinder the work of SJ in both countries? …
The perceived significance of the supervisor, the assistant, and parents for career development of beginning kindergarten teachers
The Place of the “Open House” in the School-Choice Process: Insights From Canadian Parents, Children, and Teachers
The current study aimed at exploring the perceived significance of promotional events in secondary schools among Canadian parents, their children, and teachers and at determining the influence of these events on the school-choice process and school life. The findings suggest that both teachers and families displayed apparently contradictory perceptions of the open house with respect to its significance and influence, differing as well from one an…
Building a Typology of Self-Renewal: Reflection Upon-Life Story Research
The current paper provides a researcher's account of the life-story method used in a study which aimed to identify patterns of the self-renewal process among women school principals in mid-career. The subjects of this study were 25 elementary school women principals aged between 43 and 52 in Israel. The paper outlines the practical aspects of the life-story method and contributes to our understanding of the consecutive pragmatic ways to implement…
Marketing the university: The subjective perceptions of Israeli academics of their role in attracting new students to their institution
The aim of this qualitative study was to explore Israeli academics' perceptions of the introduction of educational markets and, particularly, their attitudes towards academics' roles and responsibilities in the new marketing-led university, as well as to obtain a greater understanding of their actual patterns of involvement in the marketing of their institutions. Based on open-structured interviews with 15 academics, the study revealed that acade…
Educational Marketisation and the Head’s Psychological Well–Being: A Speculative Conceptualisation
One of the most important changes in the environment of schooling during the last decade has been the establishment of educational markets and inter–institutional competition which, in turn, has led to the development of a new management culture in schools. In the light of these developments, this paper draws together the research on heads’ responses to marketisation and suggests theoretical hypotheses on the impact of its underlying features on …
School principal’s perception of loneliness: A career stage perspective
The current study traced the principal’s own interpretation of loneliness in the workplace throughout various career stages in the principal’s career cycle. The study posed two questions: (1) How do school principals explain the personal and organisational factors that influence their loneliness experience as it relates to different contexts? (2) How do school principals interpret their loneliness experience during work in relation to their caree…
Understanding Emotion in Educational and Service Organizations through Semi-Structured Interviews: Some Conceptual and Practical Insights
The aim of this paper is to illuminate the challenges, complexities, and strategies of semi-structured interviewing in studies about emotion in educational organizations, in general, and about teacher emotion and emotion in educational leadership, in particular, and, thereby, enable interviewers to make thoughtful decisions concerning planning and implementing future interviews on this sensitive issue. After a short review of the literature on se…
Gendered views of managing discipline in school and classroom
The current study explored male and female principals’ views of classroom and discipline management from a gender perspective. Based on semi‐structured interviews with 16 primary school principals from Israel, the study points to gendered views of school discipline, in that certain perspectives to prevent or handle discipline problems in school were indicated either by the male principals or by the female principals. Likewise, there are differenc…
Building a Typology of Self-Renewal: Reflection Upon-Life Story Research
The current paper provides a researcher's account of the life-story method used in a study which aimed to identify patterns of the self-renewal process among women school principals in mid-career. The subjects of this study were 25 elementary school women principals aged between 43 and 52 in Israel. The paper outlines the practical aspects of the life-story method and contributes to our understanding of the consecutive pragmatic ways to implement…
Educational Marketisation and the Head’s Psychological Well–Being: A Speculative Conceptualisation
One of the most important changes in the environment of schooling during the last decade has been the establishment of educational markets and inter–institutional competition which, in turn, has led to the development of a new management culture in schools. In the light of these developments, this paper draws together the research on heads’ responses to marketisation and suggests theoretical hypotheses on the impact of its underlying features on …
The principalship in developing countries: Context, characteristics and reality
This article seeks to shed light on the contexts and characteristics of principalship in developing countries, as well as to examine similarities and differences between principals in developed and developing countries. Twenty‐seven papers constitute the data on which external influences on principalship, patterns of leadership styles and managerial aspects of the principal's role are analysed. Although there is no one portrait of school principa…
The characteristics of the school organization and the constraints on market ideology in education: An institutional view
The paper raises theoretical insights against central premises underlying the policy of parental choice and educational market from the standpoint of the institutional theory of organization. It discusses how the institutional theory may explain the barriers to diversity, responsiveness, and improvement, all of which are assumed to be driven by the implementation of parental choice reform at the school level, and it looks at what this perspective…
Women Principals in a Multicultural Society: New Insights into Feminist Educational Leadership
The book analyzes the crossing issues of gender, school leadership and multicultural experiences as expressed in accounts of female school principals from diverse ethnic and religious groups in the multicultural society of Israel. It addresses the usually unheard voices of women principals in ethnic and religious minority groups that act and live in a modern country but their place is marginalized. Jewish and Moslem Authors, all citizens of Israe…
Universities in a competitive global marketplace: A systematic review of the literature on higher education marketing
Purpose The purpose of this systematic review was to explore the nature of the marketing of higher education (HE) and universities in an international context. The objectives of the review were to: systematically collect, document, scrutinise and critically analyse the current research literature on supply‐side higher education marketing; establish the scope of higher education marketing; identify gaps in the research literature; and make recomme…
Gendered views of managing discipline in school and classroom
The current study explored male and female principals’ views of classroom and discipline management from a gender perspective. Based on semi‐structured interviews with 16 primary school principals from Israel, the study points to gendered views of school discipline, in that certain perspectives to prevent or handle discipline problems in school were indicated either by the male principals or by the female principals. Likewise, there are differenc…
The perceived significance of the supervisor, the assistant, and parents for career development of beginning kindergarten teachers
The Place of the “Open House” in the School-Choice Process: Insights From Canadian Parents, Children, and Teachers
The current study aimed at exploring the perceived significance of promotional events in secondary schools among Canadian parents, their children, and teachers and at determining the influence of these events on the school-choice process and school life. The findings suggest that both teachers and families displayed apparently contradictory perceptions of the open house with respect to its significance and influence, differing as well from one an…
The power of femininity: Exploring the gender and ethnic experiences of Muslim women who accessed supervisory roles in a Bedouin society
Purpose The current paper aims to tell the stories of six female supervisors who have successfully managed to access this high‐level position in the Bedouin educational system, putting forward some implications for understanding and exploring the lives and career of women in patriarchal, minority groups. Design/methodology/approach Six female Muslim supervisors, who work in the Bedouin pre‐school system in Israel, participated in semi‐structured …
Mentoring Novice Teachers: Motives, Process, and Outcomes from the Mentor's Point of View
The purpose of this paper is to present the major motives leading senior teachers to be involved in a mentoring process of newly appointed teachers and its benefits for the mentor teacher. Based on semi-structured interviews with 12 experienced teachers who participated in a university-based mentoring program in Israel, the current study found a wide variety of motives, difficulties, and benefits during the mentoring process, including intrinsic …
Marketing the university: The subjective perceptions of Israeli academics of their role in attracting new students to their institution
The aim of this qualitative study was to explore Israeli academics' perceptions of the introduction of educational markets and, particularly, their attitudes towards academics' roles and responsibilities in the new marketing-led university, as well as to obtain a greater understanding of their actual patterns of involvement in the marketing of their institutions. Based on open-structured interviews with 15 academics, the study revealed that acade…
Perceptions and applications of teachers’ evaluation among elementary school principals in the Arab education system in Israel
Travelling towards a mirage? Gender, leadership and higher education
by Tanya Fitzgerald and Jane Wilkinson, Mt Gravatt, Post Pressed, 2010, 174 pp., $59.90 (paperback), ISBN 978‐1‐921214‐68‐4 For the majority of time since the foundation of the first universities
Identity crisis: Working in higher education in the 21st century
Identity crisis: working in higher education in the 21 st century, by Liz Marr and Rachel Forsyth, Stoke-on-Trent, Trentham Books, 2011, 157 pp., €20.99 (paperback), ISBN 978-1-85856-467-8 Many ref
Muslim women in graduate studies: Some Insights Into the Accessibility of Higher Education for Minority Women Students
Based on semi-structured interviews with 11 Muslim women graduate students in Israel, the current study provides insight into the determinants enabling this group of women in the Arab sector to apply for a second degree and succeed. Among these determinants are the family, the high school, the individual’s personal drive for learning, the husband’s support and the community. But, it is likely that the women students’ character had much impact upo…
Muslim and Jewish Teachers' Conceptions of the Male School Principal's Masculinity: Insights into Cultural and Social Distinctions in Principal–Teacher Relations
This qualitative research examined perceptions of Muslim and Jewish teachers in Israel concerning the masculinity of male school principals, and the way in which these perceptions affect principal-teacher relationships. Muslim and Jewish teachers studying for master of arts' degrees in a university and a teacher-education college in Israel completed open questionnaires and participated in semi-structured interviews. Findings indicated similaritie…
Exploring the Links between Qualitative Inquiry and Global Crises: Some Answers and More Questions
Reading an edited book such as Denzin and Giardina’s 2011 Qualitative Inquiry and Global Crisis that comprises different chapters and authorship patterns may be challenging and evocative, let alone a book that focus on qualitative inquiry in an era of globalization, racism, privatization, and social injustice. To make the journey of reviewing this new book enjoyable, I posed a meaningful guiding question to me: what could a book that links betwee…
Women and leadership in higher education
The issue of gender in higher education (HE) has received much theoretical and empirical attention in the field of education. Researchers worldwide have explored the career experiences of men and w
A cross-cultural analysis of educational leadership for social justice in Israel and Turkey: Meanings, actions and contexts
The research compares principals in Israel (Jewish and Arab) and Turkey and how they perceive and practice their role in promoting social justice (SJ) in their schools in order to bridge socioeconomic and pedagogic gaps. It poses three questions: (1) How do Turkish and Israeli SJ leaders make sense of SJ? (2) What do SJ leaders do in both countries similarly and differently? (3) What factors facilitate or hinder the work of SJ in both countries? …
Expanding Qualitative Researchers’ Worlds: A Review of David Silverman’s Qualitative Research
A collection of 26 chapters dealing with a host of topics in qualitative research (QR) under the scholarly authority of David Silverman, a putative scholar in the field of QR is to focus of my book review. While reading the book chapters I realized how colorful QR had become in recent years and how many methodologies exist today for those of us who are eager to move their research program a step further. Personally, as a qualitative researcher wh…
Novice principals’ perceptions of their mentoring process in early career stage: The key role of mentor-protégé relations
The purpose of the current study was to explore new Israeli principals’ perceptions, during the first three years in post, of the impact of their mentoring process on their leadership experiences. Based on 12 interviews with newly appointed school principals in the Israeli State Education System, the study found that many of them indicated that their mentor gave them professional and practical advice and performance feedback, especially on techni…
Understanding Emotion in Educational and Service Organizations through Semi-Structured Interviews: Some Conceptual and Practical Insights
The aim of this paper is to illuminate the challenges, complexities, and strategies of semi-structured interviewing in studies about emotion in educational organizations, in general, and about teacher emotion and emotion in educational leadership, in particular, and, thereby, enable interviewers to make thoughtful decisions concerning planning and implementing future interviews on this sensitive issue. After a short review of the literature on se…
School principal’s perception of loneliness: A career stage perspective
The current study traced the principal’s own interpretation of loneliness in the workplace throughout various career stages in the principal’s career cycle. The study posed two questions: (1) How do school principals explain the personal and organisational factors that influence their loneliness experience as it relates to different contexts? (2) How do school principals interpret their loneliness experience during work in relation to their caree…
Qualitative Research as a Public Good”: A Review of Patricia Leavy’s The Oxford Handbook of Qualitative Research
The Oxford Handbook of Qualitative Research offers both a retrospective and prospective view of the field. Its 34 chapters provide a wide variety of philosophical/theoretical approaches, research strategies and methodological tools in qualitative research and provide insight into the history of the field, ethics, and innovative streams of thoughts and methods. In this review, several chapters are reviewed to illustrate the wealth and depth of thi…
Sociology (24 works) · Psychology (22 works) · Pedagogy (21 works) · Political science (20 works) · Qualitative research (13 works) · Social science (13 works) · Teacher Education and Leadership Studies (11 works) · Social Psychology (9 works) · Gender Studies (8 works) · Higher education (8 works)