New Assistant Principals' Metaphors of Their Relationships With Their Principals at the Stage of Entering the Role.

The professional literature views school principals as major socializing agents for assistant principals (AP) due to their ability to determine the A P ’s responsibilities, assess performance, and influence the AP s
willingness to advance to higher management roles. The effect o f the relationship between the two on the AP s functioning is even stronger during
the A P ’s entry phase into the role. This research explored the metaphors
used by new APs to describe their relationships with their principals in the
process o f entering their new role .After conducting 18 semi-structured,
in-depth interviews with APs at different stages o f entry into their role,
findings were analyzed qualitatively, generating themes in an inductive
process, grounded in the various metaphors articulated by participants.
Research findings show that the new APs described their relations with
their principals via metaphors related to family, social, educational, and
military life. The metaphors presented four main types o f relations: (a)
egalitarian relations-coupledom or friendship; (b) close but non-egalitarian family relations; (c) challenging and complex family relations; and
(d) relations as in educational or military contexts. This study may expand
the presently-scant knowledge on the various patterns o f relationships between principals and APs from the latter’s point o f view. Exploring APs
metaphors during entering their role may help to improve both mentoring
processes and practical training for principals and APs alike