Participative decision-making in the Arab educational system in Israel: The implications for teachers’ organizational commitment and school violence

Abstract

Principals indirectly impact the achievement of school goals and the development and improvement of the school. Drawing upon Role Theory, this study proposes to examine the direct and indirect relationship (through organizational commitment) between participative decision-making and school violence in the Arab educational system in Israel. The data were collected through a questionnaire returned by a two-stage cluster random sampling of 350 teachers randomly chosen from 70 elementary Israeli Arab schools. Data were collected from three sources: self-reporting (teachers and students) and non-self-reporting to minimize measure error. The structural equation modeling and bootstrap results highlighted the positive implications of participative decision-making on teachers’ organizational commitment in the Israeli Arab education system. The findings also showed teachers’ organizational commitment was correlated to school violence. That is, teachers’ organizational commitment fully mediates the relationship between participative decision-making and school violence. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.