Administrative Candidacy: A Process of New‐role Learning—part I

Abstract This two‐part paper reports the initial results of a longitudinal study of the organizational socialization of educational administrators. The data analyzed in Part One are ordered using the construct, GASing (Getting the Attention of Superiors), and the related concepts of anticipatory socialization and interpersonal orientation. Data analyzed in Part Two are ordered using the concepts of situational adjustment and organizational space. A theoretical model proposing the interrelation of major individual and organizational socialization variables concludes this initial report. In Part One the claim is made that socialization through the life‐cycle may be conceived as a series of learned interpersonal relationships through which individuals build up a repertoire of interpersonal responses which condition new‐role learning. Attention is fixed on the interrelatedness of both interindividual differences in candidate behavior dispositions and contextual properties of the situations in which candidates found themselves during this period of their career. Anticipatory socialization and the GASing construct direct attention to processes occurring between the time a teacher first becomes positively oriented toward the administrative group and when he/she actually gains membership in that group, i.e. the period of candidacy. Interpersonal orientation directs attention to behavioral predispositions among candidates relative to their stance toward the situation of candidacy itself. Hypotheses evolving out of an analysis of these data are proposed for testing.