“We Cannot Move Forward Unless We Preserve Our Traditions”: Women Principals as Leaders in Traditional Israeli Druze Society

This article presents the results of in-depth interviews with three Israeli women Druze school principals. They are among the first such educational leaders in their community and the interviews with them demonstrate their personal strengths, the importance of family support and of mentors and key academic programs in propelling them forward, the resistance they face, their function as role models, and the strategies they develop in order to both preserve tradition and appear to preserve tradition, while at the same time breaking with tradition. Their stories exemplify the theoretical principle that the path to change in a traditional society that was historically shaped by religion remains tied to religious values amidst change